Adventures of Newlyweds in Kansas

So today my very early Christmas and Birthday present from Derek arrived!  I found a stove I liked for 40% off at Best Buy last week so we decided to order it a bit early.  I find it gorgeous and can't wait to have a flat top stove instead of the crappy coil top.   Derek's presents also arrived in the mail and are all wrapped up and ready to go under the tree when we put that up.

Here is a photo of my new stove, we now have all matching appliances!

So recently I made some goals to cook a few random foods I have never made but felt everybody should know how to make.  Well today I did my first recipe:  Cinnamon rolls!  I used this recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Clone-of-a-Cinnabon/Detail.aspx

 I didn't use a bread machine and I think they still turned out great!  They took awhile, about 3 hours total but a lot of that was waiting.  I also increased the frosting and cooked at 350 degrees for for 20 minutes instead.  We might of had only these for dinner... oh well.   Here is a photo of the whole pan (it makes a ton) and Derek's dinner, well he might have added another to his dinner too.

Derek's quote "Best cinnamon rolls he has ever had."

So I thought I would go ahead and wrap up my deck project that I have recently completed.

Planning

Initially we had planned on digging foundations, 9 of them in all to provide a footing for the 16 X 16 foot deck. That was a lot of work. Instead we found DeckPlans.com which uses pre-poured concrete foundations instead of digging and pouring your own. We decided to go the route of buying the pre poured foundations. Unfortunately, that meant that instead of 9 we would need to buy 32 to fit our project. In retrospect I think it was a toss up for the amount of work involved. However, it was easier to setup and being unexperienced, I think it was the way to go for the first time. My Dad also came down to help with the foundation work.

Building

Building the deck was actually fairly easy. I went ahead and purchased as much of the supplies at once as I could and had them delivered to our house as we have no truck. We were able to build fairly quickly, and within 2 days, (about 10 hours a day with 2 people and one day had 3 people) we were ready to start decking. Lindy left for a work trip the next week and I had completed all joists, and decking by the time she got back on Friday!

So there, the deck that we built in under a week is done. Sadly its time for winter here in Kansas which means we’ll have to wait till next spring to really enjoy the new deck.