What a day!

I will start by saying I don't think I am ever going to get ahead, lol. Thursday, Aubrey and I went to watch Open Season for the free movie with Rudy and Jen and their kids. Aubrey is the second youngest, but has been thrilled that the "older" girls want her to sit with them. We let them sit down on the front row (I know, it's bad for her eyes, lol) and we sat mid way up. It was actually a really cute movie. We all pitched in to get the large popcorn...they offer free refills, so we fed 3 adults and 7 kiddos on an unending bag of popcorn, lol. Came home and did house stuff.

I pounded out some chicken breasts, marinated them in a great sweet italian dressing from a restaurant called "Zia's on the Hill" in St. Louis, Mo. Then I breaded it and sauteed them in a little bit of grapeseed oil. I pulled them out 1/2 way cooked and shipped them off to the oven. I took the remaining oil, some garlic I roasted earlier, some portobello mushrooms and artichoke hearts and browned those up. Right at the end, I added a touch of lemon and some white wine. I served it with a salad and cheese tortellini. I have really begun to enjoy cooking and love trying new things. My latest thing is taking two recipes and using bits and peices from each one, lol.

Friday was spent at the house....cleaning, making travel plans, packing up some stuff and just me and Aub hanging out. I got all the foundation paperwork organized, and got all bank accounts reconciled and prepared all the financial statements for the audit. We are going to go visit my mom and dad in a few weeks and then head to TN to pick Mike up to bring him back here for a week for Aubrey's 5th birthday. It was nice to just kinda hang out. We didn't brave the crowds to go watch the fireworks, but the neighborhood had plenty to watch from the comfort of our family room, air conditioning and all, lol.....and mosquitoless :)

We had a SUPER busy day on Saturday, but had lots of fun. We headed to run a few errands early and then we were off to Anthony's 5th birthday party. Anthony is Aub's best bud. They have "know" each other since they were about 3 months old and they are 3 weeks apart. Every year he has a basketball party. It was great to see Kerry & Jeff and all our friends that we don't get to see that often, since all of our lives seem to be so busy. We were supposed to go to a second birthday party at the water park, but it got rained out.

Aub and I headed to the grocery to get stocked up on soda's for Mike as well as get some meat that we will serve at her 5th Birthday party. We have decided just to do it at the house this year, since our schedule is so crazy. I am looking forward to low key since all 4 of her prior birthdays have been such a "to do", but I am not looking forward to cleaning the house before and after the guests arrive, lol. I don't really have a theme for this party (I know, I am slacking lol) but I did make up her invites at www.smilebox.com It is FANTASTIC! I heard about this site from a homeschool support group I am on. I'll be able to get those sent out this week and I was able to get her party outline done as well as a list of "still needed" items.

After heading to the grocery, we hustled home to get all the stuff put away and got changed just in time to head back into town, and go to church. Pastor has started a new teaching series on Wisdom. He has challenged us to read a proverb a day. He also welcomed home and recognized a member of CF that has been deployed in Iraq, away from his family for 16 months. What a blessing it was to see how humbled Miguel was. It was a very emotional time and he received 2 standing ovations. After church Miguel and his family, Aubrey and I and two or three other families went to the mall food court for our weekly fellowship time. We had such a nice time talking with everyone. We didn't get home until almost 10, by the time the cleaning crew kicked us out to the outside entry to the mall, where we stood another 20 minutes and chatted some more.

Aubrey was one tired little girl and slept until almost 10 this morning. :) I went out to get something from the garage fridge, only to find out that the compressor was going out....I had 15 pounds of chicken and 10 pounds of ground beef in the fridge to portion out and fridge, 2 watermelons, 2 cantalouped, 2 pineapples, cheese sticks and lettuce in the fridge and lots of stuff in the freezer. I spent 5 hours portioning out and freezing the meat, cutting the fruit and re-arranging my kitchen fridge to make room for the fruit. So NOT what I needed/wanted to do today, lol. But it's done, and I will defrost the deep freeze tomorrow.

Aubrey requested salmon for dinner tonight. I broiled it with a honey ginger glaze and I made quinoa (keen-wa) for the first time with some chicken stock. The quinoa would have been good if I had cooked it long enough, lol. Oh well, I'll try it again later this week. I am so thrilled she is not a picky eater and she LOVES fish. Oh, and she ate twice what I ate at lunch. I made a curried chicken salad with greek yogurt, grapes, dried cranberries and slivered almonds. She asked for crackers with hers. I had mine over a bed of greens with a little balsamic vinagrette dressing. She also had blueberries and watermelon...ALL for lunch. I think she's hitting another growth spurt.

We have a big day of errands tomorrow including getting the oil changed...that will be a nice hour or so of sitting in the waiting room *sigh*, then off to run other misc. errands and then back home to defrost the freezer, pay bills *ick* lol and cook dinner. Easy night in the kitchen :)....leftovers.

Preparing for the 4th

Once again, we had an excellent service at church on Saturday night. As usual I was in tears, lol....Drew wrote and sang a new song that speaks of the true sacrifice the armed services and their families make for the USA and others around the world. Growing up in a military town in New Mexico, I was always aware of the dad's and mom's that had to go on TDY or training or even the Gulf War back in 1990, and I have always had a deep appreciation for them. I have an even deeper appreciation now that Mike has been gone 6 months. I realize how much work it is to run a household. I usually run the inside and Mike runs the outside and takes care of the finances, but I have been doing the finances and overseeing the lawn services. Zack is coming over every week or so to take care of it for me.

After church, several of us went up to the Gardens Mall for dinner and fellowship. We always have a good time when we get together, although for Mike and I it hasn't been as often as we would like. One thing when we get moved that we want to do is cultivate and grow new friendships with couples and families that God puts in our paths, like we have had at Christ Fellowship. I have to say that is the one thing that I am still so sad about at times is leaving all the friends we have made in the past 13 years at our church.

Check out the link to Pastor's messages from this past week and other messages: http://gochristfellowship.com/online/sermon-archives/

I am getting a little more savvy with the online stuff. I have always been internet savvy and computer savvy, but I am learning about blogging, rss feeds, podcasts and I even joined facebook. I am sure some of you will be shocked by that, lol. I have requested friends on facebook and was excited to reconnect with several people from back home. :)

We don't have major plans for the 4th Holiday on Friday. We will actually spend the day working on packing some more stuff and getting some project/desk work done. We went to the Woodbine pool today for a couple of hours and had lunch with Rudy and her kids. Aubrey is becoming less afraid of the water and hopefully a few more weeks of casually hanging out, she'll get the hang of the swimming thing, lol...just in time for us to move away from the water. Tomorrow is free movie day at the theatre and we'll head over to Target to get Antman a 5th birthday present. We have two birthday parties and church on Saturday. Saturday is also my grandpa's birthday. He would have been 78, I think.

I better get going, I need to get dinner started and I'd like to try to run a mile or so on the treadmill. Yep, I said run, lol....I am slowly getting back into shape :D