Mr. 3000

This past weekend, the baseball team Greg coaches managed to accomplish a seemingly impossible feat: they won the Grand Blanc Tournament!

It was so exciting to see his kids meet this goal and exceed even their own expectations. Personally, I enjoyed going to watch the games and see it for myself. Most of the time, I get caught up in how often he isn't home and how frustrating it gets when he's wiped out from a long week of practice. Watching his games are always a nice reminder of what it's really about and seeing how much it means to him to be there.

I managed to get my hands on a couple photos from the day, the trophy presentation and the coach in his uniform.

The boys of summer and their coaches (Greg to the far left, his counterpart, Bob to the far right)

Greg accepting the trophy for the team from the Grand Blanc coach and former roommate, JD.


Coach and the trophy from the tournament. As you may notice, this photo was taken in our backyard...what you may not know is that he took that thing with him from room to room for the rest of the weekend. Proud but goofy.




I'm so proud of him and glad that I could be there to see it all happen.

More to come,
Nicole

A Little Help From My Friends

It's funny how family morph into our friends and our friends can morph into family. It's also pretty amazing when people come into your life and have had nothing but obsticles and offer nothing but a smile and perspective. Brandon is one such person.

Brandon came into the Yelland's life several years ago when he was a student in the elementary school special needs classroom that Greg's mom works at. Now 18 years old, Brandon has grown into a kind, smart and truely inspriation young man.

I met him only recently after Greg's family had experienced a time period without him around. I won't get into details, but the circumstances surrounding his absence give this kid every right to be the complete opposite of who he is today. Now that Brandon's back he's become a younger brother the Greg and his sister, son to his parents. Aside from becoming family to me, he's become a constant source of laughter and reminder to take one day at a time.

During one of his visits to our house, Greg and I learned that Brandon was taking a trip to see his most favorite thing ever: wrestling. Wanting him to be as prepared as possible, Greg and I got him outfitted in a bandana and practiced flexing before he went. The below photos are my favorites:

Brandon laughing his cheeks off:

Greg and Brandon displaying their best flex among giggles:

Brandon's story is certainly one worth mentioning as it's one that has become an important to both Greg and I this past year and it will last a lifetime.

More to come,

Nicole

Ticket to Ride

Spring is in the air...the snow is melted (for the time being)...and baseball has begun. How did I celebrate all of these things? I went to not one but TWO Detroit Tigers games opening week!

First, I took the day off with my old roommate, Amanda on Friday to go see the game thanks to her sister's, friend's dad's (with me, here?) season tickets he couldn't use. While the weather was a bit cooler than we would have liked and our team didn't win, we still managed to have some fun and were excited to be back in the stadium already this season! I must admit, there's something quite liberating about drinking a hurricane at 1 p.m.on a Friday afternoon.

Amanda and I in our fabulous (free!) seats on Friday enjoying a Tiger Stadium Hurricane

My ticket to the game

Next comes Saturday's game. My coworker, Nate had a friend doing a fundraiser for Relay for Life and selling tickets to the game. Naturally, I bought two tickets to the game (one for Greg and one for me!). We all met up at Greektown for lunch to take advantage of the free parking and delicious food before heading over to the Old Shillelagh for a beverage or two, then taking the short, green bus over to Tigers stadium...seriously, here it is:

and here's Lauren and I on the ridiculous bus:

All in all, it was a lot of fun (even though the Tigers didn't win at either game) and a great excuse to be outside watching baseball.

More to come,

Nicole

The Kitchen Challenge

It's no secret Greg and I like to cook. It's also no secret we love a challenge.

Last weekend, we decided to combine the two and challenge ourselves to cook things we normally only ever would know to order at a restaurant or in a can. On the agenda: black beans, tortilla chips, creme brule and French fries. These were fun projects and the results were pleasantly surprising. The photos below are the finished products of our challenges and the delicious meal that ensued.

First up was Greg's project, tortilla chips. The guy simply loves chips and since the doctor recommended he lower his sodium intake, he's been schemeing a way to find chips he can eat. The answer? Make them! We used corn tortillas, cut them in to wedges and covered them with various (salt-free) spices and olive oil before throwing them in the oven and finishing them in a pan. Here's how they ended up:

Next up were the black beans, we bought the beans in a bag and never knew how long it took to make them. It wasn't super hard, but it did take 2 hours before we could eat them. Once they were ready, we paired them with rice and super spicy salsa below, I think next time, I'd just make the beans super spicy and eat them with Greg's chips.

Onto the next snacky food...French fries! These weren't hard, but it did feel good to make an "unhealthy food" healthier, we even found out the Heinz makes a salt-free ketchup and it tastes exactly the same! What a relief!

The end product turned out like the "house fries" we get at Mr. B's...big thanks to Jennifer for the awesome glass dish she got me last year for Christmas from IKEA!

This is all that was left!

Last, but certainly not least desert! Creme brule, it was a lot of little processes but I found a great recipe in the cookbook Matthew gave Greg and I that turned out really wonderful. To compliment it, we found a blueberry wine made right here in Michigan at the little grocery store I've become so fond of in Clarkston, Rudy's!

While I didn't have the correct dishes to bake them in, I remembered that the tea cups I have are actually stoneware and worked just as nicely. Here's the end product:

Overall, I have to say this was a successful and salt-free kitchen venture. I'll likely post these recipes to the blog Margaret started for our group of friends to share recipies on later.

More to come,

Nicole