Baptism, Anniversary, St. Louis, People Watching and New Cookbook

Hello All! In an attempt to actually keep on a once month blog update I am posting only 4 days after the one month mark. It might actually be less than that because February likes to keep it brief.

A few days after my last post Nate baptized one of mine and Emilie's first graders. We were so happy that this student entered the family of Christ. I decided that the kids needed something to hang up to remember their baptism. I am not very talented with making banners or felt so the fifth grade teacher gave me the idea to make a wooden plaque. One of the plaques I made is in a picture below.





We had a very exciting end of February and beginning of March. As some of you know, Nate's and my anniversary is February 27th. We had a lovely dinner at P.F. Chang's. Yes, we went there last year too but it's so delicious and just expensive enough that we only go there once a year. We then went home and watched the movie Up in the Air with George Clooney. We chose this movie because it was partially filmed in St. Louis. I thought to myself, made in St. Louis clearly means it is awesome. It turned out to be an okay movie. It was fun to see places I recognized, especially the airport. I love the St. Louis airport in particular because I have a lot of great memories of when my mom, sister and I would drop off and pick up my dad there for his business trips. There was nothing better than waiting for my dad at the gate when he was coming  home. Sadly, kids don't get to experience that now because of the heightened security measures. Anyway, back to the anniversary, Nate and I like to follow the wedding gifts according to year tradition. This year was leather. Nate got me a beautiful bracelet from James Avery and I got him a baseball signed by the manager of the New York Yankees. It's great what you can find on eBay.


The most exciting part of the past month for me has been getting to visit St. Louis. Nate had a workshop at the seminary for Prepare-Enrich which is a pre-marital and marital counseling program. The workshop fell the Saturday starting spring break at St. Paul so we decided that I would tag along and we would spend most of the week with my family. We also got to see some great friends while we were there. We went to Blueberry Hill to hang out with our seminary/college friends and Growler's Pub to hang out with our friends the Lanes. I had a nice night watching movies with my great friend Rachel Woolery. We went to the restaurants we miss, like Hodak's, with our family friend, Steve. Speaking of restaurants, I ate my fair share of St. Louis Bread Co. (Panera) bagels while I was there. There are no good bagel places in the Valley which makes me very sad. I did some shopping with my mom which my dad and Nate make fun of us for because we are always gone longer than we say we will be. I think there are few things better in this world than going shopping with my mamma and watching TV with my pops. The only thing that would have completed it was getting in some time with my sis but she is having a busy last semester at the University of Missouri. We were able to also visit our vicarage congregation and share about our ministry in McAllen with them. It is always great when we can take a trip down to Cape Girardeau. The people there are phenomenal and we miss them all the time! We had a great trip!

As many of you know, I love airports also for people watching. We didn't get too much quality people watching time in because our layovers were short but I did see a few gems. It's very interesting to see spring breakers travel. Most of the time they are wearing clothing not conducive to travel, i.e. short dresses and clothing that is only appropriate on a beach. They are also usually burnt to a crisp. Sunscreen people, sunscreen. We witnessed a good deal of people walking around with neck pillows on their necks. I hope they didn't plan on sleeping standing up. I think my favorite were these two kids in San Antonio.



We saw a young fire chief in the St. Louis airport. Just keeping the airport safe from the risk of fire.

I think one of my other favorite things was this handicapped sign. Poor guy.




In my world of cooking there haven't been many developments lately. I did purchase a new cookbook called Cook This, Not That! Skinny Comfort Foods by David Zinczenko. To me, "skinny" comfort foods don't usually exist but I like to give them a try. A few days ago I made "The Elvis" sandwich for Nate. He loved it.

"The Elvis"















Ingredients:
4 slices of wheat bread
1 slice of cooked bacon, crumbled
1 banana
Peanut Butter
Drizzle of honey (I didn't use any honey.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Put bacon on the pan and cook for 15 minutes. (I cooked more than one slice and used the rest for something else. The oven is a great way to make bacon perfectly.) Drain the grease off of the bacon and crumble. Lightly toast your bread in the toaster. Spread peanut butter on the toast. Create a layer of banana slices on top of the peanut butter and then top with a layer of bacon crumbles. Drizzle with  the sandwich with honey and complete the sandwich with your other slice of toast. Makes two servings.

Well, that's all for now. I hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day and that you have a very blessed Easter! God is good!