A Time to Give Thanks...

This time of year always seems to be the busiest for us.  Matt is busy studying and working, I'm busy with nanny responsibilities and sewing, but in the midst of all this business it's good to stop and take time to give thanks.  God has been so good to us!  Matt began his second year of Seminary in August and he is now in his last weeks of finishing up this semester.  As I'm writing this post, we are sitting in Barnes and Noble and he is studying, reading, and preparing for his finals next week.  We are so thankful for every circumstance that God used to bring us here to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  At work, Matt received a promotion to operator; which came with a nice raise.  God is good to us financially! I could not be happier with my job as a nanny.  It is the perfect job for this season of our lives.  Since both of the kids that I nanny are in school, I have the whole middle of the day to myself.  This has allowed me to be able to attend chapel services with Matt on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I'm so thankful for what God has been teaching me through all of the Godly chapel speakers.  God is allowing us both to grow so much in the knowledge of Him and Who He is while we are here attending classes.  I just finished up my third semester of Seminary Wive's classes by taking a discipleship class.  I learned so much from this class, but one thing that stands out to me is this profound lesson:  "ministry wives will need to learn to be 'self-feeders' before they will ever be able to feed (disciple) another."  This class greatly challenged me in my own personal walk with God through helping me to be more consistent in my daily Bible reading, prayer, and worship time.  I'm so thankful that Mrs. Mohler, the seminary president's wife, began this special school to train up minister's wives alongside their husbands.  I don't want to give any of you all the false impression that we live perfect lives.  No, we don't have perfect lives, and everything doesn't always go our way.  But, we are doing our best to learn from what the Apostle Paul said:  "I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content."  Even if that state is Kentucky and not California.  :)  Yes, we miss California, but we know that God has us over here in Kentucky to prepare ourselves for the future ministry He has planned for us.  We both can boldly say that whether in good times or bad, God has always been there working in us and even through us, and for this we are ever thankful.

Okay, now I will get you all up to date with some of the pictures of our latest adventures since our last post.  I don't know about you, but I love looking at pictures, so if you're like me, than this section of this post is for you.  Enjoy!!

Back in September, Matt and I went on a little mini-vacation to the Madison Art Festival in Indiana, which is about an hour away from Louisville.  The town of Madison, IN is reminiscent of small-town America, and we really enjoyed looking at all the amazing architecture from that era.  We had a great time even if it did pour on us the second day we were there.  There were many local artists and artisans with some very unique art on display.

We have found the best spot for eating fresh seasonal food at The Blue Dog Bakery and Cafe.  It's walking distance from the Seminary, and they have the best soups, pizzas and sandwiches.  Everything there is so fresh, and a lot of it is served farm to table so we are supporting our local farmers and enjoying good food. 

Last year we got our pumpkins from Huber's Farm in IN, so this year we figured, "why not make it a tradition while we're here."  Matt had never been to an actual pumpkin field to pick his own pumpkin.  This was quite fun watching my perfectionist husband trying to pick the perfect pumpkin in a field of 100s of pumpkins.  

In October, my mom surprised my dad by flying me home for his birthday.  It was so good to see family again, and to meet my cousin Mike and his family for the first time.  It was a quick two-day trip.  Just a little teaser to make me miss California even more.  :) 

Before I left California to go back to Kentucky, my parents took me to see the ocean.  I sure do miss the Pacific Ocean.  The Ohio River here in Kentucky just doesn't compare to the great big Pacific Ocean.  

I've always had this fear of cooking steaks, but I love to eat them.  So recently I decided to conquer this fear and learn how to cook a good steak.  I've been doing pretty good so far, and Matt sure does like steak night Saturdays.  

Every year, since we've been married, Matt and I have packed up shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.  We always have so much fun shopping for the items to put in our boxes and then coming home and trying to fit everything into the box.

Ok, I'll admit it.  Kentucky does have something up on California.  The trees all turn the most beautiful colors here during the fall!

As a side job, I sew vintage belts for two ladies who have a business designing the belts and selling them to boutiques. When I'm not sewing these belts, I love to quilt.  I made this wall quilt out of a bunch of vintage scrap material that I found at the thrift store here on campus.  All the pieces of material were already cut into shapes, so it was quite a challenge trying to piece them together, but I like the end result.  

Matt and I took our Christmas card picture the weekend before Thanksgiving.  It was freezing outside at Cherokee Park.  Matt was a good sport though.  We had to use the timer on my camera and set it up on a tripod to take the pictures for us.  It took us a while, but we finally got a picture we both liked.  The picture above is not the picture we used for our card, I didn't want to put that one on here only on our Christmas card.  

My Parents' First Visit to Kentucky

The moment that Matt and I have been waiting for over six months for finally arrived...my parents came for a visit!! We've been planning and anticipating their visit for so long now that it seems strange that it is now over as I am writing this.  We made out this pretty detailed itinerary for their visit while they were here.  We wanted them to experience as much of Kentucky as possible in the 3 days that they were here.  So, first let me share with all of you the itinerary that we made for them.

 Kentucky Itinerary for Sunday, July 14^th – Wednesday, July 17^th

Sunday

5:20  Pick up from airport

6:00 Eat Dinner at home (Kentucky Farmer’s Market Salad)

7:30  Walk at Waterfront Park and the Big Four Pedestrian Bridge [free]

Monday

7:30 – 8:00 Eat Breakfast at home

9:00 – 10:00 Seminary Tour [free]

10:30 – 11:00 Shopping at Costco

11:30 – 2:00 Kentucky Derby Museum and lunch at the Derby Cafe [$14.00]

2:30 – 4:30 Cave Hill Cemetery [free] & Cherokee Park Auto Tour [free]

5:00 – 7:00 Buca di Beppo for Dinner

Tuesday

8:00 – 9:00 Eat Breakfast at home

9:30 – 12:00 Muhammad Ali Center [$9.00]

12:30 – 1:30 Anchorage Café for Lunch

1:30 – 5:00 Country drive to Turners Station [free]

5:00 – 6:00 Our Best Restaurant for Dinner open until 8:00 p.m.

7:00 – 7:30 Dessert at Pie Kitchen

Wednesday

7:30 – 8:00 Eat breakfast at home and depart

9:00   – 11:00 Patton Museum and Fort Knox [free]

12:00  - 1:00  Abraham Lincoln Birthplace and picnic lunch [free]

1:00 (time change) – 4:00 CST (acutally5:00 EST) Mammoth Caves

(Historic Tour Begins at 1:45 and lasts 2 hours) [$12.00]

6:00 – 7:00 Dinner at Whistle Stop Café

8:00 Arrive back home

We actually did pretty good at sticking to this schedule.  We did so well, that we got to do extra things at night like play corn hole when we had time left over.  Well, now that you've seen our itinerary, let me share some pictures with you from our exploration of Kentucky with my parents.  

After picking my parents up from the airport, we came back to our apartment on the Southern Seminary campus and had dinner around 6:00 p.m.  We had a cobb salad that I made with fresh Kentucky ingredients from the Farmer's Market.  After dinner was finished, we took my parents to Graeter's Ice cream.  They loved it!! Especially my dad.  We ended up going to Graeters everyday that they were here.  While we were at Graeters, my parents got to experience their first Kentucky storm, with especially loud thunder.  After ice cream we went to the Big Four Pedestrian Bridge at Waterfront Park in Downtown Louisville.  We enjoyed walking across the Ohio River on this bridge and we got some good pictures with the city skyline in the background.  Our first night with my parents was great.  It was especially fun to see how much they enjoyed seeing the lightning bugs once the sun went down. 

Just had to slip this picture in of the beautiful sunset taken from the Big Four Pedestrian bridge after the storm.  The Glory Holes stretched from one horizon to the other.  It was absolutely breathtaking.  This picture definitely doesn't do it justice.  

The next day, Monday, we visited the Kentucky Derby Museum and Churchill Downs.  So much history in this place, be we were all surprised to discover that it wasn't as "classy" as we thought it would be.  The chairs in the stands were just green metal folding chairs.  I'm sure the expensive private box seats were better, but it was interesting to see the simplicity of it all.  We ate Hot Browns, and Derby Pie at the little cafe in the museum.  We all loved the Derby Pie, and the Hot Brown were good, but very rich!

Here's a picture of one of the two iconic Churchill Down's steeples.  It was pretty hot out there on the track as we were listening to our tour guide, but it was worth it to be able to actually be where so many famous horses have raced throughout the years.  

After Churchill Downs, we drove over to Cave Hill National Cemetery.  This is an incredibly old and historic cemetery.  Colonel Sanders (KFC) is buried there along with quite a few other historic Kentuckians.  We all enjoyed walking through the gardens, reading the tombstones, and pondering life.  I guess it might seem kind of strange to take your parents to a cemetery, but my mom really enjoys going to cemeteries.  No!! she's not Goth or anything, :)  she just likes all the history that's there.  

For Dinner on Monday, we went to Bucca di Beppo.  They have really good family style Italian food. In this picture we're eating a bruschetta appetizer.  It was delicious!!

This picture is so that you all can see the special booth that we got at Bucca di Beppo.  If you make reservations, you can request their one table that is located in the kitchen so that you can watch them cook.  It was a neat experience.  

Since we finished our itinerary early Monday night, we got to play a game of corn hole.  It was Matt and I against my Mom and Dad.  And......they beat us!!  It sure was nice to play on the beautiful Seminary lawn surrounded by all the green and the lightning bugs.  

On Tuesday we went to the Muhammed Ali Center in Downtown Louisville.  My Dad is a BIG Muhammed Ali fan, and we've been looking forward to taking him to this museum for a long time.  Wow, wow, and wow!!! this museum is amazing, it's done so nice.  We all really enjoyed our time at the museum, buy I'm sure my dad enjoyed it the most, as he got to learn more about one of his childhood heroes.  

Here's kind of a random and interesting fact.  The Muhammed Ali Center has the second longest escalator in Kentucky.  It really was quite long as you can kind of see by this picture.  We were already about half way up when I took it.  

Here's a picture of the view from the top floor of the Muhammed Ali Center.  That's the Ohio river, with Indiana on the other side.  

At the museum they had these centers where you can pick and watch any of Muhammed Ali's fights.  My dad could easily have stayed here the whole day, but we still had places to go on our itinerary.  :) 

Muhammed Ali is definitely a man of many words, and this is a picture of just one of his many quotes that are displayed in the museum.  

Here's a picture of the entrance to the Muhammed Ali Center.  It thought that it was a pretty interesting architectural design.  

Taking a break outside the Muhammed Ali Center.  Matt didn't know I was taking this picture.  It was pretty hot and humid the entire time my parents were here, so any shade from trees was greatly appreciated while we were trekking through Kentucky.  

After we left the Muhammed Ali Center I thought it would be a good idea to take my dad by the actual house where Muhammed Ali grew up.  The house is still there.  It definitely wasn't very big.  

After the Muhammed Ali Center, we took my parents for a country drive out to the church where Matt is the intern pastor at - Turners Station.  We saw two Amish buggies on the back country roads, and a doe and her fawn grazing on the side of the road.  It was a really country experience.  We at at Our Best restaurant in Smithfield.  We all ordered fried chicken, and my dad quickly said that it was the best fried chicken that he had ever had.  I definitely have to agree with him.  It was AMAZING!!  I keep dreaming about it.  

Just had to slip this picture in of my Dad and his pickled beets.  He really did like them.  He's frowning because that's all that's on his plate at that moment.  Don't worry, he got real happy once his fried chicken was added to his plate.  :) 

Since we still had some time left over that night after finishing everything on our itinerary and going to the mall, we went to Historic old Louisville.  They have the most beautiful historic victorian houses you've ever seen.  Most of them are well over 100 years old.  After viewing these amazing homes, we went back to the Seminary to play another round of corn hole and see if Matt and I could pull off a win.  We had no luck, and my parents beat us once again.  So, they are the undefeated champions of corn hole.  I think my dad is going to have to buy my mom a corn hole game though, because she really likes it and she's really good at it.  :) 

Wednesday came too quickly, my parents last full day in KY.  Not only does my dad like Muhammed Ali, but he also likes General Patton.  Amazingly Kentucky has a museum for both of these influential men.  So, on Wednesday we took my parents to the Patton Museum at Fort Knox.  The car in this picture is the actual car that General Patton was in when it was struck, which later led to his death.  

These are the actual ivory handled pistols and leather gun belt that belonged to General Patton.  We had a great time at the Patton Museum and then we headed out to see Abraham Lincoln's birth place.  On the way to his birthplace, we passed by the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, and we drove through Elizabethtown where the movie "Elizabethtown" was filmed.  

We planned on eating a picnic lunch at the park at Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace, so we got out and picked a nice shaded area and sat down to eat.  Right away I looked over at my mom and saw that she was practically covered in mosquitos.  She had become a mosquito buffet!!  I quickly stood up and yelled, "We gotta move!!"  So, we did, but not without some ichy mosquito bites.  I didn't think to bring bug spray!!  Well, it's definitely an experience that we'll all remember.  :)  The last I talked to my mom, she counted 15 bites.  Ouch!!  This picture is of the monument built as a memorial to Abraham Lincoln's birthplace.  There are 56 steps leading up to it...one step for each year of his life.  

Inside the monument is and "almost to scale" replica of the log cabin that Abraham Lincoln was born in.  

In this picture, they're all gathered around the spring on the Lincoln farm that is still running today.  It was so nice and cool down there.  

I think we might be wearing out our parents a little bit. :)  But...we still have our 2 mile historic hike in Mammoth Caves to go to.  

I don't have any pictures of our hike in Mammoth caves (The world's longest cave system) because cameras just don't take good pictures down in the cave, but it was so nice and refreshing to be down in a 52 degree cave when the weather outside of the cave was so hot and humid.  After our hike we went to the The Whistle Stop in Glendale, KY, for dinner.  They had the best fried green tomatoes ever!!!  Well, all good things must come to an end and my parents had to head back to hot, burning (it literally was burning with a large fire in the San Jacinto Mountains near their home.) Southern  California.  We had a great time showing my parents around Kentucky, and we can't wait to do it again,  maybe we'll take it a little easier on them next time, and maybe they'll let us win a game of corn hole.  :) :)

I hope y'all enjoyed this post on our vacation with my parents.  

Thanksgiving in Kentucky

A lot has happened since I last blogged, but I'll try to keep it as brief as possible.  One thing that is simply beautiful about Kentucky is the way that the leaves change color.  It makes it feel like it's really time for Thanksgiving.

I took this picture at the Seminary.  Aren't the colors just breathtaking?  We really do live on a very beautiful campus.  

Thanksgiving day went really well for us.  We were able to go over to one of the church member's homes in Campbellsburg.  It was so nice to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with a family.  It would have been kind of depressing if just Matt and I had celebrated it on our own.  It was also special to see how this Southern family got along and some of their Thanksgiving traditions.  I will have to say that the food was wonderful, and honestly there wasn't anything different from any of the food that we have in California.  The turkey was great, but I sure did miss my dad's turkey, he cooks the best turkey in the whole world.  :)  We also played cornhole, which is a really fun Kentucky game that you play with bean bags filled with corn that you try to toss into a hole in a plywood platform.  They're pretty serious about the game here, and if you want to know more about it, just click on this link.  We also made a Christmas craft with the family and enjoyed talking with all of them.  It was really nice to make a Christmas craft because one of our Thanksgiving traditions when we lived in California was to make gingerbread houses with the family.  Making Christmas crafts really made us feel at home.  We had a great first Thanksgiving here in Kentucky, and we feel richly blessed to have such caring members in our church.  

Matt asked me a few weeks before Thanksgiving if I thought that I could make "Thanksgiving Burritos?"  Let me give you some background on where this question came from.  I've been making Matt homemade burritos to take with him to reheat at work.  He loves them; honestly, I would get kind of tired of eating the same thing every night for dinner, but he informed me that he could eat burritos for the rest of his time here at Seminary.  (I'm gonna have to hold him to that :)  Well, I've been trying to come up with unique burrito fillers to make his dinners a little more interesting, and that's why he suggested Thanksgiving burritos.  Well, that, and he got a free turkey from work that we needed to do something with.  So, I thought I would share with you all how I put these Thanksgiving burritos together.  I hope you enjoy.  Wait,  I have to share this blog with you where I got some inspiration for what to put into a Thanksgiving burrito.  Apparently Matt is not the only one to come up with the idea of a Thanksgiving burrito.  So, before you look at how I made these burritos, please visit the blog that inspired me first by clicking here.  

First I have to let you know that I used many different recipes, but they were mainly from the food network.  Now,  let me tell you everything that is in these burritos, then I will give you the links to the recipes if you are interested in making these burritos yourself.  

• Shredded Turkey
• Stuffing
• Black Bean and Corn Salsa
• Cranberry Sauce
• Cheese 

Now for the links to the recipes, and some pictures of the actual burrito fillers that I made.  

For the turkey I decided to use Alton Brown's recipe from the food network.  His turkey recipe is called Good Eats Roast Turkey.  The turkey turned out amazing, it was well worth the effort that went into making it.  I also didn't change a thing about the recipe, it was perfect as is.  I love this particular recipe because it also has a step be step video that you can watch before you attempt to cook your bird.  Click here to view this yummy turkey recipe.  

My turkey after Matt and I shredded it all up.  

For the stuffing, I used Paula Dean's recipe for Southern Cornbread Stuffing.  Once again this recipe produced some really good stuffing, and the only thing that I changed about the recipe is that I baked my own cornbread which is much sweeter than the one that her recipe baked.  Click here to view this yummy stuffing recipe.  

This stuffing was so easy to pack into the burritos. 

For the black bean and corn salsa I used Michael Chiarello's recipe for Grilled Corn Salsa (Also from food network.)  The only thing that I changed in this recipe is that I added two large cans of drained and rinsed black beans.  Click here to view this fresh salsa recipe.

You can also use this as a dip for tortilla chips, it's great! 

For the cranberry sauce recipe, I once again turned to The Food Network.  I used Alex Guarnaschelli's recipe for cranberry sauce.  This is a simple and sweet cranberry sauce; which is just the way that I like it.  I changed two things with this recipe though, first I doubled it, and second, I added two chopped apples while the sauce was simmering.  Click here to view this simple cranberry sauce recipe.  

This cranberry sauce really makes these burritos taste like Thanksgiving. :) 

Now for the assembly of the burritos. 

First, get all of your burrito fillers ready to fill the tortilla with.  Here's a little tip on warming the flour tortillas.  Get a clean kitchen towel wet and wrap it around five of the tortillas and microwave them for a minute and a half.  this will make the tortillas a lot more flexible.  Any of my Mexican family reading this right now is probably gasping.  It's kind of a cardinal sin to warm up tortillas in the microwave, but it really works well for making burritos that you just plan on freezing.  

Here's a picture of my burrito ready to roll.

After rolling them, you can either eat them right away (if you have enough people to eat 35 burritos) or you can wrap them in foil and freeze them.

Whenever our freezer is full of burritos like this, Matt says "We're rich."

To reheat your burrito, simply dampen a strong paper towel, wrap it around your frozen burrito and microwave on high for 3 minutes.  The time may vary according to your microwave, but it should be somewhere around 3 minutes.  The burritos still taste so fresh and amazing even after they have been frozen and microwaved.  Well, that was a lot that I just wrote.  I hope that if you try this recipe you will enjoy it as much as Matt and I have.  

In closing, Can you believe that Christmas is right around the corner?  Time sure is flying.  In order to get in the festive Christmas spirit, Matt and I cut and hung about 50 paper snowflakes from our ceiling in our apartment on campus.  This is a tradition for me that I started way back when I went to college for the first time.  In order to liven up our dorm room, I decided to hang a few hand cut snowflakes from the ceiling, well, that few soon turned into quite a few.  Ever since my Sophomore year in college I have hung up hand cut snowflakes every year.  Most of the time I have hung them up in my classroom, but this year, once again, they are hanging from our "dorm room" ceiling.  Wow, the tradition has come full circle.  I have also always used the same website to get my patterns for cutting out my snowflakes.  Dave's snowflakes are amazing, easy to cut out and free.  If you are interested in cutting out your own snowflakes, click here to visit Dave's site.  

For those of you who actually read this far in this blog,  Wow, you are amazing!  Well, I hope you enjoyed reading about our first Thanksgiving over here in Kentucky.  'Till next week, enjoy the beginning of this Christmas season.  

Julie & Kris Canchola

We're getting ready to take our niece Kris to school right now in Gilbert, Arizona.  She is three years old, and she loves her school.  After taking her to school, Matt and I will be headed out on our second day of travels as we make our way to Louisville, Kentucky.  Today we will be headed to the Grand Canyon.  It will be both of our first times to see the Grand Canyon, and we are very excited.

Jesse Holds her Bottle for the First Time!

We made it to Gilbert, Arizona, around 2:00 p.m.  Tonight we will be staying at my brother's house, and enjoying spending time with his family.  I just had to include this picture of my 6.5 month-old niece holding her bottle for the first time,  while we were at her home this afternoon.  My two nieces Kris, and Jesse, are the two cutest little girls that you have ever seen.