Success...Kind of :)

Today began much earlier and brighter than yesterday. Very thankful that the sun was out today. After a bowl of Special K and a leftover doughnut, we were ready to hit the road and find a place to live. First stop Southeastern Baptist Seminary: Financial Aid - check, Student Activities - check, Student Housing - check. That's right, we decided to check out student housing, filled out the application for Fletcher Village (pet friendly) and took a look around. Here are some photos of the seminary and student housing.






Aaron took this picture because it reminded him of ALABAMA!!!


Fletcher Village


The Kitchen


The Living Room


Headed Upstairs - Gracie will love this, she loves to run up and down stairs. She could be one fit kitty.


Bedroom 1 - The Second one is exactly the same, it is in the front of the house.


The Bathroom - there is a half bathroom downstairs in between the kitchen and living room.

Our next stop for the day was North Forest Apartments, I have no pictures of this place because they are all occupied. The manager was extremely helpful and nice. It is a small apartment complex, four apartments in each unit. This complex is extremely close to the seminary, which is a plus.




So we did have success today. We found two places that we could call home. The seminary housing is larger and costs less but we won't know if we will get our first choice or third choice (our third choice is not an option, we wouldn't be able to fit our bed in the place) We won't know where we are placed until the end of April/beginning of May, so we found North Forest and can hold out until we know something about seminary housing. If seminary housing doesn't pan out, then we have a place at North Forest.

The rest of the day was used for more exploring, shopping/looking and relaxing. Then the never ending question: What are we going to eat for dinner? Now since we are in a new place we wanted to try out some of the local flare. On to Smithfield's Chicken N Bar-B-Q, because my husband does love BBQ.




Aaron's Plate


My Plate - which according to Aaron was tastier than his BBQ. The sweet tea was fantastic!

All in all a successful day. We head back to Alabama tomorrow, which means a lot of time in the car. Hopefully the day will be beautiful and enjoyable.

Saturday's Adventures

Today began, quite late actually. We didn't actually get up and start moving until 11:30 EST. Needless to say, the 10 hours in the car and excitement of the adventures of yesterday, we were tired. After breakfast, we set out to scout out the apartments we had found via the internet. With two phones, a GPS, and iPad, we were ready. We spent several hours driving through the rain, looking at places, narrowing down the search, and finding new places to check out. Before long our stomaches began to speak and it was time for an early supper. At the request of my husband, who has been craving a "good, thick, grilled hamburger" we headed to Red Robin's YUM!!!! It really hit the spot.



Now let the search continue. We got back to our room and did some more searching. Found some houses/townhouses that were in our price range and available. So out the door we went again.



After driving around Wake Forest, finding some of the places and once again eliminating others, it was time to reward ourselves with can you guess what...



That's right the HOT SIGN WAS ON and who can resist such a great treat. 1/2 a dozen of the HOT ones and 1/2 a dozen assorted doughnuts, along with two cups of coffee. Once back to our room, we settled in to watch our Sunday evening show, "Once A Upon A Time" and enjoy the joyous taste of fresh HOT doughnuts.







Our goal for tomorrow to find the place we are going to call home. We have our checklist ready, camera and iPad charged, and plenty of gas in the car. Please pray that we find the "home" God has for us and enjoy another day of adventures.

Let the Adventures Begin

Spring Break has begun for Baldwin County Public Schools, which means that I am one footloose and fancy free teacher. I couldn't be more excited about getting a break and enjoying whatever adventures may lie ahead. Well the adventures have already begun:

Aaron and I are currently in Wake Forest, North Carolina, on a hunt for a place to live. Yes that means I have spent 10 hours in the car today. Now in case you don't know, I HATE riding in a car for an extended period of time. On any long family vacation, I was the kid who would go to sleep and wake up when we arrived at our destination. Well now I can't seem to do that. I just tend to get extremely restless and BORED. Needless to say, I was able to entertain myself and even had the privilege of driving for a while. Most of the drive was quite pleasant but by the time we arrived in Charlotte, NC, the storm clouds had rolled in. Here's what the sky looked like:

Then for 45 minutes we drove through a serve thunderstorm. It begin to rain extremely hard and THEN hail began to fall. If you look closely in the following picture you can see the hail on the side of the road.

We have finally arrived safely at our home away from home. We've had our Chick Fil A and are doing a bit more research on the apartments here. Tomorrow's plan is to relax and explore. More time in the car, but not as much as today. Until tomorrow...

Update on Life

It's offically OFFICAL!!! We are headed to seminary, at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. We are excited, nervous, happy, sad, you name the emotion, it has probably been felt or will be felt sometime during this process. We have resigned from our jobs. I will finish the school year and I am already in the process of looking for a job in the Wake County Public School System. Aaron will work until we move at AT&T and last Sunday was our last Sunday at Crossroads. We are searching for an apartment and will be going to Wake Forest soon to find our new "humble abode". Side note: Gracie (the cat) is super excited about the 12 hour trip in the car. Doesn't that sound like fun. Which brings me to the reason for the update:

Today was the first Sunday since we have been married that we didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn and head to Daphne to be ready for the Sunday service. First let me say that our time at Crossroads was amazing and we learned a lot. We are so blessed by the people and students who came into our lives and we will be for ever grateful for all that they have done for us. We had an amazing send off last week, serveral of the ladies in the church organized a luncheon in our honor. We were able to eat an delicious meal and visit with the church family. An excellent way say our thank yous.

But today we had no agenda, and we have taken full advantage of that. We slept in, which I don't think either one of us has done is quite some time. We took our time getting ready and then headed to Spot of Tea, in downtown Mobile for "brunch". We enjoyed a wonderful meal, took a side shopping trip, and came home. We have been able to enjoy some good quality time together and really just enjoy the day. And wouldn't you know, today is the first day in about two weeks where the sun has actually been shining. That made the day, 1,000 times better.

As I sit on the swing in the back yard, I am trying my best to just enjoy the day, but alas, I have a checklist of things that must be accomplished and now seems like as good a time as any. Just putting everything aside even for a little while seems to be so hard for me these days. I am constantly making a list of things that need to be accomplished, that I sometimes forget to enjoy the moments I have right now. I am so thankful that my husband constantly reminds me to just take a break. He is much better at that than I am, but I am learning. :) So as we embark on this incredible journey ahead of us, keep us in your prayers. Our hearts desire to follow after God's will and do His work, for His glory!

with love,
Laura and Aaron

Mardi Gras Holidays = Relaxation Days

I've been off work for the past two days because of the Mardi Gras holidays (yes a something that orginates in Mobile, not New Orleans) and I have throughly enjoyed some R & R time. I have had the opportunity to try out some new recipes and have a fabulous dinner of Red Beans and Rice cooking in the crockpot (at least it smells delcious). Come on, I am out for Mardi Gras, so the meal seemed appropriate.

To my two new recipes, homemade yogurt and granola. I'll post pictures of both. The granola was a huge hit and super easy to make. We have found that it is great for breakfast, just let it sit in the milk for a bit, in yogurt or by itself. I found the recipe on Pinterest. The following is a link to the recipe. www.deliacreates.blogspot.com/2011/12/sweet-granola.html



My next adventure was homemade yogurt. Now I eat yogurt every day for lunch so I thought why not make my own. So here was my attempt. It turned out exactly as the directions said it would. I think I made 12 servings from it. I placed them in small ziploc containers, that way I can take them to work. The taste of the yogurt reminded me of plain yogurt, so I put some granola in it. I'm thinking maybe some strawberry jam or a dash of vanilla would be good too. It was a fun and long process. I ended up having to get up at 1:30 last night to put it in the frig because I didn't realize how long it was actually going to take. I started making it at like 11:30 the previous morning. Other than it taking a long time to sit and do whatever it did, making it was no work at all.

www.simplysahm.blogspot.com/2010/12/super-easy-homemade-yogurt.html



As already mentioned I'm making red beans and rice, which have just finished and taste GREAT!!! I also made cupcakes for my students tomorrow. Since it is a short week I don't have a scripted Language Arts lesson. We are going to use the cupcakes to write a descriptive paragraph. I hope they enjoy writing their paragraphs as much as I enjoyed making the cupcakes. Nevertheless, it should be something fun and different that hopefully they will remember.

Until next time....

Tonight's Dinner

So today was an amazingly relaxing Saturday. I enjoyed a fantastic cup of coffee, read, did laundry, and enjoyed some quality time with Aaron (who had the day off). As supper time approached, I began another adventure in cooking. As I've mentioned before I enjoy looking for new recipes, especially on Pinterest. Here is another great meal idea. And I actually took a picture this time. ENJOY!!!




Tortellini Spinach Bake in Creamy Lemon Sauce
Recipe by Our Best Bites

12 oz bag Barilla Cheese & Spinach Tortelini (find them in the dry pasta aisle)
4 oz bacon or pancetta, (about 4 strips bacon)*
3 cloves garlic, pressed in garlic press or finely minced
2 Tbs flour
2 C milk
¾ tsp kosher salt
⅛ tsp black pepper
1 1/2 tsp dry basil
¼ tsp red pepper flakes (1/2 tsp or more if you like spicy)
1 medium lemon
2 C loosely packed fresh spinach, roughly chopped
¾ C grated mozzarella cheese, divided
¾ C grated Parmesan cheese, divided

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Fill a large stock pot with water and bring to a boil. Add tortellini and cook according to package instructions.

Place bacon in a medium sized skillet on the stove-top at medium-high heat. Cook until crisp. Remove bacon from pan with slotted spoon and set on paper towels to drain. Reserve two tablespoons bacon drippings in pan and discard the rest. Add garlic to pan and cook until fragrant and tender, about 1 minute. Add flour to pan and stir with a whisk for about 1 minute. Slowly add milk and continue to stir with whisk until smooth. Add salt, pepper, basil, and red pepper flakes and bring sauce to a simmer.

While sauce is heating, use a microplane grater or a fine-holed cheese grater to zest lemon. Then cut lemon in half and remove juice. Add 2 teaspoons zest and 1 tablespoon lemon juice to sauce. (Note: I really love lemon so I added this to my tastes. If you don’t want as strong of a lemon flavor, I suggest cutting it down to 1 teaspoon zest and 2 teaspoons lemon juice) . Continue to stir until thickened, 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat.

Drain tortellini and place back in stock pot. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the cooked bacon and add the rest to the pasta mixture. Add spinach, 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese. Add sauce and gently stir to combine. Place pasta mixture in an 8×8 or 9×9 baking dish and top with remaining 1/4 cup mozarella and 1/4 cup parmesan and also crumbled bacon.

Cover pan with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes, until cheese on top is melted and pasta is bubbly throughout. Remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Homemade Pizza Hut Pizza

Okay, let me first begin by saying that none of these recipes are my own creation, I found them on Pinterest, if you haven't tried it out, it is a great way to find new ideas posted by others. Now that I have given credit where credit is due, enjoy this new recipe.

So Friday nights at the Turner Home are PIZZA NIGHT, per request of my sweet husband. He LOVES pizza and so we make homemade pizza every Friday and have the leftovers (if there are any) for lunch on Saturday. (The guys at work are always jealous of his pizza and rightly so). Well last night was no different, except that I had a new recipe to try out. A copycat recipe for Pizza Hut Pizza. Pizza Hut is know for their pan pizza and this is exactly what it is. If you don't have a deep dish pizza pan, cake pans work just as well. However, we have not tried this recipe on a pizza stone.
Side Note: Now I made a 13' and 8' pizza from this recipe and only used enough oil to cover the pan, all the reviews said using the 3oz of oil it called for made the crust really greasy. The toppings are endless. We had pepperoni because that is what I had but ham and pineapple are the list for next week. Aaron's vote - it tasted just like pizza hut pizza but less greasy. So enjoy!!!

Oh yeah - while eating our pizza we enjoyed "The Blindside", such a great movie. I had never seen it but had wanting to, I can truly relate with "Big Mike". Those are the child that are in my classroom, just smaller. :)

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/3 cup warm water (105 degrees F)
1/4 cup non-fat dry milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 package dry yeast
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (for dough)
9 ounces vegetable oil (3 ounce per pan)
butter flavored cooking spray
***Sauce***
1 can (8 ounce size) tomato sauce
1 teaspoon dry oregano
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
1/2 teaspoon dry basil
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

PREPARATION:
Put yeast, sugar, salt, and dry milk in a large (2 qt.) bowl. Add water and stir to mix well. Allow to sit for two minutes. Add oil and stir again. Add flour and stir until dough forms and flour is absorbed.

Turn out on to a flat surface and knead for about 10 minutes. Divide dough into three balls. In three 9" cake pans, put 3 Oz. of oil in each making sure it is spread evenly. Using a rolling pin, roll out each dough ball to about a 9" circle. Place in cake pans.

Spray the outer edge of dough with cooking spray. Cover with a plate. Place in warm area and allow to rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Sauce:

Combine ingredients and let sit for 1 hour.

For Each Nine Inch Pizza: Preheat oven to 475 degrees F Spoon 1/3 cup sauce on dough and spread to within 1" of edge. Distribute 1 1/2 Oz. shredded mozzarella cheese on sauce. Place toppings of your choice in this order: Pepperoni or Ham Vegetables Meats (cooked ground sausage or beef) Top with 3 Oz. mozzarella cheese Cook until cheese is bubbling and outer crust is brown

I cooked mine for about 15 minutes.