Fun Weekend!

We had a really good weekend! Friday night we went over to our friends Laine and Andrew's house, along with our friend Keith, to have Chicken Spaghetti. It was sooo yummy :) After dinner the boys played tennis while Laine and I had tea and talked inside. We ended up playing Nerts at the end of the night which is always fun and Taylor won, as usual. He is so good at that game, it's crazy!

Saturday, I got up and made chocolate chip pancakes for us and then we spent the afternoon just kind of relaxing. Taylor headed up to the school later in the afternoon to study with some guys for awhile and that evening we headed to the 35th Annual Sweet Corn Festival! It was a fun time to hang out with Laine and Andrew! The festival had all kinds of food booths and tons of sweet corn :) As we were walking around, we noticed this setup where you could take pictures! ha. Laine and I thought these were funny but the boys wouldn't take a picture!



They also had live music that night and we will just say it was... interesting! ha. None of us really cared for the music so we just ended up talking most of the time. And enjoyed yummy kettle corn!

Here is Laine and Andrew!

Sunday, we tried out a new church called Windsor Road Christian Church. Taylor and I both really enjoyed it! It was their Missions Sunday so we got to hear all about the mission trips different groups had gone on in the church. We will probably go back there soon! This week is going to be a busy week. Taylor is taking a qualifying test tonight and tomorrow night for school, I have a 2nd interview tomorrow, we should find out about some jobs, it is my birthday Thursday (yay!), and then Taylor's family is coming to visit this weekend! We are really excited for them to come!


Hope you all have a great week!

Study, study, study...

So Taylor has been in class now for almost a week and already he is consumed with studying! It seems like being a graduate student is a lot like having an 8 to 5 job, and then working 3 hours of overtime everyday! ha.


While he has been studying, I have had three interviews this week which is a HUGE praise! We should find out about all those jobs sometime next week. I am really hoping that one of these positions will work out, because I feel like they would all be good opportunities! So we will keep you all updated. Thanks for your continued prayers and support during this time, we truly appreciate it. Yesterday, I hung out with our new friend Laine (she is married to one of Taylor's graduate school friends). She went grocery shopping with me and then we just had tea and hung out at our apartment. I think we both enjoyed having someone to talk with while our husbands were at school!

And what post would be complete without us showing you what we cooked for dinner?? :) Tonight, we made Chicken Parm Pizza. I got the recipe off our friends Sarah & Mitch's blog. It was delicious and didn't take long to make! Mine turned out a little funny shaped, but it was my first time making pizza dough! ha.


CHICKEN PARM PIZZA RECIPE

• 1 Pizza dough
• 1 lb of ground/sliced chicken
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• Salt
• Black pepper
• Pinch of parsley, red pepper flakes and dried oregano
• 1 8oz can tomato sauce
• 1 cup parmesan cheese
• 1 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

1. Preheat oven 425
2. Heat deep skillet over medium/high heat with olive oil (I used about a tbsp.)
3. Brown chicken then add garlic, onion, salt, and pepper (cook together for 6 min)
4. Then add parsley, red pepper flakes, oregano, and tomato sauce (heat sauce through)
5. Apply meat sauce to pizza dough, then arrange cheeses on top of pizza.
6. Bake 10-12 minutes

Have a happy Friday everyone! Love y'all.

Back to School

We had an exciting weekend! Our friends Drew, Brittany, and TP, who all live in Chicago, came to visit on Friday night and we had a really good time. We went and ate at a pizza restaurant called Papa Del's that was sooo good! Afterwards, we took a tour of campus and then came back and hung out at our apartment. Saturday morning, Taylor and I cooked breakfast for everyone and then they all headed back to Chicago. We can't wait to go visit them soon! And yes, we did forget to take pictures. Sorry :(

Saturday afternoon, we tried to go play golf but the course was really busy. Instead, we finally went and saw Inception! We both really enjoyed it and it was fun to discuss the film afterwards. Taylor and I both like movies that we can talk about and analyze after it's over! Sunday we went to the Vineyard Church again and had another good experience. That evening we had our new friends Andrew, Laine, and Keith over for dinner and games. We decided it would be fun to grill hamburger and make homemade fries but our grill is still at my parent’s house so we had to improvise. Here is a picture of our make-shift grill! Ha. Everything turned out yummy but we can't wait until my parents bring our grill up here!


Monday morning was Taylor's first day of graduate school! I asked him if he wanted me to walk him to the bus stop but he said no. ha! He did at least let me take a picture of him before he left :) That afternoon I had an interview with a Media Company in the area and I think it went really well. It is for a Marketing Coordinator position they have open and I should hear back sometime next week!


We have also made a few very yummy dinners the last few nights so I thought I would share those with you!

On Wednesday we made seasoned tumble roast, corn on the cob, aluminum foil potatoes, and rolls! Taylor calls this his "man meal". He absolutely loves it and it's very easy because you just cook the roast in the crock pot!


Thursday night I made my first chicken pot pie! I got the recipe from my family recipe book and it was submitted by the Massey family. Thank you guys! We really enjoyed this meal :)


CHICKEN POT PIE RECIPE

Ingredients:
1 can cream of potato soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can of VEG-ALL mixed vegetables (drained)
2 cans of cooked chicken or 1.5 cups of cooked, diced chicken
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 tsp. thyme
1/2 tsp. black pepper
2 9 inch pie crusts
1 egg (slightly beaten)

Directions:
Combine first 7 ingredients in bowl. Season to taste. Spoon into prepared pie crust. Cover with top crust. Crimp edges to seal. Slit top crust and brush with egg. Bake at 375 for 40 minutes and let cool 10 minutes before serving.

Hope you all are having a great week!

Exciting few days!

So, we have had an exciting last few days! Sunday night we were asked by a couple of guys from AR that are in the U of I graduate program with Taylor if we wanted to come over and have dinner. We had a really good time! They grilled hot dogs and had ice cream and brownies for dessert. We played a card game called Saboteur and watched a movie. It was really nice because one of the guys is married so I got to hang out with another girl for the first time! Ha. She was so sweet and I could definitely see us becoming friends :) Monday, we decided to go play golf because the weather was beautiful! Taylor got to use his new irons so he was pretty excited.


Look at my sweet husband pushing my cart for me!


Last night, we headed up to Chicago to help two of our friends, Brittany and Drew, move into their new apartment! We got home last night, or this morning actually, at 2am so needless to say we slept in this morning. We had such a good time and we were so happy that we were able to help them out. Moving in is such a huge task, that the more hands you have the better! They are going to come visit us on Friday, along with our friend TP who is moving to the area, and we can't wait! They will be our first house guests :) Yay!

Good luck organizing everything guys!

Tonight, we tried a new recipe from the awesome family recipe book I received at one of our wedding showers! It is the coolest book that is filled with recipes from our family and friends and put together in a wonderful scrapbook. We made Easy Hamburger Casserole which was submitted by Taylor's Moggie.

Per the request of some readers, haha, we are going to start posting the recipes that we liked so you guys can enjoy them as well!

EASY HAMBURGER CASSEROLE
Brown one pound ground beef and one medium sliced onion in 1-1/2 tbs. oil.

Add:
2 tsp. chili powder
3/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can light kidney beans (drained)
1 can Mexicorn (drained)

Simmer for 15 to 20 mins., or until most of the liquid is gone. Pour mixture into greased casserole dish. Top with 1/2 pkg. of corn muffin mix (we used Jiffy!). Spread batter over top. Bake at 425 until the cornbread is brown (it took our oven 20 mins!).

Thank you Moggie! It was delicious.

And we have some exciting news...


We have cable, well, sort of! Ha. When we hooked up our cable cord to the TV and had it search for channels, it found over 100 channels! How awesome is that? :) We're not sure how long it will last, but we are going to enjoy it while it does!

Hope y'all have a good evening! We are going to go enjoy some Big Brother, LIVE! Ha.

We should have purchased cable...

We've made a huge mistake. We should have just paid for the cable so that we could watch the PGA Championship! Last night we walked around the Illini Union, trying to find a tv that we could watch the tournament on. There were plenty of tvs, but all of them were on MTV. Very convenient for us. Today, we considered going to Buffalo Wild Wings just to sit and watch it. Instead, we watched it online. But that just means we watch the Marquee group consisting of Tiger, Steve Elkington, and Francesco Molinari. It would have been awesome had Tiger made a move. So he just put me to sleep. Sorry about the picture quality, our camera died today.


We woke up late this morning and then headed to the farmers market downtown. We just picked up the regulars, you know, corn on the cob, green beans, okra, zucchini, and squash. Since it's Saturday, we didn't feel the stress of applying for jobs so we watched the PGA tournament and I studied Physics a little bit. As far as a job goes, we are hoping to hear about two jobs in the next couple of days. We would be extremely happy with both.

We tried a new recipe tonight. It was chicken parmesan with linguine and broccoli. It was pretty delicious and something we will be making again. We wanted to get out and do something this evening, so we thought we go get sno cones. Jamie remembered seeing one somewhere in town, so we went out in search of it, but didn't end up finding it. So we decided to make smoothies at home instead.




Hope you guys had a nice Saturday! We love you.

ID Cards and Tex-Mex

Happy Friday to all! Hope you all have had a wonderful week. Well, Taylor has officially started the Graduate process at the U of I! He went this morning to orientation and will be able to register for classes on Tuesday. He is so excited to finally start classes again. I will never understand how he can enjoy reading and studying a textbook for hours and hours! We went and got his ID card made this afternoon, and as you can tell from the picture, he was sooo happy I wanted to take a picture! ha.


We tried out a new recipe for dinner tonight! It was called Tex-Mex Chicken with Chiles and Cheese. It was so yummy, and pretty simple! We have been trying to find some new recipes for ways to cook chicken and we will for sure be making this one again :)


After dinner we headed to campus to walk around. The weather here is beautiful tonight and the campus is so pretty that it was nice to get out. We are planning on hitting the Farmer's Market once again tomorrow. We have been missing our corn on the cob this week! ha.

Hope you guys have a wonderful weekend!

A Good Day

So today has been a good day! Taylor tried out his new irons, I took a pre-employment test for a potential job, got positive feedback on another potential job, and will be having lunch tomorrow with a guy from Kraft to discuss some more job possibilites. Your prayers are being seen, so thank you all for your prayers!

So a few weeks ago Taylor told me that he wanted to buy me new irons for my birthday, so he started looking on eBay, Craig's list, etc. In the process, he came across a set of clubs that he has wanted for a long time and for a price that we just couldn't pass up! He cleaned his old irons and has promised me that they will sell! So we will see :)


Needless to say, he has been a very happy boy for the last few days! ha. We decided to head out to the driving range this afternoon so he could try the new irons out. It was soooo hot! We were out there for no more than 20 minutes and were sweating like crazy. I don't even want to imagine how hot it was in OK or AR if it was that hot here!


Dinner tonight was great! We made grilled hamburgers and homemade french fries which now means that our apartment will smell like vegetable oil for a week but oh well, it was delicious! We also hung up our curtains in the guest bedroom/Taylor's office. I wanted to show you guys what the room looks like now, and since it is all set up, now you MUST come visit!

Ok, we're going to watch a movie now, as usual :) We love you all!

We're back!!!

Sorry we have been M.I.A. for the last few days! We left for Arkansas last Tuesday and we were both so busy neither of us had time to post. So here is an update of our lives during the past week!


We left for Arkansas on Tuesday afternoon and made the drive back to B'ville. Doesn't Taylor look thrilled to be spending 8 hours in the car? :) We got in that night around 9pm and were sooo tired! Wednesday was a jam packed day: I finally got to go shopping at Dillard's and use our gift cards (sadly we do not have one anywhere around us in IL..), we had a delicious lunch at Whole Hog, played a round of golf, and enjoyed some really good Sushi for dinner! The next morning we headed for OKC cause two of our friends were getting married on Saturday, more on that later. Thursday was a great day for both of us! Taylor went to a Bachelor party and got to go "Browling" while I ate dinner with some of my close girlfriends from OBU! Thank you Steph for cooking such a delicious meal. Also, neither one of us took very many pictures during the trip so we apologize! We promise to get better at taking pictures! ha.

Friday, I went to a shower for my friend Brittany and had lunch with two sweet friends Danielle and Stephanie! We ate at Panera and it was sooo good. They have this Fuji Apple Chicken Salad and I am currently obsessed with it! Thank you Susan for introducing it to me :) Taylor spent the day swimming and playing volleyball. Man, the life of a graduate student is hard! That evening we both attended the rehearsal dinner which catered Ted's! Yummy. It's always nice to go home and be able to eat all of your food that you miss while you are away!


On Saturday we headed to Brittany and Drew's wedding where Taylor was a groomsman. It was such a pretty and reverent ceremony. We are so happy for them! They will be moving to the Chicago area soon and we can't wait to spend more time with them. At the reception they had ALL KINDS of desserts and punch! It was like heaven to me! ha. It was also a nice time to spend with our friends who we don't get to see very often now.


After the wedding, we went out to eat with Jim and Susan for their wedding anniversary along with two of our friends Mitch and Sarah. Once again, we ate at one of our favorite places in the City, Mama Rojas! I highly recommend it. After dinner, we headed to Tulsa to spend a few days with my family. On Sunday we finally got some time to relax and got to eat at our favorite pizza place, Minuteman. Also, we got to watch TV not on the computer! ha. It was funny how it actually seemed strange to us! That evening we went to this frozen yogurt shop called Peachwave. All I can say is that I will be visiting there every time we go back to Tulsa!

Finally, on Monday we headed back to Illinois. We had such a great time in AR and OK, it was hard to leave. But now that we are back, it's YOUR turn to come visit US! We picked out sheets and pillows for the guest bed so come on over whenever.

We love you all and can't wait to see you again soon!

Sunday Stuff

Today was a really good day. We went to Sunday School at First Baptist Church at Savoy. When we were 20 minutes into the lesson and the class consisted of a 55 year old man, a teenager girl, and a married couple in their 30's with children, it was obvious that this Fellowship Class for Young Couples was a misnomer and not the class for us. Then, we realized that the church was not for us when we walked into service full of older people, at least double our age. The average age was probably 60 years old. Even though we have plenty in common with them, like say recreation (golf), we decided to attend another church's service. So we tried the Vineyard. Much better experience and we're going to look into the church more. Plus, the backdrop of the stage was a fake corn field, so we obviously have to give it a chance.

After church, we had our usual sandwiches for lunch. A workout from P90X soon followed. It is quite amazing that in such a small little workout area, I could sweat so much.

Dinner consisted of vegetable fried rice, chicken potstickers, egg rolls, and edamame. It was pretty good, except the frozen egg rolls were a disappointment.


As I was washing the dishes, I realized the pitiful state I am in and how bad I need cable.

For example, you know I need cable when Friends no longer makes me simply chuckle, I laugh out loud.

You know we need cable when...

• I make Jamie rewind the show The Real Housewives of New Jersey on the internet because I missed a scene.
• I actually have legitimate back and forth dialogue with Jamie about how Danielle is in the wrong. By the way, Danielle is from The Real Housewives of New Jersey.
• Jamie watches the Synergistics Core workout from P90X, not even attempting to do the exercises.
• We may actually spend more money on renting movies from Redbox than we would from simply getting cable.
• We get really ticked off at the TV networks for not posting their new episodes quick enough (like the day of).
• We go through a season of Friends in 2 days.

However, you know we don't need cable when I put my nighttime glasses and pajamas on at 5:00pm before dinner. That just means we need a job and school to start!

See you soon!