High Five for Friday

High Five for Friday peoples!! I feel a little strange doing these posts now. I'm usually so excited for Friday and looking forward to the weekend, but Fridays are now my Mondays. This week was a good one. Nothing too crazy or exciting happened, which was nice.

1. I got my hair cut. I needed a trim pretty badly, so I went to a local beauty shop and got my hair cut a little shorter and lots of layers put in. It feels much lighter and I think I'm really going to enjoy this cut for summer.

2. I actually wore shorts while running errands on Wednesday. What???!!

3. Wednesday night Mike and I had a little date night to a restaurant we hadn't tried yet. We were celebrating that we both got straight A's this semester at school and that we both had at least a week of work under our belts!

4. Thursday we had our first thunderstorm since moving to Colorado. It's seems like so long since I've heard thunder! It was nice just to sit and enjoy the storm. It even hailed quite a bit.

5. Signs of Spring are here and I think are finally here to stay. I took these pictures in our yard!


I want to wish a special congratulations to my friend Ariceli Flores who is graduating from the Navy bootcamp today. I'm so proud of you Celi and so thankful to be able to call you my friend. CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!

I hope you all have a safe and fun Memorial Day weekend!

Book Review: A Year Without Make-Up

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A Year Without Make-Up - Stephanie Yoder

May 2014

This is a very short book of only about seventy pages. The author is a travel blogger who decided to write about her first big trip. She traveled mostly solo to Asia and Australia and gives advice about traveling to these locations and some adventures she had along the way. The book is written in a way that is easy to read and follow along; however, I think this book would have been a lot more intriguing if the author took the time to really go over in detail each phase of her travels and made this short novel into a full length book. I enjoyed it, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if there was some more depth. If you like to travel, then you should definitely check this book out.

Trapper Shoot

Mike finished his trapper pistol for his bench metal class. It came out great! He went with his class to the range and they all shot it together two weekends ago. So this past week, Mike took me to the range to show me how its done. I've never shot a black powder pistol before, but it's a lot easier than I originally thought it would be and is a lot of fun!

 First, you need some black powder.

Then you pour the powder down the barrel.

Next, you put the ball wrapped in a little cloth in the barrel.

You have to push the ball the the very back of the barrel and tap it three times.

Then you put that little gold cap in place, and pull back the hammer.

 Then you shoot!

 I decided to give it a try!

We had a blast out on the range (get it...blast? No need to tell me how hilarious I am!). I can't wait until we can go back again.

Summer Reading List

I have always been a big reader and love getting lost in a good book. However, sometimes life just seems too busy to actually sit down and finish a book. So I've made it one of my goals this summer to read more. Below is a list of eight books I hope to get through by the end of the summer. Let me know if you've read any of these and what you thought, or if you have any good book suggestions. Thanks!!

1. Dark Places: A Novel
By Gillian Flynn

2. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
By Cheryl Strayed

3. The Mortal Instruments: City of Heavenly Fire
By Cassandra Clare

4. A Year Without Make-Up
By Stephanie Yoder

5. 20-Something, 20-Everything: A Quarter-life Woman's Guide to Balance and Direction
By Christine Hassler

6. My First Summer in the Sierra
By John Muir

7. The Artisan Soul: Crafting Your Life into a Work of Art
By Erwin Raphael McManus

8. Serena: A Novel
By Ron Rash

High Five for Friday

Hi All! Hope you have had a good week. This week has been a good one for me, even though it has been busy finishing up end of semester projects. Today I should finish my last paper and then I only have one more presentation to give and one more test to take next week. I'm excited to switch gears a little and focus on work. Without further ado, my top things for this week are...

 

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1. I joined a yoga studio in town about a month ago and I'm loving it! The studio is on Main St., so I can walk there in about 3 minutes. It's hot yoga, which means the room is heated and humidified. I love that every time I walk in that room it feels like a summer day in Florida.

2. Tuesday I got a surprise in the mail from my Mema and G-pa! They got Mike and I a subscription to Food Network Magazine for our anniversary and two magazines showed up in our mailbox. I can't wait to try out some new recipes!

3. Last weekend Mike and I both ordered a new pair of boots to have for work. They arrived on Wednesday and we can't wait to try them out.

4. Every Thursday Mike brings in cookies that I baked for his class. This was the last week of regular classes, and so these cookies were the last batch until next year. I knew these particular cookies were going to be time consuming, so I asked Mike to help me out on these. Oh my, these Twix cookies are SO good!!!! Ours didn't turn out to be the prettiest, but I don't even mind because that's how good they are.

5. Tomorrow is my first day of work...wish me luck!!!

I wish you all a happy High Five for Friday and an awesome weekend. It's snowed twice here this week (just a little bit), so if you're reading from somewhere that Spring has actually arrived please soak up some warmth for me. Love you all!

Strawberry Oatmeal Bars

A couple weekends ago I made these yummy strawberry oatmeal bars from the Pioneer Woman. It is a very easy recipe to follow and then we had breakfast ready to go for the week. Although, I do have to say I think these tasted the best when they were warm out of the oven.

Ingredients

1 3/4 sticks salted butter

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups oats (found in the grocery store with the microwavable oatmeal)

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

One 10-12 ounce jar of strawberry preserves or jam

The only thing I did a little differently from the original recipe was put a foil in the pan first and then spray the foil with cooking spray. I did this so when the bars came out of the oven all I had to do was lift the foil out rather than try to dig out each bar.

You mix the butter, flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt together.

Scoop half of the mixture onto the foil and press it out with your hands.

Next, spread the strawberry jam evenly on top with a spoon.

Carefully spoon the remaining oat mixture on top of the strawberry jam. Using your fingers, lightly press the mixture out. As you can see in the picture above mine wasn't perfect, but it still tastes good!

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30-40 minutes or until it is a light golden brown. I let mine sit for just a couple minutes to firm up a bit. Then, lift the foil out of the pan and cut into bars. I used a 9x13 inch pan and made about 30 small bars.