spring! has sprung!

although we don't experience as dramatic of a spring as other colder places do, i'm still excited to see everything in bloom and looking gorgeous!  the trees seem to appear on the trees overnight :)  and easter is late this year, but we've had plenty to keep us busy!  we just got back from a trip to vegas/portland (the portland part was for a wedding) and tomorrow, my mom arrives!  we have plenty of fun planned around town and lots of good food on the menu (both in and out!).

my little easter chicks :)  (anita's handiwork in the background!)

a tasty day: from brunch to burgers!

we had a lovely lazy sunday today.  but i did try two new recipes and both were hits!  for brunch, sarah was over and we had these tasty little frittatas.  i always thought a frittata had to involve bread, but turns out it's true definition is this:

A frittata is a type of italian omelette, either simple or enriched with additional ingredients, such as meats, cheeses, vegetables and even pasta. It may be compared to a crust-less quiche or, in America, "scrambled eggs."

this particular recipe has you bake them in a muffin tin so you get great little individual size breakfasts :)  definitely making them the next time we have company!  and i'm excited to play around with the fillings.


for dinner, i wasn't sure what to make so nate suggested we try to recreate our favorite arizona hamburger from four peaks brewery, the jalapeño popper burger.  we loved them!  recipes for both are below :)


Mini Ham & Cheese Frittatas

Ingredients

• 1  cup  finely chopped onion
• 1 1/3  cup  chopped ham (about 4 ounces)
• 2/3  cup  (about 3 ounces) shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese
• 4  tablespoons  chopped fresh chives
• 1/4  teaspoon  dried thyme
• 1/4  teaspoon  black pepper
• 7  large egg whites
• 3  large eggs
• 
  
• Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Heat a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 2 minutes or until crisp-tender. Add ham; sauté 3 minutes. Remove from heat; cool 5 minutes. Combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl; stir with a whisk. Add ham mixture, stirring with a whisk.
3. Spoon 1/4 cup mixture into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until set.

Nate & Bri's Jalapeño Popper Burgers

Ingredients

4 Hamburger Buns

Butter

Garlic Powder

Ground beef

Worcestershire

Cream Cheese

Jalapeño, thinly sliced

Alexia frozen onion rings (next time, I want to try Pioneer Woman's recipe for onion straws here- yum!) 

Directions

1. Get some willing to grill the burgers that's good at it and will get them perfectly medium (in this case, Nate) :) send them on their way :)
2. Cook onion rings according to package - throw in a few extra for on the side :)  we used 2 per burger.
3. Melt butter, brush on to hamburger buns, sprinkle with a little garlic powder.  Broil until golden brown.
4. Assemble cooked burger on bun, top with cream cheese, fresh jalapeno slices, and hot onion rings- smush it down so it all melds together into one delicious burger.
5. Enjoy :)  preferably with a good beer!

in like a lamb...

i cannot believe it's almost march!  we've had an action packed couple of months and are looking forward to several more that are just as action packed!  we've had a wonderful time with john & nina in florida as well as everyone that came to join them :)  this weekend, we decided to keep it local, and even managed to get them to a few places they haven't been yet.  last night, we played a great round of hearts - i've never played with a group of people that shoots the moon EVERY hand.  highly entertaining and keeps you on your toes :)

now we are relaxing on the porch, enjoying the weather (and the visual fruits of our saturday morning labor cleaning gutters, pulling weeds, and mowing the lawn) :)  the guys are playing guitar and nina and i are paging through magazines.  lovely lovely lovely.

wasting away again in margaritaville, searching for my lost shaker of salt....

confession

i finally bought the katy perry album.  and i'm kind of excited about it :)  but i also bought the new old 97s album to balance it out :)

Spicy Fish and Spicy Coleslaw!

i've been doing some searching for some throw together type dinners- sometimes i get too ambitious and then we eat dinner at 9:30 pm (aka chili con carne) - oops!  last night's attempt at easy and tasty was just okay, but tonight's was a winner!  we had jerk spiced fish with spicy coleslaw and sweet potato fries (after multiple attempts, i've given in and buy the frozen alexia ones).  the coleslaw was super spicy and definitely my favorite part.  here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 cups cabbage-and-carrot coleslaw mix
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 3 tablespoons canola mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons really finely chopped habanero (extra hot!) or serrano (somewhat hot!) pepper
• Cooking spray/Olive Oil
• 4 (6-ounce) catfish fillets (or any whitefish... i used cod)
• 4 teaspoons Jamaican jerk seasoning (i actually used a jerk marinade that we love- thanks laura and drew!) :) but either way!

Directions

1. Combine first 6 ingredients in a medium bowl; toss well to coat.

2. Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray, add a little olive oil. Sprinkle fish evenly with jerk seasoning. Add fish to pan; cook 3 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness. Remove from heat; serve fish with slaw.

I didn't snag my own picture but it should look a little something like this :)

“When I was a child I wish I’d known the point was to become more and more genuinely my own imperfect, precious unique self.”

-Elizabeth Lesser

mobile blogger?

so nate is the proud new owner of an iPhone which means i now have his hand me down iPod touch until my phone is up for renewal :) what does that mean? expect more photos on the go now that i have a device that can blog AND post photos ;)

Real time update! I may not be able to post photos this way after all! Off to do some research!

the disney dream!

we recently had a wonderful opportunity to cruise on the disney dream (disney's newest cruise ship!)  i had to work, but nate and his parents were able to come along for fun which was really cool!  here are a few pics from our trip -- john took many many more (including some interiors of the room and general goings on), i'll post those once we download them.

exploring the ship right after we got on!


the water slide around the ship (the aquaduck!)

the adult area of the ship with swim up bar!

view from our room (when we were docked at disney's island, castaway cay)

meeting mickey in tropical paradise :)

the disney dream!

donald and daisy :)  daisy was flirting with nate!  donald was jealous :)

more to come!

home again home again, jiggity jig!

we are back on land after a wonderful few days on disney's newest ship, the dream :)  we had a great time! (although i worked every night all night, i got to hang with everyone during the day which was nice).  i'll post pictures once photos of the ship are more commonplace, but it's a gorgeous gorgeous ship and we had wonderful weather!
laura will be arriving this week with fletcher (we'll miss you drew!) and several other family members will be showing up in florida over the next few months.  we're looking forwarding to all of the visiting and beaching :)
the cleo calendar has arrived and we'll be shipping out copies this week so expect one soon if you are in the cleo fan club :)  this year, our goal is to take the pictures gradually through the year instead of banging 11 of 12 months out all in one day! :)  we'll see...

e-i e-i o....

nate:  we'd have been really great farm owners
bri: because we hate manual labor and love sleeping in?
nate: okay.. maybe store owners.  we could have owned the general store because we're good at math and could tell people how much their nails cost.
bri:....

I Want by Kim Konopka

I Want

to shove my clothes
to one side of the closet,
give you the bigger half.
Quietly I’ll hide most of my shoes,
so you won’t know I have this many.

I will
rearrange furniture to add more,
find space on my shelves
for your many books,
nail up the placard that says
poets do it, and redo it, and do it again.

I want
to share a laundry basket,
get our clothes mixed up,
wait for the yelling
when my reds run wild
into your whites
turning them a luscious pink,
your favorite color of me.

I will
move my pillow
to the other side of the bed,
lay yours next to mine,
your scent on the fabric
always near me,
even on nights you’re away.

I will
buy a new bureau to hold your
thousand and one black socks,
find a place for all those work boots,
the ones I refer to as big and ugly.

I want
more pots and pans to wash,
piles of them leaning high
from late night meals
cooked naked and drunk,
red wine pouring into
a sauce of simmering
tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil,
kisses bitten between bites,
and platefuls of our late hours,
stacking up into dawn.

I want
to stock cupboards, closets, and
     pantry,
fill the house with us.
I want to gain weight with you
     because our love,
     our love makes me fat.

well here we are at pismo beach! and all the clams that we can eat!

the FLY foundation

A very good friend of mine was recently diagnosed with cancer. She is fighting back (and if you've been following her blog that's linked on the right, Adjusting the Sails, you're well familiar with how inspiring and wonderful she is)! And while she is fighting her own battle, she and her husband have established a foundation for young adults who have also been diagnosed with cancer. From their website: 

Young adults, aged 19-39, make up less than 10% of all cancer patients, but this age group is the least likely to survive. Several factors contribute to the low survival rate including delays in diagnosis, a shortage of age-tailored treatments, as well as lack of patient health insurance and financial resources.

Such a great cause, I wanted to share with you all.  You can find the website here: http://www.theflyfoundation.org/

new year and new resolutions!

i've never been a fan of resolutions... but i'm starting to understand them.  coming off of a string of holidays where i was entirely too indulgent all around, i'm feeling like a little reorganization is in order :)  remember last spring when i blogged about losing weight?  well it's BACK!  so i'm back on the wagon!  it's all veggies from here on out.

okay, maybe not all veggies, but i am definitely going to be eating healthy and exercising!  i'd say exercising more but that would be a joke.  i haven't experienced sweat due to aerobic activity since last march!  but in the name of the new year, nate and i did head out for a bike ride yesterday and it was so so beautiful outside.  to quote our neighbor "THIS is why we live in Florida, not these crazy cold snaps we've been having!"  stop laughing northeners, it was unseasonably cold here!  we lost several plants to the great drop below 32 degrees of 2010!

i also intend to: blog more recipes, locate my masters degree (i suspect it is somewhere in the garage), gather up a bunch of stuff for good will, restart our 1+ night a week of vegetarian meals, and find a really great pair of jeans.  i guess that's less of a list of resolutions and more of a to do list, but what do you want from me?  i have the attention span of a gnat!

happy new year ;)

merry christmas from nate & bri! (and cleo!)

christmas at the floriday iveys

since this is the first year we had an artificial tree ready to go in storage, our christmas decorations went up early this year!  the day after we got back from pennsylvania actually :)  it's a tiny little tree, and his name his santa.  here he is in all his christmas glory :)

cleo never misses the opportunity to be in a picture :)

the entry.  nate's nativity set on the right.  his church gave one piece away every year as he was growing up... or something like that :)  i call it the jesus block party which makes him mad ;)  i don't mean it in a bad way, but seriously check out all those people that are present at the birth of jesus!

and now some details :)  the christmas tree forest with the bears (i collected them as a kid... bears... not trees...).  this year, i included our house in the scene ;)

the adorable cleo advent calendar that anita made for us last year :)  and my new entry bench!  complete with santa :)

the angel keeps an eye on it all.

the reason for the season!

stocking set #1!

isn't this little dude the cutest?

or maybe this guy- he poops chocolate jelly beans :)

plenty of candy and cookies around at christmas!

and plenty of red, gold, and green! (isn't that a song?)

i bought this weird christmas dog on clearance in blacksburg... good shopping was hard to come by in blacksburg... kinda creepy eh?

stocking set #2!  this one courtesy of anita!

 

 And last but not least, ornaments on the tree :)  the orange bell on the bottom right is always the first ornament i place on the tree.  nate changes it up every year- usually the one he is most excited about.  this year, that happened to be the yuengling beer can :)  also plenty of guitars and cacti can be found!  as well as a few that resemble cleo :)  the spaceship on the bottom left was this year's newest addition :)  

it's a tradition in my family to exchange ornaments on christmas eve.  last year, i gave my mom a set of lollipop ornaments (top row, third in from the left) and after she oohed and ahhed over them, she gently told me that that's what she had given ME the previous year!  turns out i had purchased gum drop ornaments months before christmas and then rediscovered the lollipops she had given me and forgotten or gotten confused because they were both candy... and regifted them.  if you followed that... then you realize what a ditz i am :)  we got it all worked out though ;)

 
hope you all are having a lovely holiday season!  we are :)  happy holidays!

cheese.

i love cheese.  if pressed, i could probably live on it.  as long as there was wine to go with it ;)

austin the marine

as i mentioned earlier, my brother austin recently became a marine :)  i flew to san diego for his graduation and of course took lots of pictures and video :)  this is definitely the best one, right at the end of the ceremony as they receive their dismissal order:

....or... i can't get this video to upload :(  sad.  i'll keep trying!  but for now, pictures!....

can you find waldo?  according to ryan and my dad, they could spot austin by the way he was standing.  what the what?  i couldn't.  but he IS in this picture!

it was really cool to see the base and hear all about boot camp.  they had a really neat museum and welcome center set up so we could see and hear all about the experience.  here's me trying out the backpack they carried (austin said the real one was much heavier!).  i am strong like bull!

 family photo op!  need to photoshop in cassie, nate and cadiem!

los dorks.

 

leaving the base!

 

i'm really proud of austin and so glad i got to be there!

let's do sunset!

(i wrote this in Captiva and am just now posting)


I know it's funny that a post about the beach would come right after a post about fall, but since we were just there: I love living in Florida and being able to head to the beach for the weekend.  sure, the summers are miserably hot but that's passed for the year and we've earned the upcoming six months of beautiful weather (plus we catch a
lot of movies in the summer while enjoying the air conditioning!)!

it's become a tradition of ours to play van morrison's into the mystic as we drive into the area.  you know that moment when you're headed to the beach and then after a long drive you are close enough that the air is a bit cooler and you can just catch a hint of salt or catch a glimpse of the water?  that moment.

I also love:

• How Nate is always reading a Michael Connelly book and because the whole back cover is his face it looks as if Nate's body has Michael Connelly's head.
• The moment after you've dragged a day's worth of stuff out onto the sand and you sit in your beach chair and think "we are here!"
• Floating out in the almost wave-less gulf and being completely and totally relaxed.
• How everyone shows up to watch the sunset in Captiva, cocktail in hand.
• Going to the grocery store on a beach trip (or any vacation really) and going into full vacation food spree mode- cheese!  chips!  wine!  fruit!  crackers!

can't wait to go back ;)

i love fall!

it got a little bit hotter this week, but overall the weather has been just plain gorgeous!  this is by far, my favorite time of year.  lots of mornings and evenings on the porch, drinking coffee or drinking wine, wearing sweaters, digging out shoes that were too hot to wear all summer :)  and of course, pumpkin everything!

we had a really nice weekend -- one of our few local ones lately :)  had several band practices, a really nice evening out to dinner with the conroys, watched the steelers game (they won!), just in general hanging out- it was very relaxing!

i am also super excited that i was able to book a trip to see my brother austin graduate from marine boot camp!  :)  i'll barely be there (24 hours really...) but i will be there and that's all that matters!  i'll also be taking my first red eye flight!  i think i fly through atlanta on the way home, i hope to get some sleep but if not, i can sleep it off saturday and then be rested up for the bottlenecks gig later that night! :)