A Cheese Curd Christmas

The holidays started off with a marathon drive through the wind tunnel of Iowa. We set out on Tuesday, December 22nd ... expecting to stay the night in Ames, IA ... but the weather was only getting worse so we pushed through the entire 12 hour drive, arriving at Kyle's aunt and uncle's house at 3am. Dear God - Thank you for a husband that is a professional driver in crappy weather. I'm pretty sure he saved our lives multiple times.


We continued north on Wednesday for another hour and a half to celebrate Christmas with Kyle's family in Chetek. This is the type of celebration I'm used to ... quiet family dinner, lots of gifts to unwrap, lots of laughs as we share memories. I'm lucky that my wonderful husband came complete with a wonderful family! I mean, my mother-in-law even rocked an Ohio State shirt for the festivities! :)

We even had some General Mills moments as Kyle's mom and sister anxiously opened the holiday gift box that arrives every year and Emily opened an entire case of Dunkaroos to properly supplement her college diet.





Now, on to the celebration that is quite the change from our quiet Ohio holidays. Kyle has a ginormous family on his mom's side and we all pack into his Aunt Lori and Uncle Steve's beautiful house (always equipped with a beautiful tree) to celebrate the chaos. It was intimidating at first, but now that I'm official (and have experienced several of these gatherings over the years) I have come to love them! I used to sit back and watch the chaos, and now I partake in all the fun.

Given that church and dinner were late this year, we hung out at the local bowling alley for some pizza, beer and friendly competition. Of course we threw in a few games of Euchre, a holiday family tradition.

I was on fire and bowled the best game of my life ... 181!

Look closely, that's my husband with a 134. Hey - until he starts blogging, I am perfectly comfortable using this medium for bragging purposes. :)





By the time church rolled around, the roads were getting uglier. The adults left plenty early, but not us kids ... and stalling finally worked in our favor when the adults called to give the "kids" a free pass to stay home. That has never happened before and I venture to guess that it will never happen again. Hence the following pictures - Christmas 2009; A Christmas to Remember.

Here's the family playing Snoop - a version of White Elephant.

Here's Grandpa Joe, winning Euchre like he always does. Nice try, Aunt Jodi!

Here's little Spencer, the hit of the holidays. He made his debut as our ring bearer last year. He will be a big brother in a few months ... little does he know he will no longer be the center of everyone's attention. But, we still love him!

Thanks to everyone for making our Christmas in Wisconsin such a great one! It was really nice to see everyone after being away in Arkansas for the past year. And to those we weren't able to celebrate with, we hope you also had a wonderful holiday with friends and family and look forward to seeing you soon!

To all those that are talking about visiting us in Arkansas ... you only have one more year left ... so get on it!

Merry Christmas, from The Petersen's. [consider this our Christmas card since we don't send one!]

That Girl Can Eat!

I'm a bit behind on posting this one, but it's just too good to pass up!

So, you've heard about our favorite pizzeria, Gusano's, here in town that we like to frequent. Well, they recently created a Pizza Challenge ... if anyone can finish a 1-topping, 30-inch pizza (that's right, I said 30 INCHES) in 1 hour, it's FREE. No one has succeeded yet, but there are two pictures on the wall of people that have tried.

Big-Talk-Tracie claimed that she could at least make a healthy dent in the 30-incher. That comment was enough to lead Kyle to throw out a bet of his own. $100 that I couldn't finish a 1-topping 13-inch pizza in 1 hour.

Little did he know, my dad used to say I "ate like a trucker" when I was a kid. And, I've been perfecting my art form ever since. Not to mention, a $100 prize! I was already coming up with ideas on how to spoil myself with that.

Here I am, staring my 13-inch black olive pizza in the face.

Bite number one tasted oh so good.


I was cruising until I finished the 6th slice of the 8-slice pie. That's when I hit the wall. And the strategy I tried of saving the crust until the end only held up for 3 of those slices. Hey, I figured I could dunk them in water and suck them down like the little Asian Champion hot dog eater if I had to!

Given that $100 and bragging rights were at stake, I had made the decision to finish the pizza before I even started ... so here I am with my empty box. Let's just say my body wasn't working like it normally does for a good two days!

But, I still conquered the pie! I proved to my hubby that I can eat like a dude ... hot, I know.

But I don't shop like a dude. Here's where my $100 winnings went ...


Sweet victory never looked so good ...

Thanks for doubting me, honey, the shoes are amazing!

Me Want Cookie

The ladies at the General Mills office have organized a monthly ladies night for a little girlie bonding time outside of work. We rotate houses each month, have dinner together, and the host chooses an activity. When the crew came to our house this past July, Kyle helped cook kebabs for 14 ladies and I organized a book swap, which was an overwhelming success.

This month, we were hosted by our bubbly administrative assistant, Joyce. She cooked some amazing potato soup, taught us all how to make easy apple cobbler, and coordinated a delicious (waist-expanding) cookie exchange.

This gave Kyle a chance to soak up some more of Jim Cramer's book and research stocks for our future investments in silence (and we all know there is no such thing as silence when I'm in the house!)

Not more than 2 days after the cookie exchange, a package showed up from the Baking Elves in Wisconsin ... and we were treated to even more Christmas goodies! Thanks to Aunt Lori and Mom Petersen! We are drowning in Christmas cookies and loving every minute of it.