Get states visited up to 40

I'm a little late on updating this one, but I completed this in early October when we visited the New England States. I was at 32 when the year started and added Mississippi earlier in the year getting up to 33.

In October, I added the following 7 states bringing me to 40. We're going to Louisiana over the holidays, so I'll actually hit 41 by the end of the year!

Maine

New Hampshire

Vermont

Connecticut

New Jersey

Rhode Island

Massachusetts

Sew something

No pictures here since it's a Christmas present. It's also pretty lame, but it's one of those things that you just can't see spending good money on, so I did it myself. Can't say more than that or I'll give it away:-)

Send Christmas cards

Okay, I didn't take any pictures here so you'll just have to trust me on this one. I sent them!!! I think it's been, oh, at least 7 years, maybe 10 or more, but hey, they got done this year and that's all that counts.

Make tamales

Yummo! Everyone said tamales are very time consuming. While they are time consuming, much of that time is just waiting, so they aren't as labor intensive as I had thought. Definitely need an entire day and I understand why many do tamale making parties. I can see how it would be fun to do with a group of friends.

I must also admit that these were the best tamales I've ever had. Thanks to http://www.makingtamales.com/ for the recipe and instructions. The only downside is I had twice as much meat as I needed. I just froze it for later use, but you can definitely cut the pork in half.

Install a closet organizer

This is one of those items that wasn't exactly fun, but the frustration of my unorganized closet was getting to me. I've never met anyone else who has 2 full size windows in their closet. While it may be aesthetically pleasing from the outside of the house, it doesn't exactly make a lot of sense. Although I guess my clothes get lots of fresh air.

Kind of hard to get a good photo inside the closet, but at least you can see that our shoes are no longer on the floor.

Eat roasted chestnuts

I had never eaten roasted chestnuts before, much less made them. Very easy to make, just clean and roast for about 20 minutes over an open fire. Everything I read said the skins would be difficult to peel, but they were actually pretty easy, you just had to wear gloves and do it while they were still hot. I wasn't a huge fan of them, but maybe they just needed a little salt?

Visit a new foreign country

Wow! We took an amazing missions trip to Guatemala. Way too much to write, so since a picture is worth a 1000 words, this video is a novel:-)

http://www.photoshow.com/watch/BK9JR6wc

Playing in the rain

This picture was in Guatemala. Everyone else was already in bed and Kathy had a great recommendation that we go outside and fill my bucket list of playing in the rain! This photo was before we got too wet, but before the night ended we were literally rolling down the street in the water. Thank you girls for playing with me in the rain and having a little "young" fun again!