What?

We've turned Saturday mornings into pancake mornings and look forward to it each week that we're around. This morning was a fun one, experimenting with the Vita-Mix. I started out with the dry grinding blade to make oat flour from oats, and spelt flour from spelt berries. Next, was almond butter which was "okay." Next, was pancake mix - mmm. Matt especially liked the batter. Finally, we tried out home-made raspberry/blueberry syrup. These were some tasty flapjacks. This blender has some serious power. About halfway through, I decided that we needed to keep some earplugs in the kitchen -- you can seem them in the picture. My mom would be proud...

Our blender finally got here!!

I should probably disclose that I never thought I would get this excited about a blender. But I guess we didn't get just any blender, did we? No no, we got a Vita-Mix. It's the coolest thing since, well, sliced bagels. Maybe that's because it makes bagels...and anything else you can possibly imagine.

Johnni and I spent our Friday night making homemade peanut butter, peanut butter-chocolate milk shakes, and bagels. Who knew a blender could keep us up so late! Tomorrow we have plans for all kinds of foods....

Finally

So, I've been saying for awhile now that someday I would contribute to our blog. Well, today's the day. There is a lot to catch up with, and I'm not quite sure where to start.

What's new? Well, some of you know that I wouldn't call myself a strong swimmer. I started taking adult swimming classes this month to get myself in the water and brush up on what I should have been practicing since my dad first taught me how to swim. I never look forward to going to my lessons, but it's conveniently on post, and they are super cheap. I leave each time feeling a lot more comfortable in the water -- tonight was the first time that I can remember going off an actual diving board. It wasn't too bad, but I did feel like a pancake getting flipped a few times. Tonight, I was procrastinating and decided to take pictures while I should have been heading down the road...
You'll see some pictures soon when Matt posts, but we had a great time in Charleston, South Carolina with Ben and Chelsa this weekend. It was so fun and relaxing to get to hang out with good friends. I have a much better appreciation for photography after this weekend! It was fun to watch and listen to Chelsa and Matt with their cameras. There were a lot of great places to take pictures, and we had fun during our "photo shoots." We just got back last night, but Chelsa already has some posted. Her work is amazing, and she was so great at posing us and having fun with it.

http://chelsaschaeferphoto.blogspot.com/

We got to see a lot of beautiful places. We spent some time downtown Charleston -- mostly walking around and eating. Sunday we went to a southern plantation. We had planned to watch a reenactment one of the Civil War battles (this one only occurs once a year). We missed it by about an hour but still got to see everyone dressed up from it. My friend, Amy, (also lives at Fort Rucker) and I have decided that we will have to go see a battle sometime while we are here in Alabama. Monday the four of us visited Cypress Gardens which was really peaceful. We got to go on a self-guided tour. Ben steered, Chelsa photographed, Matt helped paddle when he felt like it and took pictures the rest of the time, and I posed as our narrator. That night we spent time around the fondue pot - yum!

On the way back, Matt and I decided to spend a little time in Savannah. We found an awesome local pizza place downtown, and took Chaz for a walk along the water. I'm no photographer, but decided to snap a few of Matt in action:
We got a late start to the actual drive home. This picture explains itself...