My big date

Yay! I met my first blogging buddy! Sara, Fuzz, and I met up yesterday, and it was so fun.

I can't imagine how it sounds to a non-blogger. "I met this girl on the internet, and we're going out for lunch." But it was very un-weird actually. She was taller than I expected, but other than that, there were no surprises. Her true spirit just shines on her blog, so I felt like going out for lunch was something we had done many times before.

After lunch, Fuzz and I got to meet Jagger. I'm willing to bet Fuzz liked Jagger more than he liked her. About 5 minutes after dealing with Fuzz, Jagger was hiding by Sara begging her to get rid of the crazy little girl.

She got some great pictures of all of us playing at her apartment complex, go check them out!

*Disclaimer* Although it looks very much like I had it out for Jagger on the slide picture, Sara assured me it was alright to let go. Don't listen to what she says. :)

Mmm...food....

A whole post about food...loosen your belt.

For Father's day, my sister and I prepared a brunch for our dad, grandparents, and Stryker. We included a strata, and it was delicious. I prepared it the night before except for adding the bread, and it turned out great.

Father's Day Strata

INGREDIENTS
3 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
3 cups chopped zucchini
1 1/2 cups chopped onions
1 1/2 cups chopped green pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup half-and-half cream
12 eggs
4 cups cubed day-old bread
3 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

DIRECTIONS
In a large skillet, saute the mushrooms, zucchini, onions, green peppers and garlic in oil until vegetables are tender. Drain and pat dry; set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese and cream until smooth. Beat in eggs. Stir in the bread, cheese, salt, pepper and vegetable mixture.
Pour into two greased 11-in. x 7-in. x 2-in. baking dishes. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 35-40 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

We've also been grilling a lot. One of our favorite marinades comes from this Southwest Turkey Breasts with Avocado Salsa. We have used it on both turkey and chicken, and it's phenomenal. The avocado salsa just puts it over the top! The salsa is a lot like my guacamole recipe, so it's a big hit in our house. If you only try one recipe from this post, try this one!

I get a lot of my recipes from blogs. We love trying new things, so whenever I see one I think looks good, I bookmark it. Then when I plan our menu for the week, I go through and pick whatever sounds good at the moment. Last week we tried this Tequila Lime Grilled Chicken. Spicy, but yum! I added some cooked white rice to the beans and it was great.

I'm not a huge meatloaf fan, but every once in awhile Stryker requests it, so when I came across Martha Stewart's Honey Mustard Meatloaves, I thought it was worth a try. They are surprisingly good, but very filling. A little onion in the mixture wouldn't hurt either. We've already tried them a couple times, and next time he requests meatloaf, I'll probably make them again!

You didn't think I'd leave you without any sweets did you?? Stryker's brother graduated from college this year, and for his party I made these:


They weren't really anything special, just chocolate cupcakes with ganache frosting, but aren't they cute?? I got my inspiration from Brown Sugar Bee.

Finally, when we went last weekend to help some friends move, I made these Cookies and Cream Rice Krispie Treats. Yum, yum, yum. That's all I have to say about them.

So tell me, do you try new recipes every week or do you have old standby's that you always make?

Speaking Spanish

The phone call never happened. My friend had emailed him and he never got back to her, so she didn't pursue it. I was nervous about it, but completely willing to help my friend out even if it meant making a fool of myself. I figured..they are in Colorado, I will never meet this guy, if he laughs at me after we got off the phone, oh well! I think I could have held my own though.

Stryker and I have been trying some really phenomenal recipes lately. Stay tuned for a post of my favorites!

No recuerdo...

Holy moly!

My best friend from way back is trying to buy a car. The owner only speaks Spanish, and she wants me to translate on a 3-way call tonight. Yikes! I mean, I minored in Spanish, but I haven't spoken a lick of it in years.

This could be interesting....

Fuzz loving life

To ease your withdrawals of new Fuzz pictures, I present: The Watermelon That Lost.

31 out of 50 + a Canadian

The beautiful thing about this is that all of these, with the exception of Kentucky, were seen out of their home state. And the Wisconsin plate isn't ours. We saw all of these between Louisville, KY, and Columbus, GA. Lots of travelers out and about while we were driving. We also saw a few more that we were unable (ahem, Stryker), to capture. Maryland, New Jersey, Minnesota...maybe more? I don't really remember. This was by far the most fun car game I've ever participated in!

Good to be back

Wow, it's been over a month since I've written! We have been very busy with visiting our families, house hunting, moving, and unpacking, but it's also a case of the longer you go without writing, the less you feel like you have to write about. I'm hoping to get back in the habit of it, even when I don't think I have anything to say.

Stryker and I took a couple days to drive down here. We left on the 29th, and only hit a little of this:



It was a pretty nice trip. As nice as an 18 hour road trip can be. On day two we decided to start taking pictures of all the different state license plates we saw. We saw so many! I am going to try and compile them into a collage. We must have gotten close to half. It definitely kept the trip interesting. Quick lane changes to catch a new one, tailgating, yeah...driver of the year! Not to mention what the other people were thinking when they saw a crazy man from Wisconsin trying to take their picture. Quite a few laughs that day.



We spent that night in Atlanta and had the most amazing dinner at Il Mulino. The food was amazing, and the service was even more amazing. Stryker and I like to go out to nice dinners occasionally, and this was a great pick.

Well, I'll leave it at that. It's time to go wake Fuzz up from her nap. Sleeping through the night has taken a hiatus, and we're trying everything we can to remedy that.

Sicky

Yesterday was our anniversary, we were woken up at 4:30AM by a sick Fuzz. Poor little bugger.

Of the four years we've been married, we've only actually been together for about two. And even those two were littered with field training, schools, and other separations. Such is the Army life. I think this was probably our hardest year yet. Here is to hopefully our best year yet!

We leave tomorrow. We're hoping Fuzz is feeling better by then, and that we don't contract it in the meantime.

Auntie Love

My sister's visit was awesome. It felt like we were never apart, and when she left, I missed her before she was even halfway to California. Her spending time with us makes me a little sad that Stryker reenlisted. I know that it the best decision for us right now, but spending time with her makes me realize that I want to just be closer to our families. Granted, being in Georgia, we will be closer to them, but I doubt we will see them any more often than we did while we were here.

The dolphin swim was amazing. We bought some of the pictures, but we don't have a scanner here, so I will have to upload them later. Fuzz loved it too. It was a really neat experience, I recommend it to anyone! We got to kiss her, dance with her, and Stryker got to feed her a fish. That was right up his alley.

By the way, do you think she likes Fuzz much?

Whirlwind

Talk about a whirlwind lately! My cousin's visit, my sister's visit, our lease ending on the first and us moving to a hotel until we leave, selling stuff... I have been one busy lady, and it's not going to stop any time soon.

We're getting settled into the hotel just in time to leave again. We'll be spending a week in Stryker's hometown, a week in mine, and then driving down to Georgia and hopefully finding somewhere to live quickly. We're already looking, but it's hard to commit to something without knowing the neighborhood, and more importantly, the smell. I have done enough apartment/house hunting to know that pictures of the place might look great, but nothing is worse than walking in and getting slammed with a smell that makes you believe cats, and only cats, lived there without a litter box for years.

Thankfully, Stryker's mom is going to fly down with Fuzz a few days after we leave. She does well in the car for about 20 minutes on a good day, so we're lucky we don't have to suffer through 15 hours with her. I would probably be bald by the time we got there. I don't do well with ear piercing screeching in small spaces. They don't seem to bother Stryker, which adds to the irritation.

How can that not drive a person to unthinkable acts?