Delicious Dessert: Apple Crisp

Hey Y'all!!! I hope you had a wonderful long weekend!! I know we did - filled with the three 'F's: friends, family, and fun!  More on that tomorrow =)

Yesterday I was charged with the task of making a dessert.  I was going to use my default: chocolate chip cookies or cupcakes.  When I got to the store, I found I wanted something more refreshing - something more in line with summer [read: side of ice cream].  I took to Pinterest - thank goodness for this site, am I right?! Google is great and all, but Pinterest knows exactly what I need.

I came across this recipe by Love, Pomegranate House.
It seemed relatively easy and the ingredients consisted mostly of items I would normally have at home.  The apples were the only item listed that I needed to buy.

Apple Crisp

{Ingredients}

10 cups apples cored and sliced (I read 10 apples yesterday when I made this!)
1 cup white sugar
1 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup water (this is not always necessary as sugar makes the apples release juices)
2 cups quick cooking oats
2 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup butter softened

{How To}

1. Preheat the oven to 350*
2. Toss sliced apples (I diced mine into squares) with white sugar, flour, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Place coated apples in a 9x13 pan. Pour water evenly over mixture (you don't NEED the water....I did this but found that I would have been fine without.  It made for a runny mixture after it baked)
3. Combine oats, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl.  Cut the butter into the mixture - **I actually mostly melted the butter for this step so that I could get the dry mixture wet to create a dough-like mixture.
4.  Crumble evenly over the apple mixture
5. Bake for 45 minutes.  Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
6. Serve with vanilla ice cream*

Number six was MY addition =) It was delicious with a little ice cream! This was such a quick and easy recipe.  What took longest was the baking.   The Husband loved the crumble so much, he suggested we make that piece alone without the apples.

Did you try any new recipes this weekend?

14 Days

That's how long it has been since I posted last and I bet you're wondering where I've been - yeah? I know! Me too! Well, here I am posting on my phone from my couch, trying to determine if Rango is cute/interesting or not. This debate has me with like 20 minutes left. I'm curious but it really is sort of a train wreck.... The past almost two weeks I have been so busy at work - I can't even think about anything BESIDES work. I'm exhausted when I get home at the end of the day and just can't bring myself to look at another computer screen.

This past weekend was such a relief. Saturday we hopped on our boat and took it to a private island. The girls sat under umbrellas while the boys hung out on the boat - fishing. We took the pup with us and he had such a blast! We wore him out letting him splash through the water and chase the birds.

Sunday morning we made our way out to the sandbar on the lake with The Husband's parents and met up with some friends. We had a nice solid couple hours before the storm set in. It was alright though - we got back to the house, watched a movie and prepped for going back out. Our original plans had been to stop by and see our friends, have a drink and then make our way to a comedy show - supposed to start at 9. Well around 830 we found out that the show wasn't ACTUALLY until 10... So we started playing drinking games... Drinking UNO to be exact! =) we were having so much fun that we forgot to leave to meet up with the brother and his gf and crew for the comedy show - oops! Larry/Anng if you're reading this we love you! =)

Needless to say, our weekend was full of libations lol which made Monday a VERY lazy Monday...no seriously we watched three movies after running a couple errands which included greasy breakfast food - my favorite hangover 'cure'!

It was so amazing to spend so much time with family and friends. I love the people in my life. I would have loved to spend more time with everyone but there is only one me and the weekends fly by - as I'm sure you know.

So here it is - Thursday already! The Husband took tomorrow off and I have a half day. We are planning a date - dinner and movie, SO EXCITED!!

I miss y'all and my happy little bloggy; here's hoping I find the energy to make more time to post! Happy almost Friday already!!

We Went to the Keys Last Friday Night

Happy Friday Eve!!! Ugh I am so happy it is almost the weekend!

My weeks are flying by at work but that doesn't mean the stress isn't there.

Last Friday, The Husband, my dad, Marc, Drew, and I all took the day off of work to go off-shore fishing. We generally charter a boat for 6 and use the same captain over and over.  He has always helped us catch quality fish and we ALWAYS have an awesome time.

So we made the 2 hour trek to his boat - this means we got up at 4:30 so we had time to load up, drive there, and load the boat by 7. yes we were up REALLY early but hey - that's all part of the game! We get there and it is looking like it is going to be ROUGH off-shore. I mean we are bouncing pretty good inside the inlet! sheesh! good thing I bought Wal-Dram II the night before...

SIDE NOTE: The Husband kept encouraging me to buy those Sea-bands. After checking them out and their $13 price tag, I decided to talk to the pharmacist. The thing was, these things seem like a mind over matter deal. I'm not buying this whole idea that the pressure of the bands will work - I might as well wear hair ties on my wrists! So I talk to the pharmacist and she recommends this Wal-Dram II (less drowsy). "It is what we recommend to the older people when they cruise because they are a fall hazard" yea - she said that...as in fall of the boat hazard! CRAZY! I confess I laughed a little bit when she told me this...it sounded absurd...

Back to the story - I took the wal-dram on the way so it had time to get in my system.  The men on the boat encouraged me to drink a beer on the way out of the inlet to help with the sloshing of the boat. OK I'm in - we all enjoyed an ice cold beer at 8 am. NICE!

About a mile off shore, we hit a pretty good sized wave. suddenly we are heading back IN shore. What's going on you ask?! The boat CRACKED. Seriously - CRACKED! Unbelievable! AND Frustrating because we were all SO excited! So we all have another beer.

Now this girl is a LIGHT WEIGHT when it comes to drinking so I was feeling PRET-TY good by the time we got back to the dock. We unloaded- all five of us pouting like a bunch of school children and begrudgingly headed back to the interstate. By the time we hit the highway, we had made the decision that we were going to still try to go fishing. we pulled over on the side of the road and started making calls. No one was going and all those who were HAD. BUMMER!!

Then The Husband has a bright idea 'let's go to The Keys! it's only a 4.5 hour drive from here and they are ALWAYS fishing there'.  Now I'm three beers in and from the backseat shout 'hooray! let's go! great idea!' Off we went...

4.5 hours, a stop for lunch, and two wrong turns later we arrived in The Keys! This girl was EXHAUSTED so while the boys got out and looked for a place to charter, I stayed in the truck and slept for 40 minutes. Best decision I made that day haha!

We got on the boat at 4 that afternoon and headed out on the water with a captain and first mate we hadn't gone with but kept getting positive recommendations for.  We told them we all wanted to catch Amber Jacks and some sort of snapper. Amber Jacks are incredibly strong and pretty big fish! and I caught the biggest =) 

     

OH and the cherry on top  (except not so much) we forgot the memory card for our camera SO all of our pictures are courtesy of camera phones. AWESOME! Regardless it was SO MUCH fun! The drive home at 10 at night wasn't so awesome but we made record time =) and arrived at our house at 2pm...you do the math ;)  I'm so glad I was able to make this super fun memory with my dad, The Husband, and two awesome friends =) 

Have you ever done anything crazy spontaneous?

After a Relaxing Weekend, Let the Stress Begin

Good Monday to y'all! 

I spent Saturday on the lake. It was amazing! The Husband and one of his friends fished the entire time while I lounged around, catchin' some sun and reading Catching Fire. I LOVED it! I was so excited to start Mockingjay that as soon as we got home, I downloaded it to my Nook and started reading! 

I watched the sunrise - and believe it or not, I was in jeans and a sweatshirt.  It was CHILLY out there that morning and a bit breezy. AND I had gotten soaked from the ride out there.  The Husband thought it would be fun to race/outrun the bass boats. yeah - that's how he flexes his muscle sometimes lol. Nevertheless - it was still beautiful

During one of our stops, we saw two very small gators swimming together. Apparently, when they are young, they are insanely curious. Drew kept flipping his plastic bait towards them and they would swim to it. He got one of them to bite down on the bait and he lifted the gator out of the water. The Husband grabbed a hold and let me touch him!!!

I was a bit intimidated but it was SO cool to touch it!! We saw some other much larger gators but we didn't mess with them....one was REALLY big - so I tucked my toes into the boat, instead of hanging over the edge like I started lol! 

Yesterday we went to a Mexican restaurant and it was delicious!! So so good =) The people working there weren't great =/ We went to check out and they kept telling me my card wasn't going through because their system wasn't working...apparently they ran my card FOUR. TIMES. I paid cash and we left...yeah ALL. FOUR. CHARGES. showed up on our bank account by the time I got home. I called and spoke with a manager and today I am going to the bank to talk with them about canceling the charges. Ugh! So frustrating! 

We had a REALLY busy weekend - I was able to watch the Final Four games on Saturday night! So so fun! I found a beautiful Royal Blue nail polish on pinterest by Revlon so guess what THIS girl did after work on Friday - yep, I found the nail polish! I didn't take a picture of what I was wearing on Saturday but it was white and royal blue! I was cheering for KY and KS! 

I had so much fun watching the final four this weekend and tonight it will be a battle of the blues! can't wait to watch!! .... that is if I can stay awake haha! 

My week is already off to a rough start. We are supposed to be kicking off this new program that I have been up to my eyes in since the beginning of December. Today is Day 1 of implementing. At 7:30 when I got in this morning, it was already NOT working. Something about the update they ran this weekend...ugh! I don't know. I just know that I am stressed ALREADY and I can't do anything to help with the problem, I have to wait for SOMEONE ELSE to get up and fix it because I am not the I.T. specialist. 

I was also supposed to be sending out invitations to my birthday party BUT on Saturday I realized that I had my AGE wrong - yeah, that was awkward ESPECIALLY because I didn't notice, my sister did. Ugh so I have to remake them which is whatever but it is just one. more. thing. and they'll get out and most people know by word of mouth anyway but what GIRL doesn't LOVE getting happies in the mail?! I know I LOVE LOVE LOVE getting mail...well HAPPY mail - bills are lame =)

Needless to say I will be getting in a couple miles after work.

How was your weekend??

Chili Cook Off

This weekend my friend's mom participated in the 3rd Annual Chili Cook Off.  I was so excited to talk The Husband into going with me - like super ecstatic!

We arrived a little early and had to wait outside the gate - boo!!! We heard that 10,000 people were expected to show so we wanted to make sure we had our fill of chili. I'm so glad we got there early because by about 2 pm contestants were already running out of chili! My friend's mom made 10 GALLONS of chili and ran out in 3 hours.

Let me give you a little perspective to this - you got SAMPLES of each chili you tried...seriously, I think it amounted to 3 tablespoons! So to run out of THAT much chili in that short amount of time was just crazy!

The Husband and I were able to make our rounds with Marc and try a lot of chili. We tried a deer chili - yes, it had deer meat in it.

We tried one that had corn in it -- I was REALLY skeptical and hesitant. I didn't get a cup but The Husband did and had me try the chili even though I wasn't a super willing participant. It was DELICIOUS! I am so glad I took that spoonful lol!

We also tried a really flavorful - Buffalo Chili. Their tent was completely decked out and yes, it was made with Buffalo meat. It was really really good - they used all sorts of peppers in their recipe.

 

Now as we walked around and tried these various competitors yummies, we discovered that there are a LOT that were not very good - some didn't even LOOK good; others were insanely greasy; some so spicy more than one spoonful was too much. I'm all about the TASTE - I like chili a lot and my big thing is enjoying the chili. Now I do realize that one of the categories was a 'fire' category -- too bad I didn't realize it sooner!

My favorite stop was the free cotton candy the orthodontist tent was handing out...I went by TWICE! I LOVE LOVE LOVE fresh cotton candy - I told The Husband we will need to invest in one sometime =)

 

 

  

It was so fun hanging out with friends and The Husband. We had a lot of laughs - from the lady with terrible boob sweat who kept talking about it to seeing some of THE hoochiest (hoochiest - is that a word?) women/girls to watching Christy's dad encourage people to take the chili as a shot

to trying "balls deep"....
Yes, you read that correctly....Balls Deep was the name of the team. They deep fried chili balls. there were a lot of opinions on this one...I thought they were very yummy and a unique take on the idea of a chili recipe.

It was an awesome day out with some awesome people:

  

 I got sunburned and it was 90*....meanwhile, Sunday the high was 66*! What is happening in Florida?! Oh well! I love every moment I get to spend with the ones I love and this guy right here:

Did you do anything exciting or different this weekend?

Houses and Surprises

Hi Everyone!! I hope y'all had an amazing holiday weekend celebrating our Nation's birthday!

By the actual 4th of July, I was exhausted! Saturday was spent at my sister's new house painting, hanging ceiling fans and helping my dad hang a garage door opener.  We were so busy with things that I forgot to take a picture of the housewarming gift I made for Jess and Doug AND any inside pictures.  I'm afraid the only photo I have to share is of the outside...which is very pretty...

On Sunday, J and I went by the house that we are under contract on...I was hoping we could peak inside.  We walked the perimeter to check out how much fencing would be needed to enclose the backyard. J looked in through the back window and said there was still furniture inside the house. AWKWARD.  I'm sure we looked more than a little suspicious so we high-tailed it out of there! Not before taking a pretty picture of the outside though!

We made our way to our friend's house where our group threw a surprise reception for our sweet friends who were married June 27 -- that same girl we had thrown the bachelorette party for =) It was a true backyard reception; cake, first dance, sign in, group shot and alcohol. =)
   
 


We didn't hang out on the beach or lake, nor did we grill out.  We spent the Fourth of July with one another, laying low and recovering from our weekend.  I know it wasn't very festive of us, but it was perfect. I love spending one on one time with my amazing and sweet husband. Once the sun went down, tons of people in our neighborhood and the surrounding areas were setting off expensive fireworks, so we made our way to the driveway where we watched a Fourth of July celebration. It was a perfect weekend with my husband.

I don't anticipate hearing anything back about the house this week so hopefully the week flies by and we are able to keep ourselves busy so we don't think about it too much haha =)

What did you do this weekend???

Easily Distracted by the Excitement of the Impending Weekend

Happy FRIDAY! FINALLY! UGH! this has been such a long week. I'm sure it is because I have been desperately seeking the 3-day weekend. My husband is FINALLY going to get two days off in a row. I'm pretty stoked -- I'm not going to lie. TWO whole GLORIOUS days with my main squeeze! OOO I can hardly contain my excitement!

Meanwhile, here I sit, at my desk, at work. I wish we had season transition breaks -- you know, that first week of each season everyone gets a paid week off. How freaking awesome-sauce would that be?! Yeah that's right -- it would be....side tracked, what was I saying again? Oh right...

J has worked every day for at least the past twenty days. He has to work tomorrow doing HIS company work. But then Sunday and Monday he is ALL MINE. I don't even know if I want to share him.

You know what is a lot of fun -- looking at homes. all of them -- even the nasty ones, where you walk out thinking, someone would need to throw some cash at you before you would make an offer. Yeah, we looked at one of those last night. It wasn't completely bad -- had super potential and the kitchen was ultra cute. BUT yeah it was THAT BIG...it looked like the pretty slate tile was DIY...which I am not against, but it was done poorly. They also put an addition on the house that didn't have central air. The bathrooms were disgusting and would need to be immediately gutted. The master bedroom had a small window -- it felt like the timeout room! It was very interesting haha. Had it been 50K LESS we may have entertained the idea of getting it and completely re-doing the home. THAT would have been a lot of work. In theory it would be great...I don't know that I am ready to take all that on. I am tired. I don't know if I want to take on that kind of project when our days in our current home are numbered. I am tired...have I mentioned that?!

Every time I say that I think of Monster-In-Law when Wanda Sykes says:

" I am sick. I am sick, sick, sick of yo' shit. And when I'm not sick, I'm tired. I am sick and tired"

It makes me giggle, usually during complete silence and then people look at me out of the corner of their eye like I'm a loon. I'm not a loon, I just feel the need to be entertained at all times if I am not sleeping. =) It's a fun quality although I think it catches J off guard because a lot of times, the giggling or comment comes out of the blue...to him, for me I had a completely normal train of thought...

So I'm not 100% sure about what we will do this weekend. My boss invited us out on the lake on Monday with some other people from work. He wants to see J, it has been a while since they got to hang out and he really likes J. I guess it depends what we do on Sunday and how late we are out and whether or not I'm tired...

I have decided that I am going to run a half marathon in December and then the Rock 'n' Roll half marathon in February. I am really intimidated because after the first marathon I ran, I couldn't run for about a month. I'm hoping it was just my body adjusting. I am consistently running 4 miles so I figure if I start training now, I can take a little more time and be Little Miss Amazing by the December race. Then I can sorta take it easy and just keep up my miles for the February race. Anyone else try to run 2 halves that close together? I am hoping to motivate my dad into it and maybe train a little with him. I think I would like to set the goal of running better than my first half. I also didn't sleep or eat well the night before my first half -- seriously may have only gotten 3 hours of sleep. SO I am hoping that I can figure out better eating and get more sleep. I think that all really had an effect on my time.

I realized last night that EVERYTHING in my life becomes a competition. It is ridiculous. While looking at homes, I was so hell bent on making sure everyone loved the house I picked out not the house J picked out. I was being so stubborn I couldn't see good things about the one he picker OR bad things about the one I picked. How silly of me! J and I walked back into the homes on our own to discuss with one another what we did and didn't like about each house. We also discussed furniture position and use of each of the rooms. That helped me not be SUCH a baby and though I pouted inside for a long time, before we made the trip home, I found myself being excited no matter what because it was a new start for J and I and we were looking at beautiful homes that WE liked as a couple. YAY!

I hope you have an amazing 3-day weekend. I can't wait for the day to be over so I can make my way to the store for some wine and head home to snuggle with the man...although after his LONG LONG day, I am pretty sure he will sleep from the moment he gets home until the alarm goes off on Saturday haha. Oh well, I like to snuggle with him anyhow =)

Happy Friday!

Wedding Weekend Extravaganza!

As I mentioned yesterday -- this weekend my very good friend got married.  It was beautiful.  The weather was amazing and everything worked out perfectly for the two of them.  I won't post a hundred pictures but I did want to share some pictures.          

 

       

  

The boys changed into Gator bowties for the reception -- which means someone had to learn how to tie a bowtie real quick.  That someone was me.  I must say, I am very proud with the way they turned out! =)

Hope y'all enjoyed the photos and have a wonderful day!

*all photos taken by J and myself