Happy Thanksgiving!!

This past week we celebrated a couple of firsts in the Rohrbough household. We had our first Thanksgiving on the West Coast, we hosted Thanksgiving for the first time, and we cooked and ate our first turducken! As noted in our last post, we even had snow for Thanksgiving, something I don't remember having in years! Even though it was difficult not being with our families on Thanksgiving we were blessed to be surrounded by wonderful new friends who have become our West Coast family.

Thursday afternoon around 4 o'clock we had several of the first year residents and their families over to our home for a Thanksgiving potluck. We feasted on an array of cheeses, pomegranate dip, wines, chex mix, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, homemade rolls, stuffing, salad, bourbon corn pudding, pumpkin pie, Swedish pancakes, cannolis, cakes, cookies, lasagna, ham, and turducken...oh my! The food was plentiful and the left overs are still here. We cleared out our front room and our dear friends borrowed folding tables and chairs from their church. We ate, talked, ate, laughed, and ate some more. I have a feeling Ty had a few table scraps along the way as well.

Here are some pictures from our dinner. Sorry there are not more, but my camera is on the verge of dying for good so it struggles just to stay on long enough to snap a shot. Needless to say a new camera will hopefully be a cyber Monday purchase. Here are a few of the pictures I did get:

These are the candle holders from our wedding with leftover Halloween candy in them :)

One of the two tables.

Our love for potatoes would soon fade due to overexposure...

2 bags / 30 pounds - blah!

Soaking and waiting until it's time to mash.

Appetizers and drinks.

The buffet feast (Hunter and Soobin digging in)

YUM!

The prized bird - a Turducken!
(A chicken inside of a duck inside of a turkey, with cornbread stuffing)

CR enjoying a leg.

A tuckered out Ty.

SNOW!?!

Our first Thanksgiving week on the Left Coast has started out with...snow?!?

Initially, we were a little bummed about living in an area where seeing snow accumulate was quite a bit more rare than we were used to, and thus far the rain has been just as common as the sterotype suggests.
However, yesterday and today this area has been slowly accumulating 1-3 inches of snow and even more in some parts of the state. Its's not even thanksgiving yet and already it's a white Christmas!!

Tara and Ty love! This is his first snow (as far as we know). I am more commonly driving in it so it's ok...

Here are some pics from around the house, neighborhood, and Ty enjoying himself in the yard:

The neighborhood

Our street

Ty favorite activity is eating the snow.

He is mesmerized. So is Tara.

Crazy Baking, Ty's Birthday, Jobs...

Happy November! It is hard to believe that 2010 is almost over and the holidays are right around the corner! Washington has been a very rainy place for the last couple of days, I guess this is the "rainy season" we had been warned about. So far it has not been too bad, although Ty is not a fan of the rain because it hinders him from going out.

Today was a crazy baking day in the Rohrbough household. But, before I get to the that I want to update you on my job search (at this point it's obvious that the "I" in our blog is in reference to Tara unless prefaced otherwise). I moved out to Washington mid-June after my contract with Taylor County ended and spent the rest of the month getting accustomed to the area and unpacking, trying to make our house a home. I was also waiting for all of my paperwork to come through in order to be certified as a School Counselor in the state of Washington. I applied to all of the school counseling jobs that were open in 8 different districts but was made aware than until all of my paperwork came through I would not be considered an applicant because my file was "incomplete". The beginning of the school year came and went and I finally received all of my paperwork, but the open positions had all been filled. I started looking into substituting, but you have to have a teaching degree in order to substitute, and I do not. I have been looking weekly, daily for positions and have applied for what feels like tons. I have applied as a case manager, after-school program supervisor, drug abuse counselor, various positions on the Army base, and last week I even applied to work at the Gap clothing store in our local mall. I have had one interview (I did not get the position), and have another one coming up this week. I have called to check back with most of the positions I have applied for only to hear that they have extended the application deadline or they have not decided on an applicant yet. This has been a frustrating process to say the least because I am not good at sitting still for very long. Even so, I tried my best to remain hopeful and positive that something will open up (as hard as this is). I have recently decided that I need to make the most of my time and not sulk about being unemployed. We live in a beautiful part of the world where there is so much to see and do. We have an awesome dog who is up for anything. And probably most important to me, we have made some of the greatest friends anyone could ask for. CR's program has so many amazing people and families and we are blessed to be a part of it. I want to take each day in as a gift and be thankful for every second.

Thanks for listening to my rant, now on to the good stuff :) With all of this time on my hands I have been trying my hand at cooking and baking. My sister (actually my whole family) has always joked that I can't even boil water - I won't go into why this is the case :) I actually ENJOY baking! Recently, I have made several chicken dishes for dinner, chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake for CR's birthday, vanilla bean scones, key lime pie, pumpkin pancakes, and an orange juice cake just to name a few.

Today's creations were bacon caramel popcorn (saw it on the Food Network and wanted to give it a shot) and a dog birthday cake for Ty (our cousin, Katie, who is a vet tech would cringe). The bacon caramel popcorn sounded gross, but delicious, I mean how can you go wrong with bacon?? It turned out disgustingly delicious, if you know what I mean. It's one of those things that tastes good, but it's SO bad for you!





Here is the link to that recipe: http://the-cooking-of-joy.blogspot.com/2010/02/bacon-caramel-corn.html

Also, today our pup Tyson is 1, so I thought I would make him a cake. I want everyone to realize that this does mean I have too much time on my hands, but I thought it would be fun and he REALLY enjoyed it!









Here is the link to that recipe (I only made half): http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art12764.asp

Finally, CR and I had our first experience passing out candy to trick-or-treaters last night and we had a great time. There were about 30 kids that stopped by and we still have way too much candy left over. Although we did not dress up, Ty did. I will leave you with a picture of Ty's costume for the night - did you expect him to be anything else?