Long time no post

Its been a while so here are a couple of updates...

I had to dig a new trench and reconnect two pipes for my sprinkler system, so here it is with one of the pipes connected. I finally finished it this past week!
The temperature has been in the mid teens lately here, today was about 115, so last weekend we went up to Payson which is 5,000 feet, and then up to the Mogollon(Mug-EE-On) Rim just north of Payson, which is about 7000 feet. Its beautiful, has a small town feel, and its about 20 degrees cooler! We had a great time...

Relaxing at a lake up on the Rim

We haven't taken a picture with Mary Ellen's progress in
quite a while, so here it is!

We also checked out a fish hatchery which was really neat to see.
They have these huge rectangular pools with tiny trout on one end,
and there are about 16 pools, each with progressively bigger fish.
The big tube you see here sucks water from this pool to the next, and
once they fish are strong enough they can jump into the tube and
they get sucked to the next pool. Its really a neat process. Here you
can see a trout trying to get to the next pool!!

Its hard to see here but here is the final pool with some of
the big ones!

Here are a couple of pics from the edge of the Rim overlooking
Tonto National Forest!

Fourth of July!

Hope everyone is having a great fourth of July, just thought I'd post a couple of things - Mary Ellen is working this fourth so that is very sad, but yesterday we had a great day, we found a crib which we are really excited about, and here it is all set up!!



Then I decided to try a new pizza dough recipe, this is for a thin crust, like Pizza Hut thin crust or Pizza oven. It turned out really well although it needs to be tweaked a bit so that it is more like pizza oven. Here you can see the dough is really dry, it wont even form a ball. Then you can see the finished product below! Hope everyone is having a great day!

Walter & Kim's Wedding

Finally, I'm getting some wedding pics posted! Its been a busy week but I've gotten through quite a few of the wedding photos and just thought I would post a few. Hope you enjoy! (they are in no particular order).

Jonah Pics

We had a fantastic week in Ann Arbor and the wedding was great. Just wanted to get a few pics of Jonah up. We will post wedding pics in the near future.

Mom and Jonah enjoying corn toss

Anna taught us the secret of GREAT pizza dough. it was awesome!

Hello everyone. Here are some pictures of our new couches with our new rugs! It's so nice to have some carpet in our house now! It will be really nice when we have our little guy here, especially! That's it for now!

Couches and Pizza

Just a couple of updates. We decided to purchase a new sofa and loveseat because our current set was really falling apart. Here are the before and after photos. We like them a lot because they are a good contrast to the dark wood floors and they really brighten the place up. (the first picture is dark so its hard to see the before, but you get the idea)

Mary Ellen is working today so I decided to try making pizza, although this time I went for the Chicago style deep dish. Its a lot easier to make because you don't need really high heat to cook it. It actually turn out really well. I will definitely be making this often. I used a spring foam pan and you push the dough around, kind of like a pie.

First a thick layer of mozzarella, then I added pepperoni, green peppers, and olives

Close up shot

Then a layer of crushed tomatoes, topped with basil and parmesan cheese

Here is the final product!

Easy recipe and great pizza, let me know if you want the recipe!

Pasta Pasta!

Mary Ellen and I enjoyed a great weekend in Prescott AZ. Its about 20 degrees cooler up there so it was great to get away. The weather was perfect. We did a little hiking and lot of relaxing, but the main project was raviolis! Above you can see we made three different kinds - on the right our regular cheese recipe, in the middle was a grilled chicken filling, and on the left was our veggie filling. We thought the veggie one up specifically for my Dad. I think he will love them.

So here are some picks of us making them!

We had a little bit of leftover dough, which we made into fettucine, and tried out our new pasta rack!! Worked out well.

My wife and son hard at work

Here are the final products - all in all they turned out really well. In both of the new ones we added basil, ricotta, and parmesan cheese. They were very flavorful and a good addition to the cheese ravs. We didn't have time to make other kinds, but this weekend I will experiment with meat ravs and dessert ravs! Below are close ups.

Four Cheese Ravs

(Ricotta, Mozzarella, Parmesan, White Cheddar)

Grilled Chicken Ravs

(grilled chicken, parm, ricotta, basil)

Veggie Ravs

(Onion, zuchini, bell pepper, ricotta, parm, basil)

We decided that we are going to sell them, and Mary Ellen came up with this pricing scheme:

1 Dozen: $100

1 Dozen hand delivered: $1100

online ordered will be coming soon....