Happy Birthdays

I love celebrating birthdays. We celebrated two happy happy birthdays this week. One for Michael and one for America. :)

Happy Birthday Michael!

I surprised him with balloons and a card! He picked out his birthday present this year... a BioLite camp stove, pretty much the coolest camp stove ever. We had lunch at a little deli in the beach town that is just down the road from us. Best sandwiches ever. 

A little of his birthday celebrating spilled over to our 4th of July celebration. We were sneaky and stuck a candle in a cupcake and then sang the happy birthday song to him. :)

Happy Birthday America!

We had a little Forth of July gathering at our house this year. It was a lot of fun. (And a lot of work... my first time playing hostess and mommy at the same time! I survived with some help from friends!)

We had some good food. Farmer's market veggies. Fruit salad. Pasta salad. Corn on the cob. Cupcakes. Michael grilled up some burgers and hot dogs. Then we headed to base to watch the fireworks.

Baby girl slept through the fireworks. :)

This was my third and probably last year going to the fireworks show at Camp Lejeune. I was able to spend the fourth with my sweet friend and her little boy two years in row now. Check out how much little Mason has grown up! 

Love them! I'm sure going to miss them when we move away!

NC Summer, Take-Two...

I'm back in North Carolina and it is way hotter here than I remember, I just checked the weather and thanks to the humidity, it says that it feels like 111 degrees outside! Whew! I said that I would blog this summer... and I don't know what I've been waiting for! I'm hoping that this post with the be the first of many over the next few months. That being said, I think I owe my audience a little catching up!

I've been here for nearly 7 weeks now, but it sure doesn't seem like it has been that long. When I first arrived, I was staying in a small cabin at the beach on base. I had a very busy schedule these first few days though; I needed to find somewhere to live! My first full day here I met Rosemary, my realtor, who was such a blessing. We still see eachother time to time, for lunch or open house crashing. After spending three days looking at houses, we found this one:

It was exactly what I was looking for! Tile floors, granite counters, high ceilings, plenty of storage, french doors to the big backyard. I wouldn't have chosen a couple of the paint colors, but hey, I can live with a purple wall in the kitchen and a chocolate brown bedroom.

Thankfully, the application process was a breeze. I had all the paperwork done in a couple hours and picked up the keys a couple days later, after getting the utilities turned on and scheduling the delivery of our PODS container. I must say that we had a great experience with PODS and I would definitely recommend them! We took advantage of their special offer for military members, which allowed us to only pay for the monthly storage fee and even got free next day delivery of the container, both times!

This place could use a bit more furniture than we already own, and I've had a little fun picking out a few new pieces. Like this desk that I'm sitting at right now and the side table that is a happy home for my computer tower and printer:

I was able to stay at a gracious friend's house while getting the place set up. Our friends, Nathan and Robin, helped me move all of the furniture in, which I am so thankful for! And when we couldn't figure out how to hook up the washer and dryer, Justin came to rescue!

I just love how tight-knit the military community it here, and I'm so happy to have supportive friends (and friends of friends) that helped make my move possible.

I had a wonderful Independence Day and made some festive rice krispie treats with red and blue sprinkles to bring to the festivities. Camp Lejeune has a a large fair-like celebration for the 4th, with live music and food.

We enjoyed some free BBQ, thanks to the regiment Michael is currently attached to, and found a nice spot on the grass. We spread out a big blanket for the little ones and set up our lawn chairs. Here's Amanda and Mason:


Erica and Audrey:

And Grace:

Once it begins to get dark, the Marine Corps band starts to play and then the night ends with fireworks, of course. Much to our surprise, we had perfect seats for the show; we didn't even know where the fireworks show was set up.

Hope you all had enjoyable 4ths as well! Check back soon, I'll do my best to be updating more frequently! :)

Super Soup and 4th of July (Epic) Scones

So, I'm a huge fan of allrecipes.com, like a HUGE fan. I spend way too much time on that site just looking around, but I've found some really good recipes on there. Betty Crocker's Cookbook, however, is definitely an essential in the kitchen. I used it just as much as I do allrecipes.com. I just spent way too much time making all the guys in Michael's platoon raspberry white-chocolate scones from Betty Crocker's Cookbook. They are AMAZING. I'll elaborate on them a little later in this post.


First off, I wanted to share what I made for dinner yesterday because it was so good and I will definitely make it again. I found a recipe for Zuppa Toscana on allrecipes.com. It is supposed to be a copycat recipe for the soup that Olive Garden serves. I haven't had Olive Garden's version in a while, so I can't really judge how they compare, but this soup was surprisingly delish.

I halved the recipe, which was supposed to result in three servings, but there was probably enough for 4-5 people. I omitted the bacon, it really wasn't needed, and I used 4 potatoes because mine were so small. I didn't want to use spinach, most reviewers said to use kale, which I was familiar with and really wanted to use. There is a pretty large selection of greens at the supermarkets here, but oddly enough we couldn't find kale. I used mustard greens instead. They were pepper-y and perfect in this soup. And for only cost 17 cents for the bundle!

Michael and I loved it! Which surprised me a little, I was concerned that he would be turned off by the greens. The crushed red peppers in this soup give it a little spice, which you could definitely adjust to your liking. I highly recommend trying it out! :)

Alright, here it goes... I wanted make something for Michael's friends at work for the 4th of July. They seem to really enjoy it when Michael brings left over muffins or cornbread to work. So I say, "Should I make snicker doodles or scones?" and then Michael says, "Scones!!!" So I found myself making scones, from scratch, instead of sugar cookies.

And then, I found myself multiplying all the ingredients by three so he could give one to everyone in his platoon. I guess I was feeling generous. And you can't just have a scone plain without butter or jam, but that wasn't really an option for the setting. So I decided to follow the recipe for raspberry white chocolate scones. We already had white chocolate chips and frozen raspberries in the freezer.

It felt like it took me an hour to cut all the butter in the to 6 or 7 cups of dry ingredients. I used two butter knives because I don't have a pastry blender.

Someone should gift me a pastry blender. I've definitely earned it.

It was totally worth all the work though. They are moist and buttery and yummy. The guys are going to love them. And now I need to thank my trusty little timer, I think I overworked it today.

I really need to go to bed now. I have to get up early tomorrow! I'm going to surprise Michael for his birthday and he only has a half day and will definitely be home by lunchtime. shhhh....