The final week of April

I never realized how many people actually read this thing until I didn't post for nearly a month. Well, I am back and SO MUCH has happened.

First, and most importantly: Adam passed his PQM board!! Since his current squadron doesn't fly on Mondays OR Fridays he's scheduled to fly his final check ride on Tuesday. This means that when he passes (knock on wood) he will have COMPLETED all of his flight training and will move into an honest-to-goodness squadron! Days leading up to the board were pretty stressful so I tried to eliminate as much of that as I could. I ordered bagels and a box of coffee from Panera and woke up early to get them while Adam slept in. I wanted a buy a fruit platter, too, but they're ridiculously expensive so I just bought fresh fruit to cut up and made my own dip. Adam took the food in for the panel to munch on and apparently, it was a huge hit. Everyone, please keep your fingers crossed for the final flight!

Earlier this month, I made Adam an Easter Basket with his favorite candies, some man-stuff, a couple blu ray dvds, etc. I'm horribly impatient so I had to beg him to let me give him the basket before Easter. I couldn't tell what he loved more; the sweet-tart jelly beans or the Top Gun dvd.

Last weekend a girl from work, Megan, her boyfriend, Nick, and her little sister joined Adam and I at the beach for some fun. We wanted to go to Crushfest, a festival at Watermans, but the line to get into the bar was TWO HOURS long and we were NOT waiting. The streets were packed with people so we decided to go to Planet Pizza instead. The pizza was good but the service was awful. It took us 20 minutes to get a pitcher of beer! After two pizzas and three pitchers between the five of us, we cashed out and started walking the boardwalk. Adam got the bright idea to rent one of those little China-men bicycle carts and so before we knew it, our huddle was peddling off calories down the bike path. You couldn't tell just by looking at it, but those things are exhausting!! At least I can say I've done it.

My Aunt Bev makes this amazing broccoli/chicken ring but since we eat that fairly regularly, Adam and I decided to experiment with the filling. We created a BBQ Chicken Ring and it's delicious! Here's the long-awaited recipe that I've been promising everyone:

BBQ Chicken Ring Preheat oven: 350
Ingredients:
2 rolls of Pillsbury Crescents
2 cups of chicken; cooked and diced
11/2 cups BBQ sauce (we love Bullseye or Jack Daniels)
1/2 cup of bacon; cooked
11/3 cups of ched cheese; shredded
1 8oz can pineapple rings; diced

Step 1: Cook the chicken and bacon then preheat the oven.
Step 2: Mix all ingredients together in large bowl (except for the crescents, of course)
Step 3: Unwrap the crescents and lay them out like this. (The wide ends should over lap and the ends should dangle off the pan's edge.)
Step 4: Spoon ingredients on top of the overlapped dough.
Step 5: Pinch tips of crescents and pull them over the "filling". Do this step for each of the crescent tips. When you're finished, it will look like a delicious food wreath.
Step 6: Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until dough begins to lightly brown. (You can choose to brush the top with egg whites, if you'd like. It makes the crescent rolls more golden in color.)

If you guys would like, I can also give you Aunt Bev's yummy Broccoli Chicken Ring, too. A bit more ingredient but the same idea.


Adam and I found a house that we're very serious about. It's a tall, skinny, new home near the beach which is the exact opposite that we've been drawn to. We finally realized that although we LOVE the character of older homes, turn-of-the-century houses often require excessive maintenance and/or extreme renovation...something we don't have the time/money for. The older home that have already been restored are waaaay out of our price range so that means looking into new builds. This "birdhouse" as I've nicknamed it doesn't have much curb appeal and zero yard (it's more like a free-standing condo) the inside of it is AMAZING. I really hope our mortgage guy gets off his bum and starts helping us out...for a change. It's the best bang-for-our-buck that we've found thus far and we're going to put an offer down, if all works out.

I apologize for all my hyphenated cliches. I might have gone a tad bit overboard in this post. I'm trying to finish quickly because we're leaving to go watch Water For Elephants very soon. I absolutely adored the book so I'm really hoping the movie doesn't suck.

Happy Easter, everyone!!

(Oh yes. Also, I apologize for any grammatical errors, spelling mistakes or repeat info. I didn't proofread anything and I'm being hurried out the door.)