Sold the Bimmer tonight!

A student at the U of U bought it. She was very excited. When I left her house and closed the door, I could hear her and her roommate squealing like girls do. She lived about 2 miles away, so I walked home which was good for my pedometer.

The sights on the walk home:

I hope they keep the lights on until January. That is the next time Chris will be in SLC.

Probably should have paid more attention and took the picture without the pole in the middle of it.

Unfortunately, the pictures don't do the lights justice.

Kids, do not try this at home.

Still messing around with the tv. Putting up a shelf for our electronics.
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Chris hung the stockings. Erica decorated the tree.

We are ready for Christmas now.
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Erica hung the lights

This is the first annual Fort Collins Christmas tree! Erica is making sure the everything is just right.
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Erica baked Christmas cookies.

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Chris hung the TV three times

After lots of putting everything up and then ripping it down, the tv is up for good...fingers crossed.
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Thanksgiving left overs

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We forgot to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great time at Cori and Bob's last night. Cori made all of the "brown" food - turkey, beer bread, potatoes, gravy, stuffing. Everything was really delicious and we ate entirely too much.

Here is the recipe for the Sweet Potato Casserole that I mentioned in the post below. I originally posted it back in my pre-Chris blogging days. Here is that blog post:
====================================================================

Sweet Potato Crack

A co-worker brought this amazing side dish to our departments annual Thanksgiving pot luck:

Sweet Potatoes Casserole Byrum

3 cups mashed, cooked sweet potatoes (about 2 lbs raw)
½ cup granulated sugar
1 ½ sticks (¾ cup) plus 1 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup evaporated milk
Pinch nutmeg
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sweet potatoes, granulated sugar, ½ cup butter, eggs, vanilla, milk and the nutmeg until the mixture is
smooth. Transfer the mixture into an 8-inch square (2 quart) baking
dish.

In a bowl, stir together with a fork, the brown sugar, flour, remaining
butter and pecans. Sprinkle the mixture over the sweet potato mixture and bake the casserole in the middle of the oven for 30-45 minutes. Serves 6 to 8.

**From the Myrtle Buford Southern Cooking cookbook

DO NOT BE FOOLED BY IT'S INNOCENT APPEARANCE! The whole office is addicted to the sweet potato crack that it is...it is all we talk about. It is sweet, more of a dessert than a side dish, really. It is fluffy. It has a crisp little pecan top...

It is my new Thanksgiving favorite! Enjoy!

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We left Denver around 7pm and I fell asleep in the car on the way home (despite the after dinner espresso Bob made for me). When we got to the house, I went right to bed and slept until the morning. Chris watched TV and did sit-ups, push-ups, and ate more pie and beer bread.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving everyone!

Cranberry Chutney

Chris threw together this pot of cranberry chutney this morning. We are taking it to Thanksgiving at Cori & Bob's. We also made pie, sweet potato casserole, and salad. We are driving into Denver now!
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We watched New Moon

We just got back from the theater. The only reason we went is because Erica got free tickets. In preparation, we watched the first Twilight movie last weekend. Erica likes the story so far. Chris does not. He did say the second movie was better than the first.

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The Training Table

Erica and I ate at The Training Table today. You call your order in from the table and then the phone buzzes when your order is ready to be picked up. It brings back memories from childhood when we would eat at Round the Corner in Boulder, CO.
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In-N-Out Burger Opens in SLC Today!

People are camping outside overnight for the grand opening. It is south of downtown, very near Erica's office in the Sandy/Draper area. Just another reason to come to SLC!

Drive from Missoula to Kalispell this morning

It was a very pretty drive. About 2 hours.
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Big Dipper

We ate dessert here last night.
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Crazy Good

I had cardamom and mexican chocolate. So goooooood!
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Denver was a Snow Globe Last Night.

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Climbers at Hyatt/Colorado Convention Center

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Annual Scientific Meeting

We are spending the weekend in Denver for the American Society of Cytopathology annual scientific meeting.

Erica is looking forward to seeing some of her former co-workers from the University of Kansas Hospital as well as a fellow cytotech she met in Peru this past spring.

Chris is looking forward to free conference schwag and food and drink :)

Special thanks to Jim & Pam for putting us up Friday night!

The Quantified Self

I am "attending" a 3 part virtual conference at work about metrics. The first session focused on personal metrics that people used to quantify their everyday lives. Apparently, there is growing movement out there called The Quantified Self. Self measurement of daily activities, physiological and biological functions are gaining momentum. Here are a few websites and gadgets that were discussed. My favorite is daytum.com mostly because of the visual presentation of your data. I also like the fit bit a lot too.

Here is a link to an article that talks a little more about the concept of self measurement and The Quantified Self: http://www.good.is/post/the-quantified-self-you-are-your-data/

Fit Bit

The Fitbit accurately tracks your calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled and sleep quality. The Fitbit contains a 3D motion sensor like the one found in the Nintendo Wii. The Fitbit tracks your motion in three dimensions and converts this into useful information about your daily activities. - www.fitbit.com

Daytum

Daytum was conceived in 2008 by Ryan Case and Nicholas Felton as a way of creating an elegant and intuitive way to count and communicate the personal statistics generated by each of us every day. - www.daytum.com

Wordle

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. - www.wordle.net

The creator of wordle compared Inaugural Addresses. Pretty interesting.

I made a word cloud out of one of the contracts I use at work. Apparently, we are more concerned about arbitration that I thought.

This is Obama's Inaugural Speech in wordle form:

Cure Together

CureTogether helps people anonymously track and compare health data, to better understand their bodies, make more informed treatment decisions and contribute data to research.
- http://curetogether.com/blog/about/

Pics from Park City

A little behind posting pictures from our Park City Weekend...

Main Street, Park City

Shoe Tree

It all started with a bonfire and some adult beverages...or so the story goes.

Fun Junk Fish

Matador = $1.50 beers

New Mexican restaurant near our house.
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Starlight Awards at Red Butte Gardens

Humana is awarding $10,000 to an outstanding senior citizen community volunteer to give to an organization of their choice.
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Utah Health Forum

Today I attended the Utah Health Forum. It was very interesting. The state of Utah feels that health reform should happen at the individual state level. The almost 2,000 page health reform bill (which contains virtually zero cost containment efforts, by the way) will shift financial burdens onto the States via expansion of Medicaid (which is funded partially with Federal funds and partly with State funds) and also introduces 111 new programs with unknown financial ramifications for States.

They have also unveiled the first small business insurance exchange of its kind called the Utah Health Exchange. It works pretty slick. Small businesses enroll their employees into a web portal where they can choose one of 66 plans from 3 insurance carriers. A voluntary directed benefit (employer contributed monthly dollar amount) from employers to their employees helps offset employee costs. This may be a model for the proposed health exchanges in the health reform debate.

Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes

I made these for the birthday celebration and brought them to Park City with us...

• 24 Servings
• Prep: 20 min. Bake: 15 min.

Ingredients

• 1 package (18-1/4 ounces) chocolate cake mix
• 24 caramels
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• Chocolate frosting
• Additional walnuts, optional

Directions

• Prepare cake mix batter according to package directions for cupcakes. Fill 24 paper-lined muffin cups one-third full; set remaining batter aside. Bake at 350° for 7-8 minutes or until top of cupcake appears set.
• Gently press a caramel into each cupcake; sprinkle with chocolate chips and walnuts. Top with remaining batter. Bake 15-20 minutes longer or until a toothpick comes out clean.
• Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely. Frost with chocolate frosting. Sprinkle with additional nuts if desired. Yield: 2 dozen.

Recipe courtesy of www.tasteofhome.com