The dinner I kind of just made up.

I think I shall call this flying by the seat of my pants chicken dinner. lol. I just kind of threw it together last week and it was delicious. After eating it though I did decide on some changes to make it even better.

Chicken:
2 chicken breast
1 c Panko Bread Crumbs
2 Tbs Italian Seasoning
1/8 c Parmesan Cheese
1 c Flour
2 Eggs
2 Tbs Milk

Mix bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese and seasoning together in a bowl. In a separate bowl mix egg and milk together. Place flour in a third bowl. Cover each chicken breast in flour, then dip them in the egg mixture. Then cover in the bread crumb mixture. Melt 2 tbs butter in a frying pan, brown chicken. Place the breaded chicken in a greased 8x8 baking dish.

Sauce:
1/4 c butter
1 garlic clove
1/2 c chicken broth
1/8 c white wine
1/2 heavy cream
1/4 c grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
chopped fresh parsley (as desired)

In a sauce pan melt butter over medium heat. Add garlic. Cook for about 2 min. Stir in chicken broth bring to a boil, then add white wine. Return to a boil. Add heavy cream heat till thickens, stirring often. Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper and parsley.

Pour sauce over chicken in baking dish and bake on 400 degrees till done (about 20 -30 min. depending on thickness of chicken). Serve over pasta.

New Year

I'm back to my old ways of doing a New Year's post. I missed doing it last year and the year before I did just a condensed version. Now... the post.

Good bye 2015, Hello 2016!

Last year started out rough and it was nice that this year so far has been better. Other then the rough start, we had a fairly good year.

Some highlights from 2015:

• Said good bye to Tracy's brother.
• James turned 5.
• Charles joined the family.
• Trip to Utah and Wyoming
• Tracy completed his first year at University of California-Davis.
• Summer trip to Utah. Epic adventure in Moab.
• James started Kindergarten.
• Tracy attended two conferences nearly back to back.
• Christmas in Southern California.

This year should be pretty good. We're already looking forward to a few things.

• Birthdays! James turning 6 and Charles turning 1.
• Our 10th anniversary.
• Another epic Moab trip
• Society of Vertebrate Paleontology conference in Salt Lake
• Tracy's qualifying exam for his PhD.  (Though he's probably not looking forward to them.) 

Now my resolutions:

1. First one originally Tracy's idea and it has become a family one. Decluttering and organizing better. Or as he put it Ikea-nising.
2. Doing all steps of laundry in the same day. I seriously have a problem with not completing the whole task. Mainly folding gets neglected, but sometimes I forget to even dry stuff.
3. Read more.

I like to keep them short and simple then I will be more likely to keep them.

Christmas Vacation

This year for Christmas we decided to change things up a bit. We visited Riverside, the beach, Las Vegas and St. George.

First stop Riverside:
In Riverside we went to our old ward and saw some of our friends. James got to play at his best friend while we lived there. They had a blast. We saw some of our favorite site and went to some of our favorite places, like Canyon Crest shopping center, Fairmont park, the Christmas lights downtown.

James and Charles had a blast in our hotel room.
It was a great place to stay.

Feeding the birds at the park.

These birds started chasing James.

It was very funny.

Beautiful sunset

After a few days in Riverside, we headed to the beach. We first spent the night near Dana Point.

The patio and the view were great. Charles loved hanging out by the door.
It rained however so we didn't spend a lot of time outside.

This hotel was pretty nice. It had a separate room for the bed
and James slept on a sofa bed in the main room.
It had lots of room for the kids to go crazy.
We also quickly discovered you can tell just how clean the carpet is
by having a baby crawling all over it.
His clothes soon turned black.

After spending a night there, we headed north a bit to have lunch at Newport Beach and Balboa Pier before heading back south to San Clemente. We just had to have a meal at Ruby's diner. Rain or shine we were going. Of course our original plan had been to play at Balboa but it was raining. Sand and rain don't really make for a pleasant beach time.

At Ruby's

Charles loves sitting like a big boy.

 We then spent a couple of days in San Clemente. Joe's parents also joined us and we all enjoyed our time beach side.

James reading to Charles.

We went to Laguna to see some tide pools.
James loved seeing the anemone.

A painter and his art.

Sunset at San Clemente

Our view for the days we were in San Clemente.

The view outside!

Tracy couldn't get a good picture of Charles.

After San Clemente we spent Christmas Eve night in Las Vegas at Sam's Town. James' favorite hotel. It kind has become a little tradition to spend Christmas Eve or Christmas night there. Christmas morning we enjoyed a nice breakfast buffet and then drove to St, George. In St. George we mostly just hung out. We love that Tracy's cousin lets us use his vacation home there. When we arrived it started lightly snowing. Such a nice Christmas welcome. James was very excited about it. Though it only snowed for a little bit and didn't stick.

Charles' first time seeing snow fall. It was just a little bit and didn't stick.
(He's waving at me.)

I tried to get him waving on video but he just baby talked.

We opened presents and had a nice Christmas dinner. We mostly hung out in the condo for the weekend. James had a 24 hour flu bug that hit Christmas night. He has a knack for getting sick on Christmas. The next day Tracy and I went on a date and saw Star Wars. It was awesome.

One of our Christmas gifts was a nano bug operated bug. 

Charles chased the thing all over. It was funny. Here's a short video.

The longer one was too big to upload. :(

Charles trying to copy the face Tracy is making.

After the weekend we made the long drive home. And it was very long but was nice that we split the drive up into two days. We had a great trip. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.