Summer Beginnings

Well, Matt is officially on summer break, and I now have the kids that I nanny all the time during the day because they are on summer break too.  It hasn't been too hot over here in Kentucky yet, the highest it's been is in the high 80s.  Life has been busy as is to be expected while you're in Seminary.  Matt has been preaching at Turners Station Baptist Church for 4 weeks and all is going well there.  The people there are so kind and welcoming to us and we are so thankful for this.  Matt's schedule seems to be so jam packed with things to do, but God is giving him the strength to get everything done and to balance preaching, studying, work, and of course being married. :)  I sure am enjoying my summer break with the kids that I nanny.  We've been going to parks, bounce houses and my favorite...The Library!!!  They really are good kids and fun to be with, so I'm sure I'm going to have a fun summer with them.

I thought that once again I would share with you all what we've been up to since my last post through pictures.

We love going to Bernheim Forest and just relaxing on a Saturday and enjoying being with each other.  Most of the time we'll  take a picnic lunch and some books to read in the hammock.  This state park is such a peaceful place and great for relaxing from a busy week.  

Matt and I do our best to have date nights once a week.  Sometimes it's hard if he's working mandatory overtime on a weekend, but we do the best we can.  I will usually make a yummy dinner for us and end it with a sweet treat such as these strawberry shortcake parfaits.  

For Memorial Day, Matt and I visited Cave Hill Cemetery's Civil War section.  Being native Californians, we've never been to a cemetery that had a section dedicated to Civil War soldiers.  It was quite an experience for us.  As we slowly walked through the hundreds of Civil War graves we were solemnly reminded of the great sacrifice both men and women have made for the freedoms we enjoy today in our country.  

We're used to seeing American flags on soldiers graves for  Memorial Day, but we've never seen a confederate flag on one before.  This section of the cemetery is where the confederate soldiers of the Civil War were buried.  For the most part Kentucky was a divided state during the Civil War so it makes sense that both Confederate and Union soldiers are buried in her cemeteries.  

For me, the most poignant reminder of the cost of war were the hundreds of tombstones simply marked "unknown" in this cemetery.  These men fought for a great cause and were buried without even knowing their name.  Let us not let them have died in vain.  

Here is the marker marking the many graves of the unknown dead from the Civil War.

After visiting the cemetery, we decided to do a little treasure hunting at the local Goodwill.  We found a few items, and then moved on.  

Growing up it seems like we always did a Memorial Day project around the home, so we decided to make cornice curtains for our family room windows.  Here's Matt carefully measuring one of the pieces for the cornice.  

I cut out all the fabric and batting that we used to staple to the cornice boards. 

Don't I have the best husband!?  He worked with me to get these cornice curtains made, and then he hung them up for me too.  

And Here's the finished project.  We actually made two of these cornice boards, the other one is over our dining room window.  They were a great project for Memorial Day.  

I'm having a great time being a Nanny.  It is kind of uncanny how much our hair looks alike isn't it?  It seems like everywhere we go people are always stopping to comment on our hair.  I guess it's kind of strange to see two people together in Kentucky with such curly hair.  :) 

Yesterday after church we decided to go and try out the new pedestrian bridge that crosses the Ohio River over to Indiana.  That's a picture of the bridge in the background.  Actually it used to be a bridge for trains, but they didn't need it anymore, or it got to week for trains or something.  (It's over 100 years old)  

Somebody was kind enough to take our picture for us as we were making our way up to the bridge.  It sure was a beautiful day.  

For all of you out there who are into looking at structures, this pics for you.  These are the over 100 year-old iron beams that suspend the bridge across the Ohio River.

Here's a picture of Matt next to one of the beams just so you can get an idea of how large they are.

This picture was taken at the center of the bridge.  That's the Ohio River.

This was our best attempt at taking a picture of the both of us by ourselves.  That's downtown Louisville in the background and the Ohio River.  We had such a good time enjoying our walk across the Big Four Bridge and the weather was perfect.  

Well, I hope you all enjoyed this latest update to our ongoing journey here in Louisville, Kentucky.  As always, God is so good to us, He has blessed more than we could ever deserve.  We are looking forward to seeing where He will call us to serve Him after our days here at Seminary come to an end.  Thank you all for your prayers, they are very much appreciated.  

Breakfast Burritos

There are just some memories that stay with us for a long time.  One of those memories for me is making breakfast burritos with my family.  I can remember my parents going out and shopping for all the ingredients that they would need to make 100 breakfast burritos for their Sunday School class.  Once we had all the ingredients, we would all work together and assemble the breakfast burritos.  We really had a good time, well most of the time.  What can I say we're not perfect, and I'm sure there were times when me and my brother got on each others nerves while we were making the burritos. :)  But....for the most part the making of breakfast burritos always brings back great family memories.

Recently I have begun making freezer burritos for Matt and I.  We have such a busy life over here in Kentucky and with Matt working the night shift I had to find a way to make a nutritious meal that he could take with him to work.  So I thought, and thought and thought some more.  Than I remembered....BURRITOS!!! So, now I've been creating many different kinds of freezer burritos for Matt to take to work with him.  Then I was trying to figure out what to make for breakfast that was quick and nutritious and it dawned on me....duh....breakfast burritos!!!  So, I thought that I would share with y'all my recipe for breakfast burritos.  Hope you enjoy the pics and the recipe.  I'd love to hear back from any of you who make these.  Remember, burritos are very versatile, in other words you don't have to follow my recipe exactly.  Add items to them that your family likes. :)

Note:  for those of you who like knowing the individual cost of these homemade burritos, they end up costing $.65!!!

First,  The Ingredients for 32 breakfast burritos:

• 36 Eggs
• 1 Large Bag of Hash browns (I like the shredded kind, but you can use any kind you like.) 
• 36 Tortillas (I used 8 inch, but I would rather use 10 - 12 inch if I could find them for a good price here in KY.)
• 2 Rolls of Breakfast Sausage (You could also use bacon, ham, chorizo, etc...)
• 2 lbs of Mexican Style Cheese (Feel free to use your family's favorite type of cheese)
• Seasonings:  Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder, and Seasoning Salt

After gathering all your ingredients up, I start cooking my sausage first.

You can just follow the package instructions for cooking whatever meat you have chosen for your burrito, but I just cook the sausage until it's nice and brown.

Next I begin to cook my hash browns. Once again, just cook them according to the package directions.  

Once the hash browns are in the pan (I like to use my well-seasoned cast iron pan) I use seasoning salt, pepper and garlic powder to season them to taste.  Once again, you can use whatever seasonings your family likes on their potatoes.  

Once the hash browns have been seasoned I let them cook until they have been browned on both sides.  Like this:  

While your hash browns and sausage are cooking begin cracking your 36 eggs.  I know this is a lot of eggs, and it's kind of gross looking, but eggs are a really inexpensive filler for your burritos especially if you buy them at Costco.

Once you've cracked all your eggs, your bowl should look like this.  It looks pretty strange at this point.

Now, go ahead and season those eggs.  I just use salt and pepper, but once again, use whatever seasonings your family likes.

Once your eggs have been seasoned, go ahead and start whisking them until all the yolks and whites have been beat together.  

Now spray down your large pan with oil.

Pour in half the whisked eggs...

And cook those eggs until they're nice and fluffy.  I cook my eggs in two batches, but I guess you could try doing it in one if you want.

Now, your sausage, potatoes and eggs should all be cooked so it's almost time to start assembling, but first let's warm up our tortillas.  I found a really cool microwaveable tortilla warmer at Kroger's so I use this to warm my tortillas, but you could just wrap 6 of them at a time in a damp dishcloth and microwave on high for 2 minutes.  This step is just to get the tortillas pliable.  

Before I move on with this tutorial, I wanted to show you a picture of my small kitchen.  Believe it or not, this kitchen is much bigger than the last kitchen that we had here on campus.  Even though it is small it works just fine for assembling burritos.  So, the point is, you can make burritos in any size kitchen!!

Ok, now for assembling the burritos, there really is no special way to do it, you just put a little bit of each ingredient in the tortilla.  Well, here is a picture so you can see how I have my "assembly line" set up. 

And here is a picture of a burrito that is ready to be folded.

If you've never folded a burrito before, there are many tutorials on how to do it on You tube, but it is really easy once you get the hang of it. 

After rolling up your burrito, wrap it in foil and then it's ready for the freezer.  (I use pop up foil because it is so much easier than having to rip off a bunch of sheets of foil.  If you're in Kentucky you can buy pop up foil at Gordon Food Services, and if you're in California, you can buy it at Smart and Final.)

After you're finished stuffing, rolling, and wrapping all of your burritos, you'll have a burrito tower on your counter like this:  

Now it's time to transfer all those burritos to the freezer.

Once you're ready to eat one of your yummy burritos, simply wrap them in a damp cloth or paper towel and microwave on high for 2 min and 15 sec.  (You may need to adjust the time depending on your microwave.)  All the burritos on the right of this pic are the breakfast burritos that I just made, and the ones on the left are the dinner burritos that I made a few weeks ago.  Praise the Lord for burritos!! 

Theses burritos have been a life saver for our morning breakfasts and I hope they can help you all to have a great start to your morning as well.  

First Year of Seminary....Done!!!

Wow, can you believe that title?!!  Yep, it's true, Matt has officially finished his first year of seminary here at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Looking back it seems like it was both quick and slow at the same time.  Does that even make sense?  Probably not, but anyways, that's how it felt.  God has been so good to us during this past school year.  That's not to say that life has been smooth sailing the whole way, but we have learned from the bumps in the path along the way.  God is good all the time.  Well, I know that it's been over a month since I last posted so I wanted to give a little picture update of what we've been up to so, here it goes:  

Spring has been so beautiful over here in Kentucky.  I've never seen so many flowering trees in one place before.  

Just had to put this black and white picture in that I took.  I know...it's just a weed, but the fields here were so full of these "wishing flowers,"  that they looked absolutely amazing and I couldn't help taking many pictures of these "weeds." 

We went to Bernheim Forest right when all the trees were just beginning to get their leaves.  This picture is taken on what they call the canopy walk.  It is a long wooden walkway that protrudes out over the tops of the trees in the forest.  

Here's Matt relaxing in our hammock at Bernheim Forest.

And here I am, probably uploading pictures to Facebook.  :) 

Here I am in front of one of the many blooming trees over here.  This one is a type of magnolia tree.  

Relaxing by the lake in Bernheim Forest.  

We visited the Yew Dell Botanical Gardens and they had this neat castle there.  Now Matt wants to live in a castle house when we're done with Seminary and can get our own house. :) 

Matt enjoyed eating his popcorn while we strolled through the gardens.  

There were so many beautiful flowers to look at while we were at the Botanical Gardens.  

Here's where Matt spends a lot of his time studying...at the library here on campus.  

He also likes to study in his office in our new apartment.  

Here is a picture of our new apartment complex:  Springdale Apartments on campus.  We're the one on the second floor.  They're so much nicer than the other apartments we were living in on campus.

Well, we've kept busy over this past month as you can see from these pictures.  A few more updates are listed below:

• Matt will begin pastoring at Turner's Station Baptist Church this Sunday (5/19/13).
• Matt's job is going very well, and God has blessed us financially.
• I love my Nanny job!!!
• I'm still cooking up lots of burritos and freezing them for dinners.  (I'll try to upload some of my recipes for these burritos soon.)
• On June 10th, we will officially have lived in Kentucky for a year.
• My parents will be coming out to visit us mid July.  (I'm so excited!!)