Happy Birthday, Air Force!

On Saturday, September 18th, Tyndall Air Force Base held the annual Air Force Ball. Each year bases hold a ball to commemorate the anniversary of the Air Force becoming a branch... it's birthday into the United States military. We went with our friends Dennis and Lisa. Dennis and Shaun work together at AFRL.

The night started off a little shaky. Because USAFA was in such a close football game against Oklahoma, Shaun took a little longer in getting ready in his mess dress, anxiously waiting to see the outcome of his alma mater. (PS, we won! Go Falcons!!) Unfortunately, that ran us a little late for the ball. Combine that with poor traffic driving out to Panama City Beach, not being sure of where we were going, and then waiting for a shuttle to get us from the parking lot to the resort center, and we were definitely walking in way past the call to be seated.

We missed the introductory festivities and the toasts, but slipped in as they were serving the dinner. After some seating snafus (namely the lack of our seats at the AFRL table, finding an open table, and then being scolded by one of the organizers for not being at our table, which we couldn't have done), we sat down and enjoyed our meal, not with the AFRL group as we had anticipated, but with the good company of some members of the Medical group at Tyndall. They were very welcoming and we had a good time. Then after meeting several people, listening to a little live music, and eating some Air Force birthday cake, we decided to head back home.

Shaun and I with our friends Dennis and Lisa

Shaun and his coworkers from AFRL

Dennis and Lisa in the lobby -- such a cute couple! :)

Shaun and I before we called it a night.


Happy 63rd birthday, Air Force! Next year we'll be prompt! :)

Stuffed Bell Peppers and Fruit Pizza

I have recently made friends with one of our commissary's produce grocers, Dave. He gives me some great deals on discounted produce, mostly tomatoes and bell peppers. All of the peppers or tomatoes that get picked over for small bruises or wrinkly skins are left to go bad on the shelves, but I occasionally volunteer to take some of them off of his hands.

Because these veggies are not likely to make much profit anyways, Dave can give me a really good deal on them. And by really good deal, I mean he gives me a bag of 8-9 bell peppers of varied color for 99 cents!!

Then comes the real problem -- What do you do with 8-9 bell peppers that have a VERY short shelf life in your fridge? The answer comes in one delicious recipe: Stuffed Bell Peppers. The version I like best is adapted from the blog Simply Recipes. They were delicious and we ate them all! Then we had Shaun's favorite for dessert: Fruit Pizza. It's been a staple in his family for years, and it will inevitably be one in ours now too!

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STUFFED BELL PEPPERS
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:
4 large bell peppers
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 large vidalia onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
1 lb lean ground beef
1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
1 cup chopped tomatoes (if using canned, drain liquid)
1 tsp oregano
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 tsp of Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 tsp Tabasco sauce

1. Fill a large stockpot with water and bring to a boil, adding a little salt. Wash peppers and cut off the tops about an inch down from the stem. Remove the seeds and submerge in the boiling water. Allow the peppers to boil for 3-4 minutes or until slightly tender. Then drain and set upright in a glass baking dish to cool.

2. Preheat your oven to 350F. In a large skillet, heat 4 tbsp olive oil before adding the onion. Cook over medium heat about 5 minutes or until tender and translucent. Make sure to stir so they don't burn. Add the garlic and cook for one more minute. After taking the skillet off the burner, add the onions and garlic to a large bowl with the beef, rice, tomatoes, and oregano, and season generously with salt and pepper. Then roll up your sleeves and mix the ingredients well with your hands.*

3. Divide the remaining tbsp of olive oil and drizzle the insides of the peppers before filling the pepper cups with the meat mixture. Along with 1/4 cup of water, mix the ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco. Spoon evenly atop each pepper. Add 1/4 cup of water to the bottom of the baking dish and place in the oven to bake for 40-50 minutes.

*Shaun and I agreed that next time we make these, we might try mixing the ketchup mixture in with the meat mixture to keep the filling more moist. If you'd rather stick with the recipe, we used extra ketchup as a condiment with our meal, and it still tasted delicious!


FRUIT PIZZA
Serves 6-8 (Less if Shaun is around!)

Ingredients:
1 pkg refrigerated sugar cookie dough
1 80z pkg cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
Variety of chopped fruits -- you get to choose!

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Spread the cookie dough over the bottom of a jelly roll pan (11"x13"). Be fair warned, it will end up being a really, really, thin layer. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden. Set on wire rack to cool for about 15-20 minutes.

2. Using an electric hand mixer, combine the cream cheese, sugar, and lemon juice. Beat until smooth and then spread evenly over the cookie crust.

3. Top with your favorite fruits! It's always a good idea (economically and yummibly) to go with fruits in season, but there are no rules. We used strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, kiwi, and banana in the pictures, but we've also been known to add apples, peaches, mango, starfruit, blackberries, mandarin oranges, and pineapple. Bon appetit!!

Fall Fun!

This is a small hodge-podge of various events and fun we've had so far this fall. Though they may not be interesting enough for their own post, I figured I could save some time and put them all in one post, especially since I've been finding the time this week to blog while Shaun's TDY. :)


First, we'll start with the end of July. Though not technically fall, I'm still adding these. Shaun was TDY for 3 weeks at a pretend deployment training called Technical Warrior. While he was gone, he had thought (mistakenly) that growing a mustache would be a good use of his time. When I picked him up from the airport, this was the man I found at the curb...

Such a scraggly looking man! We took pictures to prove to his future self to never grow a mustache again and he then promptly went to the bathroom sink, razor in hand.

Driving home from church one afternoon, we had to stop for a turtle in the road. Shaun decided to be a good citizen and get out to help the little guy cross the road. :)

We see lots of wildlife on base -- from deer on a daily basis, to the occasional turtle or turkey, to the rare black bear. I was driving home from work around 5pm one night and had to stop as a large black bear ran in front of my car!

I love my husband to pieces. Even his nerdy side. And one weekend, that side shone brightly as ever in our impromptu adventure to Tallahassee. Why did we go, you ask? Well, the movie Avatar was being re-released in theaters with never-before-seen scenes, and the closest IMAX theater to us is in our state capital.

So we made the two-and-a-half hour drive to go see it on opening weekend. Don't worry, we made a full day trip out of it. Shaun made some delicious smoothies for us to enjoy on our car ride and we went to eat at Qdoba (which we don't have in Panama City either). We also spent the afternoon at the Governor's Square Mall and came home with some deeply discounted goodies, thanks to the Old Navy coupon provided by Kelli! :)

Inside the movie at the start of the credits.

Wearing our super-cool 3D glasses!

My First Day of School

All ready for my big teaching debut!

I know what you must be thinking... the first day of school? This is October 13th?! Well, yes, yes it is. But if you ask any other first-year teacher, they would agree that you probably don't have time to blog about the first day of school until the first quarter is done. And the grading period ends tomorrow.

So with that said, I shall now fill you in on the biggest change I've had these past two and half months. I was hired as a second grade teacher five days before the first day of school last August. Needless to say, Shaun and I had a very hectic five days up at the school, setting up the classroom and running errands all over town to buy teaching supplies.

We clocked a couple 14-hour days, but we did take one evening to go out and celebrate my new job. We went to this cute restaurant in Panama City called the Granite Cafe and had a great dinner. Shaun has a coworker whose band actually played at the restaurant that night, so we listened to them for a while too. The picture below is of us at the restaurant.

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But now for the tour of my classroom!

This is the front door and my class library corner. The chart by the door is my Character Counts behavior system.

My computer stations and some of the students' desks. They're no longer in this shape though. All the kids are now in table groups of 4.

The view from the back of the room toward the board.

This is our class job chart. Each child's name is on an envelope that passes from mailbox to mailbox each day. I thought it was really cute and one of my favorite buys. :)

The writing center table is on the left in the back. You can see the reading rug in front of my desk too. It's now in the front center of the room, but same principle. :)

Our class Word Wall. Since I was fairly low on wall space (They put me in an older grade's room, so it's not as big as a 2nd grade classroom should be, but I made do.), I borrowed this idea from another teacher. The ribbons hang down and I velcro the sight words onto them alphabetically. It was very labor-intensive to make, but Shaun did a great job with it!

This is my little corner. I'm almost never back here, but it's there nonetheless. The roses were given to me at orientation from one of my students... how cute is that?

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Well there you have it, friends... my first classroom of my teaching career! Hopefully I'll post more pictures with a more updated setup, but this helps give you a general idea for now.