Getting Healthy!

To preface: Sorry for all the different fonts...that's what happens when you copy and paste from the internet!! So please ignore...

I know that you are supposed to make New Year's Resolutions on January 1, but as teacher...our New Year starts in August! So in honor of my New Year, I have decided to join.....

I am super excited because I truly believe it will help me learn how to portion and eat healthier during the school year. I have to tell you the dinner I made the other night that was fabulous and only 7 points!!

Baked Chicken

1 spray(s) cooking spray

1 pound(s) Chicken, breast, raw, without skin & bone, four 4 oz halves

1/2 tsp table salt

1/4 tsp black pepper, freshly ground

1 tsp olive oil

2 tsp fresh lemon juice, or more to taste

2 tsp rosemary, fresh, chopped

2 tsp parsley, fresh, chopped

1/4 cup(s) canned chicken broth

1/2 medium lemon(s), quartered (for garnish)

• Preheat oven to 400ºF. Coat a small, shallow roasting pan with cooking spray.
  
  
• Season both sides of chicken with salt and pepper. Transfer chicken to prepared pan and drizzle with oil; sprinkle with lemon juice, rosemary and parsley. Pour broth around chicken to coat bottom of pan.
  
  
• Bake until chicken is cooked through, about 30 to 35 minutes. Garnish with fresh lemon and serve. Yields 1 chicken breast half per serving.
• 
  
• AND........
• 
  
• Creamy Corn
• 
• 2 tsp butter
  
• 1/4 cup(s) scallion(s), minced
• 2 1/2 cup(s) frozen corn kernels, or fresh corn (no need to thaw frozen corn)
• 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 cup(s) fat-free skim milk
• 1/8 tsp table salt, or more to taste
• 1/8 tsp black pepper, freshly ground, or to taste
• 
  
• • Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add scallions and sauté until soft, about 2 minutes. Add corn and sauté 1 minute to heat through (or slightly longer if using frozen corn). Add flour and stir to coat corn and scallions. Add milk and bring to a simmer.
    
    
  • Reduce heat to low and cook, uncovered, until mixture thickens, about 10 to 12 minutes; season to taste with salt and pepper. Yields about 1/2 cup per serving.
  
  
  These two put together turned out to be such a yummy dinner! I am super excited about this journey and how healthy I will become!
  
  
  In other news.....Kyle left Sunday for Birmingham, so I have been riding solo for 3 days now! Kyle is having a great time and has loved everyone he has met so far! I am gearing back up for school with 2 more meetings, then I will have to be there from August 8th on! I cannot wait to meet my new kids and get into a normal routine!!
  
  
  I hope you all have a great week and try to stay cool in these crazy hot days!!

Every Accomplishment Starts with a Decision to Try

“If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.” – Win Borden

So I could not be more excited for our dear friends Cheska and Brett!! They just received news yesterday that they are moving to New Jersey where he will be working in a church in the technology department! This is something they have really been praying about lately and this amazing door opened a few weeks ago. The Lord stepped in and took over the rest!! What an amazing journey to go on...

So here is a little history about Cheska and Brett and how we know them so well! Cheska is actually Kyle's best friend growing up. They have known each other their whole lives and have been close that whole time. Brett came around to our weekly game nights about 3-4 years ago. They had met at camp and she really wanted for the "game night crew" to meet him to see what we thought. Well, we immediately fell in love with him and his humor.

They have been such a big part of our lives over the past several years, and so we headed out tonight to wish our farewells to them as they prepare to leave! They are not leaving for 3 weeks, but since Kyle is leaving Sunday...we wanted to make sure and get our hugs in!!

Before I show pictures from tonight, I wanted to recap just a small amount of all the memories we have together! I could add hundreds of pictures, but I just added the main ones!!

Melissa, Kyle and Cheska getting their pictures taken together as best friends (2007)

"Family" Christmas - this sums up everything about our friends (2009)

Moe, Kristen, Brett, Cheska, me and Kyle at Cheska and Brett's Wedding Rehearsal

Floating the Buffalo (2008)

Camping Trip (2010)

4th of July (2011)

These next pictures came from our different weddings!!

I am sad to say we do not have a group picture from our own wedding, but this is Cheska and Brett being fabulous at our Reception!! (2009)

Here we all are at Brett and Cheska's Wedding (2009)

Kyle, Moe and Brett at Kristen and Moe's Wedding (2010)

Cheska, Kristen and Moe at Kristen and Moe's Wedding (2010)

I am so happy for them and I can't wait to to go visit them in New Jersey! We love you both so much and are looking forward to all God is going to do in your lives!!

Away Rotations

Those blessings are sweetest that are won with prayers and worn with thanks.

Thomas Goodwin

We have had several exciting things happen over the past couple of weeks that I would love to share with you. First of all, as you all know Kyle did get into an internship in Birmingham, AL for the month of August. He leaves in two weeks to work under some amazing doctors there. We also just found out that he will be spending the month of September in Knoxville, TN interning with the teaching hospital there. You may be wondering what happened to Nashville, TN....he did apply there, but they already had all their interns booked for the month of September so they did not have room for him!! No worries to us, though, because Knoxville is a great town as well. The last and probably most exciting news is that Kyle just found out that he received a 4.0 in medical school!! YEA!!! Some of you may wander...as I did....how he knows that is what he will graduate with since he still has one year to go?!?! He knows that because in 4th year, it is pass or fail! He either passes his monthly rotations or fails them!! No more tests (other than a BIG one) and no more assignments....just interning!

As I am sitting on the floor writing this up, Kyle is sound asleep on the floor here in the den. These 4:30am mornings catch up to him sometimes and as many of you know...once he lies down...he is OUT!!!! He is in his urology rotation here at UAMS right now. He wanted to spend a month in it here before he left so he would be more comfortable and knowledgable when he went away for these 2 months. He has already got to help out in some pretty awesome surgeries and has met some great people that will help to influence his future.

As much as I hate to see him leave for 2 months, it could not be a better two months with my schedule! August and September are crazy months for teachers as we prep for the first day of school and survive the first month. I have meetings from August 1 on, so I am extremely blessed that he will be gone when I am my busiest. I know that time will fly by and that the Lord is giving me strength to get through this! I will update you on how his time is going there soon!

(Please let me know when you are free though...as I will try to fill every free moment I have hanging out with anyone!! I am not a loner!!! =))

One more thing...we will find out where his residency will be at January 23! They posted the date last week!! Be prepared for more updates as these next 6 months fly by!!!!

Thanks for the prayers and support!! We could not do this without it!!

4th of July Celebration

I am so excited to update you on our fabulous 4th of July Celebration we had at the house! Since we are unsure if this is our last 4th of July in Little Rock, I wanted to have a party with some of our closest Conway friends! They came over for a cookout before we headed downtown for the awesome fireworks show!! Here is a look at the night...

We start of with the decorations for the party...of course everything had to be themed!!

Here is the deck where all 9 of us would be hanging out!

Kooper and Kole were pretty excited about everyone coming to play with them!!

A shot with the grill master...

Moe and Kristen were excited to be there and see their puppy...they had been out of town the past week, so we had a third critter running around!!

I stole the sprinkle idea from Susan, and then added blueberries to some as well! Very patriotic...

And of course...what 4th of July party is complete without the flag cake??

I got creative with the batter and decided to marble it red and blue to add some flair!! The red part was strawberry cake and the blue part was white cake with blue food coloring!

Brett and Cheska in our great spot downtown getting ready for the fireworks.

Kristen and me with sunset behind us...this turned out to be a great pic!

Kyle and me smiling...as you can tell it's really dark by now!

All of the girls...Cheska, me, Kristen, Laura and Anna

All the boys...Kyle, Brett, Moe and Tucker

Here is the whole group...we love these guys so much and don't know what we do without them!!

We hope your 4th of July was as great as ours was!! To many more...