Busy weekend...

It has been a busy weekend, just not too much blog worthy.

Shelly and I have been trying to make a concerted effort to cook and eat at home more often. Of course, we still eat out, just not as often.

Friday night I baked some venison enchiladas. We still have meat in the freezer from last hunting season, so it makes sense to try to incorporate deer meat into what we're cooking. They turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

Saturday morning I got up and changed the oil in the Expedition. I LIKE working on the vehicles, it's just a time issue. I made time this morning and it took less than 40 minutes, and that included taking out all of the stuff needed (ramps, creeper, drain pan, etc) and putting it all back up once finished.

After changing the oil, we took the truck up to Circuit City to have the remote start looked at. It hasn't worked properly for the last couple of weeks, so we took it in and got it fixed. It turned out to be a loose wire. Once home from Circuit City, Matthew "helped" me cut the grass. Of course, his version of help involves making a huge mess while continually coming up to me while I'm mowing and asking me to get something for him. It is annoying, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. You just have to allow for 3 hours to complete a 1.5 hour job.

After resting a little and cleaning up, we took the boys down to my parents, then Shelly and I headed out for a date night. We met 8 or 9 other couples for dinner and afterwards went to see Fireproof. It's a good movie (no matter what Katie thinks). If you haven't seen it, take your significant other to see it. It is sort of a sappy relationship movie, but worth seeing.

This morning I got up and took 3 of my rifles down to the gun range to get ready for hunting next weekend. In a perfect world, this would have been done a few weeks ago, but that's the breaks. It is sort of nice to hit the range by yourself and poke a few holes in some paper. I need to do it more often.

When I got home, I started thawing some chicken to grill for lunch and headed to the grocery store. After returning, I got busy cooking. I enjoy cooking, and today I was trying something new. I grilled chicken for lunch, but I was also working on a pot of taco soup.

I've never made taco soup before, but I've had several different versions before. I found a recipe today and loosely followed it, using venison chili meat and venison hamburger meat as the foundation. It turned out really well. We'll have some for dinner tomorrow night, a little more at some point during the week, and we have a container frozen for our trip to the ranch next weekend (I have a strict 3 day rule on leftovers, so for a week away, I have to freeze to keep it that long).

Late this afternoon, we cleaned up and headed to meet my sister's crowd and my parents at a Trunk or Treat deal down at the church where my niece goes to preschool. Matthew went with them last year and had a ball, so we went this time also.. Once the deal wound down, we all went to a local grill joint for a little dinner.

Not a bad weekend, just the ordinary stuff. I'm sure that in the next day or so the weekend will process and I'll come up with a good story to tell. For now, it's after midnight, and I'm BEAT.

Have a good week. If you want a recipe for anything I made, let me know and I'll get it to you. Most of what I cook is pretty much made up, but I do write recipes down so I'll be able to make it again later (usually with a few variances from the previous recipe).