Cooking Disaster, Cooking Success, Surprises, and Snow Day!!

Judging by the title, I have lots to post about today. First off, cooking disaster.

One of Ben's favorite meals is to make homemade pizza. I don't LOVE pizza, I mean I like it, but I only like to eat it every now and then. That is probably because my dad is a HUGE pizza lover and over the past few years, he began to want to order it almost every weekend. Seriously. So we ate pizza a lot, and I think I'm just a little burnt out. Thanks Dad! haha Just kidding..But, If I would let him, I think Ben would make pizza every week too, but for now we try to space it out.

Anyway, when Ben makes his pizzas, he usually buys one of those pizza crusts already made and then puts the oil, sauce, and whatever toppings. This week Publix was out of the already made crusts, so I talked him in to buying a can of crust that you shape and roll out yourself. BAD IDEA. haha I thought I knew what I was doing, but I definitely did not. It seemed like such an easy task, why was it such a problem for us? We kept rolling the dough out, but it wouldn't stay. It kept shrinking back. We then tried adding tons of flour... that did nothing but make our kitchen a disaster. This is how it looked...Not much like a pizza:
Tasty, huh?

Haha I'm serious, this is all we could get it to do. I don't know what the problem was. We sure did laugh extremely hard during this whole process though. If anybody has any suggestions of how to do this, I would greatly appreciate them. As you can see, I am not a great cook...yet. So I gave up and said, "Let's just go get fast food." Ben started to get frustrated with me because he was so excited about finally having pizza and I had ruined it by making him buy this awful crust. haha I couldn't help but laugh. He worked at it, and worked at it, and finally made it somewhat workable. He put the toppings on it, cooked it, and we ate it.. I wish I had a picture of the finished product. Not the perfect pizza, but it tasted fine so thats all that matters I guess! Next time, I know Ben will demand that we get the already made crust.... oops, my bad!

So after that disaster, the next night I decided to make beef tips in the crock pot with rice. I also made this potato and carrot medley, which was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS, along with some english peas. This meal was a success!! But gosh were we stuffed when we were finished!

Here is a picture of the potatoes and carrots. This picture doesn't make it look too great, but I promise it was delicious. I should probably post the recipe on here sometime in case any of you want to try it.

And here is a picture of our entire meal. Yummy!! Can you tell which plate is Ben's and which is mine? Wednesday, our good friend Katy, celebrated her 24 birthday! Stephen, her fiance, decided to plan a little surprise gathering for her. So, on Thursday night, her parents came to B-ham to take them out to eat. Stephen arranged for all of her friends to come to their apartment before they got back from dinner so that we could surprise her when she walked in. Here is a picture of her face... I was so mad because my camera had a delay so I didn't get the first complete look of terror, but she did stand like this for about 30 seconds so I did get a pretty good one.
I just love surprises! Katy's mom brought a delicious cake, and we enjoyed hanging out for a little while. It was a work night though, so we didn't stay too late. (Gosh, we are getting old! haha) It was fun to get to hang out and catch up with everyone and even meet some new people. Happy Birthday Katy!

And, lastly, today it is snowing...AGAIN! What is up with this freezing cold weather in the middle of February, and so many snow days? I don't think it has snowed this much in Alabama in a long time. Ben and I were actually a little disappointed when we woke up. Supposedly we were suppose to get 2-4 inches of snow last night. If there was any trace of snow on the ground in the morning, Ben's boss said he didn't have to come to work. My supervisor also let me have the day off, so were excited about maybe having a day to hang out. Of course we woke up and there was NO sign of snow. He is at work now and the snow is finally coming down pretty hard. Here is a picture off of our balcony.

I took that picture a little over an hour ago, and it has continued snowing pretty hard since then, so there is even more snow. Ben just texted me and said he is going to get to come home early... Yay!

I think it is So pretty! If it has to be this cold, I at least like for us to enjoy something out of it. We have a little slope in our "back yard" so I've texted Ben and asked him to find some garbage can lid or some type of "sledding device" so we can ride down it. How fun would that be! Hopefully he can find something on his way home! As for now, I'll continue sitting on my couch facing a window where I can watch the BEAUTIFUL snow, cuddled under a warm blanket with Ellie, watching tv. Doesn't get much better than this! Happy Snow Day everyone!!