Mexican Chicken Stuffed Shells Recipe

Due to popular demand, I am posting the recipe for Mexican Chicken Stuffed Shells mentioned in my last blog post.  Well Ladies, here it is. Enjoy!

If the writing on the recipe is too small for you to read, let me know and I can e-mail it to you (if I have your e-mail address)

New Recipe

Cheryl and I both saw a recipe called "Mexican Stuffed Shells"  posted on Facebook that caught our interest. Therefore, we decided to make them about a week ago.   We found out that they are delicious. Here are some pics of us making them:

Mixing the ingredients

Finished stuffing the shells

 Top with cheese (and we added sliced olives which were not included in the recipe)

 After they had baked

Close-up of finished product

This recipe makes quite a few stuffed shells - more than Cheryl, Alan, and I could eat in one meal, so we froze the rest and reheated them when we had the missionaries over for dinner last Friday. They were a big hit.  One Elder went back for thirds.  They were even asking what was in them that made them so good.  We still had a few shells left over, so Cheryl served some to her friend Josh who came here for a visit this last weekend.  According to Cheryl, he loved them too.  I am definitely going to put this recipe on my list of favorites.

Turning The Big Six Zero! :-(

I never wanted it to happen, but I found it hard to hold back the hands of time.  I turned sixty last week. Boooo!  However, on the bright side, Alan and Cheryl made it a very special day for me.  I have decided that having a birthday on a Saturday ROCKS!

First of all, I got to open my gifts from Alan and Cheryl. This is what I got:

A new Sony Bravia television for our master bedroom.  Our old dinosaur of a television was not hard to part with.  This new one is so nice!  Thanks, Alan.  Cheryl gave me "The Life of Pi" movie, a curling iron, and a supply of my favorite gum- Orbit Bubblemint.  Yum!

Next, Cheryl and I went for a bike ride around the neighborhood (nothing too strenuous for this 60 year old).  

We then got to go to a matinee movie. We decided to see "The Croods", which was a very cute movie.  I was pleasantly surprised. The characters were very funny and the dialogue was well written.

The day was made even more special by the numerous telephone calls I received from family members. I have the best family in the world. I am grateful for each one of them and truly enjoyed speaking with each of them. Kyle & Emily surprised me with a video they had made. Kyle found out that my new favorite pop song is "Home" by Phillip Phillips so he learned how to play it on the guitar and he and Emily sang it for me. It was beautiful, and very much appreciated.

To finish the day, Alan and I went out to dinner and then attended the Saturday night adult session of our Stake Conference.  We had two visiting authorities - Elder Whiting of the Seventy, and Elder Sabin, a brand new area authority from San Diego who was just sustained the previous week at General Conference.  Both sessions of Conference were excellent.  In fact, a big announcement was made by our Stake President on Sunday morning regarding the creation of a Spanish Branch in our Stake. The Branch members will be meeting in our building and will be somewhat integrated into our Ward.  Our meeting time will change as well, beginning May 5th (coincidentally Cinco de Mayo).  Instead of starting Church at 1:00, we will start at 12:20 with Sacrament Meeting being last.  This is a huge change and will take some getting used to.

All in all, even though I couldn't prevent turning 60, it really was a special birthday!

Sand Storm

We are used to wind around here.  However, almost two weeks ago we had probably the worst sand storm I can remember since moving here almost 32 years ago.  I saw it approaching our area from the North when I ventured out to do some grocery shopping, but didn't know if/when it would reach us. About an hour later the rooms in the house became decidedly darker so I looked outside into our back yard and this is what I saw:

There was so much desert sand blowing around that it almost looked like fog because the visibility was so poor.  The next day was Cheryl's birthday and she wanted to invite some friends over for a BBQ. In order to prepare for that, I needed to sweep the back porch from all the debris that had blown in.  Here is just one pile I accumulated as I was sweeping.

The patio floor was not the only victim of this sand storm. The patio table and chairs were covered with sand.  I didn't get pictures of them, but trust me, they were covered. I am amazed at how much sand accumulated on our patio floor because we have a covered patio.

This is a photo of Cheryl and some of her friends from High School who attended her birthday BBQ. One friend, Jessica, brought a couple of her daughters with her. (front row: Cheryl, Kaylee, Brinn, Becka, & Michelle. Back row: Leeanna & Jessica)