Rotating Dinner - Pizza Night

I mentioned a couple weeks ago about our Rotating Dinners, and wanted to follow that post up with some pictures of our creations from Pizza Night, and also the recipe for the Fruit Pizza I made.

It started with a little dough tossing...

and then we got serious...

and after awhile, they really did look like little pizzas, ready to be cooked...

and our finished products! they were so, so good...

And now... Fruit Pizza!!!

Yes, I baked it on a cookie sheet. Yes, I realized after the fact I should have used the pizza stone. Yes, I'll get it right next time. Anyhow, it was delicious!!

Here's how you make it:

• Roll out a pre-made sugar cookie dough and shape into a circle (preferably on a pizza stone...). Follow baking directions on pre-made sugar cookie tube to bake the cookie. Allow to cool completely. You can put your cookie in the freezer if you want the cooling time to be shortened (like we did).
• Combine 4 oz. of cream cheese, 4 oz. of marshmellow fluff, and 1/4 tsp vanilla extract. Spread on the cooked and cooled sugar cookie dough base.
• Slice your favorite fruits and place on top of cream cheese icing in decorative pattern you desire. We used strawberries, bananas and kiwi.

Enjoy! We sure did!

Josh, Kim & Abby

Here goes nothin'....

I scheduled my GMAT exam and paid the non-refundable fee.

So it's official: I'm going to Grad School!!


After much discussion, we decided the best avenue for me is UF's Master's in Business Administration (MBA), and I will do the online program. This means I only have to go up to the UF campus once per semester and the rest will be completely online.

The program is 27 months long, and I will start in February... providing I get a high enough score on said GMAT exam to gain entrance, which I am taking in November. On Josh's birthday.

Listen, it just worked out that way, ok? He's fine with it...

It took awhile for us to decide what degree, what school, what program would be the best investment for our situation, and what would benefit me greatest in my future career. Graduate degrees are not cheap, by any means, and scholarships and grants are extremely hard to come by for graduate work, we are discovering. So, we needed to be sure we were making the best decision on the school and the program for us/me.

And UF it is. It doesn't hurt that we've been getting UF's MBA program fliers in the mail since I finished my undergraduate degree there in December of 2005..... and they're giving me a laptop. And an ipod. Sweet.

So I'm on the hunt. And filling out applications. And sending transcripts. And writing essays. And looking for study aids for the dreaded GMAT.

But I'm super, super excited. It took me awhile to get to this point, but there's probably a reason for that. I know this is all part of God's plan for us. Josh has been so supportive, and is helping me so much in this process.

And finally, lemme just tell you how excited I am that I'll be attending the University of Florida again, and getting to go on campus again, and be a STUDENT again. How fun.

Wish me luck. And let me know if you hear of any scholarships for grad students.

Josh, Kim & Abby

What happens when I'm not home...

Even before getting married, Josh and I had to compromise on things. This included things that would affect us AFTER marriage - like choosing a place to live.

I wanted a rental house with a small backyard for Abby. Josh wanted a one bedroom one bath apartment to "save money." I insisted on something with at least a separate room for his "stuff" otherwise I'd be tripping over all of it all the time (i.e. his workbench, fridge, cabinet, the FUTON, all his camping gear, etc.) He still didn't see the need. "What stuff?" he'd ask me.....

Well, I won. We have a 2-bedroom apartment, with one room being completely Josh's. And it's filled. To the brim. With stuff.

But, apparently the joke is on me. Even with his own, dedicated Man Room, this happened in my dining room today:

Apparently the new tent needs to air out, or it will attract bugs in the woods. I'm still smiling... my husband is adorable, no?

I asked if we could sleep in it tonight. I said we could even make freeze-dried chicken marsala on his camping stove and make smores....

I got the look. lol

We're so getting a rental house after this. With a backyard. In which, he can set up and air out a tent.

Josh, Kim & Abby

Josh's Alaska Pictures

As I mentioned before, Josh took my camera with him to Alaska. Yes, MY camera. It was a Christmas present from my parents to me before Josh and I were married... and I love my camera. I packed it in its case, with extra padding, in a heavy-duty freezer ziploc bag, nestled in a t-shirt in Josh's pack.

Then I made him swear he'd bring home my camera. In working condition.

And he did. With lots of beautiful Alaska pictures on it!!

this is the only picture of himself he took... and it was just to humor a nice elderly lady. thank goodness for her!

josh said there were deer everywhere. this picture is evidence.view from their camp site on the mountain while hunting mountain goat.
their camp. yes, they shared a tent. that's brett.

a mountain goat!! this is zoomed in on the camera, and then i cropped it even closer. the goat is the white dot in the center of the picture... no wonder he didn't get one.
josh explained this is what a lot of their hiking terrain looked like. he also said it was "intense" and physically exhausting, even for him.

on brett's dad's boat. well, one of them.

josh loved these planes. this is one taxi-ing out to take off.
there is a whale in this picture. josh couldn't grab the camera fast enough, so the only thing you can see is where he just went under water. in front of the left side of the beachy area, there is a horizontal white line. that is where the whale went back under water.

Here are the rest. There's about 35 I think. Enjoy!

Josh, Kim & Abby

September 11th, 2001

I was sitting in 12th grade Physics when someone came in the room and said that an airplane had flown right into one of the Twin Towers in NYC. Our teacher wouldn't let us turn on the classroom TV because we were reviewing for a test, and at that point we didn't know it was a terrorist attack.

I had a meeting with the guidance counselor which I left for, and once I walked into the school offices I saw the footage. It was then that I found out it was an act of terrorism. A little later I saw the first Tower fall while in a college recruitment meeting for UF in our school's library. When I finally went back to Physics, our teacher had turned on the TV's. Our review would have to wait.

Josh had just finished his Front Load test in AIT... don't know what that means, but that's what he remembers he was doing.

It's amazing to me how everyone remembers exactly the moment, exactly where they were when they found out about the first events of 9/11. I hear people talk about how they can remember exactly where they were when JFK was assassinated, or when Challenger exploded, but 9/11 was the first life-changing, world-changing event in Josh and I's lifetime.

9/11 was also the catalyst that would catapult Josh overseas into the war zone when he was 19 years old, 8 months after joining the Army. I was so scared for him, even though we weren't together at the time. I talked to him on Instant Messenger until the night he left... I was in Montana on a skiing trip with my Mom. I remember it like it was yesterday.

I'm so proud of him, and so proud to be an American.

We will never forget.

Josh, Kim & Abby

Our Wedding was blogged!

I've posted this on Facebook, and emailed it to my family, but I thought I would also put it here for memories' sake.

My photographers contacted me a few weeks ago to inform me they had submitted our wedding photos to a magazine called Southern Weddings. And, Southern Weddings liked all of our details so much they wanted to do a story on us for their online blog, and eventually put us in their print magazine.

This was HUGELY unexpected. Our wedding? Really? Being published was never our goal, my goal, for our day. I spent time on the details because it was fun, I love being crafty, and I am absolutely obsessed with everything having meaning - I wanted there to be a reason for every single thing we did for the wedding. And there was, I promise.

So SW sent me a questionnaire to fill out, which you will see most of on the blog. However, a couple question/answer sections were cut from my article, parts I really wanted to share because they were important to us - parts I know would resonate with other brides/grooms somewhere, and things we really felt were important about our wedding and planning process.

So, I thought I'd share them with you all here, and also include the link to our blog:

Josh & Kim Touchton's Wedding on SW's Blog

What was your favorite design element of your big day?
The home-made tree stump cups, table number holders, and directional sign. My dad made all of these, and they were truly a labor of love. We filled the tree stump cups with coffee beans to hold custom ball-point pens for guests to fill our our Guestbook Scrapbook pages, and the table number holders were stumps holding our engagement pictures with table numbers on them. He worked so hard on these!

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome while planning your wedding?
The budget. The wedding industry is booming and prices were overwhelming for us. It was difficult to stay on budget and focused with so many options. However, our goal was to have as many people as we could afford come witness Josh and I being married. We did not focus on the "party" aspect, rather the ceremony itself and the meaning of the day. I'm proud to say we stayed on budget, and by doing so much ourselves, were still able to have the extra "details" we wanted without breaking the bank.

Did you write your own vows? If so, what was your favorite phrase, verse or line?
We used pretty traditional vows and did not write them ourselves. Neither one of us were really up for that task. But, we definitely had "for better or for worse" and "til death do we part" in there, because those are the two most important promises. Love is not a feeling; it is a daily decision. Marriage is a life-long work in progress with amazing rewards.

---------------

For those who don't know, our wedding was almost completely DIY (which means Do It Yourself), and only about one quarter of the average wedding budget nowadays. I'm not speaking down on our wedding at all - this is exactly how we wanted it.

Our wedding day's focus was on Josh and I's marriage. Us joining together, in the presence of our family and friends as witnesses, to walk through this life together, forever. We did not want the focus to be on a party, or the money spent. This was our choice, and how we wanted our day to be. I'm pretty sure we accomplished that goal.

Thank you to everyone who made our wedding possible. It was truly perfect for us, so special and meaningful, and a day we will never, ever forget... we are so completely blessed.

Love,
Josh, Kim & Abby

Gator Football is Back!!

Just thought we'd express our happiness. The most wonderful time of the year is here.

GO GATORS!!!!!!!!!!!

Wish we were there. Last year's memories will have to do.

Yes, Josh is back home safe. Updates to come.

Have a great gameday!!

Josh, Kim & Abbby

Sonny's Sweet BBQ Sauce

Sunday I had all the girls over for our monthly rotating dinner. We each take turns hosting this dinner since we all live so far apart from each other, and it helps us keep in touch and enjoy relaxing days/evenings together.

This time I got all the supplies necessary for us to make home made pizzas. I got all sorts of toppings and made a couple dessert pizzas as well. We had a blast putting these together and tossing the pizza dough in the air... like little kids again. I'll post pictures and recipes in a future entry, I promise.

My favorite kind of pizza is Papa John's BBQ Chicken Hawaiian pizza. So, for my personal little pizza, and because I was the host so I could, I got everything I needed to make this little specialty pizza for myself.

Well, I already had the BBQ sauce. But when I pulled out the GALLON jug of Sonny's Sweet Sauce from the fridge, the girls just started laughing at me.

The story is this:

When Josh and I were in our first month of marriage, I picked up Sonny's on the way home one night because we love it, and I'm pretty sure I had a gift card. I always make sure to get a whole mess of the Sweet Sauce packets because Josh singlehandedly goes through 10 of them on his sliced turkey.

A couple days later, our leftovers were gone but we still had some packets of Sweet Sauce laying around. I may or may not have mentioned that I am the opposite of a pack-rat, so I tossed the extras out.

This was probably my first wife mistake, as the husband was less than thrilled about this. I was informed that the rule from now on was to never throw out extra Sweet Sauce packets.

Yes dear.

Thus, the gallon-sized container of Sweet Sauce comes into the story. Sams Club had this little gem for $6, so I scooped it up the next day, brought it home, and sat it on the top shelf of our fridge. Next to the sweet tea. So I was sure he'd see it...

He never said a word about it. So, I casually mentioned one day the following week that it was in there. He responded that he'd seen it, but with that tell-tale smirk on his face.

Kim -1, Josh - 0
=)

Josh, Kim & Abby