Sorry for the hiatus--we are in NC

We made it to North Carolina. It has been a very long and busy few months, but we all made it safe and sound.

So, important things first, I guess. Ian is completely, 100%, diaper-free, and has been for about three months now. He uses the big potty instead of the little guy one and it is so nice to not need to clean up after every potty break anymore! He sleeps all night with no problems, and has very few accidents during the day. Those generally happen when we're not prepared for them. ;)

North Carolina is different. It's hot. And the drivers are horrible. I am amazed that I have only seen a handful of accidents. Of course, we don't leave the base too often so that may play a part. We're pretty self-sufficient here on Pope AFB/Fort Bragg. Two large BX/PX and Commissaries, a separate mini-mall, restaurants, fast food places, gas stations, auto service centers, TONS of parks...there is really no reason to leave.

We went on our first adventure last week. We drove the 50 miles to Raleigh, the state capital, and it is beautiful! Fayetteville is so dirty and trashy looking, I have really not been impressed. But Raleigh is very pretty and green and clean. We may head to the beach this weekend, but haven't decided. Hazen has his eyes set on a bicycle so he can start training for a Triathalon, so it's possible we'll be making a trip to the bike shop instead.

I've applied for a couple of jobs. So far my most promising leads have been with Bank of America. It's a part-time teller position, nothing glamorous, but it's not a lot of hours and they will pay for Ian's daycare/preschool while I'm there. I had an interview with one location about a week ago that really didn't go well. I had a second interview with a different, CLOSER location on Monday that I feel pretty good with. If I get it, great, if I don't, that's fine, too. It's no rush for me to start working, I'd just really like to get some progress made on my student loans!

Other than that, there isn't much to say. I'm hoping to be a better blogger in the coming months. I'd like to keep this updated and full of pictures. I'm hoping to be better about staying in contact with family and sending them pictures, also. I got a bunch of pics downloaded to the new computer yesterday, so hopefully I actually bother to do something with it all.

One thing I would like to start doing is posting our weekly dinner menu. I'm thinking if I blog it out and get excited about it, maybe it will keep me sticking to it more than I do. I do pretty well, but there are some days I just don't want to cook! Which makes no sense because the majority of the time, it takes LESS TIME for me to suck it up and cook our dinner than it takes for us to drive to a restaurant, wait for seating, wait to place our order...

So, I'm not going to post our entire menu today. That will have to wait until the weekend because shopping day is on Friday, which means I won't have our menu and shopping list planned out until we are about to leave the house. But I can say that last night we had turkey burgers served on whole-wheat pitas with homemade sweet potato fries. I've never in my life had a sweet potato fry, but let me say they are delicious! I just need to figure out a better system for cutting the sweet potatoes because they were nowhere near to being uniform in size. It was also the consensus that they needed LESS garlic. The excess garlic burnt in the stove, and really wasn't appetizing. The turkey burgers were also very dry because I cooked them at 450 with the potatoes because I was too impatient to cook them each at their proper temperatures. Live and learn!

Tonight we are having Chipotle burritos (super easy, yummy Crock-pot recipe) with homemade guacamole. Possibly pico-di-gallo (how is that spelled????), too, if I can talk the hubby into making it. His comes out much yummier than mine.