Time to start keeping up with this thing again! Dylan leaves at the end of this month for his second deployment to Afghanistan. It will only be for a few months and while I'm so thankful for that, I'm still scared and I don't want him to go. These next few months are going to be pretty boring, I'm afraid. So I plan to record all of the boredom on here so Dylan can read allllllll about it ;) He will actually have free wifi while he's there and this time he'll have his cell phone. There is an app we've both learned about and downloaded called "Viber" that will allow us to text message each other while he is away with no cost. I'm excited about that! So I've been pretty busy soaking up time with him and looking for a job. I have an interview this afternoon that I'm pretty excited about! I've worked SO hard trying to get my name out there to all of the schools and FINALLY it is paying off! In just TWO days I had 3 people contact me for interviews! So here are a few things that have been happening in our lives lately… My cousin Brad and his wife Jodie welcomed baby Hadley Jo into the world on April 7th and we were so excited to be there for them! Hadley won't have many aunts and uncles, so Katelyn and I are new "aunts" :) look at this sweeeeeet babe… I could just eat her up. Kate and I often plan "dates" with Haddie and Jodie during the day and we go hang out at their house to sip on sonic drinks and pass the babe around. Those are fun days that I hope we all will remember. Dylan's sister and nephew Evan came into town last week. They live out West and Evan is three years old (as of Monday.) This was my first time AND Dylan's first time to meet sweet Evan. He's been a lot of Fun! Here are some fun pictures of his birthday that we celebrated with him… Dylan couldn't WAIT for Evan to get here so that they could do fun "boy things." So he took Evan fishing a couple of days ago at Lake Sequoyah. Evan loved it and so did Dylan :) I came along only to take pictures of course… and to help make sure Evan didn't fall in :) Evan even caught a couple little fish on the new Spiderman fishing pole his Uncle Dyl bought him! Then we took him to my house where he ate every ripe (and some not-so-ripe) strawberry off the plants, said hello to the ponies, We wore that little boy out! More updates to come soon, Dylan and I are planning a lot of fun things before the big deployment :)

March 2012

The highlight of March was when we packed up on Friday the 23rd and headed to Hot Springs! Dylan has never been before. I have family who live there so I have lots of memories there from eating at the pancake house to dancing in the Arlington lobby on the weekend nights. Here is what our weekend looked like…

We went straight downtown to visit the hot springs- I was so excited to show Dylan.





On Saturday, after breakfast at the Pancake House, we went straight to the races!





This was the first time for either of us to go. It was a whole different world there. And let me tell you… a LOT of different walks of life we saw that day. Whew. But it was SO much fun. We placed several different bets- spent a total of 38 dollars and when we cashed in, we got 43 back. So we came out 5 dollars ahead. Not too bad :)




I think I have more pictures on my camera (the ones above are all from my phone) Because I know on Sunday before we left we toured a couple of the famous bath houses, and I got some great pictures there. So maybe a different day I'll upload those. The bath houses were so cool!

We've also been spending a lot of time outside…
Practicing horse shoes and planting some peppers and herbs.



Dylan and I love to cook, and almost every recipe we use calls for fresh cilantro or parsley. So we buy a bundle at Wal Mart for 88 cents and even though it isn't expensive- it is still wasteful because we only use a little bit and then save the rest in the fridge only to throw it away later because it goes bad. So, we decided to just plant our own! I'm REALLY excited to cook this week and use some of it! Dylan, of course, had to plant some peppers… we'll see how that goes :)



Last week I made Thai Coconut Curry Shrimp and it was DELISH! I'll make it again! We had baked squash and zucchini with it, and strawberries and blackberries for dessert :)


This past weekend we took it easy. Did some yard work and ended Saturday night like this

And he might kill me… but one last picture that I just can't leave out- Dad was transplanting two HUGE Azaleas on Saturday morning. They were so big that he had to bring out the tractor. Dylan was helping him and I walked outside to see how it was going and this was what I saw. I just cracked up laughing! What a priceless picture… I just love that they get along so well!

Happy April!

February Update

a few things have been going on around here…

* Celebrated Valentines day with my goofball. Homemade shrimp scampi with red wine.

*Babysat this little stinker and her older siblings while mommy and daddy were in Vegas :) I brought her some chocolate for her birthday… can you tell?

* My main man turned 25 on Feb. 22nd. We celebrated with dinner at his parents house. I got him a set of combination wrenches, a tool box/holder thing, and a gift certificate to a shooting range (he wants me to know how to use a gun. Scary, huh?)

* I didn't make it into grad school for counseling. But I'm OK and I will probably apply again in September.

*In the meantime, I'm going to go through the Non Traditional Licensure Program to get my teaching license (since I have to have that to be a counselor anyway)

* A position became open at Creative School and I took it! I'm an office assistant type person. It isn't as good as being in a classroom with the kiddos - THAT is where the fun is - But it pays well and I get to work at the place I love with the people I love so I'm happy :)

*I've been dog-sitting these two things and their older sister bulldog, Ruby.


* I just got my first spray tan, like, an hour ago. It was almost as embarrassing as the annual gyno appointment, but I've got some pretty good looking tan legs right now. SHOUT OUT to cousin Kristin! Thank you!!

*I've been cooking more Pinterest Recipes, chicken pot pie, Quinoa burgers and avocado chicken salad (not all in one meal)


* Tuesday I take the first Praxis exam… which is supposedly the easiest, but I'm still studying! (Its so I can get into the NTL program)

Happy Sunday!

Pinterest Smoothies

Friends, I've been super healthy lately… At least for the first half of the day until happy hour rolls around at Sonic… After making this recipe I found on Pinterest, I got a little smoothie happy.

This morning, I took this recipe and made it my own. I was a little worried because the lady who came up with this, "green monster smoothie" swore that it didn't taste bad. She even said it didn't taste healthy. She was right- even with the changes I made, I think this smoothie is delish! Here is how I made it…

1 frozen banana (cut before freezing)
about a cup of ice
1 TBSP plus 1 TSP Honey
1 TBSP plus 1 TSP Peanut butter
1/2 Cup 2% Milk
1/2 Cup Plain greek yogurt
2 cups spinach (I think she calls for 4 cups. 2 was plenty for me)

Just throw it all in the blender

looks good and green, huh?

Now let me tell ya, you're gonna wanna blend this REALLY well or else you'll drink down some pieces of spinach and if you're a "texture person" like me, you're not gonna like it…

Drink up! I saved half of it and put it in the freezer. Hopefully that turns out well for me.

And really, it does taste good. Once you get past the greenness :)

Baking and Cooking Craze

Thanks to Pinterest, I've been baking and cooking up a storm! And I really love it, so I suppose some of my momma is rubbing off on me :) today though I made some 2 minute microwave brownies that needs to be UNpinned. It was gross.

Dylan had to work on Christmas day, but no worries! I sent a delish breakfast casserole with him that I made again this morning

Then I made some yummy homemade caramels. I wish I had a finished picture but we gobbled them up. I'm not a huge caramel fan, but Dylan loves it.

And what I'm proud of the most are these little beauties! I just looooove making Christmas cookies (however this is not from Pinterest, but a very yummy and precious recipe from my grandmother :)

December

How did it get here so fast?! Here is what I've been up to lately:

* 14th annual (maybe 15th?) family reunion with the Reagan's! This event is also named, "Reagan Fest" thanks to my mom's side of the family :) My dad has 12 brothers and sisters, so it does look kind of like a festival when we all get together. But its one of my very favorite things that happens during the year!

* I became addicted to Pinterest. I've had an account for a little while but have only caught onto it in the past week or so. One day I made a crock pot recipe AND made a holiday wreath from Pinterest. How about that?

* I've slowly but surely made my way out of the funk I've been in. I'm getting used to the idea of growing up :)

* I started my new tutoring job, which I'm loving. It is on Monday's and Friday's. I work with one other girl and we tutor 5 kids after school. I work on the "reading" part. Comprehension, fluency, and writing strategies are probably the top 3 things I've googled DAILY for the past few weeks. I LOVE IT.

* I finished my literacy class I was taking two nights a week. Made an A in both 8 week courses. :)

* Met with a career counselor at the U of A after a very frantic late night email a couple of weeks ago. I think it started off something like this, "Hi I'm Emily Reagan. My life plans were crushed after I didn't make it into grad school for speech path and my advisor advised me not to apply again and for months now I've been sick at my stomach trying to re-plan my life and figure out some kind of career I can go into that will be easy to make it into grad school, make me a lot of money, and allow me to have a family later in life and I'M TIRED OF IT! I give up! I can't do it by myself anymore! I need help figuring out my life!" … Ok, it probably wasn't one big run on sentence, but it wasn't pretty and it did sound something like what I wrote above. When I told my mom this, she was a little embarrassed. :)

* Went to that career counselor two weeks ago and walked out with a smile because it was probably the very FIRST time I had met with an advisor in the last two years that I didn't bust out in tears on. Seriously. Big accomplishment there.

* I was advised by that very nice man of a career counselor that my face lit up when he mentioned counseling as a profession for me. (We met for over an hour, btw.) And so guess what I did?

* Made an appointment with the director of the counseling department at the University of Arkansas where I took in lots of information that was music to my ears… so then guess what?

* I started filling out papers for GRADUATE SCHOOL!! That's right! I'm applying on January 15th. And I'm really excited because it is the first career I've thought of and explored that has actually felt "right." It feels good. And the graduate program sounds heavenly. So even though this is fresh information, I'm excited about it and I'm ready to move forward with it. I'll go into detail about it all on another day :) eeeeek!

* I've done some house sitting/dog sitting

* I've done a ton of christmas shopping, which I love. I literally freaked out when I found the christmas sprinkle aisle at Hobby Lobby. Oh! and the $1.00 Christmas sprinkles at Target that I use every year. I just LOOOOOVE the holidays. I'm always trying to talk Dylan into getting "in the spirit" so he totally makes fun of that phrase any chance he gets now. But doesn't it just feel good to be in that spirit?!

* Spending lot's of time with family, especially tonight- we had one of the biggest Sunday dinners EVER. Our house was packed full and everyone was eating and laughing and joking around. We had mexican food and then Aunt Karen brought a ton of stuff over to make banana splits! Including the cherries! I looked at Dylan while we were standing off together at one point, looking at all that was going on and I said "I just love this. Look at it all. I love it!" And I do. I don't ever want to forget these times or take them for granted.

* Most importantly, I've just been enjoying being back to my old self lately. Life is finally starting to feel good and normal, and I'm thankful for that.