A little bit of Hawaii

LOOK WHAT I FOUND...."Hawaiian Ice"...similar to Hawaii. I had the "Bahama Mama", which is a mix of Banana, Strawberry, and Peach. It was tasty. They have a cream that you can put on top...it might be similar to the icecream on the bottom...I may have to try it next time.

Anyways, it was fun going back in time today!!

Happy 9,863rd Day!

Happy Birthday to me! Today I turned 27. My mother lovingly reminded me that in 3 years I'd be 30!! Gosh, I'm so old!!! I feel old, too! Ha! Ha! It's been 9 years since I graduated High School, and 4 years ago I became a nurse! I'm like 189 years old in dog years!!!! But hey, I still look pretty darn good for my age!


Thanks to everyone who called/sent cards for my birthday. Everyone made my day!

MCG and a little more

I went to my mail box today, expecting to find test results from my EGD I had on the 8th. No test results yet...big disappointment. I made a phone call to my doctor to get the results and all I have is "Mild Chronic Gastritis". I went to Google for an explanation! It is caused by H. pylori (which I may have had initially) and also by NSAIDS (or pain relievers). I have decided to "doctor" myself, since my GI doctor didn't seem to be of much help!!! I'm going to make some diet changes, exercise, and change pain relievers. I go see my neuro dr next week, so I'm going to ask if I can make a change back to my old migraine medication that does not contain an NSAID. I figure I have to be my own advocate here.

I had the day off today so I made Margarita Cheesecake. This baby is SUPER HEAVY!!!! After all, it has 4 packs of cream cheese in it! You practically need an industrial strength mixer to make the thing! Becca saw it come out of the oven and she was like, "Man that's a huge cheese cake!!" It was nearly CRAWLING out of the pan!!!!! Don't worry Becca, it did sink down, and looks "normal" now! I'll put the recipe at the bottom if anyone is interested.


I have to show off my new plates. I know...you are thinking I'm weird, but there are perks to having SQUARE plates! They fit nicely in the cupboard! I wonder what the guy was thinking when he invented ROUND plates for square cupboards, anyway? Then today I pulled out the syran wrap and got way excited!!!! Don't laugh. It fit PERFECTLY around my new plate! The joke is now on all of you who are trying to get your syran wrap to fit around your ROUND plates...Ha! Ha! Ha! Oh, and my plate fits so nicely up against the side of my frig!!!! Now all of you will be rushing out to get new dinner ware!!!

Margarita Cheesecake

7 tbsp butter/margarine

5 limes

1 orange

8 oz vanilla vafer cookies (65 wafers)

4 pks cream cheese, softened

1 1/4 C. sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

4 lg. eggs

1 8 oz container sour cream

1/4 C. orange flabor liqueur or orange juice

orange and lime slices for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Wrap outside of springform pan in foil. Melt butter in pan in oven.

3. From limes, grate 1 tbsp (set aside) plus 2 tsp. peel and squeeze 1/2 cup juice. From OJ, grate 1/2 tsp peel.

4. In blender, pulse wafers and 2 tsp lime peel. Stir crumbs into butter then press onto bottom and 2 inches up sides of pan. Bake for 15 minutes. Cool completely.

5. In large bowl with mixer beat cream cheese. Gradually beat in sugar and salt. Reducce speed and beat eggs in 1 at a time, sour cream, liqueur, orange peel, lime juice, and remaining lime peel.

6. Pour mixture into crust. Bake for 45 minutes. [mine required more baking time] Turn oven off and leave cheesecake in oven 1 hour to cool and set. Remove from oven and cool completely.

7. Cover and refrig for 6 hours (or up to 2 days). To serve, remove from pan. Let stand for 30 minutes for best flavor. Garnish with orange and lime slices on top.

Happy Graduation!

My dear friend, Brittany graduated today. I'm so proud of her!!! Today she moves back to Colorado Springs to begin the next leg of her journey. She is still waiting to hear back from the air force as to see if she has been accepted for a position there. I will truly miss her, but we are definately going to keep in contact. Congrats again Britt!!

Tour de Home

My parents came down last weekend (to take me to the doctor in Hutch, of course) and they did a little extra around the house. I've been wanting to plant a tree for a while and we finally got it done....thanks for planting my tree, dad!!

Mom and I went shopping for flowers...something we do every year about this time. I'm planning on eventually planting everything to perenials. I started out with the lower level in front of my hous this year. Mom thinks I should try a rose bush, and I may go for that next year if my glads don't come up. They haven't come up yet this year so I may be digging them up and planting a rose bush next year!

This is my peone bush; it's getting bigger, but is yet to blume

While we were on our way to Hutch we drove past this home near Lyons. The entire back yard was flooded! I don't think the house got flooded, though...at least I hope not. We couldn't believe how much water was standing in the fields down around this area.

What's a trip to Hutch without stopping at Hobby Lobby? I stocked up on card making supplies while I was there! Thanks to Lac I have a fun new hobby!!!! Mom and dad also gave me my birthday present early.....a CUTTLEBUG!!!!! I am super stoked!! I also got a couple dies and folders to boot! Not I'm in business. I'm a card making machine!!!!!!

RENEW

Last weekend our church hosted our FIRST ANNUAL RENEW CONFERENCE. It was such a wonderful weekend for the ladies from the area to come and be "renewed" by the promises of Christ.

We were treated to a fantastic concert and worship time led by Jamie Jamgocian. She is a young woman who's platform is to teach young teen girls that "Modest is Hottest". She focuses on how to bring honor and glory to God in the way you act and dress. She also has an amazing voice and writes some amazing songs! I had the privilege of working closely with her throughout the weekend, and I must say, Jamie is an amazingly humble, down to earth woman. She shared a little quote from one of her friends with me, and I'm now adopting it as my mantra. It goes like this... "A woman should be so in love with her Heavenly Father, that her [holy hunk] must search Him to find her". I just love that!!!! During our weekend we were entertained by Renewtha Franklin (played by Erin Flax), a very talented woman in our church. She even came with back up singers, also women from our church drama team.

During our free time we had a couple options...Zumba, the latest in exercise/dancing. It looked like fun, but I'm not coordinated enough to move like you're supposed to in this class!!! Ha! Ha! Another activity option was Faithbooking. It is similar to scrapbooking, in that you are leaving your Christian legacy or story behind when you do this. We created a book especially for this weekend, where we could journal personal thoughts, prayers, etc. about the weekend. I'm still working on completing my book, but it is an awesome project!!!

One of the many skits preformed for us this weekend. In this particular photo, the Brady Bunch reunited! The cast of characters were played by women from our women's ministry group. Their introduction video was absolutely hilarious! Another skit preformed was on "Let's Make A Deal", the game show. They got women up on stage by having them rummage through their purses for various items...it was a riot!!!! One of the gals that leads our drama team at church preformed a skit on The Butterfly. It's a story of how we change from being judgmental, cold, and harsh, into a "butterfly", changed by the heart of God; it is a powerful skit.

Our praise time was led by our Ignite band. The Ignite band leads worship for the youth service our church holds every Sunday morning. It was so wonderful to be led in worship by such talented young adults!

The rest of the weekend was spent in workshops. It is so amazing to see how God uses different women to change the lives of others. I took away so much from this weekend, but the most important lesson I learned is that God is always the same...yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He is our ROCK and our STRENGTH when times get tough. And when we make God our focus and spend time worshiping him, the enemy has no chance of getting in!! PRAISE GOD!!!!

real live COPS

Who says living in my neighborhood isn't exciting? I've decided I definitely need a police scanner, though.....here's why. Last night I heard several car doors slam shut....nothing out of the ordinary...I just thought the neighbors were having another party. I got up to see what was going on, and I had a real life COPS show unfolding in front of my house! There were 5 cop cars parked to the north of my house (no I'm not exaggerating...I counted three times, just to be sure). Then I see a cop walking up the sidewalk with a SUSPECT IN TOW. This guy was in HANDCUFFS and the cop puts him up against the car and PATS HIM DOWN AND PUTS HIM IN THE BACK OF THE COP CAR. I'm like, wow this is pretty exciting, then ANOTHER COP comes up the sidewalk with another SUSPECT IN TOW. He pats her down and puts her in CAR #2. These cars drive off (to book the suspects, I'm guessing....at least that's what they do in the show!!). THEN HERE COMES THE EMS AND FIRE TRUCK!!!!! Now it's really getting exciting! The cute first responders get out of the firetruck and the EMS guys unload the stretcher. I wait in eager anticipation...but they didn't bring anyone out to the rig. The fire truck and EMS drive off, then here comes another cop, bringing something to his car...perhaps some EVIDENCE. He gets into his trunk and gets out a bag and places the EVIDENCE IN THE BAG THEN INTO HIS BACK SEAT. I'm guessing this will be something like "Exhibit A"!!

Ok, ok, ok, my story is a little dramatic, but it makes for some good reading! All events are true, though. The picture above is of the ambulance. I was tring to be conspicuous so I kept my flash off, that's why the photo didn't exactly turn out very well...but you get the idea!