What we've been up to...

As soon as I got back to blogging, my computer crashes. Sigh. Then William leaves for his last week in Elizabeth city so I still didn't have a good computer to post with. Anywho, here's what we've been up to:

Not last weekend but the one before that was Homecoming at Campbell and the Science department hosted an alumni gathering. William and I were SO excited to go back to the campus we love, where we actually met, and actually got married at! We were also SO excited to see some of our good friends and our favorite professors. Here are some reunion pics:

One of our favorite things was seeing these new chairs of the future they got! Lol the only thing better would have been if they were motorized:

We had such a great time walking the campus and seeing all the new additions. The new library actally made us really jealous (the library while we were there was pitiful). Once we left there we went straight home to meet my parents and we went out to the State Fair. It was SOOO crowded, probably because it was the last weekend of the fair AND it was saturday night, but we got to eat a lot and ride a few things so it was fun (and by we I mean William rode rides with my cousin's boyfriend because I HATE fair rides):

We were SO exhausted when we got back and needless to say we had a great nights sleep. William left that Sunday to do his last Community Practice Experience in Elizabeth City. I came back to Winston, a long, lonely drive back, and had to work all week here by myself. Such a sob story, I know, but I really missed William this time. He got back Sunday afternoon and we went out to eat and came back and relaxed. Yesterday for Halloween we rented a few scary movies, got some popcorn and spent the night by the fireplace (b/c its freezing here) watching movies and relaxing. We're getting back into a routine now, William started his GI unit this week, and my parents are coming this weekend for my mom's birthday.

That was a lot to catch up on but last week was overall boring without William here! Hope everyone is having a good week. Can you believe it's November 1st?

Chicken Broccoli Shells

We tried this recipe last week and it was actually really good! Here are the ingredients:

1 (16 oz) jar alfredo sauce (you really need two)
2 cups frozen chopped broccoli (thawed)

2 cups diced cooked chicken (I used a food processor to shred the chicken..the shells are not that big so you would need to dice it into fine pieces or shred it like I did)

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese

24 jumbo pasta shells (1 box--cooked and drained)

Chopped onion to taste
Minced Garlic or Garlic powder to taste
Italian seasoning to taste

Salt and Pepper to taste

How To Prepare:
1) Preheat oven to 350. Boil shells and drain--set aside

2) Cook chicken--I cooked the chicken in a frying pan with a little olive oil and added some garlic, chopped onion, italian seasoning, and salt and pepper. Then I put it in the food processor so that it was a nice shredded mixture that fit well in the shells.3) In a bowl, mix one jar of alfredo sauce, chicken, and broccoli, and cheeses.

4) Place shells in a greased pan and spoon mixture into the shells. (Here you have the option of pouring another jar of alfredo sauce over the shells which I did--Next time I would only pour 1/2 of the jar because I don't like things extra "saucy"). Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

5) Enjoy! We were so hungry that I couldn't even get a finished product picture!

The only thing I would change is next time I would add more cheese on top of the shells before baking. Other than that it was great! :)

Weekend in Charlotte

William and I had a busy week as usual but we were excited by the fact that we were going to spend the night in Charlotte on Saturday! I took on an a project a few weeks ago and we put a desk in the guest bedroom that we can use for studying and bill paying and overall just more organization. Well, then we needed a chair for it and we also needed a picture for above the bed so we thought what better place than IKEA? At the same time we had a melting pot coupon and since they are both located in Charlotte we thought why not just get a hotel room and make a mini trip out of it (it only takes us about an hour and 20 min to get to Charlotte).

I had to work Saturday but I got off at 1:00 and we headed out on our way. We got to our hotel and looked around, changed clothes, and headed back out to our reservation at the melting pot. Here is the inside of the hotel (the elevators were really neat):This was only our second time at the melting pot and it was just as amazing as ever. Here's a pic of William (complete with the steam!) and our after dinner chocolate drinks!

We went back to our hotel after that (completely stuffed) and the hotel had this awesome feature where you can rent movies that our in the theater. Of course it cost $15 to rent the movie but that's how much it is to go the theater so why not rent it in the room where you can lounge around! Anyway, we rented The Help and it was SO good! We loved it! We slept in the most comfortable bed and got up in this morning to the hotel's breakfast buffet. After we checked out at the hotel we went to IKEA and bought the things we needed and then we shopped around a few other places and came back home. It was so good to get away even for a little bit and then we came home and set up all of our stuff. Here's a picture of the new chair and the picture above the guest bedroom:

Last weekend we caught a grand opening of a linen store here in Winston and we got a "luxury" bed ensemble for $70. They run almost $200 at places like Belks and Bed Bath and Beyond. Here's a picture of it on our bed:
We had a great weekend and now our apartment looks better than ever! We tried a new recipe last week that I will post soon because it was a keeper! Hope everyone has a good week!

Focus

Long time no post...I know....surprise surprise. It seems like EVERYtime we get back on the blog waggon something dramatic happens that consumes my life. I didn't even get to post about my birthday! The major thing that has happened recently is the death of my car. Yes. The green essence that has been me since high school died. BUT have no fear....three weeks and an unholy amount of money later, it's back in full force, good as new. What happened to it? Apparently every car has a computer in it and mine stopped working. It was giving out all these false readings about the transmission and this that and the other and when they found out that nothing was wrong with all that, they new it had to be the computer. Yikes.

Anyway, Let's recap the life that we have missed on the blog. First of all I turned 24 on the 17th! William and I got to go to Garner for the weekend where my mom had these beautiful roses waiting for me (I love fresh flowers!):
Mom and I went shopping Saturday and she bought my a pair of shape ups! I needed some new shoes for work since I stand on my feet a lot and hopefully they will help at the gym also. They look like this but mine are green. I honestly haven't even had time to lace them up but when I tried them on in the store it felt like I was standing on a rocking chair. They are pretty cool.

Saturday night we met my aunt, cousin, and grandma at the Outback and had a birthday dinner complete with this cute cake that was to DIE for. It was from Sams and had my favorite whipped cream icing instead of the heavy buttercream:

And here's a pic of the crazy family afterwards: My cousin had a cuter picture where my dad didn't look like he was asleep but I couldn't get it to upload on here, lol.
Sunday William had to get some studying in because he is in the cardio block which is another interruption in our lives. He absolutely hates this block (which means it's driving me crazy also) but his test is tomorrow so hopefully we can all make it through. Anyway, I was able to meet my friend Lauryn (her birthday was the day before mine) and she also gave me a beautiful flower arrangement which is sitting on my coffee table right now. I had a wonderful birthday!....Then my car died.

William and I have had a rough time trying to carpool because our schedules are SO different. Luckily my parents were on vacation last week so we were able to borrow their car for the week. Both of our cars are paid for so William and I are reallly trying to make it to his residency with no car payments! His birthday is in December so one of our gifts to each other was tickets to see Blondie. She was at the DPAC last wednesday...you may know her from such songs as "The Tide is High", "One Way or Another", "Heart of Glass" etc. and the concert was SO much fun! Here's a picture that is pretty bad quality but I dont think we were alowed to take pics so I was doing it secretly:
Our past weekend was spent just catching up and helping William get prepared for his upcoming Cardio test. This unit and his next unit which is pulmonary are supposedly the worst two units of second year. Once he gets through the next three weeks then he will leave for Elizabeth City again for the last time (this trip will only be a week). This weekend (the weekend AFTER his test) is supposed to be our fun weekened with no studying but now he has to do a poster for the student research day showcasing all of his research for this summer. If only it wasn't required...LOL but it's fine because once he gets through it, it will be done forever!

So that's about it for now. We're trying to plow through these next few weeks and hello? Can you believe it's about to be October? Where does the time go?!?!

Sunday in Boone

My dad and I both had to work this past Saturday so my parents came up to visit us once he was off work and I was home also. Saturday night we went out to eat and Sunday morning we got up early and took a trip to Boone. William and I have been here for a over a year and we never realized that we are only about an hour from Boone! We did a lot of driving around, taking in all the mountain scenery, and we went to Linville Falls and hiked up to the different overlooks of the waterfall. Here's the view from the highest point:

Here's mom and William sitting on the edge (I must admit that getting that close to the edge made me a little queezy--LOL):

Here's mom and dad at the lowest point (Charleigh was cut out by accident!)


And me and William in the same spot:

We drove along the blue ridge parkway with the windows down and blankets on top of us because the air was actually chilly! Once we got back to Winson it was a different story with all the humidity. We drove through blowing rock, passed tweetsie railroad, and scouted out all the places we would love to take a mini vaccation back to! We came back home, dropped Charleigh off, and went out to a mexican restaraunt. We had such a great time and we always hate it when we have to say goodbye. :( William has his first test as a 2nd year this friday so he is really working hard and I am trying to recover from some sort of sinus infection or cold or something. Hope everyone has a great week!

Calm weekend

This week has felt a little disorganized for William and myself. We think it's just the issue of getting William started back up with school and studying and coming back from the beach last sunday didn't leave us with a lot of preparation time. Anyway, with hurricanw Irene swirling around the coast we thought this would be a good weekend to stay at home in Winston and get some reading and cleaning and general relaxing done!

We had a good week overall, and William is back in full force with school, but Thursday night he took a break for us to have dinner with our friends Meredith and Patricia. We went to Campbell with both of them and Meredith went to Africa with us and lives here in Winston Salem. Patricia is in seminary and she came to visit Meredith before her school starts backs so we all went to Mellow Mushroom for some goooood pizza! Here's a picture of the lovely sisters:

We had fun with you guys and I'm glad we got to see Patricia while she was passing through! We have another full week ahead, complete with some potential decision-making about jobs which I'll post about when the time comes. We're working for the weekend which is labor day weekend and my parents are coming to stay! Hope YOU have a great week!

Annnddd we're back (again....)

We're back! I always know when it's time to get back to blogging because Corey Adams keeps me straight! :) HAHA thanks Corey! I have been working severe overtime because a lot of people have been on vacation/getting married/etc. With that said, William and I finally got a chance to take a trip before he starts back to school TOMORROW! He's so happy to be a 2nd year med student, not the bottom of the bunch anymore!

We left last wednesday for myrtle beach. William's uncle John lives in Georgetown, SC which is about 45 minutes from myrtle. We went to his house wednesday and stayed the night then left thursday for the beach. I didn't get a good pic of William with his uncle but he took us to a river side cafe for lunch before we left and he snapped a picture of us:

We left for the beach and had an excellent time while we were there! We ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, and the Pirates Voyage Dinner Show. We spent plenty of time at the beach and pools, went to the Aquarium, Bodies exhibit, and the dinner show, and we also went to family kingdom and rode some rides which scared me to death. I am not a fan of fair/carnival rides, LOL. We also did plenty of shopping at the beach stores and Tanger outlets! Here was our beach view:

Here are some aquarium highlights starting with stingray bay:

William was really intrigued by the eels....so much so that he leaned in too close, forgetting there was glass, and banged his head loudly!! :)

Margaritaville is such a fun place to eat and we alwas have a blast when we go:

We had such a good time on our trip and we're happy to be back home and ready to get back to our routine. Although school is school, William is ready to get back to the grind and come March he will be a third year medical student! We hope everyone has a good week! :)