One Year Ago!

One year and one day ago I started a new chapter of my life with my best friend. We became man and wife!

I can not believe a year has already flown by! It was just yesterday it seems that we were getting everything put together and all set up. The time leading up to the wedding went fast, but the time since has gone even faster.

Since we have gotten married we have added to our family - Bella, our female chocolate lab, I got a job, and Michael started his graduate research. May not seem like a lot to you guys but this is a lot and in the right direction.

For our anniversary Michael and I went back to Salado and stayed at the same Bed & Breakfast we stayed at on our wedding night, the actual cabin this time though. There was a mix up on our wedding night and the people who stayed in the cabin the night before turned the temperature all the way down and froze the pipes. So yeah, no fun, but we were able to stay in a room that night and were able to come back another time.

We had a wonderful time walking around the town, looking at the many beautiful things in small shops that hopefully one day we can afford/have a place to put, and eating some of the best food we have ever eaten! It was a great weekend! We were able to see some friends that we have not seen in a while which made our fun weekend even better!

God has blessed us with so many things in our lives and I am so glad He brought Michael and I together. We can not wait for what He has in store for us for our future. We talk about where we will live, what kind of job Michael will find once he graduates, when will we have kids, how many will we have and so on but we have to know we just have to trust Him! God has a plan for our lives and we are so excited for what he has in store for us! We are so excited for what God has in store for the many more years of our marriage!

Frozen Reeses Peanut Butter Pie

For those of you who do not know what Pintrest is, it is awesome! Here is a link for you to check it out. I have seen so many things on this site I now love, so many things I want to do in the future, so many ideas for just about everything, and have gotten so many new great recipes!

This week I told Michael he could chose a dessert for me to make off my new list of choices. This is what he decided on:

Frozen Reeses Peanut Butter Pie!

 

So I thought I would share how to make it :]

First, here are all the ingredients you will need

 

½ cup confectioner sugar,  ¾ cup peanut butter, 2 ½ cup cool whip, 25 oreos, 

4 tbsp butter, 12 snack size Reeses cups, and a few spoon fulls of caramel topping

Start by turning the oven on to 350*

Put 25 oreos into a blender on pulse to grind them up. Pour crumbled oreos into a bowl. 

Next, melt 4 tbsp of butter in the microwave and pour into the oreo mixture. Mix and outline a 9 inch pie pan along the bottom and on the sides with the oreo mixture.

Once the pie pan is covered with an oreo crust, place in oven to cook for about 7 to 10 minutes.

While the crust is cooking, put ¾ cup peanut butter and ½ cup confectioner sugar into a pan. Cook on low heat till the peanut butter starts to melt. Take off the heat at let sit to cool (about 5 minutes) 

Once cooled slowly mix in the 2 ½ cups of cool whip into the mixture. 

Cut up 8 snack size Reeses cups and fold into the peanut butter cool whip mixture. We froze the Reeses to make them easier to chop up with a knife.

When the crust is done baking pour the mixture into the crust. 

Top with a thin layer of cool whip followed by melted caramel and extra cut up Reeses cups.

Once done, freeze for at least 3 hours before serving!

Now go onto Pinterest and find some yummy recipes! And lots more :]

Apple Cinnamon Key Lime Cupcakes!

At work we now have "Tasty Thursday" which means we have a certain food each week a bunch of people make and then we all eat it, on Thursday. This week was cupcakes and as soon as I heard that I knew what I wanted to make.

Not too long ago one of my friends sent me a recipe for some cupcakes she made that looked delicious! So last night I made them - Apple Cinnamon Key Lime Cupcakes!

Above are all the ingredients needed to make this deliciousness! 

Apple Sauce, Eggs, Butter, Cream Cheese, Oil, Spice Cake mix, confectioners sugar, key lime juice (or squeezed key limes), and a whole key lime. (Cooking Spray, Cupcake holders, and Cupcake pan used)

First, you need to find a spice cake mix. I have been looking the past few months and finally found one on Monday night! THANK GOODNESS! I am pretty sure this must be a seasonal cake flavor.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. You will want to substitute apple sauce for the water. This is a Duncan Hines recipe so it called for 1 1/3 cup of apple sauce, 1/3 cup oil, and 3 eggs. Mix this together and you will have a little thicker batter than a normal cake. Follow the directions on the cake box.

Put cupcake holders into the cupcake pans and spray with cooking spray. Fill the cupcake holder about 3/4 the way and cook for about 18 minutes. When done pull out of the cupcake pan to cool.

When the cupcakes are cooling start making the icing. You will need 8oz cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup confectioners sugar, and 3 tbsp key lime juice.
Mix the cream cheese and butter together until smooth.

Add the confectioner sugar SLOWLY, mixing to make a smooth mixture. Add key lime juice and continue stiring. Add more or less key lime juice depending on taste. Michael kept adding more and more to ours so I am not sure exactly how many tablespoons actually went in.

Once the cupcakes are cool, ice them :]
For extra prettiness, Michael cut up the whole key lime and placed it as garnish on the cupcakes!

YUM!!

A big THANKS goes out to Jessica Gardner for sharing this yummy recipe :]

Breckenridge!

Michael and I spent the past week in Breckenridge, Colorado with his family and we are in love! We can not wait till our life moves us there. We do not know when that will be, but we know at some point in our lives we will live in this beautiful state!

Our week was packed of fun things!! We got to Colorado on a Saturday and spent the day just in awe of the mountains and cool weather. On Sunday we went to church outside on a hill with a river running through the background. Afterwards we went to a great farmers market in Vail that his sister loves to go to. It was huge! I had never been to a farmers market with this many vendors with so many neat things. After walking up and down the isles and eating some yummy food we went on a "little" hike to a waterfall that Julie had gone to before.

The Church we went to on Sunday..beautiful!

Waterfall we hiked to.

On Monday we rented bikes and rode downhill 14 miles from Vail to Frisco. It was beautiful! Also it was super fast! We decided to keep our bikes and ride the 10 miles from Frisco to Breckenridge UPHILL! This was super tough but great! Michael, his brother, his sister, and myself made it in a little less than an hour. We were very proud of ourselves as we biked uphill the whole way. We then spent the rest of the day making dinner, sitting in the hot tub, and playing games.

Before the 14 mile downhill ride

On Tuesday we got up early and the four of us and Michael's dad rode the 10  miles back to Frisco to return our bikes. Luckily it was mostly downhill so it went much faster! We then fished a little bit till we went to this great local bakery and cafe for lunch! We decided to drive to this rural town that we were told about when we were dropped off at Vail Pass the day before. It was about 8 miles off the road down a bumpy, unpaved, small road. When we got there the town was so small, we saw one restaurant, one school, a few houses, and a town hall/fire house, and one motel. Luckily there was a different way out that was much easier as we went about 10 mph the way there as it was very off roading to get there. We went past this amazing bridge that terrified Michael's mom. We then stopped to fish some more and had no luck!

Town Hall/Fire House

Beautiful Bridge

On Wednesday we drove to these two lakes on a mountain 11,000 feet up. They were beautiful! Michael and his brother wandered inside a mine but did not have a flashlight so they could not go back that far. The one thing I wanted to do as soon as we got to Colorado was touch snow and we finally had our chance. Michael's brother, sister, and myself rock climbed basically to get to snow! On our way up we met three mountain goats, a mom and her two babies. We got many pictures and we were off to get to the snow. We made it, played a bit, and then wrote things in the snow. As we were taking pictures the mountain goats wandered into our pictures! After that we spent the day trying to fish, still no luck. Later in the evening we wandered around town a bit and took the gondola up to the top of the mountain before going back to make a yummy dinner.

The two lakes we went to (picture is from our hike on Thursday)

Mountain Goats

Gig 'Em

On Thursday the four of us got up early and hiked Quandary Peak, the 14th tallest mountain in Colorado!! It was amazing! We actually saw this peak the day before when we were visiting the lakes and decided this was the hike we were going to do. It was the most difficult thing I have done in a while, but completely worth it! Sadly I got a blister about 1 mile in on my right foot but it was not going to stop me. The hike was 3.3 miles each way basically straight up. There was about a 4,000 foot elevation change which for those of you who have not been this high or basically anything above sea level, there is much less air at higher levels. That was what made this so difficult. Our bodies were not sore, we just could not get as much air as we were needing. But we pushed on and made it to the top! We ate lunch at the top and then walked straight down the mountain. Before we started down though we were greeted by two mountain goats at 14,265 feet up! Who knew they would want to go that high, but they do! It was very difficult coming down as we were trekking down this steep incline. On our way down a bug storm blew in and we got snowed on! It was August 11th and it was SNOWING!! When we got down the mountain Michael's parents picked us up and we headed back to the house. We all were tired so we relaxed before we went into town to have a yummy dinner at this amazing Italian place in Breckenridge.

Before we started

About a mile and a half up (note the rocks)

Looks intimidating! The rocks from the above pictures are what we walked up the entire way up the mountain

Look at that incline!! This picture does not do it justice!

We made it!!!

The view

Another

Mountain Goats at 14,265 feet!

On Friday the four of us rented kayaks and spent a little over 2 hours fishing and kayaking on Lake Dillon. Only Michael and his brother got lucky fishing during the trip. We ate a delicious lunch at the marina and tried fishing at another place and still no luck.

On Saturday we loaded up the car and drove to Denver to catch our flight back to Houston. It was depressing as we landed to know it was 100* here and 70* in Breckenridge. 

Fishing just was not happening for us on this trip, but that is how it goes I guess. Maybe we were just fishing at the wrong time of day. We had a few catches but nothing like that last time we were there.

One of the few fish that was caught on the trip

Our trip was so much fun and I wish I could hit the rewind button and start over and do it again this week, but sadly that is not the case.

We had a wonderful trip with so many great memories! I am so glad we were able to go on another great trip with Michael's family! Thank you for everything! I love you all!