Name

Clair had this idea to "find" our last names in the New Orleans landscape...  Here's mine:

It was a fun project.  We spent about a half of a day wandering around the French Quarter looking for letters.  "Knox" (Clair's last name) was much easier.  The "N" was the hardest to find, but there were some amazing "O's" and "X's" all over the city.  My favorite is the Fluer de Lis for the "A" (it works right?).

Roasted Tomato Bisque

 I LOVE tomato soup!  Seriously, LOVE it!  And I have now perfected my new favorite tomato soup recipe.  It is SO easy and so yummy!  Enjoy!

Roasted Tomato Bisque

Recipe by: Krista Faulkner

2 1/2 lbs tomatoes halved (any will do, but I use a mix of roma and compari tomatoes)

1 yellow or white onion quartered

2-3 cloves of garlic smashed once and peeled

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt & pepper

1 cup shredded carrots

1 pat butter (or you can just use a little more olive oil)

1 can condensed tomato soup

1 can (soup can...) milk or cream

Spread the halved tomatoes, quartered onion and smashed garlic on a sheet pan.  Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Roast in a 450 degree oven for about 20-30 min, just until the edges start to brown.  While those are roasting shred your carrots and place in a pan with the pat of butter and saute on medium heat just to soften them up.  Once the tomatoes, onions and garlic are done roasting place them in a blender or a food processor (or you could use an immersion blender too...) with the softened carrots.  Blend until smooth, or you could leave it a bit chunky if you like.  After blending pour into a sauce pot and add in the canned soup and the milk.  Heat through and serve.

This soup is great as is or you could serve it with croutons on top or with grilled cheese.  Any way is delicious!

Merry Christmas!

Colorado

I never thought that living in Colorado, again (you all know that's where I was born and raised...  19 awesome years!) would ever be an option for my family.  First of all, my husband hates the snow and cold weather and more so, keeping us from my home state, would be that he has chosen a career in NASCAR, which is deeply rooted and headquartered in the South (pretty darn far from CO).  With all that working against us, a NASCAR job in DENVER, CO has landed in our laps.  Crazy!  I know!  We were in negotiations for quite a while and my stress levels of a possible move and major life change were sky high (fueling my lack of blog posts lately...sorry...).  Matt has now officially accepted this new position and given his current team his 2 weeks notice.  Matt will start his employment with Furniture Row Racing in January 2012.  He will be back and forth between CO and NC until we are all settled out there.  The plan is to pack and find a renter for our house in January and we are hoping to all be in Colorado in February.  We will be keeping our house here in NC, selling right now wouldn't be optimal and there is a chance that we could be back in North Carolina in the future sometime.

While I am sad to be leaving North Carolina (and Matt's parents, and lots of great friends... sad!), I am ecstatic to be moving "home".  None of my immediate family lives in CO anymore, but I have lots of extended family still there and many friends I will be excited to reconnect with.  We will be a 1 day car trip from my parents and my brothers and sisters (YAY!).  We will be back in Mountain Standard Timezone (yay for 10 pm news!) and close to great skiing.  We are all excited for this new adventure and looking forward to living in Denver.

p.s.  If any of you follow NASCAR you will now have to root for the #78 Furniture Row Racing car driven by Regan Smith.

Trick-or-Treat!

I took J & E to my friends house for some photos in their Halloween costumes.  They turned out GREAT!  These  guys are so funny.  Check them out...