Grandpa and Xie on Sunday

Cute shoes, Xie!


And who is this dapper young man?

How to make a Cookie Bouquet

Oh dear, my page is really turning into recipe/food page...but I couldn't resist, this is such a cute idea!

Coconut Cake

Amazing recipe! =)

2 cups 2% milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups coconut
1/4 tsp salt
- Mix and heat together in pan on low heat for 5 minutes

1 Box yellow cake mix

1 large container of light cool whip

Bake cake according to recipe on back of box in a 9x13 in glass baking dish. After cake is done, make holes in cake all over with a fork. Pour heated coconut mixture over top of cake. Cool.
Top cake with cool whip. Sprinkle top with more coconut (optional: color coconut with food coloring as desired; jelly beans add a special touch for children at Easter).

Refrigerate cake until ready to serve.

Mel's famous salad =)

You've got to try this! It's the yummiest green salad I've ever had.

Dressing:
1/4 c canola oil
2 T red wine vinegar
2 T sugar
1/4 t saltdash Tobasco sauce

Salad: (all in desired quantities)
Romaine lettuce
Spring greens
Green onions, chopped
Bacon, crumbled
Toasted almonds
Chicken strips, cooked
Strawberries, quartered
Oranges, peeled, sectioned and cut into thirds

Mix dressing ingredients and shake. Allow time for the sugar/salt todissolve. Keep in fridge if made ahead of time, but remove from fridge a little while before serving to allow dressing to warm up a little. Dressing ingredients will combine much better when shaken upon serving if the ingredients aren't cold! Prepare salad ingredients. Just before serving, combine ingredients. Salad may be served with dressing already mixed in, or on the side forpeople to add in their preferred amount to their own salads. If youthink your guests may not care for certain ingredients (i.e., almonds),you could serve these on the side as well for people to add to their salads if desired.

Pirate Party!

Ahoy mateys. Saturday last I was a swashbuckling pirate ARRRR! Some friends and I went to the movie (very entertaining, although not as great as the first) and then had ourselves a pirate party, complete with pirate food (and drink!).

Happy birthday NOT!

Well so far today has been a pretty terrible birthday. First, I celebrate my 23rd by working on Angie’s master’s thesis (EEK!) for 6.5 hours (until 2:30 AM). Then, I’m late for my carpool, have a massive workload dumped on me, computer system crashes, can’t email Angie all the work I did on her paper, and can’t begin to make a dent in my darn workload. ARRRRGH!

Speaking of ARRRR, I’ll be posting pictures from my pirate party soon!

Colonial Dancing

Think Pride & Prejudice! Now all I have to do is find Mr. Darcy.

23rd Birthday List =)

Tomorrow, July 13, I will be 23!

Here's what Mom wrote today (July 12) was like 23 years ago:
-Dad becoming XO of VAQ 137
-Angie, playing with her new birthday baby doll and cradle
-Melanie, gathering up her little hard earned savings to buy lavish clothes for the newcomer (aww thanks Mel! =)
-Diana, getting ready to enter high school
-My last day to be pregnant, with those wonderful internal hiccoughs and wiggles
-A new and wonderful joy about to burst forth into the world!

Well, now that I'm 23, I do believe I'll actually be moving out to get my own apartment! Thus you will see many domestic ideas on my birthday wish list =)

In order of preference...
1. Digital camera
2. Kayak
3. Kayak rack for car
4. Cutco knives – chef’s knife, paring, and small or medium serrated
5. Kitchen Aide Mixer
6. Laptop computer
7. Bed
8. Dresser
9. Floor lamp
10. Big rug
11. Quilted down comforter – white/cream
12. Crock pot (and slow cooker cookbook)
13. Dutch oven (cast iron) – with glass lid
14. Hot pink rubber cleaning gloves =) – size medium

Billy and Franklin Graham

Jessi, Dad and Mom at Phillips Restaurant

Early Sunday morning, I hopped on a choir bus from church to go up to Baltimore to a Billy and Franklin Graham Festival in Camden Park (go Orioles!). I met up with Mom and Dad (who had already been there a couple of days with some friends) and went to lunch at Phillips Seafood Restaurant. Unfortunately, as I do not like seafood (or any animals still in their original form), I was not overjoyed when my flounder came out with a tail and thousands of splinter-sharp microscopic bones. I really tried to eat it, but YUCK! =) Mom and I swapped and I ate one of Baltimore's famous crabcakes.

Jessi and Dad at Baltimore's Inner Harbor
We then explored Baltimore's inner harbor. The day was perfect- not too hot or humid, sunny and bright, on the water; what more could you want? Mom bought me a beautiful light green shell bracelet from a boardwalk vendor (thanks Mom!) and we searched for a Ben & Jerry's to no avail.

Billy Graham (top left) and Cliff Barrows (bottom right)
I was thrilled to see Billy Graham; I've always heard of him and feel like he's a friend. Franklin Graham, Cliff Barrows, and George Beverly Shea were also there, and I especially loved worshiping with the Newsboys from Australia. They were great.

Blue Like Jazz

So I've started reading this book that comes highly recommended to me by many people. It's the simple yet profound reflections of a man (don miller) on Christian spirituality. I have been challenged:
"Can you imagine if Christians actually believed that God was trying to rescue us from the pit of our own self-addiction? Can you imagine? Can you imagine what Americans would do if they understood over half the world is living in poverty? Do you think they would change the way they live, the products they purchase, and the politicians they elect? If we believed the right things, the true things, there wouldn't be very many problems on earth."
~From the chapter on Belief, pgs. 106-107

Happy 4th of July!

Mom, Dad and I celebrated the 4th at the Yorktown point. We enjoyed a great cookout with friends at the Hornsby House, which is just in front of the Yorktown Victory monument. Good times!

The Air Force band played all the wonderful songs of the United States.

That's me!

Dad and Mom

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend."

Evolution of Dance

Very, very entertaining!

Jessi runs the 5-K Freedom Run...or at least crosses the finish line!

Erin the artist

Check out my friend Erin's art.

Kayaking

Imagine kayaking through eel-infested whitewater and suddenly – hurdling over a waterfall! Now imagine the opposite. In a pond. Such was Saturday's kayaking unadventure in the adventureless life of Jessi. Alas, my two-day whitewater kayaking training class and tour was cancelled this weekend. Flooding schlmooding.

GK Chesterton

"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered."