Seaside Tales

#31Days to a Better Understanding of Military Lingo: Day 5

Wed, 5 Oct 2011 20:06:58 -0500

I'd like to take a quick moment to say Hello! especially if this is your first visit to my blog! We are talking military lingo this month and today we're gonna dive into pay entitlements. Reading a Leave and Earning Statement (LES) can be a little daunting to newcomers to the military lifestyle. I thought today we'd cover some of the typical abbreviations you will find on an LES, and move on next week* to different pay situations such as overseas assignments and deployments.

Here are the top four active duty pay features:

Basic Pay: This is the monthly pay amount that an active duty, reserve, guard member receives. It is split between paydays on the first and fifteenth of every month. It never amazes me more than when a young military wife says she has no idea what her husband makes. My husband and I have always kept all of our money together in one account and we both know what the budget is. Money is one of the main causes of problems in marriage. Save yourself some heartache and talk openly and honestly about your money situation with your spouse!! If you are new to the military and don't know the basic pay of your spouse, you can view an active duty pay chart here.

BAS: Basic Allowance for Subsistence is the money an active duty military member gets to pay for food when they no longer live in the barracks and qualify for free meals at the chow/mess hall. If you took a moment and looked at the pay chart linked to above, you will have noticed that pay increases for each rank. That is not the case with BAS because food costs the same no matter what rank you are. However, you will notice that there is a difference in the allowance between Officer and Enlisted personnel. Officers receive more pay in their basic pay, but they lose it in some other areas. Such is life in the military ;-)

Clothing Allowance: Officers do not get an allowance for their uniforms but enlisted members do. They receive this allowance every year on the payday after the anniversary of their enlistment. For example, my husband joined the Marine Corps on April 27th. Our May 1st pay always has a few hundred extra dollars because of his clothing allowance. Mike didn't need any new uniform items earlier this year but he just spent nearly $200 on getting his medals remounted for his dress uniform because of items he was awarded in Afghanistan. It will be good for your budget if you save this allowance in a separate savings account (or even an envelope) for when uniform purchases come up.

BAH: Basic Allowance for Housing is mainly for married military members but if a single military member has received permission to live off base, then they will also collect this entitlement. Active duty members have an option between living off base and living on base in military housing. Unlike BAS, this entitlement is based off of rank and whether or not one has dependants, as well as where you live. Everyone receives their allowable amount in their LES no matter if they live on base or not. However, if you do live on base (like our family does) then the military or private housing managers will automatically remove it straight from your pay. It will show up as an incoming amount, and then be removed in the deductions portion of your LES. Because each base is different I can't really give you an average figure to expect in your pay. You can look at this BAH Calculator though and come up with a number that fits your family dynamics.

Looking forward to seeing you again next time where I'll have a Marine Corps LES graphic on here to point out a few pertinent items and, as always, make sure you take the time to visit more of the 31Dayers!!

Many blessings to you and yours...

*P.S. I hate to skip the next few days posting for this series but we are traveling for a wedding out of state. It's gonna be a whirlwind 1650 miles in 3 days!! I'm going to have to take Thursday, Friday, and Saturday off but I will definitely catch back up with you again on Sunday evening.

#31Days to a Better Understanding of Military Lingo: Day 4

Tue, 4 Oct 2011 20:48:20 -0500

Hi again and welcome to my 4th day of my #31Days post! I read earlier today that there are now well over 700 ( that's SEVEN HUNDRED!!!!) participants! That is FANTABULOUS, is it not?!

Today I have been in my kitchen for the fourth day prepping and cooking for my first try (in a very long time) at once a month cooking. I have lasagna (going for at least 3 of these), pancakes, and oatmeal packets (our daughter prepped all the apples for our food dehydrator to help me out) to make in the morning but then I'll be finished for a while... well, almost a month. It's been hard work but I'm glad I tried it again and will probably do it even more in the future. So far we've added to our freezer:

2 bacon spinach quiches
1 quiche lorainne
2 cottage pies
2 beef pot pies
2 meatloaves
2 chicken parmesan baked ziti
2 containers of chicken tortilla soup
Red Beans and Black beans (both can be thawed and used with rice, tacos, or a quick chili)
Refried Beans
Taco Meat
1 BBQ Beef for sandwiches
1 BBQ Pork for sandwiches
1 Carolina BBQ

Anyway, all this advance food prep made me think of Field Rats and MRE's so I thought I'd share with you about those today.

When troops are out in the field (or serving away from a regular base or post) there is usually not a mess hall available but the troops still need to eat. During early wars, such as the Civil War, soldiers traveling relied on quick and easy foods to carry such as jerky or hardtack, a cracker type bread similar to the Lavash Bread we baked last week, except a lot harder; hardtack could actually break teeth! Thankfully, my bread has never done that!

Move forward a hundred or so years and think World War I. Troops were constantly on the move and needed to carry food with them. Setting a fire to heat up food was a problem because it gave away your position to the enemy. The military introduced Field Rations (field rats, for short) and Iron Rations to take care of this problem. Field rats were non perishable and canned goods that could be transported in the back of a truck and be prepared in a field kitchen. Iron rats were small cans of food issued to each individual troop to carry in his pack. These were an emergency food supply in case they were caught behind enemy lines or separated from their unit.

Move forward two and a half decades and we are at World War II and a literal alphabet soup of names. C-Rations were canned goods that were for the "everyday troop" to carry. They came in a pack of six with three meats (M rations) and three basic (Basic rations) items, such as coffee, chocolate drops, or biscuits. Paratroopers and other special forces types of troops who needed to move without the extra weigh of six cans in their pack were given K-Rations. These were smaller packages with only 3 cans: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. All of the troops were given what is really a precurser to modern day energy bars: the D-Ration. These rations were non perishable bars that easily fit into packs and were available for high energy when no other food sources were available, such as a field kitchen.

More forward another few decades and you are in the 80's and 90's and have a new creation called a Meal Ready to Eat (MRE). These packages contain a complete meal, including coffee and dessert! There were originally only about a dozen choices but there is a large variety of main courses to choose from these days. My experience to MRE's is limited to my time in technical school when in the Air Force and we spent a week in the field doing medical training and triage in the boonies. Most of the meals were pretty decent but there were definitely a few you didn't want to get your hands on! My husband has eaten more than his fair share and refused to eat them "just for the fun of it." Our boys on the other hand always love to have them available when they are camping, whether it is just in our backyard, at the beach or in the woods :-)

That about covers my military lingo lesson for the night. I'm glad I have a freezer to stock with some good homemade food for my family, instead of having to serve them food like hardtack, or C-rations. It's fun to try once for the experience, but I love good food too much to eat it on a regular basis...

Looking forward to seeing you again tomorrow and, as always, make sure you take the time to visit more of the 31Dayers!!

Many blessings to you and yours...

#31Days to a Better Understanding of Military Lingo: Day 3

Mon, 3 Oct 2011 21:13:51 -0500

Hi, again!! I'm thrilled to see you're sticking with me through this 31 Day challenge. I need to apologize for getting my posts up so late in the evening but it really is about the only time I have to get the posts properly written because it's when I have some quiet time -- school is finished, dinner is finished, everyone is doing their own thing getting ready to finish up the day. Thanks for being so understanding!! I truly hope that the knowledge I am sharing is helpful as you become part of this great big family we call the United States Military!

Today we are going to discuss several different aspects of what the military calls leave. I hope to also share some tips with you that will help put money back into your own pocket.

Annual Leave in its most simple comparison to the civilian sector is vacation time. Every active duty military member earns 2 1/2 days of paid time off per month, for a total of 30 days per year. Leave also has the capability of rolling over from year to year with a maximum of 60 days allowed to be saved and on the books. Leave is a guaranteed entitlement but the days you can choose always have to take into account the needs of the military. Obviously if you are deployed to the Middle East you aren't going to be taking annual leave in the middle of a 6 month deployment because they needs of the military come first.

Tip #1 for putting some money back into your own pocket: You can sell your leave back at certain points in your career! Two of these sell back times are if you are reenlisting or if you are being discharged from the military. You don't automatically lose your paid leave days just because you separate from service. If you have 60 days of leave saved, and you don't want to take terminal leave -- another type we'll discuss in a moment, then you can sell those days back and put some cash in your pocket.

Have you seen the movie Independence Day with Will Smith? If so, do you remember the scene in the movie where he and Vivaca Fox are discussing him being recalled back to the base after the aliens show up? Sometimes this situation does truly occur in real life... no, not the alien invasion... the leave recall ;-) When this happens, returning is not an option. A military member MUST return to his/her command unit.

Now that you have a basic definition of leave, let's move on to a few specific types of leave. Let's start with a bad type of leave: AWOL. This anacronym stands for Absence With Out Leave. You may have heard the term in movies before. If a military member disappears without permission for any length of time and their location can not be accounted for they are labeled as AWOL. This situation is never a good thing but it doesn't necessarily mean that a military member has "ran away" from his/her base. Say a military member was kidnapped but no one knew anything other than they just weren't able to be located. They could quite possibly be listed as AWOL until the situation could become more clearly explained such as a ransom being issued. No matter what the situation might be or the reasons for it, voluntary or not, being AWOL is never a good thing.

Military families usually do not live close to their extended family and often deaths or sudden extreme illnesses in the family mean that a military member must ask for Emergency Leave at a moments notice. This type of leave is not subtracted, to a degree, away from your regular annual leave. What I mean when I say "to a degree" is that you can't just go home and stay there for months on end without a plan of action. The guys higher up in the food chain aren't heartless, but as usual the needs of the military come first and sometimes your boss may not have a choice other than to tell you to say your goodbye's and come back to the base. It's just the way life is in the military and honestly it can't be helped.

Let's move on to our next leave situation: Convalescent Leave. If a military member has an injury (combat and non-combat related alike) that requires an extended period of recovery, they are put on convalescent leave. This leave is not charged to your annual leave and is continued as long as recovery is necessary. This leave does not pertain to cosmetic or elective surgeries. Basically, if you want a nose job just cause you think your nose is too pointy, you're gonna end up paying for that out of pocket, and using your own annual leave for your recovery time.

Moving on...

Combat Leave: When a military member deploys overseas to a combat area, their pay and entitlements becomes tax free earnings. This includes leave. A military member doesn't earn extra leave during this period but the regular leave days earned become an added asset when he/she returns home. This leads me to...

Tip #2: To take the best advantage of earning tax free money, do NOT take leave in the same month you return home from combat! Your tax free earnings in a combat zone ALWAYS start at the beginning of the month (1st) and ALWAYS end at the end of the month (30th/31st..except February of course but you get the picture) no matter what day of the month you arrive. Now, the trick to earning extra tax free days comes when you use your combat leave. If you save those combat earned leave days until after the 1st of the following month, then whatever days you take of leave in that month will also be tax free. The whole month will not be tax free but the leave days will be. Not everyone cares about this advantage... and honestly sometimes the guys need time off right away and I would never put a few extra bucks at tax time above the well being of my husband, but it is a smart option for those who can wait those few extra days until the beginning of the next month to schedule some leave time.

Lastly, let's talk about Terminal Leave: When a person makes the decision to get out of the military, and they have leave still on the books, they have two choices. First, as I mentioned in tip #1 above, they can sell it back. Many times, however, a military member prefers a different route. They choose to go on terminal leave. This means that the person can count however many days they have on the books plus the amount of days they have the ability to earn up to their forecasted discharge date and move their last day of work backwards that many days. For instance, my husband reaches 20 years of active military duty in the Marine Corps on April 27, 2012. IF he wanted to retire then, he could take the number of days he has on the books now (let's say 34 for lack of a better number) and add in the number of days he has the opportunity to earn between now and then (18 days). That is a total of 52 days. That means that he could go on terminal leave approximately the first week of March and only return to the base on the appointed day in April to sign his final discharge paperwork. Many people prefer this option to selling their leave because if gives them time to go back to wherever "home" may be and find a job, a house, etc.. It really is a personal decision and each family must take into account their own needs when the time comes.

This is by no means a 100% comprehensive list of types of leave in the military but it's a really good start and the most common forms of leave you will experience in your military career. Thanks for sticking with me and I'll see ya again tomorrow!

As always, don't forget to go visit a whole lot of the other 31 Dayers. You can find them all listed here :-)

Many blessings to you and yours...

#31Days to a Better Understanding of Military Lingo: Day 2

Sun, 2 Oct 2011 21:56:00 -0500

Welcome to Day 2 of my 31 Days series on military lingo. Yesterday we talked about G.I. meaning government issued. Today we are going to discuss all aspects of the term "mess".

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the most common way that folks have heard of this term is Mess Hall or Mess Deck. A Mess Hall is basically a cafeteria on base that is strictly for the use of active duty personnel. When you find this cafeteria on large ships it is more commonly known as a Mess Deck. Occasionally on ships and submarines it will also be called a galley; think galley kitchen in home design! You may also have heard the cafeteria referred to as a Chow Hall (or, as when he was stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, my husband called them the DFac -- short for Dining Facility). Either name works and the terms are all interchangeable in most branches of service.

Mess Call is the bugle call that is played to announce that the chow hall is open and meals are ready to be served. I mean, who doesn't want to know when the food is ready?! I need a Mess Call for my boys for dinner because their growling bellies doesn't seem to be doing the trick!!

Any questions? Probably not... so... let's move on to our next bit of mess terminology :-)

My husband is a Marine. Every November 10th we celebrate the birth of the Marine Corps with a Birthday Ball. Occasionally, different units within the Marine Corps will want to celebrate their comraderie. These nights are called a Mess Night. This tradition is a very formal military only event that was born when a Marine Corps swim team was invited to break bread with their british counterparts, The Royal Marines. The Mess Nights that the Royal Marines enjoy date back to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. You can never accuse the military of not holding to ancient history and tradition in the way they do things, that's for sure!

Mess Nights are full of pomp and circumstance with even a manual that guides you through every step of the night. The troops formally march into the event and there is always a President and a Vice President of the Mess as well as a Guest of Honor (who is sometimes a retired member of the armed services). There are formal toasts and every other bit of formal etiquette you can imagine.

There are also fun bits as well. There are fines for everything from improper wear of the uniform to forgetting to ask permission from The President of the Mess to shed a tear for Lord Nelson (psst.. that means going to the bathroom!!!). All of the money earned from fines goes toward paying for a gift for the guest of honor and other events within the unit.

Other names that you may hear for Mess Night, depending on what branch of service you are acquained with, are Dining In or Regimental Dinner. In the Air Force, when families are invited, the event is called a Dining Out.

When attending a Mess Night, the uniform of the day is either the Mess Dress or Dress Blues Alpha's (black Dress Blue coat with blue pants and blood stripe, if earned) or Dress Whites (black Dress Blue coat with white pants). The Mess Dress is a tuxedo type uniform, complete with bowtie and cumberbund and extra large calvary sized chevrons (rank) on the dinner jacket. My husband has owned a Mess Dress for years but has never had the opportunity to wear it until now. He plans to wear it to this years Marine Corps Ball. I'm soooooo excited!!!

Today in our Military Lingo lessons we covered Mess Hall, Mess Call, Mess Night, and Mess Dress. I hope I was able to give you a better understanding of what each individual term and event stand for. Please PLEASE please let me know if I need to explain something even more!!

Tomorrow we will cover the topic of leave. No... wait... don't leave!! That isn't what I meant but the explanation will have to wait until our next lesson. In the meantime, leave a comment and let me know what you're up to and where I can visit you at!!

Oh, and most importantly, don't forget to go visit a whole lot of the other 31 Dayers. You can find them all listed here.

Many blessings to you and yours...

31 Days to a Better Understanding of Military Lingo: Day 1

Sat, 1 Oct 2011 12:09:09 -0500

Watch your six...

I'm going to the head...

LES...

GI...

Scuttlebutt...

OPSEC...

butterbar...

Porthole... hatch... deck... bulkhead...

Have you ever been watching a movie with your spouse, say Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan, and feel as if you might as well be watching a foreign film? Or, perhaps you are a just married young lady who is new to the military lifestyle and you have no idea what language your husband is speaking when he comes home from work in the evening. Sometimes I feel that way and I've been a Marine wife for 20 years!

When thinking of what to write for a 31 days post I knew I needed to keep it easy so that I could keep up with a whole month of posts but I really wanted it to be something I'm very familiar with on a daily basis. I could have chosen something to do with kids, homeschooling, or being a christian wife but plenty of great women write about those sorts of things everyday. Lately I have felt a calling to write more posts that I know would be helpful to young women who are just starting along this journey of being a military wife; sharing info that is helping all the ladies out there whose husbands demand payback for all those chick flick movies he has put up with isn't half bad either. 31 Days to a Better Understanding of Military Lingo is my best answer!

So, lets get started...

Todays lingo for the day is G.I..

Marines = Marines

Army = Soldiers

Air Force = Airmen

Navy = Sailors

BUT THEY ARE ALL G.I.'s... in a sense!

G.I. is short for Government Issue. The term came into regular use in World War II and was originally a very derogatory term. It insinuated that soldiers were nothing more than a piece of gear that could easily be replaced.

More recognizable these days as the term "G.I." is probably the action figure. Hasbro, recognizing that boys would NOT play with dolls, introduced the G.I. Joe action figures in 1964. The toy company originally tried different names for each branch of service but the universal moniker of G.I. Joe was the only name that stuck.

So there you have it: G.I. aka Government Issued. You aren't issued. Your kids aren't issued. But your military dude or dudette is! Tomorrow we will continue our lessons with "the Mess."

By the way, if you are a military wife (or a Marine mom for that matter!!) and there is an acronym that your spouse is always using that you just can't figure out , feel free to leave it in a comment and I'll be sure to write about it during these 31 days.

For more great #31Days of posts from over 200 great folks, check out the linky post of all the 31 Dayers over at The Nester's blog.

Work More... Complain Less!

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:46:51 -0500

When Hurricane Irene tore through our area a little over a month ago, we had a lot of clean up to do. Frankly, there is still a lot of clean up to do. We live on base and the majority of the work is done by contractors. They have done an excellant job at prioritizing the work and cleaning up in an orderly fashion.

We were blessed to only be without power for about 45 hours. Because of Mike's deployment, and our subsequent travels across the country while he was gone, we had not yet restocked our large upright freezer that sits in the garage. The major portion of the food we lost was our frozen fruit that we had picked locally; figs, strawberries, and blueberries. There was easily 50 pounds of fruit lost but we are thankful that with a little hard work it can all be replaced next spring and summer. I know a lot of people who were without power for up to three weeks and lost a lot more than we did. I know exactly how blessed we are and I give thanks everyday for Gods rich blessings on our family!

One thing that really bothered me after the hurricane were the stories I read and/or listened to about food losses and clean up experiences. I know I'm going to be stepping on some toes here but the biggest whiners seemed to be other Marine families. Instead of a lot of Semper Fi (always faithful) attitude there was a whole lot of Semper I attitudes going around.

With our base housing lease (each base housing is different) we are automatically given a $20,000 rental insurance policy through Lloyd's of London and are told that if we think we need more coverage than that then we must provide it ourselves. We are given a brochure in our lease contract that says what is convered and what is not (food loss is not covered). I was amazed at the crazy accusations many people were throwing out there towards our housing managers trying to cheat us by adding that clause in at the last minute but I was also amazed at some of the crazy fraudulent types of conversations I heard/read regarding people trying to collect from the base as well as FEMA.

There was also a HUGE amount of angry conversations on social networking sites about the order in which clean up happened. I drove through some sections of housing and was surprised to see the lack of damage done in the most complained from area. There were a few fence sections down and one small young tree uprooted. In our own area we had nearly a dozen power lines and I couldn't even count how many 100 foot tall trees came down. We KNEW the clean up was not going to go quickly unless we got out there and did it ourselves. Not everyone got out there and worked on the clean up but a lot of people did. We definitely were not afraid of working hard and doing our part!

I think the biggest reason for the difference in the complainers and the non- complainers was the generational gap. For the most part, very young families live in the one section of housing that was full of complainers. This is a generation that has grown up with fast food, fast cars, and everything being done your way or else you sue your way to millionaire happiness.

The section I live in has lived a little longer and we've been around the Corps long enough to have learned the lesson of "if you want something to get done, do it yourself".

We also, for the most part, come from a generation that says if you expect a lot, you get a lot. In my own small section of housing, not only were the parents outside cleaning up but the children were too. Many times the kids were cleaning up even if the parents were taking a break. If you asked them why, they said things like "the sooner it looks like we care, the sooner the base will care" and "we want to play football and we can't do it if there is stuff all over the ground" and "we don't want the babies to get hurt if they fall on the playground because its got stuff all over it". Some of those same children went with their parents to deliver water and juice to clean up crews. There was a heart of giving and doing that was a blessing to be a part of.

The Bible talks many times about having a good work ethic. Our homeschool verse last year was Ecclesiastes 9:10a which says "Whatever your hands find to do, do with all your strength!" On the last day the kids had off from school (which were closed a few days due to storm damage) they still chose to spend it outside working on the field across from our house. Jesse, our youngest, used his dads ax to chop the larger branches and the younger children carried those smaller pieces to a pile that would be easier for the crews to get to at the curb. One of the other older boys used a hatchet to chop some pieces into carry-able size bits as well. Whether 4 years old or 14 years old, these kids worked with all their strength to get our area cleaned up after Mean Irene blew through, and they all made their parents pretty proud!!

Jesse and a few of the other neighbor kids cleaning up hurricane debris; as a reward we handed out about 15 or 16 McFlurries that day!

When you can't buy new...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 07:44:10 -0500

then simply change the old!!

I love the way our daughter Victoria can see something in a magazine, decide she likes it, and create it! If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: "I am NOT blessed with that talent!"

Victoria painted this small nightstand chest and our old sofa table cream. She then used green and gold to paint on details similar to the ones in this magazine article.

She then bargained the price down on this chair at an antique store and painted it with the same green and gold details (the green on the chair and chest are the same... they just look different in the picture because of the lighting).

Finally, she did some custom embroidery with ribbon and floss on a flour sack towel and recovered the seat cushion.

Her bedroom is now a very light, airy, and calming space. The only piece she needs to complete her space is a mirror above the chest like in the magazine layout. We have measurements in hand and are poking about at antique stores often looking for the perfect one.

I often tell her she has the room with the best light in the house. Now, she has the most magazine ready room in the house... well, almost :-)

The Broadmoor: Colorado Springs, Colorado

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 22:12:49 -0500

This year my husband and I celebrated our 20th anniversary. Unfortunately, we once again celebrated it thousands of miles apart because Mike was deployed to Afghanistan. This was not the first anniversary where we were apart from each other, and it probably won't be the last.

It's easy to think that maybe the Marine Corps has it in for us -- we've been apart more anniversaries than together these past 20 years -- but in reality I know the higher-ups have more important things on their minds than separating a few young (-ish) love birds. Thankfully we were blessed to be able to talk on the phone that day, as well as skype later in the evening. God is good!!

talking to Mike on our 20th anniversary

The children and I happened to still be in Colorado Springs on my anniversary and my in-laws asked if they could take me to lunch at The Broadmoor to help me celebrate. I couldn't pass up an offer that good!

"When Spencer and Julie Penrose opened their grand resort at the gateway to the Colorado Rocky Mountains in 1918, the master plan was to create a place where European elegance met Western hospitality in the perfect blend of style and service excellence. More than nine decades later, their vision is intact and their dream is still alive."
~ via The Broadmoor website

I couldn't have described The Broadmoor better if I tried! The food was delicious and the surroundings were beautiful and tranquil! Honestly, I can't remember the exact food I ate for lunch but I remember the dessert perfectly.

Berries with a Crème Anglaise

This dessert was so delicious that I went straight home and bought the ingredients to make it and take it pver to a tea and dessert party at our (er, my in-laws) neighbors and (all of our) good friends home later that night. Mine was not as good, but it was pretty close ;-)

After we finished off our scrumptious lunch, we decided to take a tour through the resort buildings and grounds and to have a look around at the shops.

the detailed interior painting and chandeliers add to the elegance of the resort

this room was one of my favorites... who doesn't love a cloudy ceiling and leafy light fixture?!

the exterior has a very American west/European villa feeling to it (not that I have any European travels to compare it with...lol)

there are architectural details like the one above all over the exterior.. stunning!!

There are several things that have become staple activities when we visit Colorado that we always try to get in while we are in town. The first is hiking around Garden of the Gods and the second is a visit for the entire family to Focus on the Family. The third must have on a Colorado trip is coffee with my friend Dianne from Bunny Trails. Lunch at The Broadmoor will definitely be on the must do list from now on!!

The day that I visited The Broadmoor was a little overcast (we had snow two days later... and it was MAY!!!) so a lot of my pictures did not turn out as well as I would have liked but I hope you can see the beauty of this wonderful 5 star resort anyway!

Of course, this post would not be complete if I did not share with you how to make the Crème Anglaise to top any of your fresh seasonal berries. This video is very helpful and provides step by step instructions.

Feel free to view even more of my Broadmoor Hotel and Resort photos at my online photo album:

The Broadmoor Hotel and Resort

Lavash, a Savory Flatbread Perfect for a Rainy Day

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 17:30:45 -0500

I always like to try new things in the kitchen. I've had a few misses (and I'm still no expert at something as simple as a boiled egg) but for the most part the new foods we've tried have ended up being regulars around here.

Today Victoria and I wanted to make crackers but we wanted them to be pretty basic, not fancy-schmancy bits that had a bunch of frou-frou add ins.

I thought I might make Naan Bread. I have a great recipe for it from my friend Shelly whom I met while visiting Hope Baptist in Wake Forest when Mike was deployed. Her daughters friends had taught her daughters how to make it and she graciously shared the recipe with me. Unfortunately, after breakfast this morning we were out of milk, eggs, and butter. It was raining and I didn't want to go to the store if I could help it.

We decided to try our hand with Lavash instead.

Naan and Lavash are very similar, in both roots and texture. They are both flatbreads and they are both widely served in middle-eastern culture. However, Lavash has a simpler recipe and is rolled VERY thin.

Lavash is the most widespread used bread in places like Iran, Turkey, and Armenia. It only has a few ingredients and is easy to make. As a fresh bread, it is like a wrap. Saved for later use, it becomes more like a cracker. We served our bread fresh with a savory cream cheese dip. We also have a few pieces left to eat later.

Have you ever tried Lavash, or even Naan bread for that matter? I highly recommend broadening your horizons and cooking up a fresh batch, especially if you are experiencing a rainy, dreary day like we are! It's kind of a two person job with the rolling out and the rotating of pans in the oven but it is definitely worth it!! Here's a recipe to get you started:

1 cup lukewarm water
1 cup whole wheat flour, divided
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
1 teaspoon salt
2 cup unbleached flour, divided
1 tablespoon Olive Oil

Mix together water, 1/4 cup of wheat flour, and yeast until wet. Add in salt and 1 cup of unbleached flour. Gradually mix in the rest of the wheat flour and unbleached flour. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes, or until easily pulled... you may have to add a little more water or a little more flour until it is the right consistency; it should be sort of an elastic-y ball. Put oil in a bowl and roll the ball of dough in it. Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

After the dough has doubled in size, turn it out on your surface and separate into about 24 balls. I found it easy to cut the dough into quarters and then cut each of those into six pieces and then shape those into balls. Let rest for 30 more minutes.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees.

Roll the individual balls out VERY THIN (should be pretty transparent) and bake on the middle shelf of a 500 degree oven for no more than 5 minutes, flipping each piece at about 2 minutes. This part goes very fast and you should roll all the pieces out before you start baking if you are working alone, or have one person roll while another person rotates the pans in the oven if working as a pair.

What interesting foods have you cooked lately? Share a recipe in the comments and we may just give it a try :-)

Sorting and editing photos... I need a break but not before I share these...

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:08:40 -0500

Two days ago I promised on twitter and facebook that I would be posting a travel blog post about The Broadmoor Hotel and Resort in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I have been sorting and editing photos for the post... and sorting and editing some more.

I finally decided that rather than load my blog down with an abundance of photos, I should do a seperate but attached photo album (a cool thing my server features). That means, though, that all of the photos that I copied and edited down to a smaller size (because my server does not yet have a "choose your size" photo option as part of their blog feature... but we've been with the company for over ten years and aren't about to switch now... but I digress...) are not really appropriate for a full size photo album and have to be re-edited in their larger size. I've completed the edits for 20 of the photos and have about 15 more to go. Hopefully I finish before the weekend is up!

I save all my photos on an external Seagate harddrive and as I was sorting through folders looking for extra pictures "just in case" some had been mis-filed, I found quite a few photos of my daughter taking pictures of herself in the mirror, trying to capture a new sewing project she had just completed or simply the fashion outfit of the day. The thing with girls is that you can always be sure that there will always be something worth taking a picture of!! I'm thankful to be a momma to mostly boys, but I wouldn't trade my one girl for the world!! She keeps me in touch with my feminine side!

I loved these shots of her and thought I'd share them with you, but shhhh!! She doesn't know I've posted them ;-)