May 31

During Jorden's last visit to North Carolina he commented on the number of frozen yogurt spoons we had in our drawer. Well... joke's on him. Jennifer and Jannette have been saving all the spoons from their frozen yogurt trips and plan on making him a present out of them. They even have collected a few from friends to help in the endeavor. So far... there are 60 spoons and counting.

May 30

Jennifer and Jannette have already gone through the watermelon that they purchased on Saturday so today Jannette cut into the next one. It was just as good as the last! Jannette is now the official watermelon-picker-outer.

May 29

Today we had a small rainstorm roll through in the middle of the day. It had gotten so hot during the day before the rain fell that when it did the pavement spent some time smoking. It looked cool but creepy.

May 28

It may be watermelon season, however, it is not peach season. Yet.

May 27

With summer coming on full force, Jennifer and Jannette have been eating their fair share of watermelon. Knowing that watermelon season was a little bit off they had been getting pre-cut stuff. Yesterday they went all out and got a whole watermelon because it was on sale at Wal-Mart. Today it was cut into after a long workout. It turned out to be a decent watermelon. It was juicy and it smelled amazing!

May 26

Today was spent running errands, buying work related items, and just enjoying the holiday weekend. The stress of job hunting and worrying about life in general has taken a momentary pause in the apartment. It's nice. While out doing some damage in Barnes and Noble, Jennifer found this. She liked it. Thanks Lorraine Peterson for the reminder!!!  :)

May 25

While celebrating the fact that Jannette got offered and accepted a nursing job at UNC Children's Hospital... shopping was definitely in order. Today's purchase: ceil blue scrubs!!!

May 24

To start the Memorial Day weekend celebration, Jennifer and Jannette had hotdogs for dinner. Partly because they are trying to come up with meals for the next week using only existing ingredients out of their pantry and/or freezer. These hotdogs were grilled and turned out to be quite tasty! Don't mind the fact that Jennifer had her baked beans in a mug.

May 23

Today, Jennifer wanted to have another pork dish and in another attempt to get Jannette to eat it, the pork was grilled. So while waiting for the grill to heat up, Jennifer took to her photography duties. This is the cover that the grills are under. Pretty blue sky!

May 22

Jannette has really wanted s'mores for the past couple weeks. Tonight she made one... or two...

May 21

Now that Jennifer knows that she owns a mini food processor, she wanted to try it out. She decided to make homemade almond butter. Not only did she manage to make almond butter but she also managed to make the motor smoke. Top notch Jennifer!

May 20

Through all of the cooking that Jennifer and Jannette has done lately, they have managed to go through an entire container of oats. Yummy!!

May 19

Jennifer found a spice packet at the store that she wanted to try. So in Jennifer's diligent attempt to get Jannette to eat more pork, it was cut up, thrown in with the spices and cubed butternut squash and apples were added to the dish. It actually turned out to be quite tasty!

May 18

Jennifer and Jannette really enjoy heading out on Black Friday to pick up lots of toys to donate to Toys for Tots. However, being a little early to start, Jennifer decided to help out a co-worker. Her husband just found out that he will be deployed soon and has decided to send the unit a care package once they arrive overseas. This is the damage Jennifer and Jannette created at Walmart!!

May 17

What to do with all that basil that Jannette picked yesterday? Make pesto. Attempt #1. Will be improved as the basil plant continues to grow.

May 16

Our tomato and basil plants are doing quite well this time around. To help in the pruning of the basil plant Jannette plucked off most of the leaves. What to do with so much basil?!

May 15

Today Jennifer and Jannette went for a run/ walk on one of Cary's greenways. It was a great change to the norm of working out in the complex gym. Another plus was they got to see all kinds of scenery and animals along the way.

May 14

With all the rain that we've been getting for the last couple of weeks we've been paying attention to the retention pond a lot that's just behind our apartment. While Jannette was talking to mom today she noticed some movement in the water and looked closer. There were baby ducks in the pond with momma duck. They were so cute!

May 13

After an early church meeting, much needed naps, and some last minute visiting - the girls headed back to NC via Cafe Rio for one last salad! And surprise, surprise it rained on the way home again.

May 12

On today's agenda: find yummy seafood & party with friends! We managed to successfully accomplish both things. We really loved our time in Virginia.

We got crabs... with Old Bay :)

 Old Bay spiced shrimp

 Beautiful back road between King George, VA and Fredrickburg, VA

Jannette and Charleah

Jannette, Charleah, and people eater Steven

 finally... a normal shot ;) - they're all so blasted cute!

May 11

The day started out by FINALLY getting to eat at Cafe Rio!!! Their steak salad is a top 5 favorite of both Jennifer and Jannette. Doesn't it look spectacular?!?!

The next stop was the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum - Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near the Dulles airport in Chantilly, VA! This was the outside view of the observation deck where you could see planes landing at Dulles.

<3

 As seen from the observation deck...

Discovery - this was the primary reason that we decided to go to the museum. It was a bit sobering and sad to see the decommissioned shuttle in a museum hanger instead of in Florida about to take off.  It was however, really neat to be able to take pictures of everything - tiles, landing gear, etc within mere feet of an actual shuttle.

 The rest of the museum is dedicated to aviation and it was amazing to see the evolution of aircraft. Jennifer, as always, loved seeing the various helicopters on display but decided that the newer ones and the military ones look MUCH more sturdy than the very early models.

 Commander... go for launch :)

The very educational day ended with a trip to the Quantico area for a softball game. This is the Marine statue outside of the base on the way to the front gate...

May 10

Today Jennifer and Jannette had the opportunity to spend the day sightseeing in Washington D.C. - part of it with Charleah, Steven, and his family! The girls took the Metro into the city from Springfield-Franconia thanks to CC and then walked around - a lot!! It had been a few years since Jennifer had been to D.C. and Jannette had never been able to walk around. Such a great day! Beware: lots of pictures, we couldn't narrow them down!

Got to visit the Holocaust Museum

 ... which is across from the USDA building ...

 ... a good reminder from the museum as we were walking away ...

 Oo-rah!!

 World War II Memorial in the Mall

WWII Memorial Wall of Stars

 Lincoln Memorial (Jannette was bummed that she couldn't touch his toe!)

 Washington Monument from the Lincoln Memorial

 Flags from the Korean War Memorial

Jefferson Memorial

Treasury Department

 The White House

The old Post Office building

 Yep - there were 2 people "dancing" down the face of the building - SO cool!

There was even a cellist playing an electric cello for them  on a lower ledge!!