School, School, School and a Little of Life

Studying and school have been a bit all consuming, but I'm coming down the home stretch now.  Only 2 more classes, a little reading and a major paper left to do.  In less than a month, I'll be graduating from Cairn University with a degree!  Yippee!

It seems like I've been doing nothing but concentrating on studying, but we have managed to fit in a few fun things.  One Tuesday recently we explored a new park that we hadn't been too yet.  It's a county park, but it took us a half hour to drive there from our house.  (We live in the biggest county in New Jersey.)  It was a lovely spring day, warm and sunny which made the excursion all the more enjoyable.  Crystal Lake Park was somewhat difficult to get to but when we found it, it was worth the effort.  We had to hike past a very green field, then on a well designed trail to a lake.  We were surprised that there were hills, it wasn't flat like most NJ hikes.

 

 Another fun thing we did one Friday was go up to hear Grace & Naomi sing in their choir concert.  Unfortunately, Aiden was sick, so Christy stayed home with him (and Asher & Claire).  We got there early enough to be with Grace & Naomi while they ate their supper.  I wanted to take their pictures but Naomi, silly girl, wouldn't pose.  Every time she saw me lift the camera, she made a funny face.

 It was very entertaining to watch the girls perform in their choirs.  Grace was so proper, very careful to do everything the right way and not draw attention to herself.  Naomi, on the other hand, was very animated and funny, keeping herself entertained even during long periods of musical rest.  I can't help smiling even now when I think about the differences in their personalities.  How unique and interesting each one is.


We had another dinner with our singles group.  There weren't as many who attended this time but it's spring and other activities and events are calling.  It was salad night and we had so much food, we've been eating left-overs all week.

I found this amazingly good recipe to share.  We had a coupon for Uno's and when we went, I ordered Chicken Spinoccoli.  It was so good I was wondering if I could find a recipe and make it myself...which is what I did.  Here it is:

Baked Chicken Spinoccoli

Ingredients

4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves

1 cup fresh broccoli coarsely chopped

1 cup fresh spinach

2 Roma tomatoes chopped

4 oz. feta cheese

8 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese

 

Directions

1.   Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  Mix broccoli, spinach and tomatoes together in a bowl.  Set aside.

3.  Cover chicken breast with plastic wrap and flatten.

4.  Evenly distribute ingredients from bowl in the center of each chicken breast; sprinkle feta cheese and half of the mozzarella cheese on top of the broccoli mixture.

5.  Wrap chicken breast tightly around the filling; secure with a toothpick

6.  Sprinkle remaining mozzarella cheese on top of chicken breast.

7.  Place on a baking sheet or pan; bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes until chicken is fully cooked.

8.  Serves 4.

I didn't flatten the chicken breasts enough so I couldn't roll them up.  It worked, though, to just have them flat on the pan and put the spinach, broccoli, tomatoes and cheeses on top.  Very tasty.

Well, I guess my break is over and it's back to the books.

Spring is springing!

After such a long and dreary winter, it was a special treat to see blue skies and fluffy white clouds a couple of days ago.

I guess because of cabin fever, Andy and I have been getting out and hiking.  The above pictures were taken at the Boundary Creek County Park about a week ago.  It was still chilly, but at least the sun was shining, which makes all the difference in the way a person feels about nature and life in general!

My first class is over and done.  I worked all Easter weekend on the final paper.  It was quite a sacrifice to spend Good Friday, a day off work - all day at the computer trying to pull all my thoughts together into a cohesive and understandable thesis:  how to write in 2,500 words on a subject as huge as The Triune God.  As difficult as that was, I finally finished it to my satisfaction and submitted it, then waited in nervous anticipation for the grade.

I am happy to report that I got a 100% on that paper!  Wow...I couldn't believe it.  All my hard work and hours of effort paid off.  I got an A in the course with A's in all my papers and assignments.  Needless to say, I'm very happy with that.  Now to get through this final class, only 4 weeks to go, but still a lot of work to do before graduation.

In spite of being so consumed with studying and school, we're still getting a lot of hiking in and kid time.  Last week, Amy and the kids came down in time for dinner on Monday, then stayed overnight.  We watched a movie together, Chase chose Sleeping Beauty because he wanted to see the witch turn into a dragon (is that a boy thing!).

On Tuesday morning, Dawn and Kira joined us and we all went over to the church for the kids to play in the gym. 

It was such a nice day that we thought it would be good for the kids to play outside so we drove over to Pennington Park where there was a nice playground.  They had fun but it was cold and windy.  We played there as long as we could stand it, then since it was close enough to lunch time..."Let's go to Chick-Fil-A and let the kids play inside.

 

 A fun time was had by all!  I'm so impressed with how much fun Andy is with the kids.  He's like a kid himself!  Having fun seems to come naturally to him, I often wish I could be more like that.  But when I mentioned this to him, he said there should at least be one person who acts like an adult!


Yesterday I took several hours off work and went with Dawn and Kira and Dawn's friend, Betty and her 3 kids to a Sound All Around concert in Philadelphia.  It turned out to be quite an adventure.  We parked the car and walked to where we thought the concert was, only to find out we were at the wrong address.  So we got back to the car, paid for 15 minutes parking, went a couple blocks further and parked again.  Dawn, the kids and I got out and started hurrying to get to the concert while Betty parked the car.  Dawn had 2 of Betty's kids and Kira, hurrying along, while I tried to get Betty's boy to walk a little faster.  We got further and further behind, until I finally told him to climb on my back, which he was happy to do.  We must have made quite a sight!  We got to the Kimmel Center and got directions from the ushers in the lobby that the concert was at the end of the hallway, up the stairs, turn right and go to the end of another hallway.  We did that but it was not the concert we had tickets for.  So we had to trace our steps back out.  Unfortunately, the tickets Dawn was holding did not have the address of the concert on them, but we finally figured it out that it must be at the Academy of Music.  That building was across from the Kimmel Center, so off we trudged with the 4 kids.  By the time we got in the door, we discovered we were finally at the right place but we were 30 minutes late.  Dawn was feeling frustrated, mainly because she felt responsible, but the ushers were very kind and helpful and told us that we could just wait around for the next concert which would begin at 11:15.  So that was a relief, we could still use our tickets and after coming into the city and going through all that effort, it wouldn't be a wasted trip.

We had to keep the kids occupied for 45 minutes, but being good mommies, Betty and Dawn had brought lunch and snacks.

We finally got into the concert and it was definitely worth it although by this time, the kids were tired.

Well, the sun is shining, calling my name, enough time spent on the computer.  I'm off to get some vitamin D.