Birthday Prep

Luke turns the big 27 tomorrow. So...being the wonderful wife I am :) I asked him what cake he would like me to bake for his birthday. He suggest caramel cake! I've never made caramel cake before, so...let's hope this works out. His mother sent over her recipe for a delicious, super unhealthy pound cake: and the recipe for the caramel topping. So...I sure hope I can pull this off. I have the cake currently cooking and should know the outcome soon. I don't plan on making the icing until tomorrow right before we eat it. Leave it to Luke to ask for something that requires me to go buy a kitchen gadget I have yet to own. What gadget you ask?? A candy thermometer! I went to Wal-Mart in hopes of finding the gadget and came up short due to a stock out. Since I live in a town seriously lacking stores I became worried that a 1 hour trip to Roswell or Hobbs might be necessary. Luckily, I checked our local grocery store and came up successful. So...here are the lovely recipes (let me know if you can't read them and would like for me to stop being lazy and actually type them out). Tomorrow I will post pics of the hopefully lovely cake and let you guys know how it taste!

WORLD CUP

I've been watching a LOT of the world cup action. Probably because I don't have a job and finally have the time to watch the matches live. It really has been an exciting cup so far. The U.S. matches alone have been full on intensity and nail biting. I'm glad the U.S. finished at the top of our bracket, because like most people: I think we should have two more goals on our goal count. Oh well...we won and today we play Ghana. I'm happy England was able to advance as well. I find myself cheering for nations I know are good: I cheered for anyone to beat North Korea and The Ivory Coast. Most people do not realize that the U.S. does not ship or trade anything with the Ivory Coast. I was in shipping, so I learned early of what awful things occur in that country. It's always great to see good prevail over evil (and so far in this cup it's going that way :) ).

I hope you all watch and cheer for the U.S.A. today! Gooooooo America!!

Home Sweet Home

I've been rather MIA in the blog world recently. Mainly because I've been traveling. This past week I traveled East for the first time in six months. I really cannot believe it's been that long. So crazy to think I've been living out west for half a year. However, when I made the trip I realized just how long it's been. I was AMAZED at how GREEN everything was. There is ONE yard in our NM neighborhood that has the greenest grass, so going East my eyes were overwhelmed with color, and seeing that every yard was just like that one yard here.

It was great to go home and see my family, but the reason I booked the trip was for medical check ups. I picked this past week simply because Luke was attending a bachelor party in Gulf Shores with all of his buddies. Since we are moving around I really don't want a new doctor for every town. I went and had my annual pap smear (I think it's pretty important not to change that doc with every town) and had my foot and knees checked out. I can't believe it's been five years since the accident, but I got a great report from my doc saying the foot is looking great, and as good as we could hope for. He gave me an ankle brace to help out with long periods of walking or hiking, so I'm excited to use that and hopefully keep my foot well. My knees have been killing my for a while now. My doc took some x-rays and checked them out. Turns out that therapy is the best bet for helping that issue. He said my naturally body alignment with my hips, knees, and legs don't line up well: and that in turn pushes my knee cap off slightly. He said the problem is often in female athletes and that therapy can show me some moves to help out. So...good reports all around are always great!

Here is a picture of my Atlanta home! This is my little sister's house where I stayed Tuesday and Wednesday night. I had to post a pic to show everyone their wonderful new yard and just how green it is. Thank you Jenna and Prem for always allowing me to stay with you.

While in Atlanta I got to eat dinner with some of my favorite ladies Tuesday night, but of course forgot to take one picture.

Wednesday I got to play with my amazing little nieces MA and Bear as we call her. They are so funny and sweet. Thank you Patrick and Stacie for dinner Wednesday night. Here is a picture of MA on the way to swim. She's a hoot!

The Bear's cute little fin floater.

MA has one of the funniest swim caps ever. It has a little fin on top and in back. So cute and funny.

Thursday I dropped by my old office at CEVA and had a wonderful time catching up with everyone before I hit the road to Augusta. Jenna and Prem have an extra car, so I used that for the two hour drive. Sad part...the air conditioning wasn't working, so I poured sweat the entire drive (and you guys know how much I sweat--it was nasty).

Thursday night my parents and I went kayaking on the Savannah River. While kayaking we came upon a cove with a dead end. Seeing the main drag only 15 yards away looked definitely reachable through this one marsh spot with a pretty strong current running through. So...we took off trail blazing and made it probably 95% of the way through until I just couldn't go any further. Getting in proved to be the easy part: my dad and I spent 15 min. giving it everything we had to get back out of the marsh. It was a definite work out.

Dad at the start of the journey

Mom borrowing Grans plastic shades under her glasses. Pretty funny looking.

Finally I made it home sweet home! Martinez/Augusta, GA. My house below I lived in my entire life until college. Once again I was blown away by how green it all looked. I had to take a picture.

Yesterday I returned to New Mexico but not without and eventful travel day. My flight was scheduled out of Atlanta at 2:30, so mom and I set off with enough time to drive the two hours to ATL and also stop and eat a nice lunch along the way. Turns out we had to rush lunch a bit just to be safe, but I made it to the airport perfectly on time at 1:00. Once I arrived they announce that my flight has been pushed back to 3:30. No worries--I can take an hour! Well then I look up and it's 4:15, then 4:40 and finally my flight ended up leaving at 5:15!!!! That was crazy! Of course I had planned perfectly for only a 30 min. layover in Dallas until I left for Midland/Odessa, but with my flight leaving so many hours later I ended up missing my connector and having to fly out of Dallas on an 8:30 flight. Having a 2 hour and 50 min. drive from Midland/Odessa to home had me pretty down and tired. However, one really cool thing happened on my 8:30 flight. The YOUNGEST KING IN THE WORLD was on my flight with me. The plane was super tiny, so there was no first class, so he sat two rows in front of me. I noticed the flight attendant was giving this young man and his mom special attention, but didn't think too much about it. Once off the plane I was walking right behind them to baggage claim, we round a corner and I see all sorts of camera's and people with flowers. I have NO idea at this point who these people are and what's so important about them. Finally at baggage claim a girl asked one of the cops. Crazy though! Turns out this guy is the youngest king in the world. So... that was exciting.

Here is an article talking about the king and why the heck he was in Midland, Texas.

http://livemidlandtexas.com/views_4th_estate/2010/06/22/city-royalty-comes-to-downtown-midland/

Not exciting however, was arriving into Carlsbad at midnight mtn. time. I was sooo tired. It was a LONG day!

One last thing to mention before I end the longest blog post ever. Since Luke and I were both out of town we had a neighbor watering our garden for us. When Luke returned on Sunday he picked our first zucchini. I do realize it is WAY to BIG mom (but we weren't here to pick it sooner). So I thought I would show you our first football sized zucchini.

Clovis Rodeo

Last weekend Luke and I drove to Clovis, NM for the rodeo. We mainly went to meet Luke's distant cousin Kelly, who is Miss Rodeo New Mexico 2010! It's quite and honor and big deal. We also wanted to catch a rodeo while out west. This wasn't a huge rodeo, but we did have a lot of fun.

The drive to Clovis looks like the picture below the whole way! Funny story is while stopped at road work for five minutes only one other car pulled up behind us. Soon the man from the car behind us tapped on Luke's window. Still can't believe it, but this guy is an Auburn Alum and just wanted to say hello and War Eagle. He was in shock to see an Auburn license plate out in the boonies on NM. Turns out he now lives in the tiny town of Lovington, NM. What a small world! Auburn people are great!

Luke's cousin Kelly is the one in the red shirt with yellow chaps. Next to Kelly on the her right is Miss Rodeo America. Kelly and Miss Rodeo America had to work the entire rodeo riding around sponsor flags between riders. They would fly around the arena going super fast (it was impressive).

It's hard to capture a bull rider without a bit of blur! I think the movement makes them look pretty cool though. We saw a lot of great rides.

This is a bucking bronco

I know this picture is dark, but it's bison up on a trailer. A women performs stunts on her horse and then had the bison climb on top of the trailer. After the bison were on top she and her horse joined them too. Also a very impressive sight. Bison are just cool looking animals period.

Vino

As most of you know...Luke and I love wine! We don't claim to be sommeliers by any stretch, but we do get great enjoyment from a great bottle of wine. Over two years ago Luke and I signed up to be on "The List" for a vineyard in California titled Sea Smoke. Finally, yesterday we received our first offer to actually purchase some of their vintage wine. So...now we are anxiously awaiting our first four bottles. Unfortunately they are not schedule to arrive until November.

Here is a picture of two bottles we ordered! Can't wait!

On another note--Luke and I have been saving corks since we first started dating in February 2007. With the old cork carrier full, we upgraded to a bigger cork vase. On every cork we write the date, the people, and what we were doing. Just looking back over the corks brings us joy. The first time our families met we consumed a good bit of wine, and have some funny corks that we'll cherish forever. As for what we are going to do with the corks?? We haven't 100% decided yet. I did see someone that made their kitchen island top out of the saved corks and then had it covered for protection. It was really cool how they positioned them for you to read the corks. Such a personal touch. I guess we'll decided later in life once we purchase a home!

Here is a shot of our new cork carrier

I know it doesn't look like much in our carrier, but we've been saving for a while and I think there is around 100. Check out Sea Smoke if you like wine and join the list today!

Today

Today I pulled of our first squash! Isn't she a beauty.

Also, this week we had our first real full garden meal. We have a ton of garden beans as well as broccoli, so I added teriyaki sauce and chicken for a great meal. Oh...I got this garlic Parmesan bread from Wal-Mart for a dollar and really love it!

It doesn't look like much in this picture, but Luke and I each had a good portion.

On another note I've been entering almost every day once again for the HGTV green home. I'm not nearly as excited about this home simply because of it's far away location, but...I will always take a free home, $100,000 in cash, and a new car :). The last day to enter is tomorrow, so go enter if you haven't.

Lastly, I wanted to fill you in on the good and bad of my getting in shape quest. The good is I have stuck to working out with Jillian rather well. I take about a day a week off. I still really die through level one, so I'm still working my way up to level two. Maybe I'll do 30 days on each level instead. The bad is I haven't lost a darn pound (go figure), and that i have a new sandwich obsession. My all time favorite cheese is Havarti! Recently I've taken that garlic Parmesan bread from Wal-Mart(any sourdough works well too) and added the sub sauce(basically it's oil and vinegar) and some pepperoni, Havarti dill, and tomatoes. Oh My Goodness it's so yummy! I have a panini maker, so I put it in the press for a complete expensive deli feel. You have to try it!! So...that sandwich is not exactly good for you! These next two weeks I'm really going to focus on eating well. That's my true weakness when it comes to weight loss. So...wish me luck and hopefully I'll report in a few pounds down.

Memorial Weekend Trip

Finally I am back writing about New Mexico and another great adventure for the Dorman family. This weekend Luke and I toured the south western side of New Mexico. We started our Saturday with the Southern New Mexico Wine Festival in Las Cruces. We had a wonderful time sampling New Mexico's wine which are quite nice. We found our favorite to be D.H. Lescombes bottle of Syrah. So...of course we came home with a couple of bottles to enjoy later in life :) Another pleasant surprise was the yummy New Mexican salsas and jellies to sample. Interesting flavors like strawberry jalapeno (which sounds yuck to me) were delicious. So overall, I think the wine festival was a plus!

Below Luke is enjoying a break from wine with a mimosa.

While in Las Cruces we stayed at Hotel Encanto. From the outside the hotel looks rather plain and ordinary, but the inside is beautifully decorated with a great Spanish feel. The rate is wonderful too! We enjoyed relaxing at the pool after our day of wine tasting.

Here is a picture of the fountain in the lovely hotel lobby

Sunday we made our way to the town of Truth or Consequences. The town was originally called Hot Springs, but took over the name of Truth or Consequences after a radio show in the 1950s. The host of the show basically dared a town to change it name to T o C (that's the short hand easy version) and Hot Springs took that challenge. The town is pretty run down now, but Luke and I were able to find the perfect place to stay and really enjoy the spa town. We stayed at the Blackstone Hot Springs an old 1930s courtyard apartment building that has been renovated and transformed into an oasis. Each suite is themed after a classic TV series or star. We stayed in the Twilight Room (My dad watched the show when I was younger, so I was familiar and excited, but Luke had no clue). It was very retro and tons of fun. Each room has a private hot springs bath. Our room however, had a hot springs waterfall. The water comes from a natural hot spring the town sits upon. Right out of the shoot the water temperate is 102 to 106, but felt even hotter to me! The minerals found in the water are suppose to be great for your body and health, so we enjoyed ourselves.

Here is a picture of Luke soaking up the hot springs waterfall in our room. They had a bench for you to sit on as well (which is how I enjoyed the waterfall).

Another great side visit we made while at T o C was Elephant Butte, NM. The lake here is breath-taking. The water is so blue and you can see forever. It is so different than lakes back home.

A great view from a top the dam

Finally Monday we made our way to a Veteran's park (must not forget the reason for our break) and then headed to White Sands National Monument. White Sands is truly mind boggling. Here in the middle of nowhere you run across these huge dunes of gypsum that go as far as the eyes can see. Climbing the dunes was rather hard in 100 degree temperature, but well worth the views and awe of the place. I can see why the U.S. does missile testing at this location. There really is nothing but white sand dunes as far as the eye can see.

Luke and I climbed up some dunes and were able to get this shot. Amazing!

Ok...so thank goodness for my friend Courtney who let me know that you can keep posting pics on here. I guess I am still figuring out the whole blogging thing. I have an album on FB too.

Stunning blue skies and incredible mountain views cover New Mexico