extra spicy homemade salsa!

So back in May I decided to try my very first ever tiny garden in pots. Back in May I was rather doubtful that I would be able to avoid over watering my herbs and jalapenos, but I said a little prayer and God answered... and I grew lots and lots of jalapenos!

With my plentiful harvest of little green jalapenos I decided to make up a recipe for homemade salsa:
1 can whole Tomatoes
2 cans Rotel
1/4 cup Onion, chopped
1 whole Lime juiced
2 Jalapeno Peppers, sliced very thin
1/2 tsp Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Cumin
2 cloves Garlic, minced
Lots of Cilantro!

Throw it all in a food processor and pulse about 10 times

Then let your sweet husband have a try...

And then he will probably make faces like this and say "why do you think you its a good idea to take pictures of me while I eat?"

Stuffed & Baked Tomatoes!

If you don't like tomatoes, don't stop reading! My sweet husband isn't a fan of tomatoes, but we both love this yummy summer side dish....

Select 2 ripe, but firm tomatoes and cut in half
1/4 cup crushed croutons
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
fresh, shredded parsley
salt & pepper to taste
4 Tbl melted butter
shredded cheddar cheese

Mix croutons, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and parsley in a small bowl. Melt butter and pour over over crushed crouton mix. Scoop out inside of tomato halves. (Leave lots of the juicy good stuff too!) Fill the inside of the tomatoes with crouton mix and top with shredded cheddar cheese.
Bake in a greased dish for 20 - 30 minutes until bubbly and the cheese is melted!

We usually make 4 tomato halves but you can obviously double or cut in half. I also sometimes mix in dried italian seasonings too! Hope you enjoy :) Happy weekend!

the many blessings of july.

Its the last day of July isn't it? wow... this month has flown by in our little hawksnest! We have had many exciting celebrations with the engagement of my brother benny to his bride-to-be Stella, and my sweet, dear best friend Kate to Jeff! We also opened the Chick-fil-A! It has been such a fun month, and I don't feel like I have stopped for more than 5 minutes. Good thing we enjoy being crazy busy! And, we feel so blessed to be right smack in the middle of where God has us.

We are blessed to have a brand new store that in our opinion couldn't be in a more beautiful location.

We continue to feel humbled as we pull into the parking lot that this is ours.

Blessed to have had 255 people here to camp out in the parking lot before the opening...

Blessed to have these sweet friends here from the Clemson Chick-fil-A to help with organizing the store and training our new employees. They were an incredible amount of help, and so much fun spend time with. Lots of laughs and "family dinners."

Blessed to have our sweet Bethany! Our Marketing and Events girl... and she has been an immeasurable amount of help. We are thrilled she is in this Chick-fil-A of Waynesboro journey with us. It amazing to have others working along side us who also want to make a positive impact on our community.

Blessed to have Ben and Stella here to celebrate and support us in the opening. I am excited to have a new soon to be sister and we couldn't be happier for Ben and Stella as they begin to walk through engagement and plan their wedding! They also attempted to eat a whole strip tray and tons of fries... but it was a bit much for even big ben!

Blessed to have had the support of our parents throughout our lives, and throughout every minute of this Chick-fil-A adventure. Jay and I wouldn't be the people we are today without their love and continual encouragement. It was special to have them here during the grand opening to celebrate the many successes together.
Blessed to have a brothers and sisters :)
Blessed to have Mr. Herb to teach us, grow us into better people, support us, and most of all to challenge us to do more and be more. It was wonderful to have him here throughout the week. We would not be where we are in Chick-fil-A without the many difficult lessons we learned from him.

Blessed to have had this moment. It is an awful picture, but I remember how I felt at the exact moment this picture was taken. It was a moment of realization that I love my husband so incredibly much. And a moment when I realized that I couldn't be more proud to be his wife. A moment when all the adventures and sacrifices we have made made perfect sense. A moment when I was thankful for an amazing father in law who can pray for us in front of others, but who also is committed to praying for us daily. A moment when I realized that I didn't want to be anywhere else because God was tangibly present in that moment.
Blessed to have these 70 people in our lives. Blessed to have prayed for these people for the past several months and to see their faces and to be privileged enough to work along side them everyday. We are blessed to be able to love on them.

Finishing Touches on Our Chick-fil-A!

We are so excited and feel like our heads are spinning a little bit. Life in our "hawksnest" is crazy busy. Miss Bella is even noticing the lack in her play time... poor girl. I have started my job at the hospital and am excited for the challenges and new experiences that come along with a new job. The ER is definitely a busy place, and I am thankful God has blessed me with a desire to work fast!

Chick-fil-A is rockin' and rollin' too. We open in 15 days! I am so proud of my husband and all his hard work to get us to this point. It is crazy the whirlwind roller-coaster we have been on. We have hired 70 employees. They are our people! It is so fun to meet the people we have been praying for since we started this Chick-fil-A journey. The store is also very close to complete. It is a pretty store... but we are probably a little skewed in our opinion of "pretty." Let us know what you think...

The Rivah.

Jay and I were so blessed to get a weekend away from Chick-fil-A craziness, and even more blessed to spend a weekend with Kate and Jeff. We've been friends since first grade, and it was a blast to have a "grown up weekend" at the Rivah. Now its really The River, but Kate calls it the Rivah, and she isn't the only one. All the signs leading to the Rappahannock River say "the Rivah" so whatever they want to call it we had a great weekend. There was lots of relaxing, and laughing, and swimming, and crab catching, and just enjoying being with good friends.

The Rivah

The Shack... and by shack I mean adorable, comfy little house with hydrangeas :)

Bella wondering why she just now discovered this place in in her 6 short months of life

Weighing the options of jumping in....

We were so impressed with Bella's swimming! She jumped right in on her own and loved it!

Bella: Oh man this is Dog Heaven!

I love this sweet friend! God has continued to bless our friendship over lots of years.

This guy is pretty great too :)

Somehow i didn't take a single picture of Jeff... but he was there, and he is great, and he and Jay did lots of boy things... and I think this picture might have been staged. It looks that way, huh?


Bella: Tell me again why we don't live here all the time?

Six Week Bran Muffins

Sound icky? They are so yummy... and boardline healthy! The recipe can be made and keeps for 6 weeks in the fridge. They are filling and easy to grab on a crazy morning. I am not a skip breakfast kinda girl so I love having things to grab in a hurry. My sweet mama made these a lot when were were growing up too :)

SIX WEEK BRAN MUFFINS
1 15oz Box Raisin Bran Cereal
2 1/2 Cups Sugar
5 Cups Flour
5 tsp Baking Soda
2 Tsp Salt
1 Tbl Cinnamon
1 Cup Cooking Oil
4 Eggs, Beaten
1 Quart Buttermilk



Mix dry ingredients and liquid ingredients separately. Combine and mix well. Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake at 400 for 18 - 20 minutes. Keep any extra batter for up to 6 weeks in a tightly sealed plastic or glass container. Don't freeze.

Enjoy as you're running out the door at 7 am like me :)

Waynesboro Chick Photo Update!

We've been so busy interviewing and hiring lots, and lots of people that I had not taken any pictures of our chick-fil-a in several weeks. There have been so many changes and I wanted to show y'all some of the exciting progress....
We have a paved parking lot.... and a beautiful view of the blue ridge mountains :)
The brick is finished and lookin' good... we are missing one window, and the ply-wood is making us feel a little ghetto
Walls are painted, the tile is in, and the wiring for our AC is in progress...
View looking back into the kitchen.
Front Counter area and inside drive thru area.
we're loving the tile and paint... starting to feel like a chick-fil- A.
And we have a Mop Closet! Words can describe how convenient this will be! Any extra hidden - from - customer - view space is a huge advantage... nope, it doesn't take much to make me happy!
Indoor playland will be where that ladder is currently.
And there is the best part of the whole restaurant... my man and his hard workin' mind :)

The 4 Hour Desk...

We bought a desk at Ikea. Normally we like more traditional, unique, one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture... but we had a space in our guest-room/ office that needed a corner desk. We needed something really functional and on the cheaper side. Jay will be working from home some with Chick-fil-A so we wanted a space where he could stay organized (this will take more than a new desk, but its a start!) and he would have room to spread out. We found a corner desk at ikea for well under what we were planning to spend. The desk was in four easy boxes that fit perfectly in my car. We had an hour set aside to put the thing easily together. Simple as that.

And then we opened the boxes. And we pulled out about 50 trillion pieces. And we looked at the directions... and you can't really describe black and white pictures as directions. There were no words. Only rough little sketches. It was an experience.

This is about 2 hours into the easy desk project. We had about half the main desk together, and none of the side desk. We were considering just getting in the car and driving 4 hours to Charlotte to return the crazy contraption.

Miss B was very involved and quite a huge help...

Luckily I have a very handy, and determined husband. He is wonderful and he finished our desk around 1 am.

And we're really happy with the way it tuned out. It did fit perfectly in the space we have. Good thing we decided not to pack up the 20 billion pieces and high tail it back to charlotte.

A Little Family Fun in Staunton, Virginia.

So if you come visit us, demand that we take you to Staunton. Its a cute little town with a fun downtown strip full of antique stores and unique restaurants. When my sweet second family came to visit us right after we moved in we spent an afternoon wandering around in Staunton.
We spent an hour or so in an old antique shop with a clothing shop upstairs. Now this was not any old clothing shop, it was where one would go if they were dressing for an old school tacky dinner. It was a blast and we had lots of laughs. No judgments can be made on the following photo:
I blame all shenanigans on our good friend steve spangler. we love him. Or i blame it on the smoked chicken we stopped and ate on the side of the road.yup, we're weird, but it was cooked in a smoker for lots, and lots of hours by a church group, and it was delicious.