Something I did for church.
Song: Under the Weather
Artist: KT Tunstall

Busch Gardens!

This past weekend Paul and I, along with some friends of ours, ventured to Busch Gardens (hence the reason for the loads and loads of laundry.) On Friday morning we ventured out in a 37 ft. RV for the 2 hour journey to Tampa. We bought season passes for only $5 more and enjoyed the park for the whole day. It was really nice, and very much less crowded than I'm used to for amusement parks. The longest line we stood in was 20 minutes, which is incredibly short compared to the 2+ hour long waits we've become accustomed to from Cedar Point. Although no park, in my opinion, can compare to Cedar Point, we had a lot of fun here. We even saw giraffes, zebras, elephants, hippos, and tons more crazy animals. We also got to go to a beer tasting where we tasted Anheuser Busch's newest and oldest creations. After the day at the park we went to our hotel in Tampa and just hung out around the pool before retiring for the evening. The next morning we woke up and went to the Florida Aquarium, which was less exciting than anticipated due to the fact that the shark and big animals tank was closed for construction. Booo.

Our Newest Obsession...

Paul and I have recently started watching The Office. We now have Netflix again and all the seasons of The Office have been at the top of our queue for the past couple weeks now. Our goal was to knock out all four seasons before the season 5 premiere...although we didn't make the deadline (which is tonight) we are dang close. We just finished season 3 and we have season 4 waiting to start when Paul gets home from work tonight! :) (It's EXTREMELY tempting not to watch without him--sitting here all day...) I can confidently say that The Office is the funniest television show I have ever watched--we can't get through an episode without busting a gut at least 4 times. I am now recommending to all our blog followers to watch The Office, if you haven't already. Do whatever it takes to do it--you will NOT be let down. And now, a little preview.

(This will does not contain any plot ruining spoilers.)

In a previous entry I shared that Gracie is growing up soo fast! She is now 5 months old. We played around today and had a little "photoshoot". (She is quite photogenic, fierce. Tyra would be impressed.) I've included a preview of some of my favorites...you can view the rest here.

First Recipe Entry!

Hello! I've been doing some pondering lately, about what I can do to get us to post on this blog more. Most of my day (currently) is consumed by household chores and my favorite one of these chores is cooking and exploring recipes. I've decided that I will now start randomly sharing yummy recipes I find or make with you (this may be more for my enjoyment than yours..)

One of our new-found favorite restaurants to eat at lately is Arizona Pizza Factory. They have excellent gourmet pizza's, cal-zones, pasta, salads, and breads of all sorts. My favorite dish to get from there is the Chicken Penne with Garlic, Sun-dried-Tomatoes, Spinach and Feta. It is absolutely DIVINE! I decided recreate my favorite dish at home last night and it turned out very yummily, and it was VERY simple. My recipe is as follows (by the way, I am not a measuring cooker, so all ingredients are eyeballed..)

What you will need: (will feed 4-6 people, depending on how

much you eat)

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (or as Racheal Ray says, EVOO...I will just call it Olive Oil)
  
• Finely Chopped Garlic (I used 6 cloves, I LOVE garlic and since there is no sauce in this dish, the garlic adds LOTS of flavor)
• 2-4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 Box of Penne Pasta
• Salt, pepper, garlic powder
• Spinach (you can use frozen spinach, or a bag of salad mixture spinach leaves)
• Chopped Sundried tomatoes (if they are dehydrated you will need to re-hydrate them by soaking them in olive oil for a couple hours)
• Feta Cheese (crumbles, or a block cut into cubes)
• 1 Lemon

Directions!

• First, you will need to cook the pasta in salted water. While the pasta is cooking, cut your chicken into bite sized cubes and season with salt and pepper and garlic powder then set aside. Then, use the olive oil from the sun-dried tomatoes and put a spoonful into a small skillet on medium high heat, and about 1/3 cup into a large skillet on medium heat.
  
• In the small skillet, cook the chicken. In the large skillet first add the spinach (if using fresh spinach, allow it to wilt while stirring it). Lightly salt the spinach, then add the garlic and sundried tomatoes along with lemon zest.
  
• When the chicken is done cooking, add it to the large skillet.
  
• Drain the pasta, then add that to the large skillet and squeeze 1/2 of the lemon's juice into it. Mix everything well, then add the feta cheese and mix that too (it won't melt.)
  

Voila. Very very simple and SOOOO tasty.

What's New?

It's been awhile since I've posted, and like Rochelle in the previous post, we're horrible bloggers. But let me update you all a little bit. We had a great time in MI and a huge thanks to all our friends who carved time out to see us. Our friends Mitch and Sunny got married in Korea this year and decided to have an American Reception. The reception was incredible, great food, great friends, great people. Mitch, Sunny, and their band played for us and it was great to see them do what they do best.


We also got a chance to hang out with some friends that we haven't seen since our wedding, well most of them. On top of that, we met some very cool Koreans and I got to see my friend Julie who I haven't seen for like 5 years. She thought Rochelle was pregnant because of Facebook and ended up getting us a card and shirts from L.A. Where she's from. I had to tell her Rochelle wasn't pregnant. She was pretty embarrassed but I thought it was hilarious.



We definitely had our fair share of family and friends time and we were sad to leave some of our best friends in the world. I was able to go down to Indianapolis that Thursday to see some of my closest buddies from college. Two of my best friends Dave and Tyler rode down with me to meet up with my best bud Jesse, Conrad, and our friend Matt. It was a great day of catching up, reminiscing, and watching a vulgar movie, Step-Brothers. Unfortunately I didn't get any pics. On Fri, we spent the majority of the day hanging out with Brian and Bets and their triplets, Jake, Caleb, and Gwen. I'd post pics but they're just too cute for the screen. That night Brian had a show and he asked me to play it with him which I gladly accepted. It was a great feeling to play a show again with one of my closest friends.



That Saturday I got to hang out with one of my best friends from High School Zack! We always have a great time catching up when we can and it was great to see him. Unfortunately our lady friends couldn't be there but we managed to make it through without them. Zack and Steph are getting married in like a year and they are perfect for each other. We had a good time talking about relationships and I'm honored that Zack asked me to be in his wedding and share in their big day! Well, we got to spend Sunday with the in-laws and I wish we had more time with them. We miss them a lot but, we figured we had seen them for a whole week a few months earlier, we should spend some time with my mom. We had a great time with her(the few times we saw each other) and even saw my Grandma for a few. We hung out a little with our Kentwood friends that night and it was off to FL the next day.
Since we've been back not a whole lot has happened.


For about a month now we've been hanging out with some good friends. I've mentioned Shane and Amy before but we've been hanging with 2 other couples as well lately. Aubrey and Nick who have been dating for 3 1/2 years and still aren't engaged, and Josh and Lilly who live in the same place as us so we've gotten pretty close with them. A few days ago we went out to Sanibel beach with them and played frisbee in some gross shores. Labor day we hung out at our place, all 9 of us, including our good friend Noelle who lives across the hall. We had a good time and the girls cheat at every game.


In other news, today Rochelle and I went to VW to look at leasing a car. About a week ago traveling to church my brakes went out. Luckily it's a stick and I could just downshift to slowdown. My buddy Shane helped me fix it but we decided it might be time for a new ride. Well, after about 4 hours at VW we are proud new leasers of a brand new, 2008, 24 miles, Jetta! We're very excited. This is the first new car we've ever owned. We're proud and very thankful to have family back us up on this.




Well until next time(about a month I'm guessing) that's about it...
Grace, Peace, and Love.
Paul

Summer in the rearview mirror...

Okay, I'll admit it. Paul and I are the worst bloggers ever. I always get in these stints where I'm like, "Oooh! Blogging! That sounds fun! Pictures, YES! Woo!" Then I forgot about it. Our apologies.


Summer has been here and gone (although when you live in Florida, it's kind of like summer year round.) We've been up to quite a bit since my last post on here.

Gracie is now 4 months old! She's getting sooo big, and growing up sooo fast. She's pretty much potty trained, although she has accidents every once in a while. Right now she's sleeping on the couch and really, she looks like a human. Her paw is covering her eyes. It's very cute. She has been a bit of a hassle at times, but she's growing up and calming down. She's very funny.

Most recently, we enjoyed our first trip to Michigan since moving to Florida. It was a lot of fun, and it finally felt like we were real adults going on a real vacation. We spent a week in Lansing, and a day in Grand Rapids. We got to visit with all our friends and family. The main reason for our trip was for our friends Mitch and Sunny's wedding reception. They got married in Korea this summer, and celebrated here in the states that week. It was a lot of fun to hang out with them, and we are very excited for them to visit us over Christmas/New Years time! We have also decided to make a trip to Korea next year sometime! YAY!




On June 30th, we celebrated our first anniversary as a married couple! (And we're actually coming up on a our 3 year mark in a few days here!) For our anniversary, since Paul got me my new camera, we decided to keep it small. We just hung out all day--watched a movie, went shopping, and went out to a delicious dinner. We also ate a splendid 1 year old cake (which actually was REALLY delicious.) Overall, even though we didn't follow the traditional guidelines with gifts of paper, it was an absolutely wonderful day. =D


A recent discover/obsession of mine has been The Twilight Saga. Twilight is this wonderful book series about a vampire love story. Yes, vampires. Now, I'm not really a sci-fi girl...not at all, so when I heard about Twilight from about 20 billion of my friends, I wasn't really that excited about it. When I finally got around to picking up the first book to read it, I couldn't put it down--not that or the other books in the series. The final book of the series finally came out on August 2nd, and I went to the book release party. I happened to win the store trivia (over 40 questions, then a sudden death round) and I was able to win a free copy of the final book. Imagine my excitement! In conclusion to this section, you REALLY need to check out Twilight, become addicted, then DISCUSS with me. Thanks =D


AND FINALLY, I've spent all day today cleaning out my computer and reorganizing my iPhoto stuff. Along with this, I've decided to start keeping picture albums online (rather than just Facebook.) I made a Picasa account and have uploaded some albums there for your viewing pleasure. It can be found here. =D



And that is all for this lengthy update on our lives. Expect more soon. I hope.


Rochelle =D

Gracie Mae Yerrick

The new addition.

Gracie Mae Yerrick
Born April 17th, 2008
Adopted June 20th, 2008