Yesterday I woke up to the delightful sound of a dog about to puke. You know the sound, it makes you move at an unnatural speed to try and get them outside. I was too late. Oh well. It was 7 am and I’ve gotten in the habit of sleeping too late in the last couple of weeks because of going to bed late so I decided to go ahead and stay up. I made some breakfast and did my normal morning routine of checking emails and my favorite websites while I had the Today show on in the back ground. That’s when I heard the words that no wife wants to hear “Helicopter crash in Afghanistan…..” and I froze and frantically started  trying to remember if N was flying or not and if he would even be at work at that time and then I heard “4 killed” and it still took a few seconds for that to sink in that it wasn’t him. It’s amazing how fast your mind can start moving when you hear those words. I’ve heard the expression “my blood ran cold” a number of times and never really understood it until that happened and it literally felt like my body was frozen. In all the times I’ve heard about crashes, even when N called me to tell me that HE had crashed I’ve never been that scared. I think it’s because normally when I heard about one it’s later in the day and I can say “if it was him I’d know by now” and when he called me I was thinking “ok, I’m talking to him, obviously he’s ok”. And I think another part of it was the knowledge that when an old friend’s husband was killed in a crash she was notified at a few minutes after 7 in the morning. I truly think that a lot of my panic was related to the time of day. I think I’m going to stick with sleeping later and watching Will and Grace when I get up at 10am. No more news of any kind for me in the morning. When I talked to N about it later he said he could understand how hearing that could make me ping a little.

As relieved as I was to hear the number 4 it still worried me because we have so many friends out there that fly different air crafts. I was thankful that 2 of my friends have their husbands home on R&R because that means it wasn’t them but I’m always wondering, who is it? Will we know them? Will we know their family? I found out that the aircraft belonged to a different branch of service so there was no chance that we knew the people but they still have families that are heart broken right now. Their lives will never be the same. This is one thing I HATE about this lifestyle. In every Kiowa crash in the last 5 years N or I have known at least 1 of the pilots personally. Whether they were previous IP’s that N flew with at Rucker or passing  acquaintances from other troops they were one more person that we lost. After a crash last year N looked at me and said “I’m too young to know this many dead people”. It’s hard. I didn’t write anything on Memorial Day because I had too much to say. It would have been a big jumbled up mess and I just let it pass while thinking of the people that are gone.

This fear won’t end when Nicholas leaves the military next year. We have too many friends that have become family to us that we’ll still worry about. For years to come the news of a crash will freeze us in our tracks until we know the names. It’s something we’ll always live with.

Having a moment today

Some days you just don’t want to participate. At all. Today was kinda one of those days for me. I worked on the chairs for a few hours yesterday until the back pieces got on my last nerve  and I was about 2 seconds from throwing it across the garage, that’s when I decided it was time to go sit in my kiddie pool with my book and chill out. Yes, I have a plastic kiddie pool on my deck. N called me a redneck and I think he’s concerned that I’m loosing my mind. I figure it’s my deck and if either of the 2 neighbors that can see into my yard are bothered by it they don’t have to look this way.

Most people love Friday because it’s the start of the weekend. I hate Friday, because it’s the start of the weekend. I hate weekends. Weekends are always the hardest when N is gone. Weekends are our time, that’s when we hang out and work on stuff and HE does the yard work and I tell him it looks good and we are together. The week doesn’t bother me as much, he works all day, sometimes he works late so he’s only home maybe 2 or 3 hours before it’s bed time but weekends, that’s our time. I miss our time. I try to plan stuff to get me out of the house on the weekends so I’m not home alone. Tomorrow I’m going to a local water park with some friends. That will keep me busy. I think it’s even worse when my friends here have stuff going on with their other friends so I don’t have the option of making plans with anyone. Last weekend sucked because everyone I know here was out of town including my neighbor so I was just here all weekend hanging out with the dogs.

I’m just ready for this to be over. Time is flying by but the weekends usually seem to stand still. I’m glad it’s already June but I’d rather it be our R&R month immediately followed by homecoming month and we can just skip those other pesky months in between. It’s nice to dream. 

Coconut Lime Turkey Burgers

 

Everyday I get emails from Allrecipes.com and a couple months ago I received on for Crunchy Coconut Lime Burgers. It sounded odd, the oddly intriguing. So I’ve been meaning to make it since last September and last night was finally the night.

Here is the recipe straight from the website.

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded dried coconut
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon cream of coconut
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons cream of coconut
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 cup unsweetened shredded dried coconut
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 hamburger buns, split

Directions

1. Combine the beef, 1/2 cup coconut, cilantro, egg, lime juice, Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon cream of coconut, soy sauce, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt in a bowl until well mixed. Form into 4 patties, and set aside.
2. Stir together the mayonnaise with 2 teaspoons of cream of coconut and 1 tablespoon of cilantro; set aside. Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in 1 cup of coconut and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook and stir until the coconut has turned golden brown. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate and set aside.
3. Preheat an outdoor grill for medium-high heat, and lightly oil grate.
4. Cook the burgers on the preheated grill to your desired degree of doneness, about 4 minutes per side for medium-well. Spread both cut sides of the hamburger buns with the cilantro mayonnaise. Place the cooked burgers on the bottom buns, sprinkle with the toasted coconut, and serve.

 

I made a few changes like using Turkey instead of beef because I thought it would taste better that way. Also I didn’t use Cilantro because it’s not something I eat a lot of and I don’t like Mayo so I didn’t make the special mayo for the bread and last I didn’t make the crunchy topping because I figured it was pointless to make that just for myself.

The burgers were fantastic though! I figured they would either be really awesome or really horrible so I had a 50/50 chance. They would be great a a tropical themed party as little sliders on hawaiian rolls, I bought some of the hawaiian snacker rolls to use for this and the sweetness was perfect. The burgers didn’t taste like anything I’ve ever eaten before but I will for sure make them again.

On the grill

And on my plate with the salad I made. It’s spinach with sliced strawberries and grapes with raspberry vinaigrette  dressing.

And because I told N I needed to take a picture of the flower bed for him here it is!

What I should be doing….

Is working on my chairs in the garage. However instead I’m sitting on the sofa avoiding the heat. I was hoping after such a frigid winter we might have a cooler summer but that’s not working out so well because the high today is 92* with 1000% humidity. Yay.

So to further avoid going out in the heat I’ll add some new pictures!

Now that we have the gate up the dogs are always running back and forth all the time and when Sharon is at work Sam and Hailey all but live over here. Sam has claimed N’s recliner. I have a feeling there might be a fight when the boy makes it home and Sam, Ki, and N all want to claim the chair. The other night I decided to sit in it and read and I had Pooh, Ki, and Sam all sitting with me. Hailey can’t jump so she has her own special spot on the floor between the rocking chair and recliner. Maybe one day she’ll figure out the jumping then and she can join us on the furniture.

The gate has been fantastic, Sharon and I eat dinner together a lot so it’s nice to just walk back and forth across the yards and it’s really nice having someone to eat with!

Well I guess I’ve put it off as long as I can, better head to the garage so I can get something done.

It’s been a busy month….

I’m finally back home in TN. I spent the last month “home home” in GA with my family. The time always FLIES by when I’m down there. I can’t believe it’s already thisclose to June! I love it, no complaints from me! Time is flying just as fast for Nicholas so that’s good. He’s been very busy lately, no surprise there. He’s always super busy.

I headed down to Destin to do some relaxing at the beach this past weekend and 2 of my best friends were able to join me!! It’s been too long since we’ve had a Go, See, Do and it was awesome.

The guy taking the picture told us to get closer and act like we like each other…

We were waiting on a table at The Back Porch, one of my favorite places to eat in Destin and we have to go every time we are down there and I always have to get a shirt.

Drinks on the beach

Could it have been a more beautiful night? I think not.

Well, unless you were this little girl and your brother had you in a serious choke hold all in the name of nice beach picture.

Me with crab meat on my arm, this was just one of the places that meat ended up while I was eating. Nicholas said “you’re like a bear with salmon when you eat those things”. I’m a little messy.

We saw TONS of sting rays! I’ve never seen any this close before. They were swimming up the shore line in groups and randomly there would be a few strays here and there. It was so COOL!!!!

Ki got a little hungry and bored while we were out

End of the night… NO MORE PICTURES!!!!

It was a fantastic weekend. I wish Nicholas could say the same. :(

Snakes on a Helicopter…….

Yesterday I went to the wedding of a couple of friends from High School. I graduated with Sharon and my brother graduated with John so it was a family event since we all knew both sides. The wedding was at 1pm so I knew that I wouldn’t have the chance to talk to the boy unless he got on a lot earlier in the day than normal so I told him to just send me an email and go to bed early. He said he could do that and sure enough as we were leaving the wedding I saw I had an email so I checked it (I fully understand why they call blackberries Crackberries!) and my reaction to the email went a little something like this…

1. GASP

2. OMG

3. Read it again.

4. OMG again

5. Full body shiver of ewwwww Oh Em Ge!!!

6. Laughter, lots of laughter.

This was the email.

(Troop Member) put his flight gear on this morning in the dark and strapped into the aircraft with a Saw-Toothed Viper perched on his magazine pouch by his neck.  Read that one more time for me.  Okay, one MORE time.  You can't make up stories like that.

OMG, I would've destroyed that aircraft getting out of it.  Can you even imagine?

I love this place so much, I think I'll ask to stay for another year...

Love you Doll!
Your now-even-more-paranoid-than-EVER DH.

P.S. - Read that ONE MORE TIME...

I imagine your reaction was similar, right? Now what I want to know is HOW did he find out a snake was mere inches from his neck and HOW did he get it off of him??? So I handle stressful situations beautifully (just ask the boy) so I would have A. crashed and died right then if flying or B. sat in the aircraft completely frozen except for my mouth screaming  hysterically OMG GET IT OFF OF ME I’M GOING TO DIE OMG GET IT OFFFFFFFFF and the snake would have promptly bitten me just so I would shut up. People would probably then thank said snake for shutting me up. See, I handle stress beautifully. This is why Nicholas is a pilot and I’m a stay at home wife.

 

But back to the wedding… I had a great time seeing friends from high school and family friends that I haven’t seen in more years than I can count! This is what I love about small towns, you know people. And you’ve known these people forever. I saw the parents of a girl I was good friends with in HS and got to catch up on how she was doing and find out she had a baby (It’s getting to the point we are some of the few left without a kid or 2 already! SO weird, we are WAY too young for kids! lol) Sometimes living so far from home I feel really isolated from all my friends and family. It was wonderful to actually be home and get to go to something and be a part of it instead of seeing pictures on facebook a few day later.

A few pics….

Summer, Me, and Nikki

With Cayla

My dad doesn’t really do so well with letting you know when he’s taking the picture so the beautiful bride wasn’t smiling. When daddy has the camera just smile the whole time. lol

Bubba and Cayla

T-ball on a Tuesday evening…..

I went to watch N’s little cousins play t-ball today and it was a RIOT. Seriously, if you’ve never watched a t-ball game go, go right now and find a rec center in your area and just go watch. If you don’t laugh you are dead, or you have no sense of humor, either one. I laughed so hard at this game. I mean it’s 3-6 year old playing ball and they pay about thismuch attention to the game. Most of them are trying their best to dig holes in the dirt around the field, one kid was playing catch with their own ball glove in the outfield. One parent yelled at their child “Stop standing there just looking pretty and DO SOMETHING”.  Again, it was a riot. I hope I’ll get a chance to go to another game before I head back to TN. Austin did great in the game but Brent just wasn’t in the mood today and Dana ended up taking him home pretty early in the game. I think he missed his nap and was just worn out. I hate I didn’t get to see him play more, hopefully next time.

A few pics of the kids

The CUTEST little girl I’ve ever seen. I swear I wanted to pick this child up and put her in my pocket she was so tiny and adorable. The T was almost taller than she was and the bat looked huge in her hands. She took at least 5-10 mins each time she went up to bat. So funny.

Austin knocking one out of the park!

And crossing home plate after his home run!

Austin made me laugh so hard, he loves to run fast and has NO problem passing other players in front of him if they are going too slow! He did better the last time he was up to bat and didn’t pass the other players because they had to get onto him about it.

 

I have a couple of videos but it takes a while to upload them so I’ll do that tomorrow. I’m so glad I went to the game and I got to see and have dinner with Grandmama and Tom, that’s always a good time!