Tanner is Turning 20!

Tanner is 20!  July 27, 1999 this human made his way into the world!  This 90s child is obsessed with 90s music, so that works out well!

Tanner is headed (on his birthday) to Fort Leonard Wood for a few weeks, then off to Fort Bliss for three months.  He will then find out if he gets to deploy to Cuba.  He wants to deploy to Cuba and I am for what makes him happy! 

On Thursday, we celebrated his birthday with a trip to Main Event.  We ate food, played games and enjoyed a round of laser tag.  Laser tag is so much fun.  Main Event has eat and play combos, where you select certain menu items and then you get credits on a game card.  We all took advantage of the deal.  Tanner ended up winning a game, twice, that gave him 1000 tickets each time.  He redeemed his tickets for some head phones and a bouncy ball. He still has a 1000+ tickets left.  He had a good time.  I'm glad we picked a fun place.

 Alli and my mom playing the Walking Dead game.

 Wings and Fries!  Lots of leftovers for lunch the next day!

 Alli and I got the same food!

 Tanner's Pizza was ready before he even made it to the place!

 He was pretty happy when he arrived!  And devoured his pizza.

 We are all sweaty after the round of laser tag.

 Tanner and his grandma.  I asked them to smile nicely. :)

 Ya'll, I'm so obsessed with the clown game.  It's so much fun.

We all played it together so many times.

 Alli and Tanner playing the Walking Dead.

Tanner after his second 1000 ticket win.  Super hero pose!

Happy Friday! What are you happy about?!

Happy Friday everyone!

I’m going to try a linkup again!  I haven’t done one for a bit, but hey, when is a better time to jump in?!

It was a busy week!

Last Saturday, one of my derbies teams, won the trophy for the league.  We went from last place to first place in two games.  How amazing is that?  I will blog about it soon!  Still waiting for a few pictures to come out.

Sunday, I met up with my teammates from another team and we watched game footage and ate snacks and talked about our plan of attack for the upcoming Saturday.  We had an amazing and fun team practice on Monday.  Our team is looking good!

Tuesday and Wednesday, I had meetings to attend after work.  They were all productive.  Thank goodness!  I like checking things off a list.  I am taking over as the Operations Officer at Kansas City Roller Warriors.  That means I oversee Bout Production and Practice Committee. 

Thursday!  We did an early Birthday celebration for Tanner.  20 years old!  Can you believe that? 

Work has been busy and slightly frustrating, but I did my monthly review and it was golden.  I am hoping a promotional opportunity comes up soon.  I’ve been scooping them all out, trying to find the perfect one that sings to me.  I coordinated our birthday celebrations.  It was a success.  My manager had an ice cream party for us, celebrating appreciation month.  The division is also giving us free T-Shirts. 

I made a budget that will have all my debt paid off in 18 months.  This includes my car loan.  It’s a reasonable plan and gets me out of debt faster than anticipated.  I hate living under debt and I want to be done with it once and for all.  After that is all paid off, I will make double payments on my house.  I am not counting my student loans in this since I am a government employee and there is the Public Service Loan Forgiveness.  I qualify for it.  I have to have 10 years of service (I have 7 already), plus ten years of payments on loans.  I have consolidated all my loans, so they all qualify for this program and they are all under the same service provider.  Just makes it easier.

I’ve been Pinteresting so many recipes.  I have started a list and we are gonna try them out.

Alli finished up her last week of cheer camp.  She had an extra cheer camp because she is a tumbler.  She got part of her clothing and uniforms.  They are still waiting for the rest of the stuff.  She’s also in the front row this year.  The coach decided to do it by skill level and not seniority this year.  Which is how it should be done.

Peyton is at church camp in Minnesota.  He comes back on Sunday.  He’s been camping, fishing and eating pizza.  Living the dream.

How was your week?!?

Instant Pot Spaghetti and Meatballs

I love my Instant Pot so much.  It has been the greatest Christmas gift ever!  No lie!  Why was I so resistant on just getting one?  No clue, no clue.


Did you know you can make spaghetti and meatballs in the instant pot?  It's super easy and does not take much time!


What do you need to make it? 

• Meatballs -- I use the frozen ones.
• Spaghetti Noodles -- I like the thinner spaghetti
• Olive Oil -- for drizzling over the noodles so they do not get stuck together.
• Pasta Sauce -- any kind will do.  My favorite is Cascones.  If you purchase it at Costco, you can get two jars of it for the price of one everywhere else.
• Water -- this is a pressure cooker after all.

Now, we layer the things.  Start with the meatballs.  I used the trivet because I did not want to receive the burn notification. 

Next, we put the noodles on top of it. I break them up into smaller pieces.

Last layer is the sauce and water.  I used around 3 cups of water.

This is where you would add any additional spices you would want.


You will then cook it on high pressure for 12 minutes.


Do you stir the ingredients together before pressure cooking?  No!  Don't!  This will lead to the noodles being at the bottom and the ominous burn notice.


Once it is finished cooking, use the quick pressure release.  That way your noodles do not get over cooked.  When you open it, now you can stir it.  Add parm cheese or basil or both and enjoy.


Let me know if you try this out.  I did get a picture of the completed spaghetti, but it was a little steamy and it fogged up the camera.

Currently....July

Currently.....July

Today I’m  linking up with Anne In Residence for her Currently link up. July’s prompt words are: reading, enjoying, finding, tasting, and saving. Here’s what I’m currently up to!

Reading

I am currently reading "Game of Thrones" and I'm about to start "No Exit" since I finished up a book last night.

Enjoying

I'm enjoying the fact that I get a four day weekend and there are fun things planned!  Main Event, yummy food and fire works!  Shakespeare in the Park.  Just time to enjoy things.

Finding

Things to do this month and finding things to do on a short road trip for Labor Day.

The picture is a hint of where we are venturing to.

Tasting

Nothing out of the ordinary.  I'm okay eating the same old, same old.  I have no tasting adventures to take.  My favorite meal of the week: Chicken Tikka Masala.

Saving

Money...aren't we all.  Money for vacation and money for things I might need in the future.  I lead an exciting life!



Welcome July!

Can you believe it is July already?!?  It's hot and humid around here now!  I'm happy we finally made that transition to the warm/hot weather!

Buster made me a liar and used his bed this weekend!  I snuck around from the corner to get this picture! 

I had a pretty busy weekend!  It started with Peyton's last baseball game of the season.  It was scorcher.  They did an excellent job.  Peyton had an amazing hit, a double.  He had some outstanding plays from second.  Initiated a double play! And caught a couple flies.

I had another game.  This time with the Shotgun Sheilas.  As a team we hosted the afterparty at the rink.  I picked up beer and a Costco cake.  We had a potato bar and it was a huge hit.  We had a lot of people stay.  I'm working on numbers now for how to make it more profitable and make it easier to run.  It was pretty easy to run in the first place, but a few tweaks never hurt. 

Before game selfie.  My makeup was pretty much sweat off at this point.



We won!  The Lethals were good opponents and it was a fun time.

We did a rainbow picture at the practice I ran.  I wore my gold devil shirt.  It was pretty fitting since I was running an endurance practice. :)


I have a lot of plans this week!  It's going to be a good one!
I'm attending a Mr. Testosterone  clinic this evening.  He is a jammer for the Vancouver Murder.  They are ranked #3 in MRDA.  (Men's Roller Derby)  He partied with us Saturday night. He did the Macarena and back flips. 


I'm thinking it's another Instapot dinner night.