K's Lunch

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K's Lunch for R from Kyle Lancaster on Vimeo.

Here is my, (K's) Video of the day yesterday.
The intent was to leave it for R to see when she got home, and then have her lunch in the fridge. Just wanted to throw something together to let R know I was thinking about her while she was out working hard all day long.

I'm hoping to start doing something like this every few days to keep a video/photo log of our days.

In other news, everything is going pretty great!
Hope you are great too!

Zig! Zag!

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Advice to follow when, as K puts it, you break the rules, hit someone above the neck with a snowball and subsequently flee. Zig! Zag! it is harder to hit a moving target everybody. 

We have gotten the first real snow of winter and have been having some seriously rolicking good fun in the stuff.  

First, the winter food continues with 
Green du Puy lentil soup, I adapted from Ina's recipe and was supplied with those crazy good lentils by my awesome sisters. 
Colby Jack Beer Bread from a FoodGawker recipe 


Yes, we've been eating that soup all week. It is the best and I made a ton:) 


Garlic Knot rolls, surprisingly easy and totally delicious. K ate four when he came home and found them on the oven. These are also adapted from a FoodGawker recipe, if you don't go there and find awesome food blogs and/or immediately get hungry you should be ashamed. 

I also used my lunch break (working from home = awesome) to run around in the snow with my love.
We bundled in multiple layers of pants and six or so shirts and set out on the trail behind our apartment (Minnesotans or other northerners please don't make fun of us but -5 is very cold for these parts)  









We are the luckiest as far as I can tell. There are not pictures but we might have had a loogie spitting contest, you didn't want to see but you probably wanted to know that I won ;) 

Finally, here is a video of our recent fun, a bit random but that sums up our lives pretty well. 

Good Eats

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The Lancaster-Hatfield residence has been cookin! Thanks to the fact that work has slowed down a bit we've been having more chances to cook. This Friday night, as we usually try to do date night but were both a little sick, we made one that was, as you'll see, mainly K's idea. 

He came home from the store bearing two hulking steaks and I made him some mashed potatoes to accompany. There was cheap Burgundy wine (whoops, there was leftover that I'd been cooking with?) and StarWars all around. 


Look at how manly with steaks! 


Friday night for the sick kids....it was sublime. 

Today has been a lovely relaxing Saturday. I took an hour and a half nap and played some Super Mario Galaxy two with K while I made some cinnamon rolls from scratch. Actually a very easy recipe that is adapted from the Pioneer Woman's gigantic recipe for 50.  I added a few pecans and made the maple coffee icing a bit less fattening and they turned out beautifully. These are touted as the best cinnamon rolls and I was in no way disappointed. Thankfully this only made 15 which will do nicely to give away:)


K was in rhapsody that he gets to marry me, as well he should be ;) 


Last but not least we've been looking for Honeymoon packages. I've basically never planned a vacation except for hiking and back packing (except for our four days in Santa Fe) and we are having fun trying to find something that is affordable and mainly relaxing with swimming in the ocean (as per K's request) Let me know your travel experiences if you'd like to share, we could use any advice. 

New Years

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Happy New Year!

So far we've rung things in nicely with a our good friends who braved sickness and a drive through nowhere to be with us on a lovely evening. 



We supped at Boozefish, a pretty darn delicious European wine bar. 



There was much blurry merriment. 

We also played a seriously fun game that we got called Telepresence, which is like a cross between telephone and pictionary. 

It was pretty difficult going back to the real world today as it means going back to hardly ever seeing each other again. However, we soldier on with the knowledge that we'll be getting married soon, wahoo!


In other news, we are hoping to upgrade to some new bikes to ride in the MS150 this year. Therefore, the old ones are for sale on Craigslist for anyone that is interested. Check out this beauty, a vintage 1983 mountain bike with new tires:) 




Ok, enough advertising. 

Mostly, I am excited to be planning and participating in a whole new year. There were many very fun and very difficult things last year and I'm sure this year will be the same. I plan to try, emphasis on try, to experience all of them by living in the moment as much as possible and as always sharing my life and love with K. 

That said, I'm still pretty pumped to be getting married this year and like testing out the whole "Husband"...elect. 

2010

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I'm going to steal an idea from my favorite blog www.ch-isforchandler.blogspot.com . I thought it was a great way to sum up a year. 

2010, in a way, was not at all what I expected. I graduated with a Master's, moved to a different (though familiar) city, got a new job and got engaged. Who knew all that was going to happen? Not me, and looking back it is almost difficult to put that all in a year.

However, in honor of that fact that such things have been happening and that through everything K has been my great joy and love I have gone through a bit of a blog title change here. So, take heed of our new name and address. 

Here has been our year. 

January: 

February: 

March: 

 April: 

 May: 

 June:

 July:

 August:

 September:

 October:

 November:

December: 


We have loved sharing the year with all of you. 2011 is quirking up to be just as eventful, although I only know one thing for sure. I get to marry a man who made my life this unexpected in all the best ways I never imagined. It is only going to get better, that is for sure. 


A Very New Mexican Thanksgiving

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K here again!

R and myself have returned safely from our Thanksgiving road trip to Santa Fe, and boy oh boy was it a good one!  This was the first time we'd spent 4 straight days together since last Christmas season.  I don't know how that is even possible... It was four days of outrageously fun, wonderful relaxing, taking in all the southwestern art we could, and lots and lots of food.
We set off on our journey not really having a plan... We had a B&B booked for Thursday night, and a hotel on the Santa Fe plaza booked for Friday night and planned to drive through Oklahoma City on Saturday night.  That was our Thanksgiving plan.

"What are you guys doing for Thanksgiving?" they'd say....
and we'd just respond with "Going to Santa Fe!"
"Oh cool! Visiting family out there?"
"Nope... just going out on a road trip and spending time together."

Sorry for deserting you, families... Thanks for not getting upset with us for skipping out on the holiday!

Here's K's official photo-intense recap of our trip:



We left Wednesday night after I got off work at 10:30 pm.  We knew we had a long drive ahead of us, and were stocked up with snacks, energy drinks and of course, Harry Potter audio books. R got to sleep in the passenger seat and I was on driving duty first. I lasted until 4 am, at which point we were just approaching the Oklahoma panhandle border.



R drove through the rest of the night until the sun came up, and we were in the panhandle of Texas.

(I lost the "take a picture of the state signs" game, with a score of 0... this is one of R's winners)



We stopped along the way only for gas and bathroom breaks.  I really enjoyed R's company, and listening to HP and the prisoner of Azkaban while she was asleep.
(I was forced to delete the picture of her actually sleeping.  However, since I had a t-shirt printed in high school with a picture of her asleep on it, I think this is fair)

The cars in this yard had things like "Stay Away!" and "Get Out" spray painted on them... guess cars are classier than those plastic fence signs.
We were traveling along Route 66, seeing the sights of the great 'Merica
Wake up!  Time for a pit stop on ol' route 66!

Gigantic German Shepard we encountered wandering at a Gas Station. Knowing my love for animals R mouthed from inside the car "DON'T PET IT!"  Didn't have to tell me twice this time.

At a "roadside picnic stop" where semi-truck drivers had lined up their rigs for a rest, R says "They're not picnicking here at all!"
Getting closer to Santa Fe!
When we finally did get to Santa Fe, we spent a lot of time checking out the downtown plaza area.  It was full of shops, restaurants and art galleries.  Our first night we stayed in a beautiful B&B in the mountains called Hacienda de Santa Fe in Cerrillos, about 30 minutes south of Santa Fe.
Front side of our B&B

The whole place was amazing!
View from the upstairs lobby windows

Our room: complete with huge, warm fireplace

Our bathroom had a mesmerizing hand-painted sink... I couldn't brush my teeth without just staring into it.
We got lucky and never hit any snow on our trip, unless you count the dusting at the high altitudes.



 After a long nap, it came time for our Thanksgiving dinner...
Which we had not planned for... The B&B offered a Thanksgiving dinner, but was a bit overpriced in our book.

We settled on pizza, but couldn't find anything that was open.
I tried calling a Santa Fe Pappa John's I found listed online to place an order.

But when I called them, a woman answered the phone with just "Hello?"
"Hi, uh... I'd like to order a pizza?"
"WHAT!?"
"um, I'm sorry.... is... is this Pappa John's?"
"YOU CAN'T EAT FREAKIN' PIZZA!  IT'S THANKSGIVING FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!"
"oh, so this isn't Pappa John's then?"
"No, there are no Pappa John's in Santa Fe, hun.  NOW GO GET A TURKEY!"
"ok, thank you ma'am. Sorry for the confusion, Happy Thanksgiving."

We drove into town searching the GPS for pizza huts, but found nothing... eventually deciding to save pizza for tomorrow and join the crowd of other non-turkey thanksgivingers at Ihop.

Chicken fried steak, pancakes, hash browns, eggs, bacon, sausage.... A delicious Thanksgiving dinner!

Goodnight, Santa Fe

Friday morning we left The Hacienda, and headed back to the Santa Fe plaza where we spent most of the day touring shops, galleries, and the plaza bakery.

Goodbye snow!








We did end up eating turkey for breakfast, which we considered "leftover thanksgiving breakfast."  It was in a tasty pastry with cheese and green chilli we ordered alongside a gigantic cup of hot chocolate.

R's favorite Santa Fe location, her "heaven"... The Plaza Bakery.  Complete with pastries, cakes, pizzas, and other treats.





My favorite Santa Fe location was the Chuck Jones Gallery.  Chuck was a cartoon director at Warner Brothers Studios, bringing several of my favorite characters to life.

Nothing says "Fine Gentlemen's Apparel" like the War of the Roses

WHAAAAT!?
The day continued on and we made our first 'Diners Drive-In's and Dives' stop, Backroad Pizza.  It was one of the best pizzas I've ever eaten!  Thin, crispy crust with pepperoni, onions and lots of green chilli.
We finally got our Thanksgiving pizza!  And it was much better than we could have imagined.



And since it's vacation time, we opted to follow up lunch with dessert at a chocolate and pastry joint right up the street.

Didn't pace myself very well with the pizza...  But the brownie was so delicious I couldn't save it!


We checked in at our night two residence, the Old Santa Fe Inn.  It was right on the plaza, which was great, because we weren't even close to exploring it all yet!  Plus it was all lit up with lights at nighttime!








To wrap up our Santa Fe stay, we had a Southwestern dinner on the plaza.  R must have said the restaurant name to me a billion times, but I kept forgetting.... It now comes as no surprise I can't remember it now writing this.  We had to walk around on the plaza searching for wi-fi on our phones, jumping from hotspot to hotspot to keep checking the googlemap, ensuring we were in fact going the right direction of the restaurant.
Twinkle lights, big trees, and a fountain!


Saturday morning we awoke, and began the drive to Oklahoma City.  We were stocked up on leftover pizza and fajitas for lunch, as well as some tasty snacks we picked up at the Trader Joe's (I am now on the bandwagon with R on being excited Trader Joe's is coming to our town.)


Thanks New Mexico, you defiantly were a "land of enchantment"... especially since we listened to Harry Potter the whole drive through you.




 When we finally arrived in OKC, we found another Diner Drive-Ins and Dives location we wanted to try out... Ingrid's Kitchen.

They were a German diner where I ordered my very first Wiener Schnitzel.  I am now a huge fan.  However, I'm still not sure I am too fond of the sourkraut and German potato salad... R on the other hand was digging it. I loved their pie though, and R said it was only so-so.  I'm hardly a pie critic though... If it's a pie, I'm sure I'll enjoy it... I mean come on, IT'S PIE!

Good thing we only had leftovers and snacks to eat before this.

Because we destroyed this meal.  Delicious.
We booked a Holiday Inn Express on a whim online, and it (like every other online reservation we just happened to make for this trip) worked out perfectly...

Then we had the journey home on Sunday.  We made an attempt to stop at one last DDD joint in Wichita, KS, but alas, it was not open on Sundays... 
Looks so delicious and classic.  Too bad it was closed.
We did get to fulfill our desperate need to eat diner burgers and a shake though, at Jimmy's Diner.


Oh Yeah, delicious way to wrap up our food adventure.

Dealing with my antics is one of her specialties.  I don't know how she does it so well all the time.

All in all, the trip was an adventurous, relaxing, delicious getaway across the country with the person I love the most.  I saw a lot of the country that I had never been to, and laughed a lot more than I thought possible.  Thanks R for a fun-filled Thanksgiving trip, and I will always be thankful to have you with me!

K




Stop the presses!
K's antics yield adorable pictures of R.