Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Well...

We've been hit with a bit of a blow today. We met with Tim's Navy recruiter today for lunch and at the very beginning of the meeting, she handed us this fiscal year's financial notes regarding the offers they have available for the year. We were absolutely shocked to see that they no longer offer the loan repayment for pharmacists. While we were not joining the Navy solely for financial reasons, it is not feasible to continue on the same path without the loan repayment option. At this time, we have no idea what we are going to do, where we are going to go, or why God has closed this door. Obviously, God is not going to leave us here to figure it out on our own, but we do feel a bit lost at this time. We both have decided to sit back and pray for direction, without any predisposed ideas of what we want to do. Please join us in praying while we search for what we are going to be doing in 7 months. Both of our sets of parents are being incredibly supportive and caring right now. They know how excited we were to have a decision made about what we were going to do and about serving in the Navy, so they know we completely devastated about this change of events. I will keep everyone updated as decisions are made, but we aren't planning on any being made for a little while.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Pumpkin Butterscotch Cookies

I got this recipe from a college friend. When I first made them, I had one and I could only taste the butterscotch, so I was a little worried. But by the next day (I was making them to take to work and to a dinner), they tasted much more pumpkin-y and just a hint of the butterscotch. They are a cakie cookie, so be prepared for a different consistency than a normal cookie

Pumpkin Butterscotch Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 cup pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup butterscotch chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together. In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar for about a minute. Mix in the oil, pumpkin, and vanilla. Add the flour mixture then add the butterscotch chips. Use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to scoop dough onto baking sheet (or if you have the medium scoop from Pampered Chef, that is the perfect size). Cook 12-16 minutes and allow to cool about a minute on the pan before transfering them to a wire cooling shelf. Enjoy them!!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Pumpkin Bread

This is one of my favorite things to make around this time of year. Just cut a slice and put a little butter on it, it's so good! You can either make 3 small loaves, 2 larger loves, or a couple dozen muffins. You could also pour all the batter into a bundt pan and then drizzle a glaze (2 cups powdered sugar, 2 tbs milk, 1 tsp vanilla) on top


Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients
-1 15oz can pumpkin puree
-4 eggs
-1 cup vegetable oil
-2/3 cup water
-3 cups sugar
-3 1/2 cups flour
-2 tsps baking soda
1 1/2 tsps salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ginger

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Grease pan. Mix together pumpkin, eggs, oil, water, and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until blended. Pour into pans. Bake muffins for about 12 minutes, small loaves for about 50 minutes, and large loaves for about an hour. When you think they are done, poke a toothpick in the center and if it comes out clean, it's done!

*Tip* If you have a regular KitchenAid mixer (not the large capacity) do not, I repeat DO NOT, double this recipe. Someone you MIGHT know MIGHT have tried this and MIGHT have had a large mess to clean up after doing so.

We're alive, we promise!

I am so sorry it's taken so long for me to update. I don't have any good reason, just that I'm tired at night and don't feel like doing anything but workout then go to bed! But things are going well, same ol', same ol'! Here is a recap of what we've had going on around here since I last updated:

Some of our precious friends got ENGAGED! We are so excited for them! Their wedding will be in January. We are so blessed to have them as our friends.
We got to be part of the homecoming of a soldier who was at basic training for 5 months. He and his wife are in our Sunday School class. We are so proud of him!
We have been rooting for our teams:
I've been baking! I baked a lot of this:
And a lot of these:
I'm going to post the recipes in the next few days (I PROMISE!).

Our weather is supposed to be cooling off her pretty soon. I'm ready for fall! Actually, I'm ready for CHRISTMAS, but I'll take fall for now!!