Fifty Four

Woo hoo! As of today, I am officially 45 days away from being back home (Joshua is officially 53 days away). We are excited and trying to get everything in order with the Army to make sure we are ready to leave this place when our date comes up and then we can head to our new home... Colorado!

I have been mapping out our route to take to get to Colorado Springs from Austin. Just over halfway in our trip up, we will pass through Amarillo. I, personally, have never been there, so we decided to stay overnight and do a little sight seeing. They have some really cool places that I'm excited about. First, Palo Duro Canyon. I've always heard of it but never seen it. I am beyond ecstatic to know it's just south of Amarillo. The next exciting place is The Big Texas Steak Ranch. It's a large (cheesy Texas) restaurant with a motel attached. I checked prices on the motel and they're pretty cheap, so that's where we'll stay overnight. I think we'll have fun doing the silly cliche Texas things that we've never done before.

Probably the best thing about Joshua is that he just goes along with the silly things I want. He's really flexible and as long as it's not awful, he'll do it. He's so much fun and I can't wait to experience these little things with him.

Other than officially having our orders and trying to get things ready for the big move home, we haven't been up to much. Joshua was gone this past week to a field mission so last week was dead boring. This week, he is home so I am MUCH happier.
I finished the entire new collection of 5 books that I bought. I ordered some new ones to help take up some more time while I'm off work and Joshua is working. I got those in very quickly! So this is my list so far:

Hunger Games-finished
Catching Fire-finished

The Mocking Jay-finished

Sarah's Key-finished

The Help-finished

The Time of the Butterflies

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Vampire Diaries (1st book)

Room

I'm currently working on The Time of the Butterflies. So far, it isn't half bad! Hopefully these books will help hold me until I can get home to America and head to Half Price Books or at the very least, a Barnes and Nobles!

Well, that's all I have for now. Until next time :)

xoxo,

Hannah

Homemade Fresh Peach Jam

I have stolen a recipe. A delicious recipe. From: here. It's a recipe for homemade peach jam.
I made a white peach jam with this recipe and it turned out quite well.
Here are the steps in case you don't want to link over:
2lbs (or 8) peaches
2 tsp lemon zest (I didn't do this one)
2 TBSP lemon juice
2 cups sugar

-Blanch peaches.
[How to: put peaches in boiling water for exactly one minute, no more, no less. Remove and place peaches in cold water bath for one minute, no more, no less.]
-Peel peaches, cut out the seed and cut peaches in to slices
-Put peach slices, lemon zest and lemon juice in large pot on low/med heat.
-Cook for 15 minutes or so until the peaches are soft and juices have been released. Once peaches are soft, smash with a potato masher or spoon. (I used potato smasher)
-Once your fruit has been smashed into mush with small pieces, add your two cups of sugar and stir until dissolved.
-On Med-high heat, bring mix to a boil. Cook for 5 or so minutes, stirring constantly.
-After 5 minutes, reduce heat to low-med and allow to slow cook (not boil) for 40-60 minutes (I did 22 or so minutes).
-Remove from heat and allow to thicken.

Enjoy :)

All of it went as planned as said on the recipe except blanching didn't work on my peaches. Not sure if it was the fact that they were white peaches instead of yellow or if maybe my peaches weren't ripe enough (or overripe). The second thing that didn't go well was the last step: putting it on low heat and letting it stay warm, but not boil. I couldn't get my pot to stop boiling so after 20 minutes, I cut it off and it still turned out very well.. maybe a little more 'watery' than what they wanted it to be, but it's really tasty.

Now for the pictures!

First step, cutting and peeling the fruit.

My lovely chopped peaches!

Peaches in the pot

Slowly being smushed into submission :)

Just before I let it simmer over the stove....almost finished!!

Finished products. Just as delicious as it looks!

xoxo,
Hannah

Fifty Three

This past week and weekend have been so busy. Joshua was gone all week on a field mission and it seemed that no matter how positive or happy I tried to be, every day something worse would come along. By the end of the week, I was defeated so I was happy to have Joshua back home.
During the week while Josh was gone, I had dinner with a friend of mine (whose hubby was gone, too) and her little ones twice. First at our house and then the next night, we ate at her house. It was nice to have someone over to our house since that's such a rarity due to the fact that we live so far away from everyone.
Late Friday night, Joshua and I went to Daegu and saw Harry Potter.... *sigh* Loved it but was so sad that finally Harry was over. All those years of reading and it's finally done.
I have been reading a lot. I ordered 5 new books from Amazon about 2 months ago. When they finally came in two weeks ago, I picked them up and haven't been able to put my books down.
I have read The Help, Sarah's Key and am starting on The Hunger Game series.
This past weekend we went to the Boryeong Mud Festival. Now, THAT was interesting. It's basically just a bunch of people getting together getting really drunk and really dirty. I didn't do much of either. I sipped on my water bottle and got a little muddy. Joshua, however, drank a few beers and got VERY muddy. I didn't get in any of the pictures that we took because I knew how yucky I looked, BUT I'll post some anyways :)
The prison you climb into and get sloshed with mud every 2 seconds..
The aftermath of the prison

The aftermath of the mud wrestling pit

Joshua's face all calico looking from half of the mud drying and the other half being fresh! haha

That's all for now..
xoxo,
Hannah

Fifty-Two

Gosh, over two weeks in between postings! I feel like I'm slippin'! We have had a nice past two weeks. This past weekend was lots of fun. We celebrated July 4th with a much needed 4 day weekend. This (much needed) four day weekend was then followed up with a 3 day work week for Joshua which meant our weekend came again even sooner. It was nice to have him home for a while.
I've been busy just working/volunteering and all the housework that is still necessary here in our little casa de Delp. Washing clothes, washing dishes and keeping the house clean can be hard work sometimes! Sigh. Other than that, we are just counting down our time left in Korea. In 5 days, it will officially be 2 months left for me! I think it will be bittersweet. I've gotten so used to being here and living this way- no car, no family, no best friends and yet still being able to survive. It will be weird to go back to the states and have a car, my family and my closest friends all within the same continent. Not really sure how it will be. I think I'm in for some major reverse culture shock. Waiters that actually come by your table to check on you and refill your drinks, sales people that don't follow you around the store, not being watched as I walk, people being able to overhear any of my conversations because they will all be able to speak my language. Oh how odd it will be.
The next three weeks will be high-stress.Joshua's schedule is: this week Tues-Fri in the field, the next week mon-fri in the field, the 3rd week mon-fri in the field.
Could they take my husband away enough? I swear he's not supposed to be deployed yet, they treat him as such. Oh well, I guess I'm just glad I have him all the other time and at least he'll be home on the weekends. That is definitely something to be thankful for.
This week for the boys, I'm making chicken and dumplings. Not sure how it will turn out as I have never made it before. My back up dish (in case I fail miserably) will be tatertot casserole. Yum! I may just make the tatertot casserole just so that I can have it even if we don't eat it.
Anyway. That's our life from the past week or so. Will write again soon.
Xoxo,
Hannah

Fifty-One

So much to say in such a small amount of time to say it!
First, I will start off with my discovery today. I realized that one of the COOLEST Sunday school teachers from my Junior and Senior year lives in Colorado (where we are being stationed after Korea). Also, used mapquest and discovered that she's only an hour away! I am BEYOND excited. I haven't seen either of her boys that she had since I graduated high school and I can't wait to meet them. She and her husband are really cool, down to Earth, God-loving people. They are JUST the kind of people we need to have when moving far away from home :)
Second, we had dinner with the guys yesterday. We had a summery and childhood type meal. Sloppy Joes, french fries, corn, and peach cobbler.
The sloppy joes were delicious. I ground and browned 3 lbs of meat, added 3 cans manwich and added in one can of pork and beans (an extra addition that I threw in from a suggestion on a recipe that I found). There were 8 of us all together and almost ALL 3 lbs of sloppy joes were gone. I made LOTS of to-go plates for the boys and sent them on their merry way. Hopefully they enjoyed their dinner again tonight.
Nothing exciting has happened. I am waiting on a big package in the mail: books! LOTS of books!! Okay, so maybe only 4 books, but still- BOOKS!!!! I can't wait for them to hurry up and arrive. I've been waiting almost 3 weeks and they still haven't made it here :( My best friend sent me a package in the mail. In the package, she sent me Water For Elephants (the book). I read it in three days! I have been yearning for more books ever since. I love reading. Book worm over here, for sure!
I made some snickerdoodles 2 days ago, so I will post the delicious recipe here soon. I also have a recipe (and pictures) for my peach cobbler that I made for the boys so I will post that soon, too.
Off to shower and get to bed. Will update with pictures soon :)
Xoxo

Meatloaf

...I was going to take a picture, but then it was gone before I could! Ha :)
My meatloaf recipe probably is nothing special. My mom gave me a recipe and then Joshua and I just altered it to our tastes. On any given night, I can say "How about meatloaf for dinner?" And his response is always "Yeah!". Needless to say, it's one of our favorite dishes.

1 lb ground beef
1 egg
8-10 croutons crushed by hand
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup BBQ sauce

Preheat oven to 350F (180C)
Mix all together in a bowl. I usually add most of the Barbecue sauce but leave a bit left to drizzle on top.
Press meat into bottom of loaf pan and drizzle last of barbecue sauce on top of the meat mixture.
Cover loaf pan with foil. Bake for 40 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 15-20 minutes.

My grandmother adds a can of Rotel tomatoes and peppers to her meatloaf. That would be a great variation to this already 'Texas style' dish but Joshua (and I!!!) are not spicy food type people so we veto this addition.

Om nom nom
Enjoy :)

Fifty

I had a ladies movie night at our house in Waegwan tonight. All the hubby's stayed home and kept their kids while we hung out. I tried my hand at popping pop corn on the stove top. (It was okay.. Some of it tastes a bit burnt to me, but oh well.) We ate chips and salsa, homemade popcorn and some cupcakes! I made some yummy cupcakes that I found the recipe for on the Kraft food website. They were white cake cupcakes with cool whip frosting then I cut up marshmallows and pieced them back together to make it look like pop corn on top. They were cute and I felt the need to share it with everyone tonight :)
I took a picture of them, so I will have to share soon :)

EDIT:

Caramel 'popcorn' (caramel dribbled on top of the marshmallows), Plain 'popcorn', Buttered 'popcorn' (half a cup of water and 3 or 4 drops of yellow food coloring brushed on top of the marshmallows give them the yellow color!)


There is one recipe that I have tried numerous times only to have it flop every. single. time. Pudding. Seriously, pudding?! How hard could it be, right? Well it was apparently difficult for my mind to comprehend.
When mom came to visit, I had her show it to me again. And finally it clicked! Now I have been on a rampage of pudding making. I have made it 4 times since mom left. LOL! That's 4 times in one and a half weeks!!
This was the ubber yummy banana pudding that I made!


All for now.
Xoxo,
Hannah