Chacho's

One of our favorite restaurants down here is Chacho's. It's great Mexican food, in great portions, for a great price. They are also famous for their margaritas, but we wouldn't know about that. :p Anyway, today with our order of chips we got the mother-of-all-chips. I just had to share!

((Pretty dang impressive!))

Greenway Trails

I just love the greenway trails down here. When it's not deathly hot I love to walk/run them! There's always lots of deer and other creatures. I came across this guy and pestered him a little bit. He was just too cute. Then I took a photo. :)

Spaghetti Spaghetti

Last night over dinner:

Ashley - "I feel like we're at a gourmet restaurant! We should own a restaurant and serve this. What would we call it? 'Spaghetti -some special word for squash- with Roasted Garlic Marinara?'"

Zack - "No. It should be called 'Spaghetti Spaghetti!'"

So, what IS Spaghetti Spaghetti? Well it's a little Spaghetti Squash....

Plus some homemade marinara with roasted garlic tossed in!

Talk about delicious!

Cooking the squash was so easy! I LOVE squash, but this was my first time cooking a Spaghetti Squash.

Wash it

Cut it lengthwise

Scoop out the seeds

Place flesh side down in a pan with some water

Pierce the skin with a fork a couple times

Put it in the oven at 450 for about 40 minutes

Let it cool a little

Pull out the flesh with a fork

Viola!

Roasting garlic is really easy too!

Peel off the outer layers of a head of garlic (for this dish I used two heads of garlic)

Cut off about 1/4 of an inch of the top of the garlic

Place in tin foil

Drizzle olive oil over the garlic

Close up the foil and toss it in the oven with the squash for about 30 minutes

Let it cool until you can handle it and then just pop the cloves out!

The marinara sauce takes about 20 minutes to make. I used a recipe online and adjusted it for my needs.

Make it while the squash and garlic is cooking!

Heat up a skillet on medium heat and then toss in some olive oil

Saute about a cup of chopped onion (you know, until soft and translucent and all that jazz)

Now to get all those brown bits you're going to add 1/2 cup of a 1:1 ratio of cider vinegar and water to the pan and scrape/stir

Get it boiling and let it keep cooking for about a minute or so

Add 2 14oz cans of tomato sauce (or diced, or crushed, or whatever type of tomato you prefer)

Also add 1 Tbl parsley (I also added about 3/4 tsp basil)

1 tsp or so salt

1/4 to 1/2 tsp pepper

Hopefully your garlic is ready now, this is when I tossed mine in. If you don't like roasted garlic, you can just use a clove or two of minced garlic and saute it with the onion. I tossed my roasted cloves in whole, but you can mash yours or do whatever you like. Also, you can use as little or as much as you like! It's great mashed with butter and used for garlic bread (which would be a perfect addition for this meal)!

Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down and let it simmer (stirring occasionally) until dinner time

Then scoop up however much squash and sauce you'd like and eat!!!

I'll definitely experiment with spaghetti squash again, it's delicious!

Aunt Cathy

My (Ashley here) aunt (my father's sister) passed away last week. It's times like these that make being so far away from family difficult. A lovely obituary along with comment contributions from those who knew Cathy can be found here. I didn't get to spend a ton of time with Aunt Cathy, but enough to know she loved her daughter and quilting. She also loved being a nurse. Being a fighter, she outlived her doctors' predictions for her life by about 4 & 1/2 years! She is definitely missed.

Photo from the last time I was with Cathy (Christmas 2012)

Top left:Patricia Eich and Mark Avery (Ashley's parents)

Top right: Mary Garrison (Mark's sister)

Bottom: Zack and Ashley Baldwin, Grandma Blanche Avery (Mark's mother), Cathy Lewis, David Avery

Mother's Day: Part Deux

So essentially this has nothing to do with Mother's Day, but was basically a much needed escape and what I had wanted to originally do last Sunday.

!!!SIX FLAGS!!!

We started off the day with Superman and then hopped over to Sky Screamer Backwards.

I took some video, but my phone and computer are not cooperating, I'll try again later.

 Then we got SOAKED on Bug's White Water Rapids!

 Note our visors....idk what Zack was thinking! ;)

If you squint you can see us in the front row of the leftmost picture

After trying to dry off a bit in the bathroom we decided to do Poltergeist.

Have you ever blacked out on a ride? Me neither....but I was milliseconds away from doing so!

CLICK HERE to see a video of the ride. Pay attention to how crazy fast it takes off. From the time the ride started to about the 40 second mark in the video I thought I was a goner, then there's a slight break in ride and my brain was like "oh, this isn't to infinity and beyond, we're good" and I was able to enjoy it. 

To finish off the day we road Scream, which is basically a grown up version of that frog hopper they have at Enchanted Forest.....but I'll be darned....at over 200 feet I SCREAMED when that thing dropped!

I wanted to ride Goliath or the Iron Rattler (or both!) while we were there, but we were pretty worn out, hungry, and Zack was sun burned from being outside yesterday (basketball shoot-out at work).

We chowed down at Olive Garden and then crawled into bed for a nice long nap! When I awoke I went for a late evening walk, watched some TV, and now it's past 1am. All in all, I'd say it was a pretty solid day of fun!

Also, here's my pretty flowers Z brought home the other day.

I love that he is always thinking of me! <3

Mother's Day Weekend

Thursday night I went to see Divergent with my friend Kerri and she informed me that Friday she was going downtown to finalize the adoption of their foster baby, Ray. I asked to tag along so I could turn in some paperwork for my job. Yes, I found a job! I'll be working as a "Recreation Specialist (Site Manager)" for the San Antonio Parks and Recreation's summer program. The true definition should be employee supervisor, money handler, food watcher, equipment manager and glorified babysitter. Anyway, Zack dropped me off at the Nelson's at 7:30 and we all hopped in the car to drop off Josh (their oldest son) at school and beat rush traffic downtown. Everything went smoothly and the office I had to walk to was literally only a block and a half away from the courthouse. Here's a picture of the courthouse, the cathedral next door, and Ray with his adoptive parents Cole and Kerri. They've been awesome friends to us, and it's been a great help learning about fostering to adopt since that may very well be our future.

My favorite photo :)

This guy was "JUST HERE FOR JESUS!" Amazing addition to a perfect day.

We're so happy for these guys! Later that evening I dropped off the photos at their place along with a bottle of "Sweet Baby Ray's" BBQ Sauce (get it?) and a little something for Mother's Day.

Saturday I attended a baptism for the newest members of our ward because I was asked to sing. It was actually the first I've attended since my own almost 6 years ago and I'm so glad I was able to participate. After the ceremony my friend Stephanie and I hit the mall in search of some new shoes for her swelling feet (pregnancy will do that to ya!). We ended up finding a pair and then went to Freddy's for a burger and custard, yum! Zack had spent the day helping a friend move and was tired, so after a nap we went on a date and had a fun little evening.

Zack and I had agreed to play hooky from church on Mother's Day. I wanted to go to Six Flags to totally keep my mind off things and finally use our passes, but Z thought it would be too crowded and to watch a movie instead. He gave me a lovely massage and then we went on a long walk on the green way. It was hot, but felt great.

When we got home we Skyped with our families, showered, and called it a day. I'm thankful we decided to take a day off from church. I was much happier spending time with my husband and relaxing rather than seeing all the mother's at church getting praised and honored making me feel like crap and unworthy. It was my third mother's day like this, and after having spent two the latter way, I think we will skip again in the future if we are still in this position.

Anniversary-Birthday-Birthday 2014 Edition

A & Z on our Anniversary

Birthday Selfies

Went to an Easter Egg Hunt with Kerri

Desert, TV, and cuddles=perfection!

We've been waiting a long time to buy a washer and dryer, and for my birthday we were finally able to make it happen! I LOVE having my own! Always using coin laundry during our marriage I didn't really know any different, but now I don't think I can ever go back. It's so convenient, clean, and just easier/better all around!

Here's Z hooking up the dryer. <3

For Z's birthday he invited all his friends to breakfast at the Magnolia Pancake Haus. Very yummy!

Cole's gift, a massage from a sweet oriental woman who I don't think fully grasps the concept of a gift card. Adorable!

Zack blowing out the candles on his Munchener Apfel Pfannekuchen!

So what does 4 years married at 25 & 26 look like?