Deployment is Coming!

Deployment is imminent. Sometime in the coming months, the husband & his unit will leave for a 9 month deployment. :o( Those words are never easy to hear but being infantry it is a given. Training, training, & more training. That's what they are doing now. Wives just want to spend time with their husbands and children with their fathers, but to be prepared they must train harder and longer. So soon we will say goodbye as they go out into the field for a month of training. The only bright side about this is the leave time they are guaranteed before they deploy! These few days of leave we hope to make enough memories to last the entire 9 months he will be gone! It is definitely something to look forward to instead of worrying about the dreaded "D" word. LOL

So we have been debating on what to do for our vacation. We really wanted to cruise the Mediterranean. I have been searching for the best deals for almost 2 weeks. While searching, I came across Virgin's Vacation page (http://www.virgin-vacations.com/) and was looking around the site when I stumbled upon some European vacations. Although cruising is our favorite kind of vacation, I knew that the husbands #1 place to visit while in Europe is Scotland. So, after searching for weeks, talking to travel agents & family.....it's official. I booked our trip to visit London & Edinburgh. The husband is beyond excited! Well, we both are actually!!

Now we just need to get some Auld family information & maybe we can locate some of the places my husbands family is from. I think that would be so awesome!

Who would have ever thought that this small TX town girl would be living in Germany & vacationing in the UK!! :o) I'm super pumped!!!!!

LATER PEOPLE!!!!

Tucker

This kitten of ours has us cracking up at his daily antics!! He is such a character. I thought I would share some of the pics & video of him recently.

Ok I really hate my voice on camera but I thought this was too funny (clearly you can tell as I giggle & laugh) UGH! But this all started when the husband sat down and moved the rug with his boot. Tucker did this probably for 30 minutes. Totally funny that he would not just get off of the rug. LOL

Tucker is in love with the mouse moving on the computer screen. He first noticed it on the TV b/c our TV is hooked up & controlled by the laptop (so we can see American TV). Anyways....he recently discovered by (painfully for me) climbing up my leg he can get to the cursor on the desktop computer. Every time I am at the desk.....so is he!

 This is how I now see my computer screen every night! :o) Crazy Cat!

Don't mind all the clutter....it's organized chaos! 

Here is Tucker posin'.....nah he's attracted to the cord hanging from my camera! LOL

Feelin' Crafty?!?!?

The husband knows how much I love crafts & projects. I love them even more when it requires his help so we have the chance to work together! I have been wanting to put together something like this for a while.

I started collecting bottle caps & with the help of my friends I finally collected enough. So,I went to our local hardware store and had them cut a piece of wood for me. This one is 24x6. I came home right away and painted it dark brown. Then I read somewhere that to make perfect letters, just print them off of word in the size and font you wish. Tape them down and then trace the letters with a pen.

 IDK if you can see the indention the pen marks made, but it was great for painting letters on wood.

The husbands job was to screw in the eyelet hooks to hold the bottle caps. He also put holes into the top and bottom of each bottle cap making sure they were directly opposite each other. (he should have drilled them but lost his small drill bit so he used a nail and hammer instead) Once all the caps holes in them, I divided the caps into families and assigned each a color. Once the paint on the circles dried, I used a Paint Pen to write the name and the date on each circle. I used only the number of the date, because each circle will hang under its respected month.

Here is the final product b4 hanging it on the wall!! I'm pretty proud of it. But I think that in the future I may need to redo the bottle caps and change the colors. I should have used a white paint pen instead of black!! But I still love it!!

Mmmmm Shrimp!

Yesterday the husband and I decided to travel down the romantic road. This Romantic Road stretches 200 miles from Wurzburg to Fussen. It was named by U.S. soldiers during WWII. The route links a number of picturesque towns and castles. In medieval times it was a trade route that connected the center of Germany with the south. Of course we could not travel it all but we were excited about the trip. Sadly though it was so foggy and misty there was no view besides the traffic on the road. :o( We decided to stop in the town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. It is a medieval town that had some cool things going on such as the cobblestone streets, cute and colorful buildings, the city wall that you can still walk on and the gruesome but fascinating crime museum. Although it had some great features, the town caters to tourists (since it's listed as 1 of the top travel destinations on the romantic road) so there seemed to be nothing but hotels and restaurants and so many Asians in tour groups. LOL We had to pay to see the church and truthfully it was not that impressive. Since we have seen so many beautiful places in Bavaria we were just not impressed with this town.

Since we never had a "romantic" V-day dinner I wanted to make something that would make the hubs happy!! I know that any kind of seafood will make him :o) so..... I wanted to try shrimp. I have never cooked shrimp before (unless you count the kind from the freezer section of the grocery store than you just preheat and eat. YUM!) and I was amazed at my talents!!! It was the BOMB!!!!

It was so simple too!

Line baking pan with foil. 

Cut 1-2 lemons into slices, put on bottom of pan, drizzle with 1 stick of melted butter.

 Sprinkle one pack of Zesty Italian seasoning on 1/2-1 lb raw shrimp and toss. 

Put the shrimp on the lemon and butter, then put them in the oven and bake at 350 for 10-15 min

I squeezed a lil bit of lemon on them after baking. 

Enjoy!

Happy V-day People!!!

You know you've been married for too long when you don't get presents or goodies for V-day anymore....sad me :o(    LOL no really it's all good, I did something special for him & that makes me happy enough.

 I was excited to show some love this Valentine's Day to all the soldiers in my husbands unit. I have made it a tradition to make these "special" sugar cookies for the guys. They take so long to decorate but I love doing it and I love these guys!

I got a lot of smiles from the guys when they noticed what they were. They loved them.

This year I was excited to use my mom's sugar cookie recipe. It brings me back to the times we made them for Christmas every year. They were so yummy!!

Sugar Cookie Dough
3/4 cup shortening
2 eggs, slightly beaten
3 t. baking powder
1/3 cup milk
1 cup sugar
3 1/2 cups flour
1 t. vanilla

Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Sift flour and baking powder then add to creamed mixture, alternating with the milk. Add vanilla. Let refrigerate to stiffen. Roll out onto a floured surface and cut into desired shapes. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

For the icing, I use Wilton's color flow icing recipe. It hardens fast and is great for decorating! You can find the recipe here... http://www.wilton.com/idea/Color-Flow

Enjoy!

Mushroom Burgers...YUM!

As we started into this new year I have told myself I would try hard to make/eat healthier food. Besides my Dr. Pepper addiction, I have been doing pretty good. Of course I use pinterest to collect some new healthier recipes but another source I get recipes from is The Chew. I am in love with this show and the husband actually likes it too which is very surprising!! Not all the recipes they make are healthy but a few are. So one that I tried was excited to try was mushroom burgers. I was a little skeptical at first but was excited to try them, & hey, I love mushrooms so it had to be ok, right?!?!

....& they were great. (the husband actually liked them better on day 2). The main ingredient..... 3 different kinds of mushrooms. They were so pretty cooking, I had to snap a pic. It isn't often I find food "pretty." LOL I should have chopped them smaller but it still worked. I had trouble flippin them too, but the husband came to the rescue.

I paired it with baked fries. I was excited to use my new mandolin to dice the potatoes. I seasoned them and sprayed a lil olive oil on them and baked them @ 400 for 20 min. They would have been great, except for I accidentally picked up & seasoned them with cinnamon. OOPS!! Would have been great if they were sweet potatoes. :o) But hey, we ate em anyway. lol

Here is the link to the recipe from "The Chew." http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/the-chew/recipes/Mushroom-Burgers-Clinton-Kelly

Tucker!!!

In January we welcomed a new addition to the family!! Born in November, this little ball of fur is a joy to have around!! We definitely fell in love with him and his antics.

We wondered how Bella would react to having him around. She has taken on the roll of big sister. She cleans him, shares her space with him and at times I would swear I have seen her roll her eyes at him. They are fun to watch as they learn to deal with each other.

WOW....

I can't believe my last post was in October! Sad!! Life was so busy throughout the holiday season and then well, I guess I just forgot about my blogging adventure. So much has happened and so much travelin' was done in the past few months!!! My M-I-L visited. We had such a good time although all the traveling was so tiring!

Here are some pics! The highlights of our holiday travels.