Sunday, February 27, 2011

And the beat goes on!!!!

Wow, what a treat to see MALs show choir group take the first place trophy home from the Carthage SoundFest competition yesterday!

They did an awesome job, one of the best performances I have seen them do and they were awarded the first place slot for their efforts...what is significant in my brain on this is that I have been to several of the competitions and they usually do not make finals nor do they place. This has always seemed odd to me since I always thought they did a great job and left empty handed. I'm not sure but I think some of it has to do with the judges. Yesterday's judges had not ever seen any of the choirs perform before, which is cool and odd. The judges were successful independent individuals who gave the schools a fair shake...WooHoo

They ALL rocked it and I'm proud to know 'em...


Virtuoso
Their opening number...MAL and LIZ

 The FaceBook song gets lots of laughs and is so upbeat and fun!!!!

 Bring On Tomorrow...

 Baby YOU'RE a STAR!!!!
This is MALs solo...

 Doin' the Cupid Shuffle waiting for the final results!

What a great day, we finished it off with a Denny's stop on the way home...nothing like being at a Denny's in Lamar, MO at 12:00 A.M.!! Fun times right there!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Happy Birthday thoughts!

 HaPpY BiRtHdAy!!!!!

 
Today the MiB celebrates his 45th birthday! If you know MiB in the flesh you know he is a man of integrity, he does not hold punches and he speaks from the heart. He is a BIG picture guy, he struggles with tact and has a huge love of life in the blue. He is a great leader, he likes to know he is doing right by those he serves with and for. He also may not like it but knows he needs to be mentored if he is doing it not so right. He takes life seriously, he knows life is precious but he knows how to live and live life to the fullest.

He is not an extrovert!  He goes out of his way to make events more fun with his sense of humor and easy smile. And while sometimes he has to be reminded to "look at the mountains" he usually does not get caught in the weeds. He makes every effort to NOT sweat the small stuff, to look out for the little guy aka Airmen Snuffy and he will fall on his sword for the right reasons! He takes loyalty VERY seriously, he is not easily swayed by popular opinion and he will go to the mat if it is for the greater good.

I know, I know I am biased... I know, I get that! BUT I have seen this man toil over indiscretions that needed to be addressed and weren't and so he did; stew over doing the right thing even when it was not the popular thing, having to make the hard call when others with more authority did not choose to. He is remarkable and he is my man and I wish him a very happy birthday today!

With love to my MiB, see you in less then 2 weeks... muuuuaaaah!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Deer, Speeding Ticket, Shopping and Casa

Sooooo yesterday was eventful after a lovely FFA breakfast in Bronaugh, MO we were heading back to Nevada, MO to go to shopping in Kansas City, MO we encountered a deer, the deer did not make it...


Vehicle was not drivable, airbags DID NOT deploy; I could not exit the passenger side door!
So after the deer encounter, my other cousin came to pick us up and off to KC we went. We were about half way there when a Missouri Highway Patrolman wished to visit with us...Saundra was traveling somewhat OVER the posted speed limit and Trooper Jones let her know just exactly how much over and gave her a nice white envelope to mail in a contribution to the state for her transgression. He was a very nice trooper and bid us a good day and we were on our way again! In KC I scored some awesome bargains! The Littles are going to be set on PJs for the next year!! We headed home, going right at the posted speed limit and in no time we were back in Nevada, MO mySherry and I quickly unloaded and headed to Casa, since Saundra did not take us to Ponack's and we were both in the mood for Mexican food.  What a day, glad it was no more eventful then it was and that everyone is okay! I'm gonna have to be careful hanging out with the cousins from now on!! LOL

If you are squeamish, you may not want to scroll down any farther, just sayin'!
















The deer did not make it...

Friday, February 18, 2011

Smartee...


Before I forget I wanted to post about the SMARTee. Lots of people wonder what happened to it. It has been in storage since June...we liberated it while we were in FL. It was fun to see it and drive it again. It is still a novelty to many and we still enjoy it and MiB loves it as much today as he did when he got it!
This is an older picture...from when we lived on the street!

The folks at the A&FRC loved getting to check it out! 

We rolled it over the 16,000 mark!

In it's home aka the storage unit!!!

Nice that she only needs attention every 10,000 miles!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Thursday Thoughts!

There is sunshine in my world this week! WOOHOO I’m lovin’ it. I do not think winter is over but I know Spring is on the horizon…cause that’s the way it works! HA and honestly, all that white stuff WAS pretty and I was in a warm house with plenty of hot beverages available and no need to go anywhere so really I have no complaints about having a bit of winter this year. However, I will not skirt it, I am more of a warm weather girl now that I am in my 4’s. I grew up in the Midwest, I walked to school until I was able to drive, I know cold, I know how to properly dress. I did not walk two miles up hill both ways….LOL I only walked a mile and it was usually with a friend and thankfully on very cold mornings we got a ride from another mom or dad, but not always so I know "walkin’ to school" cause I did it!

So lots of planning going on in my world, we are all soooooo excited about the BIG trip, and if you are counting with me it is 3 weeks from TODAY!!! Ahhhh fun, fun, fun can’t wait! We all made lists of the top 5 things we want to do. MiBs was a known. Visit the North Shore, surfing, surfing, surfing, surfing. Lil Blue’s was pretty simple to accommodate with snorkeling, swim with dolphins, visit the USS Arizona/Pearl Harbor, surfing and attend a luau.  Mine were easy too and some were duplicates of Lil Blue’s so I tried to come up with five more and this is what I have…Tour the DOLE plantation, visit the state capitol, visit the state art museum, Diamond Head and get off the beaten path for shopping/eating. I think we have more then enough for 16 days!

Thursday Thoughts

  • Planning is sooooo fun!
  • Decision making is tedious…
  • So thankful for warmer temps!
  • “Littles” hugs are PRICELESS
  • Waiting is so very hard but worth it!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Heart Day!

I have such a great man!!!!

This is his post for today... I cannot top that so I won't even try, he knows me well.

I did LOVE the card he sent this year, a musical one, with the TIM MCGRAW song My Best Friend, that was pretty darn cool! Roses are so not me on this day, another day for no reason, you bet that's okay but never dreamed about, which is what makes it so right...

Thank you MiB for loving me above all else...thankfully we have weathered the life in blue quite well, IMO, and we are still happy about being together all these years later. You are a most awesome helpmate and I know you are the man God intended for me to marry. Honestly, we have our quirkies, we really do, but we keep on keepin' on and enjoy life together, really, we ENJOY life TOGETHER. By choice we spend A LOT of time together, I like it that way. I would never have dreamed I would have the life I do, I am so thankful and thrilled to have had the experiences we have, I would never choose a "do over" I think we got it right and look forward to life after the blue with you! I am no-doubt-about-it livin' the dream!

143!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Thursday Thoughts!

Oh my, my, my it's so white all around me!

I think I am hibernating, really, til at least Saturday I will NOT be out and about in the white! Saturday though will be a different story as we make our way North for another SOUNDSATIONAL singers competition. That's right we will trek to Harrisonville, MO to cheer on the singers! My niece sings with this group, she is good, I mean exceptionally good, I am not biased, I am truthful. I have gone to a few of the competitions over the years and I have heard and seen good and NOT so good...she is good! So that is Saturday and that will probably be the next time I go out...unless I walk up the lane to the mailbox cause I need some fresh air :P

Short and sweet since internet is not readily available and getting this uploaded is a monumental task in this white world! Oh who am I kidding, the white world has NOTHING to do with the challenge of uploading, the non existent internet does...I love being in the sticks...guess that's what happens when you are homeless!

Thoughts:
  • Should of stayed in FL...
  • I'm craving a Boca burger 
  • Love my dad's veggie soup!
  • I'll be in HI in just 27 more days!
  • White world makes it tough to exercise : (
That's it for me, over and out, in a world of white!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

the making of a Caramel Macchiato!

Are you a Starbuck's fan? Well, I really am not what I would call a "fan" but I do enjoy some of their drink offerings, especially the caramel macchiato. I mean this is a great drink IMO and if I find myself at a SBs this is my go-to treat drink. Otherwise I usually just go with a Now, please know that I do not go to SBs just to get this drink, I'm tooooo cheap for that! I also cannot afford the calories, so I have learned to order it "skinny"  which knocks off a few of the calories and doesn't mess with the taste! So the cheapness in me led me to assist in the exploration of making this drink at home when Mrs 3DD said she wondered if we could recreate it! A little google search was all it took and we were off...armed with knowledge, detailed insight and a recipe we embarked on the recreation of the CM at home! In a word.... S U C C E S S. This was the site we used! We did start out following the site and then tweaked it to our own taste...little heavier on the vanilla in the syrup, little more caramel on top! It's definitely a keeper if you are a fan of this SBs drink!
 Whipping the milk was easy, and fun, not to mention messy if you did not keep that whippet thing all the way submerged...just sayin' And just for the record, I am going to try this again with almond milk, which I have found I really enjoy. Oh and we simply heated the milk in the microwave, easy!

Prior to this step there was the making of the vanilla syrup. You can actually buy this stuff, SBs has their brand and there are many others out there as well, but we decided to make it. VERY EASY, little water, little sugar, real vanilla, and you have your own vanilla syrup with no preservatives or other things in it you cannot pronounce!!! The recipe to make the vanilla syrup is in the link above.

 A lovely picture of the steamed milk just after it was "marked" with the espresso! We used a single serve coffee maker and used an espresso disc, it was perfect IMO. You can choose to make up your own espresso however you like. We were quite pleased with the taste, strength of the one we used.

Adding the caramel!

 
Ready to be stirred and enjoyed! Which we did! YUMMERS...I'm ready to make one now!

Monday, February 7, 2011

How the coffee got ROASTED!

On my last day in the beautiful sunshine state I am treated to a new experience...home roasting coffee beans!

If you think the only talents coming from 3DD are rocket launching you are wrong, VERY wrong. RocketBoy is also a bean roaster. Pretty cool, another time perhaps we will delve into some of the many other talents he has, but not today. Today we will focus on coffee bean roasting.

It all began with a bag of 'raw beans'  In all honesty I had never seen an "un"roasted raw coffee bean before! Well, now I can't say that anymore cause now I have! And really, they look a little like the beans that you make into ham and beans to me!

 The ham and bean look stage...kinda funny, in my brain, since they are vegetarian : p

So, onto the roasting...you measure out a cup of the beans (cause that's what his roaster holds, in case you might be wondering!) and pop them into the little roaster and turn it on. You will want to do this outside. Why you may ask, well, the roasting process is somewhat odorous and you don't want to have that lingering around in your house so take it from me, do your roasting out of doors!! This roaster had a timer and depending on how much roast you want on your bean you set it for more or less time. These beans were supposed to be dark roast, however the high humidity on this day interfered with the roasting process and they did not go so dark.  Which worked out really well for me because since they didn't 'go dark' like they were supposed to I was the beneficiary of these freshly roasted beans : )


All right on the more roasting data! After they roast there is a bit of "mess" left in the roaster, kind of like the chaff that is left after you thresh wheat. The beans left behind a "skin" and other small particulate matter (like I really know what that means, but it sounds appropriate dontcha think? so I'm using it :) But now the beans are a lovely shade of brown and have a nice little bit of shine to them, oh and they are now split. They resemble what you see in the Millstone bins at your local grocery store. However, I was a bit surprised they did not have that strong coffee smell like you might have imagined from freshly roasted beans, there was only a slight subtle hint of coffee aroma.
 
All done, such a nice color!

 Here the beans are resting...since they were just whirled and heated til they popped, they are plum tuckered out!

Freshly roasted beans should be left to rest for 24 hours before you grind them...this is when you can really get the coffee aroma; after they are ground! They were very 'smelly' in a good way! Even though we double bagged them for transport, my entire suitcase smelled of fresh brewed coffee when I opened it! It was a lovely aroma in my mind. And since I arrived home late on Saturday night I did not open my luggage until Sunday mid-morning to rediscover my freshly ground beans! Since the day's coffee had already been made it was not until Monday morning after my return that we were able to enjoy the freshly roasted and ground beans.

Hmmmm, I'm sure I cannot adequately describe the intense flavor they had, but this is what I thought, a very strong full bodied coffee with a somewhat earthy feel to it; not your everyday run of the mill cup of coffee taste for sure. This ain't Maxwell House or Folger's for sure! I had two cups, neither with cream, just a touch of sugar in the first cup but decided to be a purist on the cup number two and go straight up black. I enjoyed it! I think it would make a most awesomely perfect espresso for say an iced coffee or a caramel macchiato, I do not think I would be able to switch over to using this as my daily drinker, but I might...

All in all I think the whole idea of roasting your own beans is quite extraordinary; totally not sure I would ever take it on for myself, but I did enjoy seeing/smelling the process and being educated a bit about the coffee bean and how the whole process of coffee bean roasting works! Thanks RB!

Now go get your own cup a Joe and wonder if you might want to start roasting your own beans!

Friday, February 4, 2011

I have the house to myself!!

Whoa, what a feeling, I mean you just don't get a house to yourself when you are homeless, happily homeless I might add! It's kinda odd and cool all at the same time! What gives it an even stranger feel is that I used to live in this house (well, not THIS house, but one exactly like it, three doors down...) So there is that overwhelming familiarity to it but it is not my house...makes perfect sense to me and I'm enjoying it. So today is my last day in FL and everyone is involved in life which leaves me to my own devices; scary I know! They also have a laptop, desktop and wifi that I have permission to use... I'm digging it.

As I heard everyone get their day started this morning, I did not emerge, I just chose to enjoy the morning, foggy as it was in my little corner of the world...read a little, emailed a little.  When I did finally venture out I chatted with DD#1, had coffee, really good coffee I might add and a bowl of oatmeal. Then I proceeded to belly up to the desktop and had a grand time! I've been quite productive this morning if I do say so myself...I've booked another plane ticket, researched car rentals, did more research on things to do and places to eat in HI while working on our I-10, forwarded documents to the insurance company regarding LilBlue, caught up on some banking transactions and made this post and it's not even 9:30 A.M.

Next I am going to head out to the garage to shine up the little SMARTee prior to putting her back in storage, hit the BX/commissary one last time to pick up some favorites and thank you things, have some lunch, walk on the beach, pick up DD#1 from school and let the last evening unfold. It's not a big day but a day I am relishing in, even though I am solo. No committments, no one to feel like I am burdening.  It's pretty neat how things work out. I get concerned about being under foot when staying on with friends and family (especially, those who work at home...G&G and one half of 3DD) but it usually all works out I think!

Enjoy your Friday, I know I am :)

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Thursday Thoughts!

Hmmm...thoughts on this Thursday scream, I WANT MORE TIME W/MiB...

I am so thrilled for the last 11 days; what a bonus it was that we were able to rendezvous but I am still sad that the time has drawn to a close and we go back to our separate lives. On the bright side in a mere 34 days we will have another rendezvous in HAWAII for 16 glorious days. There is ABSOLUTELY NO doubt in my mind I will be on a countdown for this one!!!  After that is should all be downhill until his return in say 85 days or so give or take a few!

It still remains to be seen where our next new home will be but does it really matter as long as we are together? I think not! However, there are some great options out there and Lord willing we will have some details to share soon enough : )

The Midwest has been slammed by some ferocious weather this week, I am returning there on Saturday and hope it is all good for an airport shuttle to pick me up!

Florida Thoughts:
  • I miss MiB...
  • I miss the ocean...
  • I miss three doors down...
I'm going to soak up a little more of this FL sunshine (even if there has been a little rain here and there, it's NOT SNOW) before I head back up north. Hope your world has a little bit of sunshine today even if you had to make it yourself!

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

And he's gone...

We knew this day would come and we were as ready as we could be...the last 11 days were an awesome gift...we took advantage of this bonus time together! We reconnected with friends (and of course each other!), we walked the beach, we made late night "sweet" runs, we just soaked up togetherness! We did not lock ourselves away together, though I'm sure we could have, we didn't! MiB even had solo playdates or more accurately surfdates! And I also had lunch dates! We so enjoyed meeting up with friends, doing some office visits and working to maximize our time here. Again, we had an AWESOME meet up! I would not change much except that I would have went ahead and brought Lilblue down... She will be with us in Hawaii though :) So as all things go there is an ending and that was today for this trip. Today MiB began that very loooong journey back to his world...

I am staying one more night on the beach before staying a couple more nights with three doors down then head off to the Midwest again for a few days. Right now I am thankful for the time and thinking about a low key quiet evening with my thoughts, a good book and an advocado (dinner :) even though there were some very gracious offers of dinner this evening I'm going to decline.

I have an airport departure picture but cannot upload it from my phone! Not even sure that is available but I certainly have not figured out how to do that or if you can even upload pictures from your phone?? Anyway, the beach is screaming my name!! Buh byyyye!

ADDED:
And this is the airport picture...thanks to the desktop of three doors down!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Dolphins and Donuts!

As we strolled the beach this morning there were dolphins...I had just told MiB they never jump up out of the water like they do at SeaWorld do they? Then lo and behold they started to jump, I know they did it just for ME :)

 My jumping dolphin shot!!!

It was such a great morning, we enjoyed the 67* weather in short sleeves...awesome consider much of the Midwest is battening down the hatches for a blizzard and that would include most of our family! So sorry for them, and not so sorry I am not there...

After strolling our beach, we decided to make a donut run...Boston creme and blueberry won our favor and with our drinks of choice in hand we headed over to Hightower to enjoy the view! What a view it was and a great place to enjoy the morning. Today is our last day, I am so thankful for this precious time together, I know tomorrow will be a somewhat melancholy day but a day I am thankful for nonetheless.

Caffeine free Pepsi and Boston cream donut!

Gotta run, still have some last minute things to wrap up, another surf session for MiB along with a couple goodbye meetings and a BG meeting. It's going to be a fun busy day. Dinner with "three doors down" as well!