Pick-Your-Own Farm

A couple of weeks ago we went to one of Maryland's many pick-your-own farms. We drove nearly an hour to get to Larriland Farm, but it was totally worth it. We were there for hours picking blueberries, peaches, raspberries, potatoes, tomatoes and onions. It was so much fun for all of us! Emorie was so proud of each piece of fruit she picked. That night we made a salad using the fresh veggies we bought at the farm and baked the potatoes we had picked out of the ground ourselves. It was a very yummy dinner!

I spent a lot of time last week using the fruits and veggies that we had picked ourselves in new recipes. I made my own potato soup, tomato soup, cobbler (twice), blueberry pancakes and much more. And now I remember why I don't make things from scratch...it takes to long! I didn't think my tomato soup was very good so I think I'll stick to Campbell's condensed soup. We really liked the potato soup though!


Spicy Potato Soup
6 c. cubed potatoes
1c. chopped carrots
3 c. chicken broth
2 tbsp. butter
1 clove minced garlic
2 tsp. parsley
1 tsp. onion powder
1/4 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
salt & pepper to taste
Put everything in crockpot and cook on low for 6 hours. 
Add 3 c. milk mixed with 1/2 c. flour 1 hour before serving.

The best of all the new recipes I tried was definitely the peach/raspberry dessert I made! It was kind of like a cobbler, but called for oatmeal in the topping. Here's the link for this Raspberry Peach Crumble:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Raspberry-Peach-Crumble/Detail.aspx

It was so good that I made it AGAIN a few days later! The second time I left out the raspberries and only used peaches because we didn't have any raspberries left. The general consensus was that it's better WITH the raspberries. Either way, this dessert with a side of ice cream is heavenly!

Our 6 Month Mark

We have been Annapolitans for six months now! Wow, time has flown! During the five and a half years we've been married, we have faced many struggles. Job loss, starting a family, death of loved ones...to name a few. I believe these events have only made us stronger and prepared us for the road ahead. Adapting to a different culture and a life in full-time ministry has been interesting. At times exciting and at times exhausting.

I have found it difficult to form close friendships in my new city. A lot of people in this area are very career driven, not God driven or family driven. They marry later in life and have kids later in life. Maybe it's because careers are thought so important or maybe it's financially necessary, but women are not usually stay-at-home moms here. I think the job of "homemaker" is looked down upon by many. So a Christian, 27-year-old, stay-at-home mom of two kids? I am not the norm! I also get the feeling that a lot of Annapolis moms are...well, hippies. Everything organic, breastfeeding for years, cloth diapers, etc. I do my part to try to be "green", but I'm not a crazy person and I don't want to push a fancy jogging stroller every morning while I sip organic coffee! Basically, it's been hard to bond with people in my stage of life. Please pray for me in this area!

There are many things I love about the Bay Area. I love all the cool east coast cities that are nearby and all the fun places to go and things to do. I love that we will have four seasons, that's right FOUR! I'm excited for my favorite season, Fall, and to see all the changing colors. I love the malls here. Maybe it's because I came from the Golden Triangle Mall, but I think the Annapolis mall is completely awesome and it's like a minute from my house. I like that there's a ton of good consignment shops even though I've only been to one. I think crab picking is pretty cool even though it's gross and my husband says he will never do it again. I love Whole Foods and of course Target, which has Dr. Pepper in the fountain! Could Target get any higher on my list?! And I love all the amazing parks that we have here.

All in all, I think it's been a great six months! I'm interested to see what the next six will hold. Thank you for your continued prayers over our family!

Milestones

I think it's safe to say that Ryland is finally walking! He's been taking steps on his own for awhile now, but this week walking seems to be his primary means of transportation around the house. Go Ry! Being the great mom that I am, I had yet to get his first steps on video. I probably have about ten videos of Emorie taking two steps and then falling on her face. Second Child Syndrome? Yesterday the thought finally crossed my mind and I filmed Ryland walking!

Here's an update on what else has been going on with the kids:


Emorie still has an extensive vocabulary and sometimes the things she says amaze me. She's also good for a good laugh! She usually has a funny quote of the day. Ryland, on the other hand, has not uttered any distinguishable words other than "dada".


It has been a process, but Emorie has learned her colors. I consider Emorie to be fairly intelligent for her age, but for some reason it took her forever to learn colors. She has known all the shapes for a long time now and I was wondering why she couldn't grasp color names. Now we are working on letters and Emorie is learning how to write her name.

Emorie's Letter "E"

Emorie absolutely loves imaginative play. She's a great mommy to her baby dolls and plays with them and her Barbies everyday. She certainly loves to dress-up and play "house". She'll even whip you up something yummy to eat in her kitchen. Emorie has always been interested in books and still loves reading as well as coloring, painting, play doh and many other art activities. She really enjoys games now and that has been a fun thing for us to do together. Family game nights and movie nights are her favorite!


Ryland's favorite toys are cars and trucks. I think it's interesting that he automatically started making engine sounds while playing with them. Is that something boys are just born to do? He also loves to play with blocks and he can build a mean tower!

Building

Last but not least, both kids have already shown musical talent and we can't wait to see where that will take them!

Back to Little D

Recently, I was able to make a short trip back to Denton. Our friends, the DeRoche's were awesome to pick me up at the airport and let me stay at their house! As we left DFW and started driving into town, I started to feel really homesick. Wow, I hadn't realized how much I missed this town! What's the first thing we did? Get some BBQ and Dr. Pepper from Sonic! Actually, I hit up Sonic almost every day I was there. I had such a good time seeing many of my closest friends!! So, this trip prompted me to start recording some of the differences between Texas and Maryland...

First of all, in Texas, people are just plain friendlier. People hold doors open for you and are not as horn happy while driving. In Maryland, I've left the grocery store nearly in tears more than once and it wasn't because of the prices! These people need some Jesus.

Dr. Pepper is more readily available in Texas. It is the home of Dr. Pepper. I mean some McDonald's don't even offer Dr. Pepper. Isn't that unamerican? Is that a word? Also, Sonic is nowhere to be seen around here...so I guess they figured if we don't sell Dr. Pepper, why have a Sonic? Maryland is also lacking in the area of good Mexican food and BBQ. It's just different here. Although, the seafood is amazing! You can't go to any event without having a crab dip of some sort.

Next, we do not have a Walmart in Annapolis. I believe that's a point in favor of Maryland! Can you believe I haven't stepped inside a Walmart in nearly six months? And if not having a Walmart wasn't crazy enough, I've never seen so many gas stations without gas. Why would you have a 7-Eleven that doesn't have any gas pumps? If you're driving through this area and you need gas, don't look up nearby gas stations on your gps because chances are they won't even have any gas. I guess we're fond of the convenience store here. One convenience store that I had never heard of before moving here is Wawa. Supposedly it's a big deal. Our house backs up to a Wawa, but they don't have a single gas pump either. Pretty good shakes though!

So, say you are driving through Maryland...you better fill up before you leave! Unlike your drive through most of Texas, you're not going to see tons of gas stations, restaurants, hotels, retail stores, etc. Driving down Maryland highways you will see tons of beautiful trees! And you really can't drive anywhere around here without going over water. Sailboats are everywhere. I guess we are in the sailing capital of America! Another thing you will not see while driving anywhere in Maryland is a million huge pick-up trucks. High-end cars are in abundance here. You practically have to have a brand new BMW to pass a Maryland car inspection. I'm not bitter at all.

Well, now that I have rambled on for so long, I will have to save the rest of my thoughts on Texas v. Maryland until another entry. Why are my blogs so long?

July in Review

July has proven to be our busiest month yet! We started off with a fun Fourth of July weekend. When it comes to holidays, we are a bit homesick for old friends and past traditions. But I must say, watching fireworks over the Chesapeake Bay sure beats Fouts Field. After church on the Fourth, we went to a party where we were surrounded by some of our new friends from our church family. We all had a great time, especially Emorie who we had to pull out of the pool when her lips turned blue. She had been swimming for 3 hours straight!


West Virginia

A few days later, Thursday, we headed to Lewisburg, West Virginia to visit my family. We had a couple of relaxing days in the mountains, but were sad to find out that this would not only be our first drive there, but our last! My family will be moving from their WV home back to Texas mid-August. On Saturday night, we left the kids there and headed back to Annapolis to prepare for our mission trip to Boston, MA!


Boston Mission Trip
On Monday, July 12th our group of mostly youth and college students began a tiring week of working with Grace Church Boston. We spent our time there cleaning, canvassing neighborhoods with service invitations, cleaning, passing out free granola bars at T stops, cooking, cleaning, smuggling 18 boys through 2 hotel showers each day, touring the city and of course cleaning. The church building was unbelievably dirty! We also did A LOT of walking! Although at times this trip was frustrating to my OCD nature, we were able to reach thousands of homes in the Boston area and lead a worship service our last night there. Boston was a great place to VISIT. So rich with American history! I would love to go back and finish the Freedom Trail.


Cake Boss
On our way back to Maryland we stopped in Hoboken, NJ to visit the home of the Cake Boss! We waited in line and braved the crowds inside Carlo's Bakery. It was nuts. We made it out with some very yummy sweet treats! I think that pit stop was fun and enjoyed by many in our group. A good end to our mission trip. At this point, I was counting down the minutes until I could see and hold my sweet babies! We had never been away from them that long before and we missed them like crazy.

Birthday Girl
It felt so good to get home on Saturday night. In the past week we had driven through Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts (in probably the same amount of time it would take to drive across Texas). I was exhausted. Was it time to settle down? Nope. I still had a birthday party to throw and Vacation Bible School to prepare for! Emorie had a blast at her Build-a-Bear party and we are so grateful for everyone who came to celebrate with us! On July 20th Emorie turned 3 years old. I can hardly believe it! Our baby girl is growing up so fast!! Emorie and Ryland make me love being a mom even more every day.

Vacation Bible School

The next weekend was eventful to say the least. First, we had a couple of the hottest days of the year so far and our air conditioner decided to break. It's a misconception that it's cooler up here. It can get just as hot in Annapolis as it does in Denton. Plus the humidity is insane here. Yuck! We then had a freak storm which caused tens of thousands of houses and businesses in our area to be without power for hours. For some, days. This was last Sunday, the day we were supposed to start Vacation Bible School. Needless to say, we had a bit of a rough start to VBS. Eventually, our air conditioner was fixed and power was restored to our church and friends. After having to cancel one night of activities and having a shortened night without lights and air, we finished up with a great week, never losing sight of the reason for VBS. Our church is so blessed with wonderful volunteers who made it all happen! It was all in His plan!

So that brings us to July 31st. Whew!