Living The Healthy Life… Or Trying To

So far I have absolutely been horrible at the new year resolution of blogging more, still hoping to get better at this! 🙂 Let me catch everyone up to speed with what has been going on in the month of January and February. Loren got a smoker from his parents for Christmas, so that has been like the best thing ever. For super bowl, Loren smoked a pulled pork and it was amazing of course! These past two months have basically been us getting back into the swing of things with school, and hanging out with family. A couple of really exciting things have happened though, one, my cousin got confirmed last Monday and she asked me to be her sponsor. That was a really special time for me in my life and I was so honored that she asked me to be there on her journey. The other really exciting thing is that my wonderful co- worker (the one that I helped throw the gender party for) had her beautiful baby boy, Bradley Royce Hansen, he was born on February 20th. My whole team went to go see them the next day. It was the greatest thing being able to hold this sweet little boy; I cannot wait to see him as he grows.

How precious is he????

SO proud of her!

As you know, another resolution that I have is to loose some weight and try and have a better/ healthier lifestyle. I have started running again which has always been a love hate relationship with me. I love it because it is such a great way to loose weight, but hate it because, well it is running. I have also been trying to eat a lot healthier, which is hard because I love food. Loren is really great about eating healthy so that is a plus for me. I still eat what I want for the most part, but a big thing in portion control in our life. Everything is okay for you to eat if you control your portions. so that is a big part of my healthy eating. Another tip is getting sauces on the side. If you go out to eat and your dish comes with a sauce ask for it on the side. You would not believe how much of the sauce you actually eat (hint: it is not as much as they drench your food in). For the most part, during the week we eat at home. I got very lucky because Loren loves to cook, so he does most of the cooking. We are usually pretty good about having all meats in the house, we love to mix it up. We typically eat chicken and really the only replacement we do is ground turkey for ground beef, to me it tastes the same.

Lately we have been into cauliflower. I know we have all seen the pinterest posts about mashed cauliflower and cauliflower pizza, etc, so we wanted to see what all the rage is about. So the couple of things we have tried in rice cauliflower and mashed cauliflower. Now, the rice cauliflower is great. You basically chop the cauliflower up in the food processor and the put it in a skillet on the stove to flavor to your liking. The great thing about this is you can choose to season as you like. The past couple of meals where we have used it when we made Asian food. For the first meal we had it with stir fry which was amazing, instead of the rice we did the cauliflower, couldn’t tell the difference. The second time we did fried rice cauliflower, which basically consisted of some soy sauce, chicken, and egg with some few other spices and seasonings. It was great! As far as the mashed cauliflower goes, not the biggest of fans. I think more of its natural taste comes through. When I eat it as rice, we are mixing other things with it so you kinda forget you are eating cauliflower. With the mashed cauliflower, not so much. I just went about making the mashed cauliflower as I would regular mashed potatoes. We boiled the cauliflower, mashed it (I put it in the food processor to chop it up more), and added milk, butter, and salt. One thing I noticed when making the mashed cauliflower, it pretty much soaks up the milk; I ended up adding more milk than I would if I was making mashed potatoes. It wasn’t the worst thing ever, but I don’t know if I could replace mashed potatoes with cauliflower. It was my first go at it so I might just need to look up some recipes to see if I can improve. If you are looking for an alternative or trying to find replacement food for those heavy starches,  I would definitely give cauliflower a try since it is way lower in carbs and calories than rice and potatoes. I am excited that we gave cauliflower a try and can’t wait to try out more recipes. If you have had any success with cauliflower please leave a comment, I would love to try it out!

Until next time…

Love always,

Amie

Bobcats, Band, Babies, and Boo

So I have blinked and magically it is Oct… scratch that, DECEMBER!! I cannot even believe that is coming out of my mouth, where has the time gone?? Things in the Gray household are trucking along, we are two weeks out from Christmas, and it cannot come soon enough. I am not going to lie Thanksgiving was great, but the bad thing about Thanksgiving break is that you get a little taste of what is to come with winter break, and it is so hard to get back into the swing things. The other exciting thing that has happened is that Loren and I have celebrated our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!!! It was definitely a very exciting time for us! We are took a quick little trip to start our break, and the traveled down to McAllen to spend Thanksgiving with his family. All of which I will post about in a later post. Now to get you caught up for the month of October (and eventually November). I promise not to keep you all waiting this long ever again!!

We started out the beginning of the month with a trip to San Marcos for the Homecoming football game. As you may or may not know, both Loren and I went to Texas State, and we often love to visit the area to see football games and catch up with old friends. It was an absolutely beautiful weekend with our first taste of fall weather. Being from Texas, we really don’t experience the seasons of fall or spring, we just kinda go in between summer and winter. We had an awesome weekend and were able to see our friends and former teachers.

Loren and I at the game.

After we got back from our wonderful weekend, it was back to work. Loren is a band director at an intermediate school, and every other year the intermediates get together at the district stadium, and watch the high schools march their competition show. At the end the intermediates and high schools perform a couple of songs together, it is super cute and I enjoy seeing all the kids. It is also a great way for the kids to see what is in store if they continue band into high school. Here are a few pictures from the night.

All the students in band in CCISD

Now we move onto the babies, are you keeping up? 🙂 My wonderful co- worker bestie is expecting a beautiful baby in March. We both started teaching the same year, and it was wonderful having her as we made it through our first year. Mid October is when she found out the gender of her baby. During one of our morning phone conversations (yes, we have conversations in the morning on the way to work), I asked her if she was going to do anything special for her gender reveal, and she was like “well I was just going to invite my family over for dinner and tell them then.” The party planner in my died a little, I am a person that will through a party for a premier of a T.V. show, so I told her that I would take care of helping her get a few things together. My philosophy is that a few special touches can go a long way for the important things in your life. Plus, it is her first baby and she needs to go all out! So I wanted to share a few pictures from that night.

Cookies in the shape of onesies that my aunt made, she gave them out as favors.

How precious is the table? Here is the cake that she cut into to reveal the gender, and the cuts we used to take a group picture to see what team everyone was on.

This is the entry table. As you came in, we had the guests tally their vote of whether it was a boy or girl, and then they grabbed a clothespin (which we painted the tips of using a paint pen) and pinned it on their shirt so we could see what their vote was.

The beautiful star of the show with her Old Wives Tales chalkboard sign (you cannot even tell she is preggers).

To top all of it off, she is also pregnant with her sister, which I think is the most exciting thing. They are both having boys, so after the reveal they were able to take some really cute pictures.

How cute? Such a special thing to be able to share with a sister!

Haha the hubbies had to show off their bellies too!

It was such an absolute honor to be a part of their wonderful night. I was so happy to be able to help plan to make the night special. I cannot wait to meet this precious baby boy come March.

Now we close the month of October with Halloween, which is a personal favorite because it is the start of fall; a season I have grown to love very much. At school, we had to dress up as a team based off of book characters. We choose the book “The Day the Crayons Quit.” If you have not read this book you definitely should. It is super cute!

How cute do we look?

Later that night we went with some friends to the Museum of Natural Science for Spirits and Skeletons. It was definitely a lot of fun, but for what we paid it would not be an event we attend every year. I would definitely recommend it if you haven’t been.

Loren and I, we went for the 1920s theme this year.

A picture of the group, we had such a wonderful time!

All in all, it has been a great fall semester for Loren and I. We are definitely looking forward to Winter break and spending time with family. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Love Always,

Amie

What Happens at Meet the Teacher… Stays in Vegas

Okay, so I know this title is super cheesy, but I am combining two posts into one. This past week has dawned the beginning of yet another school year in the Gray household, but not before meet the teacher and a very fun girl’s weekend in Vegas (hence the title). So here we go!

Meet the teacher night is always a pretty hectic day, there is a lot to get ready in a short amount of time. For the most part I had my room ready to go with a few exceptions. At my school, our second and third grades loop, which means we keep our same kids from second to third grade. This is going to be my first year experiencing the loop, and so far it has been great. Usually, meet the teacher is a little nerve racking just meeting my new students and their parents. I pretty much had my same class from last year, so it was really good seeing all of my kiddos and their families. Here are a few pictures of my room.

My classroom library

Half of my class

The other half of my class.

My door

All and all it was a successful night!

So the day after meet the teacher night I went on a girls weekend to Las Vegas. I was pretty excited because I had never been to Vegas before. We stayed at Caesar’s, which is a huge hotel. Once we got in on Friday we just walked around on the Strip which was entertainment alone. We went to Sprinkles Cupcake and Ice Cream. The Sprinkles in Houston only serves cupcakes so we took advantage of the ice cream. The ice cream was pretty good and worth the try. If you are ever in the Dallas area it is the closest Sprinkles that has ice cream. On Saturday, we got up to make our 9:00 reservation at Mon Ami Gabi, which is at Paris Las Vegas. It was a recommendation given to us and it was a good one that I am passing along. It is definitely worth the try. I had the Salmon Eggs Benedict, the eggs were a little overdone, but the hollandaise sauce and salmon were amazing, and even though the eggs were slightly over done the meal was not at all horrible. After breakfast we began our day at the pool. The group that I was with were not big gamblers, so we were just fine with a couple of spins on the slots, but the main thing we knew we were going to want to do is sit by the pool all day. I would definitely recommend staying at Caesar’s. The staff is very friendly and the rooms and pools are out of this world. There is plenty to do just at Caesar’s. This of course is my first time in Vegas so I am sure the other hotels are just as amazing. If you are an avid pool goer I would definitely recommend getting a day bed, especially if you have a group. The day bed was $250 for the day. I know some of you are probably in shock just for a day bed, but if you have a group the split of the cost per person is not that bad, and trust me, it is totally worth it. It was in a really good location and the service was really good for as many people were around. I think they were a little backed up in the kitchen, but our waitress was really nice and she kept the drinks coming. That night we planned to go to the Brittney concert, and had dinner reservations at 6:00. We ate dinner at one of the restaurants at Caesar’s called Nobu, which is a Japanese restaurant. All of us love sushi and it was another recommendation from one of the girls co- workers. The had some different rolls and it was very good, and I thought it was also reasonably priced for Vegas. Dinner was cheaper than breakfast, but we also had drinks at breakfast, which is honestly what will get you in Vegas. I will say that being from Houston has made somewhat of a food snob (I mean our restaurant week lasts a month). If you know anything about Houstonians, know that they love their food and they love to eat out, so I have had my fair share of five star food. Nobu was definitely amazing and the food was absolutely five star worthy, but it isn’t anything that I couldn’t find at my favorite sushi restaurant here in Houston. Again, it is so worth the recommendation and a place I would recommend to others. To end our night we went to the Brittney concert, which was absolutely amazing. Now don’t get me wrong she is no Beyoncé, but for her being one of my favorite childhood pop stars she put on a really good show. She played all of her hits and then some, and kept me on my feet the whole time. She comes on about 15- 30 mins late and she plays for about an hour and a half, but the best thing is that she costume changes every three songs. After the concert we went back to the hotel because we had an early flight the next morning. Here are just a few pictures from the weekend.

Paris Las Vegas

Caesar’s

Bellagio

Breakfast at Mon Ami Gabi

The Britney concert

The girls at the concert

It was a wonderful weekend and my last quick trip before the school year. This past week went great. It was tiring, but great seeing all my students again. I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Labor Day weekend!

Love Always,

Amie

Our Camping Menu

So I was definitely supposed to have this post up a LONG time ago, but I have been a little out of commission this past couple of weeks. I dropped a freaking 4 lbs weight on my toe about two weeks ago at my barre class, so I have been dealing with that, working at the museum, and this past weekend attended a wonderful wedding, but there should be no excuses. So, this post is going to be about the food we made and ate during our camping trip that we took at the beginning of the month. Now of course, this isn’t really true camping, we were not in a tent. We were in cabins and one of the awesome things about the cabins is they had a kitchen, so we were able to buy groceries before getting there and save a little money at the same time. As you all know I am new at blogging so I don’t have pictures of any the recipes I am talking about, but feel free to ask me any questions you have at all about the recipes (I promise I will get better at this)!

For breakfast, we kept it fairly simple, all the meals we had could be prepared in about 30 minutes or less. This was great because it allowed us to have a good breakfast and start our day early (it also allowed me to sleep in a little bit, which is a favorite thing of mine). The first day we did ham and cheese croissants, which consisted of three ingredients, ham, cheese, and croissants. We get our croissants from the bakery at our grocery store, we are a Kroger and HEB family, and we do the deli ham sliced at about a 1 and the Kraft American cheese singles. We cut the croissants and assemble them with the ham on one side and cheese on the other, and place them in the broiler. You do not have to put the croissant together until after it comes out of the broiler, but I will say that you will need to watch the croissant since the broiler is so hot. We usually cook them until we can see that the cheese is melted. I love this breakfast because the options are endless. The next day was the day we went hiking so we just ate cereal and fruit. On the day before we left we had sausage and egg breakfast tacos, another easy favorite of ours. Loren and I stumbled upon a little jewel a couple of months ago, it is in the refrigerated section and it is called Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Crumbles. The wonderful thing about them is they are already cooked, so for the tacos you can just throw them in the skillet and add the egg. We also had fruit everyday with our breakfast

For lunch, we bought sandwich stuff, so we had that for lunch each day. Again, something easy and we could take it down to the river with us.

For dinner, we had meals each night except our last night there. On the first night we were there we had fish tacos, which was perfect because they are so easy to prepare. We buy tilapia and cook it in a skillet with oil. My Dad found this really great slaw mixture to put on top of it. Dole makes it and it is the Chopped Asian Blend, and while it may not be exactly what you find at your local Mexican food restaurant, it sure does do the trick. To top off our tacos we slice avocado and make a chipotle ranch sauce to go on top. The chipotle ranch sauce is really easy to make, and you only need two ingredients, chipotle peppers and ranch dressing. You can get canned chipotle peppers at your grocery store; we buy the brand La Costeña. You only need about three to four peppers, and you need to make sure you open them up and clean the seeds out of the peppers; you can also chop the peppers into smaller pieces, which will be easier to mix when the time comes. After you clean and chop the peppers, put them into a blender or food processor and add the ranch dressing (we used hidden valley). Now I did not measure out exactly how much dressing i put in there, but I would start with at least a cup. The great thing about this sauce is that you can adjust the recipe to fit your family or crowd that you are cooking for. To garnish the tacos off we had slices of avocado to put on top. The next night we had steak, which was delicious! My Dad and Loren got ribeyes and we had baked sweet potatoes and a salad to go with it. Loren and my Dad cooked the steaks on the grill and we backed the potatoes in the oven; a fairly easy meal, but time consuming. For the last night, we had my absolute favorite meal, which is chicken spaghetti. My Dad makes the best chicken spaghetti and I so happen to have his recipe. I took a picture so I am going to go ahead and just upload the picture for everyone. Now, my dad does not put the pimento or peas in the recipe, but feel free to customize to fit the likes of your family.

Chicken Spaghetti Recipe

For dessert, I made blondie brownies that are like the blondie brownies from Applebee’s. They were super simple to make, and are the perfect dessert to have since they are so easy to serve and keep fresh for the week. I made an executive change to put white chocolate chips instead of chocolate chips, which the recipe calls for. Click on the link to go to the original post. The other dessert we had was strawberry shortcake. I love strawberries, especially paired with pound cake and cool whip. We added blueberries too, we were still living it up from the 4th of July.

So there you have it, our camping menu. Remember that this was my first food post, so it will only get better from here! Again, if you have any questions about any of the food don’t hesitate to ask.

Love always,

Amie