Fallen Trees and Yummy Shrimp Dish

Happy Friday everyone!

The hubs has left on a jet plane to California today.  He's got quite the social calendar this weekend!  He's off to a wedding tonight followed by a jaunt through the mountains to meet his family for their annual camping trip, then he's going to a jazz festival with his best friend and playing golf Monday before returning on the red eye.  I'll pick him up Tuesday morning and bring him home so he can then get to work -- He's going to be awfully tired come Tuesday night.

Meanwhile --

This fell down in our complex last night

I took the picture this morning -- 

Excuse the blurriness... two dogs trying to get to the chainsaw man does not make for an easy picture.  Yes, that's a giant tree limb, the gutter is hanging down from the building, the shutters have fallen off... it's not pretty, but luckily, no one was hurt! (Don't worry, we live in a different building at the complex)

ZOINKS!

I'm off to Sara's tonight for a Friday night date night instead of our usual Mondays.  I'm very excited!  I'll be making my most delicious seafood risotto recipe adapted from Hungry Meets Healthy one day I'd love to meet that chick!  I love reading her blog!

SO to make the Risotto:

1/2 cup orzo

1/2 pound frozen shrimp

1/2 a bushel of Asparagus chopped

4 baby portebella mushrooms sliced

1/2 a Red onion chopped

4 Roma tomatoes chopped

1/4 cup white wine

1 ounce goat cheese

1 ounce pimento cheese (optional, if you don't add this do 2 ounces goat cheese)

1 tsp Red pepper flakes

2 tsp Oregano

2 cloves of garlic

1 tbsp grape seed oil

Preheat the oven to 375

I start by putting my onion and garlic into the pan with the oil and sauteing until they are in danger of burning.  Then I add the white wine and cook until the alcohol is gone.  While the wine is cooking I add the rest of the ingredients except the shrimp and cheese.

Once everything else seems to be cooked (about 4-6 minutes) I add in the shrimp until they are pink, then the cheese until it's melted and well mixed.  

After it is all mixed together I transfer it out of the sauce pan and into a baking dish.  Put it in the oven for 15 minutes and then bring out and serve in a bowl.

SOOOO Good!

Christina makes hers by stuffing a tomato with all the ingredients (well, I added a few) but I found I always had way more ingredients than could fit so I just put it all in a bowl and chop up the tomato and put it in to be cooked with everything else.  

LOVE this one!  Before Hubby got food poisoning on the honeymoon I would make it literally twice a week for myself!  Now I reserve it for those few nights I'm by myself... gives me something to look forward to while I miss the Hubs.

What's your favorite dish to make?  Do you have treats you save for when your significant other is traveling?  What are everyone's Memorial Day plans? 

Girl Time in Music City

Hey Everybody!

I hope you all had a really wonderful weekend!  Mine was filled with a whole lot of girl time and some bachelorette games to boot!
I was in Nashville this weekend for the very wonderful Sara's Bachelorette Bash!  We had such a great time exploring the city and finding fun things to do! 
Friday was spent with a morning work out followed by some lounging at the pool while enjoying my skinny margarita concoction.  It's very simple:

1 ounce clear tequila
ice
Sprite Zero until the glass is mainly full
a splash of lime juice
a splash of pomegranite juice

Make sure to put some peter ice in there if you can too!

This makes a very light and delicious drink that is great for sipping by the pool!  and Bonus, your calorie intake is limited to the tequila and a few calories from the splash of pom.  :-)  I like it.

THEN, we went to dinner at a restaurant that had food... It was somewhat neat inside, but not all that Yelp said it was.

The ladies at the restaurant suggested we go to Printer's Alley for some fun bars so we decided to walk the few blocks and check it out before returning to the condo to pick up the last two girls coming in from Atlanta.  Oh Printer's Alley.... it seemed a bit like a gauntlet of strangers offering candy to a baby.

This sign greeted us at the beginning of the alley

Then we kept getting asked by tattooed and pierced men to come inside... no?  Well come back later then!  I'm sure they were all very nice, but opening with nude Karaoke is really not the way to win this group of ladies over. 

SO when we picked up the girls we decided that some dancing and celebrating at The Stage was much more "our thing".

We had SOO much fun at The Stage!  When we first walked in all I could think about was that no one was smoking!  That was just amazing and wonderful!  I was sooooo happy about this! (can you tell?).  THEN I thought about how great the band was.  I think that might be what I liked best about Nashville, everywhere you went there was a live band!

Saturday was spent doing all sorts of fun things!  We watched some cable movies, talked, went to see Bridesmaids -- save your dollars and wait until it's on video -- and then came back for Sara's lingerie shower and some bachelorette games.

That night we went line dancing at the Wild Horse Salon as well.  This place was a lot of fun!  We had a lesson at 8:30 and at 10:30 where we learned two different dances.  We're thinking of remembering them for the wedding!

I must say though, I think the best part of my weekend was coming home to my hubby.  I loved my girl time, but I sure did miss the hubs.

A few more pics:

Yay! this is the first pic of the two of us in a while!

These are the bags I gave everyone -- Thermal lunch totes

The beautiful Bride :-)

.... Then my camera died :-( Sorry!

3 Months

Three months ago today, at this very time I was walking down the aisle.  Right about now (5:02) the girls were probably walking into the sanctuary.  Then sweet Neilster in true Neil fashion was completely undressed as his parents sped into the parking lot.  All of them running to the door while dressing our ring bearer and finally placing a pillow in his hands as he walked down the aisle ... perfect timing.

I couldn't stop laughing long enough to realize that everyone was staring at me -- which was probably a good thing.

Composing myself just as we got to the bottom of the steps the next 40 minutes of my life changed it forever.  As Matt's dad and Shannon spoke I couldn't stop thinking, "This is it!  He's not going anywhere, We're going home together!"  I don't know why, but that's all I could focus on that day, I had a partner, that no longer had to leave before bedtime.  :-)

It was an incredible day, I wouldn't do it again because it could never be as perfect as the first time.  Lucky for me, I get to be a part of making this happen for people every week!

I've woken up everyday since then so happy he's next to me!  I love being married!  I highly recommend it!

Love you Husband.

Love,

Wife

PS- I'll only do this 9 more times and then you'll get it once a year.... whatevs, I don't care if we're dorks, I like celebrating the little stuff :-)

A lot of random thoughts

I can't stop thinking about our wedding today... I loved that day (I also can't seem to get Britney Spears out of my head, but that's because I really need to find a new work out mix... I'm too lazy, someone do it for me... back to the wedding).  It was perfect, sometimes my eyes still well up when I think of how great of a day that was.

Do they get better? I suppose with children.... although that really just seems like a scary, painful day that ends with much joy.

Seems ever since we got married I've seen Babies EVERYWHERE.  Don't worry husband of mine, I'm confident in the knowledge that our God is still working in our lives and is not quite ready for us to be parents.  I can't wait... but I can wait.

I'm off to Nashville today.  I'm pretty excited about it!  I've never been and I've heard nothing but great things so I'm pumped.  I might even just buy a bunch of these ...

Yeah right... with what money?

But I can dream.

I need running shoes more.  Sometimes being an adult stinks...if I was still 16 I would just ask Dad to go to the money store.  I loved the money store...

I wasn't spoiled.  I was told "NO" plenty. Sometimes with enthusiasm....

I was a Daddy's girl though... still am, probably always will be.

I hope when we have children our girls are Daddy's girls.

Anywho!  I digress.  SO what do you think the Hubby will do while I'm at the girls weekend in Nashville?

• Eat nothing but beer, take out, and ice cream?
• Play lots of golf?
• Get wild and crazy?
• All of the above

Feel free to also comment with any other things you might think he will do!

I'll be back next week... and I've tasked my amazingly creative husband with the job of making this blog come to life with a totally awesome header.  Did I tell you that in my last post?  If so, I'm sorry... I'm just REALLY excited about it!

I can't wait to see what he comes up with!


Love,

The first blog is always the most awkward :-)

Hello There, 

I have blog ADD… 

This is my 4^th blog… hopefully my last. 

You see, I started a blog FOREVER ago and never quite kept up with it.  When I finally decided to go back to it my life was in such a different place it just didn’t seem right to use the same blog.  THEN, I started a blog on another site.  That site is pretty straight forward and user friendly for the poster, but it’s not so great if you want people to follow you, or if you want people to make comments. I also started another blog all together at the same time.  It was meant to be more of a health & recipe blog instead of the diary blog of before.  That never really took off because it never made sense to me why I was separating the two.

SO

Here I am, starting my 4^th blog hoping it’s my last.  I’ve given my totally awesome and amazing Husband the task of creating a header for me and I will hopefully be merging all my interests into one, more reader friendly blog.  So what does that mean for you?  If you’ve been reading, follow me and comment often! 

If you’re new… take a look around, I hope you enjoy.  Then come back… then follow me and comment often!

Thanks :-)