Wedding Season?

2007 - the year we got married, was a year full of weddings! Some of my nearest and dearest friends got married that year - and through the month of June there was a wedding every other weekend! I LOVE going to weddings, but haven't been to one since last May...May 2008.

I'm excited because we're gearing up for 3 weddings in the next month! My oldest (as in the length of time I've known her) friend Jenny is getting married in one week! I get to share the matron of honor duties with my dear friend Emily. Then, the next week a friend from high school is getting married and 2 weeks later one of Brian's friend's from college is getting married.

Weddings are awesome. I'd love to do my wedding day again. It is still my favorite day of my life. I loved having my mom pick me up in the morning for my hair appointment, seeing my handsome groom for the first time, hugging my dad as he choked back tears before we walked down the aisle together, promising before God and all our friends and family that we were committed to one another for a lifetime, hearing people clap when we kissed after being pronounced husband and wife, celebrating with all of our wonderful family and friends, sharing the day with my parents 34th wedding anniversary and going to my new home with my new husband. It was the best day ever. I hope all my friends have a day as great as ours!

6 days

This has been an interesting week. Last Friday night I had "the tickle". That awful throat tickle that told me that I was more than likely going to end up sick. By the next morning my fears were confirmed. Since then, today is Thursday, I have spent my life on the couch. After 6 days, and several hours for most of those nights, I'm guessing my couch would like me to remove my sick self from it's cushions. My sick self is ready to be up and off this couch. I'm really ready to go back to school. I'm bored out of my mind. Here are some random things about my week on the couch.
* I've learned 3 friends of mine are pregnant.
* 2 different friends that are pregnant found out that they're having girls.
*I've seen 2 doctors and am currently on my second kind of antibiotics.
* Even though I know I'm sick and don't look great, it's not cool when your sub for the day tells you that you don't look good.
* I learned that snot can come out of your eyeballs.
* I love the TV show 'Friends'
* I have the greatest friends - some of them took over some of my responsibilities so I could be home coughing up a lung.
* I have the greatest mom. She took off work to take me to the doctor, brought food and has called every day (sometimes several times) to check on me.
* I miss sleeping in the same bed as my husband. He's been nice enough to sleep in the guest room so I can have the bed to myself. I miss him.
* I think not having a sense of taste is the key to losing weight. I'm hungry, but since I can't taste anything I have no idea what I should eat.
*I have spent way too much time on facebook this week.

Mini Me

Shockingly, ISN'T my child. But one day, when I have kids, I REALLY want a little girl with red curly hair.

I had the awesome honor of teaching Sunday school to the kindergartners at my church this summer. This little sweetie was one of the kiddos in my class. I rarely wear my glasses, but since I've been back at school and working more on the computer, I've been wearing them more. I happened to have them with me at church and couldn't pass up an opportunity to take a picture with my mini me. Interestingly enough, her parents don't have red hair - and neither do mine.

Weekends Past, Part 1

The weekend right before school really started up again Brian's parents stopped in for a quick visit on their way home from a really long trip through the US and Canada. On Saturday I had the brilliant idea to have them, Brian's brother and my parents over for dinner. Well, that really was a brilliant idea, but I chose to make pizza on the grill which although very tasty, isn't a good thing to make for a crowd - unless you have a professional chef to make it for you. And I don't. The pizzas turned out great - and it was a hit, but it was really stressful because we could only grill 3 mini pizzas at a time (and I had 8 to do and 12 bread sticks). I couldn't have pulled the meal off without the help of my hubby and my moms. Most people were done eating before Brian and I were done grilling.

Here is my mom helping me roll out the bread sticks.

The prep tray - you have to have all toppings ready to go and out with you by the grill. This pizza...if I haven't mentioned makes more dishes to wash than anything I've ever made. Ever. Thankfully, my mother-in-law washed all of them. I love her. But not just because she washed my dishes. :)

The action - getting the toppings on the pizzas. This is a two person job, for sure!

The last two pizzas, some of the bread sticks and a small picture of some of the mess.

This is what the men were doing while we were cooking.

My parents
Brian's parents
Siblings - we missed the other 3 who couldn't make it. Yeah, I actually have 4 siblings now. I realized that at school this week when I was introducing myself to my students and realized that I could say that I had 4 brothers and sisters instead of just one (three are in laws, but still). Yes, I've been married for over two years, but for some reason, that just hit me.

We also got to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday the night before they left! It was her birthday and she still did all the dishes from the dinner I had made that night. And she pulled weeds in our landscaping two afternoons. That's the best house guest ever. I wish my kitchen were that clean right now. Perhaps I should quit blogging and go clean. Sigh.

We had a great visit and we can't wait to see them again! It had been 8 months and they finally got to see our new house!

3 amigos

I have AMAZING friends. I can't imagine what life would be like with out these two ladies. I have been friends with Emily (on the left) since I was 14. We met in Mrs. Wheeler's 9th grade English class. Since then, we pretty much have done most things together. We were driving partners in drivers ed (and passed, amazingly enough), we were roommates at KState, we had the same major, graduated at the same time, moved back in with our parents to student teach in the same school district, became roommates again, both taught Spanish, started dating our husbands within 12 days of each other, got married within three months of each other, were each other's maid/matrons of honor and we currently live about 5 minutes apart. I love her to pieces. She knows me so well. Some of my biggest laughs have been with her. I've learned so much from her and it is always encouraging to be around her. Jenny (on the right) and I have been friends since we were 7. Yeah, 7. We've been friends for about 20 years. I think that is amazing. Jenny and I met in Mrs. Pippin's second grade class. She was one of my best friends that year. I thought she was the coolest because she always wore a fun colored barrette in her hair. 2nd graders really know what counts. I spent MANY nights sleeping at her house and she at mine. We share a deep love of Oreos and nacho cheese Doritos. We have been known to consume mass quantities of those foods in a single sitting. So many of my childhood memories involve Jenny. In when we were in high school Jenny faithfully picked me up for church every week. She was very diligent in inviting me to church activities and I often wonder if I would have made a decision to follow Jesus if she hadn't been a part of my life. I was even baptized in the swimming pool at her house! Emily and Jenny have been friends since Jr. High and the three of us always have lots of fun together! Jenny lives in Branson and is getting married 2 months from today. This last weekend Emily and I made a trip to visit her, as any good co-matrons of honor would do!

Only with these girls could I actually justify eating this for dinner...

Yep, people. We seriously ate that for dinner. You can see the doritos and oreos as Jenny and I require them at any gathering where junk food is consumed. There are chips and queso dip and salsa. There are milk duds, chocolate covered pistachios, pineapple, coffee drink mix, and apples with taffy apple dip. At least we got SOME fruit in there. We spent the whole weekend just chatting and getting caught up on life, going to visit Jenny's church and watching Bride Wars - in honor of the fact that she'll be a bride soon! It was great fun. I came back feeling refreshed - I was in need of some girl time! I miss having girls for roommates.

This is us after church on Sunday.

I really dislike car trips, but this was so worth it to get to have such a fun weekend, and I really enjoyed the actual time in the car, too. I had literally over 7 hours of Emily all to myself. That is quite a treat! We haven't spent much time just the two of us since her adorable little boy was born last year. It really was a fantastic weekend! Thanks girls! I love you.

Ah...Saturday!

I am very excited to be typing this blog post from my brand new to me computer! My computer that I purchased after college has been having some issues...some power issues...and it won, well, actually it died. The battery was completely dead and couldn't be charged at all. Also, the power cord didn't have a very good connection - so if I sneezed, it died. If I got up to go to the bathroom it shut off. If I typed a password, it turned off. VERY FRUSTRATING. I spent 30 minutes one night trying to print a recipe to make dinner because the dang thing kept shutting off. I use a computer at home for Internet purposes - stalking people on facebook and blogs and for looking for recipes. So, even though it was my computer that died, I let my husband have the new one (since he uses his for work) and he handed his down to me - and it's a HUGE step up from what I had been using. I have 2.5 hours left of battery...and I've been sitting here for awhile. I've gotten up and haven't had to restart. Glorious. But not as glorious as the dinner I had tonight.

My friend Emily introduced me to the blog Our Best Bites and it has quickly become one of my favorite places to find recipes. Everything I've made from there has been delicious. This my friends...is pizza on the grill. This was my pizza. I used tomatoes from Emily's garden. Thanks - they're so delicious.

This was Brian's pizza - it's got to have meat. See the pretty grill marks on the crust? Grilling pizza makes the outside crunchy but the middle nice and soft. It's perfect.

I divided the dough recipe in two and made bread sticks with the other half. I grilled them, too. Brian melted butter and garlic salt and made a yummy dipping sauce. It's butter, how can it not be yummy? It was very yummy.

Try it. But do it with someone else. Two sets of hands are very helpful, and it was much easier the second time around. While we ate our pizza we watched Lost. We finished. We started with season 1 about 3-4 weeks ago and we're done with all five seasons. We're not very excited about having to wait until January to find out what happened, but we are excited to have our lives back again. We think we might even be able to find the time to go out on a date now.

A total disaster/makeagainer

"Is it a makeagainer?"

This is a question I often ask my husband after he has just tasted something I have made for dinner for the first time. Tonight for dinner I wanted to make this. My good friend Emily made it for us the weekend we moved into our house. Brian told me that it was a 'makeagainer' so I set out to make it for dinner tonight. As I was pulling the needed ingredients from the cabinets I realized that I didn't have a can of tomato soup. Then I got mad. I didn't know what to make for dinner...I figured that was a pretty important ingredient and I didn't really want to go to the store for just that. After a few minutes of being frustrated I decided to make tacos. I had all the things I needed to make tacos. I browned the beef, put in the taco seasoning and then added the water. BUT I added 1 cup too much. So instead of having regular taco meat, I was going to have watery ground beef soup flavored with taco seasoning. Now I was really mad - especially since I did this the last time I made tacos. I drained off a bunch of the water and added a little more seasoning, but quickly realized that I was still going to have soup. Not knowing what to do I just started adding stuff - some sour cream, some cheese and the tortillas - that idea came from the recipe I was going to make. I poured it in a baking dish and stuck it in the oven. I told Brian, "Well, if it tastes disgusting, we don't have to eat it." 20 minutes later I pulled it out and sprinkled it with a little more cheese and dished it up. This is what it looked like.

And it was pretty good and I'm guessing that was because it was so unhealthy. We'd even go so far as to say it was a "makeagainer". But...I don't know exactly what I did to it to make it again. Oh well. At least it wasn't a total disaster.