St. Pete's Beach

In mid February I flew down to St. Pete's Beach, FL to be a bridesmaid in my friend Jackie's destination wedding. We had a beautiful ocean view from our hotel room. The flowers were gorgeous and everyone looked stunning. The day after the wedding, we enjoyed a poolside lunch, had some cheep buckets of beer, and had an fun dinner which included mahi mahi, shrimp, crab legs, lobster, crawfish, gator meet, and frog legs! It was an awesome four days and I wish Andrew and Jackie the best of luck as they begin their new life together in western Nebraska!

KC, MO SURPRISE!

In mid January my family took a little road trip to Kansas City, MO for my aunt Joyce's surprise 60th birthday party. She was as as shocked as could be, especially when she saw all her Nebraska relatives : ) After the party, her son Tyler who is the current drummer for the band Love and Theft out of Nashville, played guitar with a friend's band at a local bar. He's so talented and we all had a blast watching him play again.

Birthday Girl!

Cousin Lovin

cake balls

I made red velvet cake balls for New Years Eve and I wanted to share with ya'll how simple they are! Bake a cake (flavor of your choice) according to the directions on the back of the box. Let the cake cool then crumble it up in a large bowl. Mix in one can of frosting (again, flavor of your choice, I used cream cheese frosting). Using a cookie dough scoop, form your cake/frosting mixture into balls and place on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. Refrigerate your cake balls until firm. Dip in white (or chocolate) almond bark and place them back on the cookie sheet. Add sprinkles or decorations of your choice and enjoy!

notorious

For those of you who are faithful followers of mine may have noticed by now that I am notorious for having "blogging droughts." I believe these past 2.5 months have been my longest drought; my excuse = my internship. Although I haven't had any homework for the past 11 weeks, spending all day everyday with little munchkins at school wears a person out! I loved every minute of my school internship (including carpooling with Tyler to and from Yutan each day) and I am definitely excited for my own caseload in the schools next year. I have this week off and I begin my medical internship at the Fremont Area Medical Center and surrounding nursing homes on Monday! I'm looking forward to my medical internship, but I am also very nervous as I have no experience in the medical setting-- wish me luck!  

NYE 2012

Happy New Year, I hope 2012 is treating you well so far!

My only "New Year's Resolution" is to blog more, hehehe, we'll see how long that lasts, I PROMISE to do better! Of course I'm also training for the half marathon in May so that's kind of a given, along with eating healthier, just because! What are your resolutions?

Year in Review

Think of this as my 2011 "Christmas letter" to all you followers out there : )
From what I remember, there wasn't anything too notable about January or February, but I did travel to Sacramento, San Fransisco, and wine country in March!

In April I turned 23...woopie!

The month of May brought some mourning with the loss of our close family friend Linda, but it also brought bonding time on our annual family fishing trip to Minnesota. I also finished my first year of graduate school at UNK!

In June I was a personal attendant for my friend Cathleen's wedding in Grand Island.

My high school friend Kilie got married in July. I also became an aunt to Brylen James and floated down the Niobrara river!

Throughout the summer I worked at Target and took my 3rd full time semester of grad classes and clinic in Kearney. I fell in love and started my 4th semester of school in August.

September was a month of fun dates followed by October which meant my family selling our home on the golf course in Tekamah and moving to a small temporary house in Fremont. My parents, Tyler, and I also ventured to Wisconsin to witness the Huskers loss to the stinky Badgers.

In November I traveled to San Diego with three classmates for the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA) 2011 Convention. 

In December I got word that I officially have a job as a speech-language pathologist for the 2012-2013 school year through ESU #2 in Fremont. I also moved home with my parents, sister, and Brylen after finals week and we've already started making memories in our little humble abode! 

2011 was a bit of a roller coaster, we lost a loved one but gained Brylen and Tyler. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel and make some amazing memories. I learned how to golf and cooked more than I ever have before. I am currently interning as a speech-language pathologist in a school until March and then a medical setting. After that, I will graduate in May and begin my career in August! I am living with my mom, dad, sister, and Brylen and hoping that I will get to rent this house once my parents find their "dream home". I love finally living in the same town as Tyler and he comes over quite often to see me, Brylen, and to eat of course ; )

Christmas

I had quite a blessed Christmas season (besides when I was studying), in fact, Tyler and I had SIX Christmases between the two of us! Talk about plenty of family bonding and food! I hope you were all able to enjoy time with your loved ones over the holidays, from our family to yours...seasons greetings!

 

Breaking Headlines

I apologize for not blogging in almost 2 months, but I have extremely busy! Between studying for finals, moving, preparing for Christmas, and now studying for comps, it seems as though when I do catch a break I spend my "free time" on Pinterest and never manage to get to my own blog. However, a lot has happened in the past 2 months so let me fill ya'll in!

+My best friend from high school, Karisa, asked me to be a bridesmaid in her July 7, 2012 wedding, sooo excited!

Karisa & I, College of Dentistry Formal, Spring 2010

+I signed a contract to be a Speech-Language Pathologist with ESU#2 in Fremont for the 2012-2013 school year, it feels good to know I'm employed!

+I signed up to take the National (Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology) Exam on January 14, 2012. I will also be taking our Comprehensive Exams at UNK on January 12 & 13, so I will be studying my brains out until then. (Sorry in advance for the lack of blogging-- nothing new though, right?!)

+I also signed up for the Lincoln Half Marathon on Sunday, May 6, 2012 so it is time to get my rear end in shape!

+I finished my last semester of classes ever (unless I go back for that Ph.D.) with a 4.0, hooray!

+I moved in with my parents after finals week; I now have 4 new roommates: my dad, mom, sister and nephew, and I am finally in the same town as Tyler : )

Back to the books...stay tuned for my "Year in Review" post!

Sliced Baked Potatoes

Tyler and I attempted to make these potatoes a while back, once again, I got the idea from Pinterest, but they definitely did not turn out as well as I had hoped.

The original recipe we went off of said to bake them at 200 degrees, I should've known that wasn't high enough, but they definitely were not cooked all the way through at the bottom. If we try these again I will definitely set the oven at 475 like this recipe calls for:

Sliced baked potatoes: thinly slice almost all the way through. drizzle with butter, olive oil, salt and pepper. bake at 425 for about 40 min.

Healthy Oatmeal Smoothie

I also found this recipe on Pinterest, and apparently I did not pin it but I saved the recipe, so my apologies to whoever I am stealing this fabulous recipe from, but it is pretty tasty!

• 1 cup ice
• 1/2 cup frozen raspberries
• 1/2 cup plain lowfat yogurt
• 1 banana
• 1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 cup coconut water (or other liquid, such as juice) I used orange juice
• I added 1 tablespoon of ground flax seed

 Throw in  a blender and enjoy!

No Bake Granola Bars

I found this recipe on Pinterest via Food Doodles and decided to give it a whirl.

Makes 12

• 2 large overripe bananas
• 1 cup oats
• 1/2 cup crunchy cereal
• 2 tbsp pure maple syrup(or any other sweetener you use)
• 2 tbsp peanut butter or other nut or seed butter
• 2 tbsp semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 tbsp dried cranberries or other fruit
• 2 – 4 tsp cocoa powder

Line a muffin pan with paper liners, or use a silicone muffin pan for easy removal.  Mash the bananas.  Add wet ingredients and cocoa powder and mix well.  Add all other ingredients, mix well then press into prepared muffin tin.  Freeze at least 60 minutes before serving.

I added Special K Protein Plus as my crunchy cereal, and for whatever reason we were out of chocolate chips so I added the Heath chips we had. I also added 1 tbsp of ground flax seed and enjoy the granola bars best when they're frozen!

Nutella Cheesecake Pumpkin Muffins

I found this recipe while browsing blogs and thought they sounded absolutely delicious; they turned out delicious and even my little sister, who doesn't like admitting I'm a decent cook, enjoyed them!

• 4 whole Large Eggs
• 1-½ cup Sugar
• 1 can (15 Oz. Size) Pumpkin Puree
• 1-½ cup Vegetable Oil
• 3 cups All-purpose Flour
• 2 teaspoons Cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon Nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• FOR THE NUTELLA CHEECAKE FILLING:
• 8 ounces, weight Cream Cheese, softened
• ½ cups Nutella
• 1 whole Large Egg

Preheat oven to 375°F. In a large bowl, beat eggs slightly. Add in sugar, pumpkin and oil and beat thoroughly. Add in remaining dry ingredients and mix until smooth.
In a small bowl, beat together cream cheese, Nutella and egg until smooth.
Place paper liners in a muffin tin. Place about 2 tablespoons of pumpkin batter into each liner, then 1 tablespoon of Nutella batter, then top with 2 more tablespoons of pumpkin batter. Bake for 18-22 minutes.
These are best served completely cooled. Makes 20 muffins.

ASHA 2011 San Diego

I went to the ASHA (American Speech & Hearing Association) 2011 Convention in San Diego with three of my classmates, Mikki, Shana, and Sara, back in November. We had a blast!

We had a fun night of dinner and drinks at Dick's Last Resort ; )

We represented UNK as NSSLHA day volunteers!

The convention center, just walking distance from our hotel in the Gaslamp District.

We enjoyed dinner with our professors at the Rockin Baja Coastal Cantina!

We took a trolley tour around San Diego and went to Coronado Island to see the Hotel Del Coronado.

We even put our feet in the ocean despite the COLD water!

We loved the oodles of Birds of Paradise : ) I'd love to go back to SD again, there was so much to see and we definitely did not have enough time!