Capturing Life

I have always been obsessed with taking pictures. In High School before digital cameras were popular, I always had those disposable cameras that you had to wind up and press the button for the flash. When I would be walking to class and saw a friend I would stop them to take a picture and I would get SO pumped to go and get the pictures developed. You see way back when, you never knew if you got a good shot.
I got my first digital camera at the end of High School and it was the COOLEST THING EVER. I know my parents spend a good couple hundred bucks on it and it had the tiniest screen-but to me it was magical. I could see what pictures I had captured and zoom in and even delete the ones that were bad! Since then I only used disposable cameras for tubing trips because I was that person that wanted to capture EVERYTHING!

I finally upgraded my simple first digital camera (probably one of the first ever made digital cameras with tiny screen) to the well known brand of Canon. I got this camera because I was going to Europe after graduation and was going to need to practice with it first. It is amazing what a camera can pick up and remember for you with the blink of a flash and the press of a button.

Looking at this picture makes my heart race and it takes me back to where I was three years ago. Standing underneath one of the most beautiful structures in the world. I can still feel the breeze, I can hear people talking and I remember feeling that giddy-ness because I was going to go up it.

 When I look back at this picture I can feel the heat. I was just talking about this day with my friends, Allison and Jessica. Saying how we have never been to hell and back but this was the closest we have come. This was probably the most dehydrated I had ever felt-Climbing the Acropolis in Athens. This is not even the Acropolis! This is like the first mini climb on marble(which I did in sandals). I remember taking this picture and thinking "Oh man, I hope I can get through this!" It was totally worth it in the end.

Pictures take you back and I often get made fun of because I want to take pictures of everything. I have 144 albums on Facebook and endless amounts of camera cards. I know why I take pictures and I have said it out loud. I take picture to capture life and also to remember. 

To remember how the music sounded. 

To remember how little they once were.

To remember that overpowering love and joy your friend has for their first child. 

To remember  what is important in life.

To remember what I am passionate about. 

To remember how beautiful it was. 

You may feel weird carrying around a camera all the time, but you will not regret it when you look back on them years from now. Take pictures of everything! You only have one wild and precious life to live so make it worth it and document it along the way.

What a year can do.

This seriously is the best feeling ever. Not worrying how silly you look-but just letting all your happiness out to show everyone just how awesome friendship is. 

Allison, Jessica and I

On June 10, 2011 I was on a plane to Vegas with two girls that I cannot even picture life without anymore. We were going to celebrate Allison's bachelorette party and my oh my-what a year can do! On June 10, 2012 My friend Jessica and I embarked on a mini road trip to McKinney, Texas to go hang out with Allison her awesome husband and also this other sweet man in in her life. What great change and good can come in a year! We now have an extra person to hang out with, the little, handsome and smiley Evan Baggerly. 

Allison, Jessica and I met at ATM during our sophomore year and ever since this meeting we have been very close friends. We have awesome memories from College Station like studying at PotBelly's, getting our Aggie rings together and going to football games. We also were probably called "those crazy girls" because honestly, when we are together we really just do not care how ridiculous we look/sound. 

Some of my favorite memories are:

1) walking under the century tree. For all my non Aggie people. There is a tree on campus that is GORGEOUS. However, you are not supposed to walk under it alone, but rather with the person you will marry one day or something like that. Some girls would never walk under it unless they were engaged or getting proposed to. Many times, there are candles and roses and even wedding ceremonies under this tree. This tree gets a lot of lovin'! 

Some people said that if you walked under it alone you would be alone forever or something like that. Since we loved each other so much, we walked under the tree together. We even ate lunch under there and Allison would climb on the limbs. 

2)Topless Tuesdays: Every week we had dinner together on Tuesdays. I swear on Hannah's life that that is ALL THAT HAPPENED. Our tops always stayed on but whenever we would talk while walking through campus like "Hey, What time are we doing Topless Tuesday at?!"-we turned a ton of heads!

3)Pranking our Professor: We had this really hilarious/awesome statistics professor our senior year named Dr. Hall. He reminded us of a caring grandfather so we named him Grandpa Hall and he loved it. He loved us and we sat right in the front row because we were afraid if we didn't that we would fail loved statistics. Well on April Fools day we were studying crazily for an exam in the flag room and we decided to prank call him to tell him we had amoebic meningitis. If you do not know what this is google it! It is a very serious disease but we also felt like it was very uncommon and we did not think he would know what it was even though he has a Ph.D. We called him and told him we all had amoebic meningitis from swimming in a lake and that we were all in the hospital and that we would not be able to take the test. He sounded very concerned and just kept repeating what we were saying then we just broke out in laughter. We found out later than he was actually in a board meeting, but took our phone call because he was so concerned. I feel like he really understood us and our friendship- because his response was not anger or frustration but he laughed with us and just says "oh, you girls!: Again, we were "those girls". 

Years have past and not much has changed. We are still amazing friends, we bring out the best in each other and oh my goodness can we make each other laugh. We all got a good ab workout from the past 72 hours of being together. Here are some pictures of my favorite things we did this past weekend without skipping a beat. 

Bottom: chocolate chip cookie mix, oreos, then brownie mix. Seriously so easy and best dessert ever. 

For full recipe go here: We just used store bought mixes and layered, but you can go from scratch as well. Brookie Cookie.

We Got Pedicures!

We tried to be beauticians and create fancy up do's. This is the idea I got from Pinterest- so easy right?!

I ended up with this..............bahahahahah I will say Jessica wore it proudly for a good 4 hours!

We hung out and played with this guy a bunch. He is such a good baby.  

A year can make a difference however it can leave things all the same. I love these two girls more than words can say. They have made a difference in my life and no matter how many years go by, I know we will be by each others side no matter how far away we are from one another. I always look forward to spending time with them because I know there are always new memories to be made and more laughs to be heard. 

To follow Allison's Family Blog click here: http://baggerlyfamily.blogspot.com/

Garlic Dill Pickles

I went to Dallas for a few days to spend some time with two amazing friends and while I was gone Holland held the fort down! He took care of Hannah and Bleu and he tended to our growing garden. 

In case you forgot how it looked in the beginning of our blog take a look. It looks like a jungle now compares to how it was in the beginning!
Garden before it was a jungle


The bees have been buzzing and are helping us take care of the garden as well. Holland usually goes out there when he gets home from work to pick out weeds and pick vegetables that are ready. We have been getting great amounts of okra, peppers and CUCUMBERS!

Since there were so many cucumbers, Holland made our first round of pickles! **I just want to shout out to Holland for taking pictures so we can post on our blog!I mean look at this, he did awesome!

He told me he separated it like this so that he could just grab the garlic dill and jalapeños for each jar. My OCD person that lives inside me shouted out at the mountains in excitement at this because this is totally something I would do. I don't know if I am rubbing off my tendency son Holland or if it has been there all along ;). Love you babe. 

He chose a recipe from the book called "Dinosaurs Bar-B-Que". He does not actually have the book, but has found recipes he likes from it online. Since he is more adventurous than I am, he tweaked the recipe a little bit so here it is(with Hollands edits from what he changed-not much). Be sure to pickle the cucumbers for about two weeks in the fridge. We will enjoy these when we get back from Canada! 

Garlic dill pickles

3-4 lbs of pickling cucumbers

1/4cup chopped garlic

2 3 jalapenos sliced

1/2cup chopped fresh dill

combine the following in a large saucepan and bring to a boil:

4 cups white vinegar  2 1/2 cups white vinegar
1 1/2 cups Apple Cider vinegar

2 cups water

6 tbs kosher salt

1/2 cup sugar 1/3 cup sugar

5 heaping tbs of pickling spice

2 tbs mustard seed

2 tbs black peppercorns

 

let brine cool slightly, and pour over cukes/peppers/garlic/dill. refrigerate.

**Holland also added an okra into each jar and some jalapeño seeds into two of the jars to give them some extra spice.

Here is the brine.  Be sure to sanitize your jars by boiling them in hot water for about ten minutes!

Oh, to be 14 again.

Holland, me, Sarah, Jon, Dan, Josh and Megan.

Last night we went out all wild and crazy like you should on a Friday night and you know what we did!? We went ICE SKATING! You know what is hilarious?! We were the oldest stinkin' people there! 


Many of us were just staring at the kids in amazement because it really does not seem like it was that long ago when we were that young. You could see the groups form, girls fixing their friends'  hair and the boys being silly and trying to get each other into trouble. One thing I do not recall doing as a 14 year old is carrying my cell phone with me while trying to skate with what felt like pvc pipes attached to my feet..... I felt like at least half of these kids did. 


Some had on headphones-which we all agreed was totally unsafe because how can you hear someone shouting at you to watch out or get out of the way? Some girls were texting and skating, some kept handing their phones off to each other to talk to their friends who I guess was grounded and could not make it out to skate.  I almost skated over a cell phone that slid across the ice from a not so great pass from one kid to another. Holland said he wanted to hit the phones out of their hands and yell "ENJOY LIFE, PUT YOUR PHONE DOWN!" All in all it was pretty funny and also crazy to think these kids weren't even born yet when we were their age! EEK. 


We had two pro skaters with us last night. Dan and Megan whooped every one of us on the ice. Speed skating and then skating backwards! Sarah and I looked like we were grannies who needed  one of these things in front of us. 

I am happy to say that we were much improved towards the end and we blame the pvc pipe feeling skaters we had to wear. 


After skating we went to Drew's which was great. We tried to macaroni and cheese balls which are like cheese sticks but with macaroni and cheese.  Many people wanted to try the pizza they were famous for which is a pizza which farm fresh eggs cracked on top! I did not try it but everyone said they liked it but maybe not for an entire meal. 
We were all extremely full from all the food and then our waiter brought out two complimentary slices of cake. One was chocolate everything and the other was carrot. I did not get a picture of it because even though we were all very full, both slices were devoured within minutes. I would describe the chocolate cake looking identical to the one that the little boy is forces to eat in the movie Matilda. Holy Jesus was it delicious but it truly did us all in. We all had food bellies and were done until they brought out our checks with cotton candy. Beautiful Blue make you feel like a 14 year old cotton candy. 

Megan (one of the pro skaters) and Josh

The carrot cake is in this picture! 

Dan playing with his cotton candy! Notice there is no more carrot cake!

nom nom nom nom 

Holland looks really excited about this!

We may not be 14 years old anymore, but it sure is fun to relive those moments of how it is to be 14 again.  I am sure all of our legs and hips are paying for the ice skating we did last night, but we already made plans to do all the other things we miss. Next up: Laser tag, roller skating and Amazing jump!

Minestrone Soup

Holland is my biggest critic. He usually always has a way to improve everything that I bake/cook at home. He will say stuff like "Next time, maybe you should add some more sauce", or "Hey, it was good but I think this side would go with it better" and my favorite thing he has said about his grandmothers banana nut bread recipe that I make very often is "It does not taste as good as last time". 

 I want to make it clear that he REALLY appreciates how often I cook and bake. He also loves to cook and he has a great sense of tastebuds and what will go together well.  I give his mother the credit for always brainstorming ways to improve something to make it better. It really does not hurt my feelings because he clears his plate every time and in the end my cooking has improved because he gives constructive criticism. However I get a huuuuuge smile on my face when he says " This is one of my favorite things you have ever made!". 

DELICIOUS!

Crock Pot Minestrone! The best thing about this recipe is that the crock pot does 75 percent of the work and you do not have to hover and get hot in the kitchen. Make this on a day where you know you are going to be exhausted after work or on a weekend when you just want to lay around and watch movies. 

Recipe: Put into lined crockpot. 

• 32 oz. box chicken broth
• can diced tomatoes
• teaspoon chopped garlic
• 2 carrots sliced
• 2 celery stalks sliced
• 1/2 large white onion diced
• 15 oz. can cannelinni beans(drained)
• 15 oz. can kidney beans(drained)
• sprig of rosemary 
• 4 bay leaves
• 2 teaspoons chopped basil
• dash of salt and pepper

Cook all of this on low for 6 hours. 

after 6 hours has finished switch setting to HIGH then add:

• medium zuchinni chopped
• 2 cups of fresh spinach

while the zucchini and spinach is cooking in crock pot, boil small shell pasta- about 3 and a half cups. Once cooked through add to crock pot. 

Once the zucchini is tender top with parmesan and enjoy. 

Tasty Stir Fry

Holland and I like to watch movies and t.v. shows but every so often we watch a documentary and we often sit back in question, disbelief and wonder.  Our recent documentary was "Forks Over Knives".  I was at work talking with a colleague/friend of mine and talking about how I wish my dad did not eat so much red meat. She let me borrow this dvd for him but since he is usually out of town and busy we watched it instead and told him about it. It was different than I thought it would be. I pictured it with people just saying to not eat meat and be vegetarian but it was different. It focused on trying to move people into a plant based diet. Not only can meat be harmful to our bodies if consumed in high amounts, but dairy as well. 

The scientists in this documentary blew us away. They are in their 70's and they LOOK AWESOME. They are running and all fit and they claim that if everyone were to take on the plant based diet that 80 percent of the issues humans suffer with (diabetes, cancer, obesity etc.) would be eliminated.  The documentary also goes in to show a historical perspective about WWII.  The Nazi's claimed tons of land and animals to keep the  meat all for themselves and to give to the soldiers who were fighting. In turn, the small towns were worried because they would have no meat to eat and were forced to turn to plant based foods. The people found that they were actually healthier and all the cases of heart disease and diminished since they had no meat to consume!

After the movie I asked Holland if he wanted to stay away from  meat and dairy and he said no. But he was definitely on board to put more vegetables and whole foods and grains into what we eat. We already eat pretty healthy. For years we have used turkey meat instead of hamburger meat and whole wheat breads and pastas instead of white. We often do not know what to do with vegetables and how to get more vegetables into our diet so we have both been reading and researching some promising recipes. 

I have been making this since I was in grad school because it is easy quick and you get a ton of good veggies. 

First cut up all your vegetables(This takes the longest time) and stir and mix with some olive oil and pepper. 

Here I used onion, broccoli, snow peas, carrots, zucchini, mushrooms and celery.

Cook Lo Mein noodles for about for about four to six minutes minutes, put in some peanut sauce and low sodium soy sauce. 

Finished product!

Lo mein noodles and Peanut sauce. 

I know we live in Texas and believe me I love my barbacoa and brisket SO MUCH. However, everyone could always use a little more veggies. I will share more recipes if I find some good ones!

Bleu's Chocolate Pie

If any of you follow my Facebook as well, you already know about our dog Bleu. Bleu is one SMART dog. However, with his intelligence he has gotten himself into a lot of trouble since we all moved in together last July.  


Ever since Bleu was a puppy he had a hard time learning a lesson. It did not matter if he had to get his stomach pumped from possibly eating a bottle of motrin or ending up with a tummy ache after eating 60 tortillas for chilifest-he would keep on keeping' on and he never does things halfway. 

"I could fit two pies in my mouth at once if y'all would let me try!"

" I swear I am a good dog :)"

When we first moved in together (Me, Holland Bleu and Hannah) things were fine. Until Bleu got into the pantry, then under the sink and THEN DUN DUN DUNNNNNN.... the fridge... He figured out how to open the fridge and it was not to fetch Holland a beer like a good dog would do. It was to eat our THANKSGIVING PIES. 


Hollands birthday was on Thanksgiving this past year and he wanted to have different types of pies instead of a birthday cake. I made him this AWESOME chocolate pie and about half of it got eaten by guests at our house and then Bleu enjoyed the rest of it after opening the fridge.... along with two untouched pumpkin ones. After our experienced with Bleu's "gift" we made trips to Babies R Us and our house was finally what I like to call "Bleu Proofed". I say it all the time right before we go somewhere"Hey Hol, did you Bleu proof the house?" Bleu proofing entails the following:


-locking two toddler locks on fridge. 
-placing ozarka gallon of water jug in front of our pantry door. 
-securing rubber bands around cabinet underneath sink. 
-closing all doors to all other rooms. 
-ensuring all food (especially bread or tortillas) is high up and by high up it needs to be in a cabinet. He gave me a funny look once when I put the loaf of bread on top of the fridge like: "Oh yea, you put that there, I will have at it within 5 minutes of your departure".


Usually when he gets into stuff we either give him a tablespoon of peroxide(Instructions from vet since he had gotten his stomach pumped so often as a pup) to make him throw up or we let him live with his mistakes and stay outside for a few hours and let nature take its course. However, when he got to this chocolate pie I was scared since I always hear and read how dangerous chocolate is for dogs. I remember Holland saying "How many ounces of chocolate was in it? 


me: "six".
Holland: "meh, he has had way more than that before".


So here my friends is the recipe for the easiest and tastiest chocolate pie that everyone loves, even Bleu. Although, he loves everything we cook and throw away! :)

Beat two eggs until foamy 

Add 
-1/2 cup of unsifted flour
-1/2 cup of sugar
-1/2 cup brown sugar


Mix well 

Go all crazy Paul Deen style and melt two sticks of butter then let cool to room temperature and add to mix and blend well. 

Add:
-1 cup of chopped walnuts
-3/4 cup of nestle semi sweet chocolate chips. 














Mix well

I usually buy the pie crusts that are in the frozen section and ready to go in tin can. Let the crust thaw out while you are mixing together ingredients and before you pour mixture into shell poke crust with fork all over. 

Pour mixture in and spread evenly. 


Bake at 325 degrees for one hour. 


Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream. 




I hope everyone had a great weekend! I am taking this lovely pie to a neighbors house for dessert tonight.  


P.S. Bleu is really an awesome dog. Would not trade him for anything :)