The anticipation is building!

Oh boy!!! I am so stinkin' excited I can hardly stand it!!...!!!...!!! Colin and I are getting ready to head to North Carolina and New York to see family. It has been two year since I have been home to the east coast. Colin has only been one other time and that was last year and it was only to New York City, and to me that does not count. So this year he is not only going to the Raleigh area of North Carolina, but he is also heading to the beautiful Adirondack mountains of New York! (During the fall too!) He doesn't even know what a treat he is in for.

Our first stop is NC and as I look back and think, the last time I saw my little nephew Josh, he was just turned a year old...now he is about to turn three! I am overcome with eagerness because I get to see and play with him.

(Me and Josh Christmas 2007)

Then the last time I saw my family (Dad, Mom and Cassie) was at our wedding. That will be almost ten months ago now. Man time has flown!

(Tony, Cassie, Ronnie and Kathy December 27, 2008)

I hope hope hope that we are able to catch the leaves in the Adirondacks when they look like these!! My friend told me just the other day that "fall in the Adirondacks is like a drug.". Well, Kiely, you are right! Poor Colin, he just has no concept of what "Fall in the ADK's" is all about. I hope that when we come home from our trip north he has a much better understanding of my love for that country during this time of the year.

(Some random back road in the ADK's, but look at the beautiful leaves!!!)

Near where I grew up was the northern part of the Hudson river. Yep, the same one that flows down to NYC. It runs right next to the town of North Creek and from there you can take a "historic" train ride down along the river.

We are flying out on Saturday and will be back on the 14th of October. I am going to overload my camera with tons of pictures and will have them posted when we get back. Did I mention I was super stoked about this trip???...

Best Pork Chops EVER!!!

Driving home yesterday I was already thinking about what I was going to cook for supper tonight. A light came one and this is what I did.


I had pulled out some boneless pork chops earlier this week and they were all thawed in the frig.
I also had some HEB jalapeno bacon, cut in half, that I needed to use.

So I marinaded the pork chops for a few hour with a little olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Dipped the bacon in some flour (which you can add some seasoning to...) and put them on a cookie sheet and place in the frig for an hour or so. After the pork chops had a chance to marinade I dipped them in flour as well. Then I pre heated the oven to about 350* and wrapped three or four slices around each pork chop and place in a glass pan with just a little bit of olive oil on the bottom. Then I cut the whole jalapenos in half and de-seeded them and place them on top. Cooked them for about an hour and a half.

It was delicious!!

Here are some before and after shots.

Before:

After: !!!!!!!

This whole meal was super easy! So easy, I even blogged about it!

Ronnie

Time for some R&R

Did we really even have a summer?? Last time I checked, summer was time for rest and relaxing...HA! Not so much this summer. Colin and I were so busy this summer that I barely had any time to respond to emails. (So if you emailed me and I have not sent one back, don't worry, you're not the only one.) So what kept us gone all the time, well, work! At the start of the year Colin and I set some goals for ourselves. One of the goals was to get out of debt. Well, so far we have paid off all of my stuff, one of Colin's personal loans and because God is so good, we are about to pay off his truck! Once that is done, we will only have his student loans left. But there is more...Colin had planned on the burn we finished in Brady to be the last one for the year. However, God had different plans for us. We finished the Brady burn and now we have at least three to four burns still to go! It is so cool for me to sit down and look at all the money that we have coming in, and then look at all the money that we have going out and still have money left over. That in itself is just a God thing. It is amazing that if you let Him, he will even work in your finances! I read somewhere in someone's blog that they got to a point where they stopped asking where did all our money go, and started telling there money where to go! I liked that. So now, we tell our money where it is going to go and it has made for a better relationship all around!
There are lots of things that the Lord is doing in our lives at the moment, and freeing up our finances is just one of many. Doors are being swung open while those little windows we were trying to climb through are getting shut. God has blessed us and because he is so great he keeps on giving!
I know how great it makes me feel to let people know what God has done in my life (and I give Him praise for all of it) and Colin and I would love to hear what he has done in yours! So please feel free to leave us with any thoughts or comments or questions!
"And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8