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Wahoo we made it through another work week! This weekend we are going to do our cake tasting. We are meeting my high school friend Heather in Richmond. Heather now owns her own specialty cake business called Party Delights and she does amazing work! I'm pretty excited about having someone I know do our wedding cake and I'm even more excited to see what it looks like! Both Chris and I were supposed to go but unfortunately, Chris was just told he has to work all weekend so it looks like it will be just me going. I'll drive down on Saturday afternoon, do the cake tasting and then I'll stay the night with my girlfriend, Carrie who I've known since the first grade. Her and her fiance recently bought a house in Richmond and I've yet to see it. Plus, this will give us plenty of time to gossip wedding talk :) I'll be sure to bring back pieces of the cake for Chris to taste!
The weekend before Valentine's Day I ended up making the caramel apple cupcakes and they were absolutely delicious! They were a little time consuming to make but well worth it! Here is the recipe for this tasty little treats! I didn't make the caramel balls at the end, I simply made the caramel and then drizzled it over the icing for a little more flavor!
http://www.pauladeen.com/recipes/recipe_view/caramel_apple_cupcakes/
I made this chicken croissant dinner last night and not only was it super easy, but it was pretty tasty too! It's a nice, quick meal for during the week when everyone is getting home from work late and dinner is being rushed to get on the table. So here is the recipe...
2 cans of chicken in a can( it sounds gross but it's good, usually with the tuna fish in the grocery store)
Fresh Broccoli
Fresh Peppers
Seasoning of your choice...I used garlic salt, Season All, Tarragon.
Ranch Dressing
Mayo
Shredded Cheese
Any other fresh veggies that you may want.
Pour out the juices from the canned chicken and throw chicken in a large mixing bowl.
Add as much (or as little) Ranch Dressing and Mayo as you wish and mix together. The chicken should start to shred as you are mixing it.
Add your fresh veggies and seasoning and mix well.
Cut the tops your croissants and stuff with the chicken mixture. Place the top back on the croissants.
Place on a baking sheet and put in an oven (350 degrees) for about 20-25 minutes, until they get hot and crispy. Super easy and super good!
Have a wonderful weekend party people!
xoxoxo
My goal for 2011-2012 is to start a non profit rescue for abused animals. At the very least, I would like to start some sort of charity to help with the caring of abused and rescued animals. This is something I am very passionate about and feel that I am young enough and have the time to start something as huge as this. If this is something that I'm truly passionate about, now is the time to start doing the research on how to start this. Chris will be deploying in September so this will definitely keep me occupied and help the time go by a lot quicker. In a couple years we will have kids and no time to start this. So now is the time! This is something that I want to be able to accomplish and be proud of. Right now, I'm not sure where to even begin with something this huge so i think i'm just going to do as much research as possible and see where that takes me. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to give them to me.
Happy Valentine's Day! I hope everyone is having a wonderful day filled with love and laughter! Especially with this beautiful weather! It might be a little windy, but i'll take that over freezing temps and snow any day! Let's just hope the groundhog was right and we are in for an early spring this year! I'm done with winter for the year. It has been brutally cold and gross all winter.
Well, our weekend was pretty nice. Saturday morning I taught gymnastics as I normally do. One of my privates didn't show up, and that right there just bothers me. You have my number so when you aren't going to show up please do the considerate thing and call me. Or at least call the front desk and let them know to tell me. It takes you 2 minutes. My other Saturday morning private it making good progress with her gymnastics skills, now I'm just trying to get her to do a backhandspring by herself and hoping that she will get her kip in a couple weeks. But she's doing great. This Saturday was the last Saturday in this session, and let me just say thank goodness. Some of those kids were terribly misbehaved and when you have a class of 16 kids and a couple are disrupting the entire time, it makes it extremely frustrating to get through the class. Some parents need to teach their children more discipline. So after I had gymnastics I went to the gym...bad, bad idea since I had been so sick all week and am still not completely over it. Bad idea Beck. I only stayed about 45 minutes before I had to go home. I also attempted to make some caramel apple cupcakes and they are delicious! The recipe is pretty easy to follow and they are very tasty. Definitely worth the shot of making them so I'm including the link for the recipe. :) And would highly recommend trying them a free day you have!
http://www.pauladeen.com/recipes/recipe_view/caramel_apple_cupcakes/
Saturday night Chris took me to BLT Steakhouse in D.C. to celebrate Valentine's Day. While the food was decent, I definitely think it was way overpriced for how it tasted. And they had the tables so close to each other, we could hear everything the couple who was sitting next to us was saying. It was decent but I'm not so sure how it got such a fabulous rating...not that impressive. But maybe it's just because I'm used to Mark Joseph's in NYC....now that right there is the best steakhouse and the food is definitely worth paying for. You can't get steak like that just anywhere!
Sunday we had a busy, busy day. We went to meet with a Reverend who is going to be performing our wedding ceremony. Her name is Reverend Hope McNew and we both liked her a lot. She's very friendly, not judgmental at all and will fit the ceremony to us personally. She gave us a couple books to choose the different parts of the ceremony from, so that's our next task at hand. It's probably going to take us a little while to find what we both like but it'll be worth it. She does a little something unique, she incorporates the engagement ring into the exchanging of rings so we both liked that idea a lot since the engagement ring marks the beginning of something new and exciting for us as a couple.. After we met with the Reverend I took Chris to finally see our wedding venue! Even though it doesn't look nearly as beautiful as it does when the weather is warmer he still loved it and said it was perfect. It's such a beautiful setting with the water right behind us. So we're crossing our fingers for a beautiful May day. :) Sunday evening we had dinner with Katie, Steven, Joey and Sam which was very nice. It's not often that all 6 of us (or for that matter all 3) of us can get together. It was wonderful to spend time together and I'm very glad that we were able to do it. We're going to try to do it more often because we all enjoyed ourselves very much!
Enjoy your Valentine's Day!
xoxxo
In getting ready for our wedding I decided to stop eating candy and junk food so much. And, stop drinking soda. While I don't drink a ton of soda I'm a sucker for caffeine free (caffeine gives me headaches) diet coke. I normally drink one with lunch everyday. Wellll not anymore. Ugh and I don't like it one bit. Although I have to admit I don't feel nearly as bloated as I did a week ago I still miss my pound of candy and diet coke. Good thing the wedding is less than 3 months away. I can do this, I can do this.
That's all I have for today seeing as I'm going through major withdrawls from my candy and junkfood but i gotta look fresh when all eyes are on me :)
xoxox
This weekend was relatively uneventful. Chris had drill so I was home alone which was fine since I've been super sick since Friday. And Chris came home yesterday sick as well. I had a dress fitting on Saturday which went really well! I got my shoes back and it was nice to see what the dress will look like with my pretty awesome wedding shoes :) It fits perfectly and i absolutely looove it! Now here's to hoping I stay the EXACT same size as I am now! Fingers crossed, although I'm not super worried about it.
I attempted to make fried mac and cheese last night and it was pretty good. I used Paul Deen's recipe for both the mac and cheese and the frying part. But i personally (and Chris agreed) think I need to use a mac and cheese that is extra cheesy to make it even better. Here is a recipe that I found online and I think I'm going to try this one next time. Except when it's done baking I'll just stick it in the fridge overnight so it cools and gets a little bit harder so I can shape it.
http://cookbooks.andrewsmcmeel.com/?p=4033
After you take it out the following day, cut the mac and cheese into 1 inch squares. Heat 2 inches of peanut oil in a pan until it reaches 350 degrees. A bowl of flour, of bowl of 2 beaten eggs, and a bowl with breadcrumbs (i used Italian style). Cover the mac and cheese with flour and then the eggs and then the breadcrumbs. Place in oil and let fry about one minute on each side (or until it's a golden brown color).
and there you gooo :) some nice homemade mac and cheese :) Not as good as Cheesecake Factory's but it'll do for a quick appetizer at home!
xoxox
So I made it to my Strength Training class this morning. Let me just say that getting up at 445am on a Friday morning is even harder than getting up at 445 the rest of the week! But I got up and went (even though I'm almost 100% sure I have strep throat). Oh wow, I forgot how painful this class was! I can already tell that I probably won't be able to walk tomorrow morning! And I'm not even going to mention how sore my arms are going to be. But it's a good sore, I feel like I had a good workout and I like that feeling. I like being a little sore after I workout, it lets me know that I had a productive workout. Now, the fact that I have to teach gymnastics tonight is going to be a little bit of a challenge!
On another note, I seriously hate dealing with Verizon customer service. They are the absolute worst and the only reason that they can get away with it is because they have the most customers. It gets me irritated every time I have to dial the customer service number! I've been trying to get a credit on my account (which they were supposed to credit back in NOVEMBER) for the past four months and I still haven't received it. Now what in the world is taking them four months to get on their A game?! It drives me bonkers! Not to mention the fact that it took us about a year to get the military discount placed onto our account after I called every single month. I just don't understand how a business can have such horrible customer service and stay in business. It really just boggles my mind why people(me included!) put up with them. ugggghhh way to stress me out Verizon with your awful customer service. At least it's Friday thought and that means two days off of my full time job. Chris is at drill this weekend which means I'll have some time to catch up on the housework and my lovely DVR since I didn't get to watch any of my shows this week! Also, I'm going to bake either caramel apple cupcakes, strawberry champagne cupcakes or brownie smores....big decision! I just don't know which one to make because they all sound so delicious!
Ill keep you posted with a recipe for whichever one I choose!
have a happy Friday!
xoxoxo
Chris and I are currently in the process of picking our first dance song and let me just say...it's a toughie! We thought we had picked one out a few weeks ago but now we keep throwing other songs out there, it's such a big decision. We want a song that reflects the way we feel about others and also a song that our guests will "get" if we choice. There are just so many songs that I love that Chris doesn't and vice versa. This is becoming one of the most difficult tasks on our wedding to do list. Hopefully when he gets home from drill this weekend, we will be able to sit down and pick out a song that is meaningful to us both and also suites our relationship. You can't just pick any old love song you know! We also want to pick a song that hasn't been used a million and a half times by everyone and their mother so that is also making it a little challenging since a lot of loves songs people tend to choose for their first dance. We shall see what we can come to an agreement on!
Another challenge....no more junk food or candy until the wedding. Ok, well limited candy and junk food until the wedding. Gotta behave myself so I can look tip top for my big day :) Those of you who know me well, know that I can't go a day without eating a bag of candy and an unnecessary amount of junk food so this turning out to be quite the challenge. Let's see how long this will last...it's a been a week so far, and I'm doing pretty good! I've also decided to switch up my workout routine because I feel my body is getting way to used to what i've been doing. So I'm going back to strength training classes in the mornings on Wednesday and Friday. As hard as it is to get up that early, once I get there I really enjoy the class and I love the way I feel after wards. I'm not taking my cycling classes out of my workout routine because i love going and i always get a great workout for that. I'm also going to start doing my yoga two mornings a week. Jillian Michaels kicks my butt every time but it's a great (and short) workout. So we'll see how I last on this challenge :) Nothing too hard except the limited amount of candy and junk food. Good thing the wedding is only 3 months away! then I fully intend on going back to my diet of strictly all junk food and candy!
And for those of you who have been hiding under a rock all day, the groundhog did NOT see his shadow this morning! wahooo!! Early spring for us this year!! Thank goodness because this has been an awfully cold winter and I'm not so sure I could handle 6 more weeks of this nonsense! Plus, I need to start working on my tan for my wedding! gotta have some color!
Happy Hump Day!
xoxox
There was a news story this morning about two boys pouring gasoline all over a puppy and setting it on fire. That just put me in a very sad mood this morning and I've been unable to stop thinking about that poor little innocent puppy. Animal cruelty holds a very soft (and large) spot in my heart and I feel for these animals that are abused on a daily basis. I wish I had all the money in the world so that I could save every animal that is abused and give them the loving home that they deserve. All these animals want to do is to be loved and to love you in return. What is the purpose of hurting an innocent animal that wants nothing from you except a smile and a pat on the head. If you aren't going to treat a pet the way that it deserves to be treated, than pass up the opportunity to adopt it and let someone who will love it adopt it. I truly don't understand how people can be so cruel. It breaks my heart especially since these pets don't have the ability to speak up. How can you be so cruel to a living being that can not protest against what you are doing to it? How can you purposely cause harm and pain to an innocent animal? It truly boggles my mind and I wish there was something I could do to save all the abused animals or even raise awareness about animal cruelty. you can spot an abused animal a mile away by the way the light has gone out of its eyes. And that right there is just a horrible thing. No pet should ever have the light go out of its eye, should never lose the ability to want to live, to want to be loved.
People say that I spoil my cats, and they're right, we do spoil them beyond the definition of "spoiling." And that's how it should be. Why shouldn't they have a right to a perfect little life? Just because they're animals doesn't mean that they deserve any less than the best of what this world has to offer them. The people that hurt these animals deserve way harsher punishments than they are being given. They deserve to have a red S on there chest so that everyone knows what an awful excuse they are for a human being. I normally tend to think that everyone deserves a second chance and that there is some good in all people; but not with animal abusers. There can not possibly be any good in a person who gets pleasure out of harming a living being that does not have the voice or means to fight back. The only thing they can do is crawl in a ball and take it. I have chosen to donate monthly to ASPCA and once the wedding is over I will be volunteering with my local animal shelter. It's not much but it's the most that I can do at this time in my life...and to love my pets unconditionally and treat them the way that they deserve to be treated.
