Sunday, February 28, 2010

Nicole

I thought I'd share this picture of Nicole from our trip to New York last year. I miss the city : (
FYI Frank, Mikey and myself went and saw When in Rome tonight. FUNNY! I guess I was getting a few stares because I was laughing so hard. It actually made my cry a few times I was laughing so hard. I highly recommend it. 

{I would like to thank Picnik for the creation ;)hehe}

Saturday, February 27, 2010

It's a bird... It's a plane... It's Frank!

Yesterday before work Frank got a pretty good treat. His Division Officer was leaving so a handful of people got to fly {co-pilot} a SH-60 Helo! Lucky Frank this was actually his second time flying a helicopter. Each person that was there got to take the helo up for about 5 minutes or so. I wasn't there to take pictures, so Frank took the camera with him and had someone takes some pictures of him as he was flying. The pictures are from the ground so they're not that great. But it's still exciting!

{Don't mind the black marks on the pictures, our camera lens is dirty but I have no idea how to clean it since it's dirty on the inside.}


Frank said he really liked this picture cause of the 3 helo's in different heights.. and the random fourth in the back round on the right.


Getting ready to go out...


And there goes Frank!


I think he had a good day :)

Friday, February 26, 2010

Beans, Beans the magical fruit!?

The only beans I've ever made are from the can. Hard to make? I think not. But for some reason I've never ventured out and explored the world of beans the magical fruit. You know you all sang that song as a kid. Last night for dinner I made beans and cornbread from The Pioneer Women, and can I just say.. YUM! So simple, so easy. Why haven't I made these before?

{I was too lazy to take a picture of mine so I'm using Ree's}

The only thing I didn't really care for was the cornbread. This was the third cornbread I've made from scratch, and so for I haven't found one I like. I did love that hers was the easiest to make! Seriously any beginner could make both of these. I would have never thought to put the sour cream on the beans, but it added a nice flavor. I did add bacon in for Frank so they weren't completely healthy... but close enough.

For dessert Mikey came over with apple dumplings :) She had borrowed my Costco cookbooks a while ago to steal some recipes. The apple dumplings were from them and how I've never made them is beyond me, they are amazing. She said they were extremely easy to make, which means they are on my list of foods to make. She also made a fabulous strawberry bread awhile ago that everyone should try. You can go here to check them both out, she'd love the visitors.

A little change of topic, I love reading what everyone Believes in. Thank you Kim for starting that  (if you did?) I'm loving it.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Family

I believe in...
My family

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

I Believe In

I got this idea from Kim at NewlyWoodward so I thought I'd make a list of my own...

I Believe In....
  • The calmness of a secluded beach
  • A clean house
  • Money in the bank!
  • A home cooked meal every night
  • Spell check
  • The lasting image from a photograph
  • VACATIONS
  • Candles
  • Animal rights
  • MYSELF.. sometimes
  • Love
  • Forever friendships
  • Friends entire season on DVD
  • Lazy Sunday's
  • My family :]
{{I had a picture to insert right here of Frank, me and the dogs but for some reason it's not working. Boo. I'll try to upload the photo tomorrow.}}

What do you believe in?

Monday, February 22, 2010

Sweet Potato Dog Treats

Is it weird that I have now made three homemade dog treats? I've had the sweet potato treats on my list of things to try for a few weeks now, tonight I finally got around to it. They were super easy to make which is nice considering the other two dog treats I've tried making were nothing close to being easy.


I haven't tried them yet, I'm not sure if I will at all.. they tend to be too bland for me. Molly and Ellie let me know they were perfectly fine. Go HERE if you'd like to check out the recipe or the many others on the site.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Decision Time

Well folks we've decided what we're going to do about Hawaii in September. I was the one holding out hope that we'd be able to go, it was going to be the honeymoon we never had. And the timing worked out since my cousin was getting married on the big island at the same time. We decided to go with the smart route and not go.

We've been doing so good with paying off our debt and working towards getting an SUV, so booking a trip that cost that much wasn't the best of idea's. I'm sad, but we still have summer 2011. Not sure what island we're going to since Frank's parent's are booking the trip, we're just tagging along.

In other decision making times I think I'm ready to start looking for a job! The cymbalta seems to be helping with the pain, as in I haven't had any since starting it. This weekend Frank and I are going to go to the gym, so I'm hoping it goes good. I guess if it doesn't then finding a job will have to wait a little longer. Think pain-free thoughts :)!

So at night before we go to bed we let the dogs lay on top of the covers since it's there favorite thing. I also like that they warm up my spot! Anyways, last night I went into the bedroom to grab something and see a normal sight around here...


They LOVE to cuddle together. They have the whole bed to lay on, but they snuggle up as close as possible. How can you not love this?!

Friday, February 19, 2010

Food catch up

I realize I haven't done a food post in a little while, but don't worry I've been a cookin' still. I have been bad at taking pictures of everything. We've been having big lunches before Frank goes to work then I just have leftovers for dinner or whatever I can find. Because of the change up of cooking I've been slacking on the pictures.  Anyways here are some things that have come out of the kitchen...

Marinated Flank Steak from The Pioneer Women. This was a two part post for some reason so you can go here and here to check it out. I marinated it overnight since there was no way I was getting up before the sun just to marinate meat that I wasn't even eating. Frank said it was really good and would definitely have it again, I just loved the smell of the soy sauce and ginger :)

I tried making the Macaroni and Cheese from The Pioneer Women as well, it didn't turn out that well but I think I know where it went wrong. I put in too much dry mustard, used egg white beaters since I was trying to use them up, and instead of the 2% she suggested I used low fat. Next time I think I'll get a little carton of whole milk to use and I'll make sure to use an egg. Whitney over at The glamorous life of a housewife tried this one as well with her P.W cooking challenge. Hers didn't turn out well either. What what Ree does to make hers turn out so amazing?

Since getting the second Costco cookbook from my cousin Danielle for Christmas I've only gotten around to making a handful of things out of it. Not having the computer to use for recipes for awhile gave me a reason to find all my meals out of it. The other night I made the asparagus barley risotto {here}, it was super easy to make if you don't burn the onions. It ended up making the whole thing taste off, and once it cooled off it hardened up.

Another one from the second Costco cookbook was Beer-lime grilled streak. You add whatever beer you want to the marinade, Frank liked it.. if I ate meat I'm sure I would have as well. I don't like beer but I love eating stuff that was cooked or marinated in it. Not sure why.

I can't remember if I posted about the lemon bread? If I did just skip over this one..
This would have been much better if I didn't put on the glaze, it was just too much! The rest of the bread was pretty tasty though. You can check out the recipe here.

I saved my favorite recipe from the Costco books till last, again I can't remember if I've posted about this already or not. I've been fighting a headache all day so forgive me if I've been repeating things...
Cold vegetarian sandwich! Mmm mmm good. I'm craving one now :)

I made the dogs another dressing from the cookbook my mom got me for Christmas {it's food both you and your pets can eat! All healthy of course.} This time I borrowed Mikey's food processor and made the Spinach-Avocado Dip. Now I'm sure some of you are thinking you can't give a dog avocado. I've heard that a few times before, but Molly and Ellie love them. The love this new dressing {I add it to there morning feeding} but I think it's stinking up my fridge :(

Now to change the subject... our neighbor got himself a motorcycle today, he's been talking to Frank a little about his since he's been looking. Anyways he just got it tonight. I put the cover on Frank's bike so he could park his next to the jeep. After he came back from taking his bike out with another friend Molly and Ellie got all excited... but wait why isn't daddy coming inside? They went running to the front door waited there, ran back to the backdoor standing there confused as to why daddy came home but didn't come instead. I got a good laugh out of it ha. Guess they have to get used to another motorcycle since they know the sound of Frank's.

Here's a picture I played around with last night on Picnik. My new obsession.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Picnik :)

I have been introduced to a new friend and his name is PICNIK! Kate over at Centsational Girl is doing a giveaway for 6 months free for the premium version. I thought I'd check it out since it looked like fun. I'm in love! This site is so much better than Photscape or Picasa. I might just be spending my whole day playing around with pictures.. I'll hold back though.

I thought I'd do a little before and after for you...
                                                      Before.. my plain ordinary picture.

After.. rounded edges with a 1960's feel.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Fiesta Island

As promised here are a few pictures from the beach yesterday. The water was warm so both dogs went swimming, although they were being lazy about swimming out to fetch a stick. They just waited for it to come to shore for the most part. They make us laugh :)


They've met Great Danes before but I've never been lucky enough to get a picture of it.. they never know what to do with it.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

What a wonderful day..

Don't you just love those days that are... GREAT {I was totally thinking Tony the tiger while writing that :)}. Last week the guys in Frank's command requested more cookies for the next day. I told him they'd have to wait till Tuesday since I didn't have enough ingredients and I was dieing to get a cookie scooper. I've been wanting one of those darn things for ages now but never seem to find one when I need it. I'd heard of this place called DISCOUNT COOKING, it's a cooking school/store. I've been oohing over there website for a few months now and since I'd had no luck at any other store trying to find a cookie scooper I knew it was time to try Discount Cooking.

This place was AMAZING! The staff was the nicest I'd ever met and so attentive and helpful, that alone made me want to go back. It was kinda  small store so it was a little packed but I didn't mind too much since it was packed with everything you could think of. I was a happy lady when I was able to pick out what size scooper I wanted, I'd been waiting for this day for quite some time. Yes I'm just that weird.
I don't know why but cookies are my favorite thing to make so trying to pack about 100 cookies using a spoon and shaking is no fun! I couldn't believe how fast I got done tonight while using the scooper. I've been deprived all these months.

While we were at the store I picked up one of those tea bag squeezer things. Not sure what they are called but they helped get the water and tea flavor from the bag.. I've just wanted one and I knew they'd have it.

To make my day even better I had my 6 month check up at the dentist. If I could afford it, I'd be there every month for a cleaning. No joke. Great looking teeth like always, the way I like it : )

To end the day we headed out to Fiesta Island in Mission Beach for a little play time. We haven't been to the beach in months since December and January weren't good months pain wise for me, along with the storms we had in January. Most the time when we did get out we just headed over to Mission Trails since it was closer. The craziest part was when we were pulling in to park I see a red 4runner and sure enough it's Ashley and Tony! They we leaving but pulled up and talked to us for awhile. We haven't seen them in months so it was nice to catch up. Molly and Ellie were going crazy wanting to get to the sandy beach. Moose and Charlie weren't sure they were coming or going. I was a little worried that both Molly and Ellie would try to start fights with other dogs since they've been going through this mean stage, but too my surprise they were pretty decent. They had a few moments of nastiness but all was good, they were just happy to be running around and swimming. I'll post those pictures tomorrow since it's already after midnight.

Monday, February 15, 2010

New name?

I've been thinking about changing the name of the blog, I just can't think of anything fun. As to why it's been our last name so far. My creativity is less than stellar so I'm calling out to anyone with some good ideas.
Please help me! :)

Hope everyone is having a good Valentines Day. I'm not a fan of the holiday {it really shouldn't be considered one}, you should give love all year round not just on one day. For those of you who are celebrating the day what will you be doing with your significant other!? Last year Frank and I went to the Melting Pot and man oh man was it amazing! I plan to go there at least once a year. My wallet can't afford more than that.

I was hoping to spend the day out at the beach with the dogs but Frank is going out on the bike for the day and I don't want to take the dogs myself.. I don't have the strength in my back yet to pull the dogs out of the many fights they would most likely start. Oh well I guess I'll spend my day cleaning, the apartment could really use it.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Drum roll please...

We've finally decided when we'll be making our yearly trip home. Instead of coming home this summer like we normally do, you all will be graced with our presence at Thanksgiving! I have a "no going home for Christmas" rule but I have no problem with Thanksgiving. We love having a low key quiet Christmas, I don't want to have to rush around being busy and not fully enjoying the day. That's why we don't spend the holiday's at home. So make sure you all leave room for us :)

The other reason we are coming home then is because we are going up to Whistler for a few nights. Neither of us have ever been there and would love to go, the closest we've gotten is Vancouver. But who in Washington hasn't been there!? We're making it an open invitation for whom ever wants to join us up there. I'm not sure when we'll be booking anything.. either during or after summer. When we do start planning we'll see who wants to go and we'll try to get a house to rent and everyone can just chip in. It will be fun!

Now that we have our trip home decided on, we can start looking into Hawaii for September. We're {I'm} really hoping it still plays out, we should know in about a month or so thankfully.

In other news I started taking Cymbalta today. No I'm not severely depressed, I'm mostly taking it for my nerve pain. Yoga isn't helping anymore so I know I need more help than what I'm doing now. My doctor is sending me a referral to this spinal physical therapist at a hospital here. I haven't heard anything from him about it yet so I might need to get a hold of him soon. He {my doctor} asked if I would want to try taking something to help with the pain for a short time so I can have somewhat of a life back. He knows pills are a last resort thing for me.. but that's kinda where I'm at for the time being. So he sent me home with a list of 4 different medications that help with pain/depression {if you've had a injury that has lasted for a year a more.. you're going to be a little depressed. I swear they just go hand in hand!} to look up and see how they work and there side effects, and I decided on the cymbalta. I wont notice a difference for another few weeks... however I'm crossing my fingers hard I'll start to feel better until I can see a physical therapist.

Any one ever take Cymbalta before have any good/bad things to say about it? Hearing what others think about it would be awesome!

Friday, February 12, 2010

Happiness

Writing a document or printing something might sound like a normal day to most people. To Frank and I.. nada. The guy who fixed our laptop reinstalled Microsoft office for us which had me jumping for joy. Somehow it had been deleted off my computer about a year ago and I didn't have the soft wear to reinstall it and I didn't want to buy it.. I'm cheap like that. For Christmas my mom gave us a printer (ours broke about a year in a half ago) she got with her new computer, so we had a printer but nothing to print. Today I spent my day printing off recipes so I can start my own cookbook!! yay. I know you probably are thinking "she's crazy it's just a printer and Microsoft office!" but to me... it's a whole new world :)


I also thought I'd finally share a few more pictures from our Vegas trip. None of them turned out that great since our camera sucks and it was raining the whole time. Hopefully I'll get better ones when we go back in a few months.
I think he could be a sexy cowboy!?
Poor guy was tired of getting his picture taken.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

I'm Back!!

I'm so very happy to say that I now have Internet again! Our laptop is now clean of all nasty virus's and moves faster, which I'm really liking. I'd stay up all night catching up on everything... but that might be weird!?

For more good news I booked my birthday trip to Vegas today :) We're going to be there May 2- May 4. We said the next time we go we're going to plan a trip around a show since there was one we wanted to see really bad. So on my birthday (didn't plan it that way just worked out) May 2 we're going to see the 10 PM show of O Cirque Du Soleil. YAY. We also dropped a little extra to get good seats.. we're living large people.

Since I am finally able to share pictures I guess I can share one picture of us from our Vegas trip last month.. I'M BACK :) he he


Doesn't he make such a cute bride!?

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Dear John

On Saturday Frank and I went to see Dear John, I thought it was pretty good and Frank didn't mind it either. I did hear that after reading the book the movie isn't that good.. so I'm glad I saw the movie first!

Last week we got our tax return and paid off our personal loan. WOOHOO! So now we only have my credit card to pay off. We of course still have the car and motorcycles payments, but we're hoping to refinance the car and get the payments down soon. I'm not even going to mention how much we pay on the car a month... it's sad.

Still no computer, we're hoping a friend of Frank's is able to fix it today. Keep your fingers crossed.

Sorry this is short and sporadic but I can't seem to remember what we've done. Hope y'all have a good week.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Quick Update

Still no computer. I've been using Mikey's laptop every few days to check up on stuff so I haven't forgotten about any of you :) I guess i'll just catch you all up to date...

Vegas was okay. I can't wait to go back though. It rained on us the whole trip so that was no fun! We saw lots and ate yummy food. Although our stomaches weren't used to all the eating out. The trip ended on a sour note though. As we were packing the car up to leave we realized it had been broken into. boo. They smashed out the passanger side window... all for an old crappy GPS. Can' complain though it was our faults that we forgot to take it down.

We FINALLY got our money from the military for moving. It was a few grand less than I thought it would be, but we were still happy to get it. We paid our Navy Federal credit card off! yay. And then put the rest on our personal loan. Now we're just waiting for our tax return to be deposited into our account. Once that happens we'll pay off the personal loan and then put the rest (which will only be about $100 most likely) onto my credit card. We didn't get much with our tax return this year.. quite a bit less than last year. boo. BUTTT we are happy to get any money.

Molly and Ellie had there yearly appointment last week. We were most curious to see how much they weighed. Molly was 23 pounds! and Ellie was... 27 FREAKIN POUNDS! No idea how that happened since we moniter her food intake so carefully. We cut them both down to 1 cup a day in hopes of lowering Ellie's weight down to 24-25 and Molly down to 22.

My back and leg have been hurting alot the last few weeks which has been a huge bummer for me. I have a doctor appointment today so i'm going to see if I can get a refferal to a chiropractor. Frank asked a lady from Tricare if I was able to do that and she said yes.. in the book it says active duty only. Not sure if it's changed but i'll take advantage of it.

I've been doing lots of cooking course, but haven't been taking pictures to share since I have no idea when i'll be able to share them.. anyways hope you all are doing well. I will try to keep up with everyone, just don't forget about me :)