Flashbacks to 2011

Oh what a year! Here is a little recap of what 2011 looked like for the Corys!


January

Forrest and I hung around the house trying to avoid the cold Virginia weather. We battled it out playing Scrabble (remember we met in a library...we're nerds). I'm pretty sure I won this game with my awesome word...serenity.

February

I went through BODYPUMP training!!! If you haven't had a chance to take a Les Mills class, check out this link to find out where you can try a class today. Also, check out BeachBody to find out how you can start doing BODYPUMP at home in 2012!

Source: google.com via Megan on Pinterest

March

My family came to visit me to celebrate my 26th (yipes) birthday. We had lunch at the Cheese Shop and enjoyed a chilly afternoon walking around Colonial Williamsburg.

April

Forrest and I flew out to California and spent a week hanging out with our great friends Cody and Kiley. Forrest enjoyed surfing some famous breaks including Rincon near Santa Barbara while visiting with Kiley's family, and we caught a San Diego Padres game with Cody's parents.

We went home for Easter to see my wonderful family.

May

My girl Resse and I had a super fun Cinco de Mayo BODYSTEP class...we donned mustaches...and it was awesome!

Forrest accepted a job with Life Fitness and we spent a couple weekends in Raleigh looking for a place to live and moving Forrest in with an air mattress until my school year was over.

June

Forrest started his new job, I interviewed for 3 teaching positions, said good-bye to the wonderful school system, school, and students I had grown to love, and accepted a job at a charter school north of Raleigh. My students and I ordered shirts as kind of a gift to say good-bye (and to try and help them remember how to show possession in Spanish!). They all signed the back and wore them on the last day of school. It was really cool seeing 60 some kids wearing shirts that said "Sra. Cory's cool kids!"

July

I started my job at my new school and the AC in Forrest's car went kaput...which is no bueno when your job requires you to be in your car basically all of the time. We also spent some quality time on the river around the 4th of July!

We also caught up with Gary & Alexis for a few days in Nagshead, NC. Somehow I managed to only take pictures with this huge machine out in the ocean...weird.

August 

We spent a long weekend vacationing with my family in a sweet house down in Rodanthe, NC. Our plans to spend some time with the Corys in Corolla were foiled when Hurricane Irene ripped through the east coast.

September

Since we missed the beach with the Corys, we made a trip to Newport News & had dinner at the Marina at Kingsmill. Forrest's parents and my parents both made trips to NC, and Forrest and I put an offer down on our house!

October

We took a trip to Savannah, GA to celebrate our 2nd anniversary. We had an amazing time!

Forrest had a little surfing accident and ended up with 6 stitches in his foot. We celebrated his 28th birthday by eating a pumpkin angel food cake.

Forrest's sister and her friend came to visit and she took us to the Casting Crowns concert in Greensboro. She also joined us at church the next day when Forrest and I were baptized.

November

We celebrated Thanksgiving in PA with Forrest's sweet Grammy, aunt Mimi, my sis-in-law Lauren, and Forrest's parents.

We officially closed on the house and spent the last few nights of November sleeping on an air mattress in our new house.

December

We moved into the house!!! Then we got to spend so much quality time with both of our families to celebrate the Christmas holiday!

We rang in the New Year with our good friends!

What an incredible year. It has been  such a journey. Forrest and I are just thankful each day that we have a God of grace & love, each other, wonderful families, a beautiful home, jobs we love, and Netflix. haha.

Here is to looking forward to 2012 and all that God has planned for us!

What I Love Wednesday

I follow a couple of blogs that join this Linky Party each week and I have decided to join in on the fun and tell you about what it is I'm loving every Wednesday!

I'm loving this 3 week break I've been enjoying from work. I'm loving sleeping late, hanging out with family, and catching up on episodes of Glee and How I Met Your Mother!

Source: tvovermind.zap2it.com via Jeanette on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Jeanette on Pinterest

I'm loving sparkles, glitter and glam.

Source: iheartquotesle.tumblr.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: bloomingdales.com via Megan on Pinterest

I'm loving these awesome healthy recipes from oxygenmag.com

Source: oxygenmag.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: oxygenmag.com via Megan on Pinterest

I'm loving my red Tom's my hubby got me through reward points he earned by winning second place in a national competition with his company!

Source: google.com via Megan on Pinterest

I'm loving a new year and resolving myself to living this way!

Source: google.com via Megan on Pinterest

I'm loving shades of blue and roman shades

Source: vi.sualize.us via Megan on Pinterest

Source: decorpad.com via Megan on Pinterest

Source: lonnymag.com via Megan on Pinterest

I'm also loving that my mom, big sis and niece are coming this weekend!!!

What are you loving today? Join in the fun by going to the Lollipops blog and linking up!

 


I also linked up to What I'm Loving Wednesday at this kind of love blog. Check out what she and lots of other people are loving today!!

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

So the past few months have been a little crazy. And I have been using that as an excuse to eat pretty much anything I want...whenever I want. Although the scale doesn't reflect this (thank goodness) the softness in my arms, legs and belly do show all the cookies, cupcakes, and Lil Debbies I have been enjoying.

Source: getfitorbust.tumblr.com via Megan on Pinterest

I really love working out and eating clean, but when I moved I wasn't able to get a fitness class on the schedule at the gym where I was hired as an instructor, so I went from teaching 3 or 4 classes a week to ZERO. It has taken me until now to realize that I just can't eat what I used to because no matter how hard I work in the classes I take or lifting with Forrest, I don't burn as many calories as when I teach. When I teach I can't take the lower options, and I have to push through to inspire my participants. Research has shown (I don't remember where I read this) that participants on average will do 70% of what the instructor does...so I always try to do 110% that way they actually end up doing closer to 80% of what is expected from the choreography! Also when I am teaching I am hyper aware of how my body appears to my participants so I usually eat cleaner to maintain a leaner physique. Without that motivation, I kind of loosened up about my diet..which doesn't pair well with working out less.

Anyhow, with the arrival of 2012, and three weddings to attend this year (2 of which I will be a bridesmaid) I decided to resolve myself to cooking cleaner meals for Forrest and me. I am not sure exactly what this looks like, but I am thinking mostly lean meats, veggies and fruit with a few complex carbs thrown in here or there.

Yesterday I jump started the year with some BODYSTEP in the morning and Forrest and I grabbed an evening lift when he got home from work (we actually did different work outs, but checked in on each other here or there to see how it was going).

When we got home I wanted to eat something healthy, and for some odd reason I just had this desire to make lettuce wraps (which actually started while I was grocery shopping at,  Target earlier in the day).

I searched "lettuce wraps" on Pinterest and found several recipes, but I was missing most of the ingredients they required, so I decided to just come up with something on my own...and they were amazing!!!

 

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

1 lb ground chicken

2 carrots, chopped

3 to 4 celery sticks (with leaves), chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic chopped

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp cracked red pepper

1/2 tsp cracked black pepper

1 tbsp peanut butter

1/4 cup Trader Joe's Island Soyaki Sauce

1/4 cup pistachios

1 Romain heart

2 tbsp olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet on medium heat. Add in the onion, garlic, celery and carrots and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Add in the ground chicken and cook until chicken is white (and completely cooked). Add in the ginger, cracked red pepper and black pepper and cook 2 more minutes until veggies are tender. Stir in the peanut butter, Soyaki Sauce and pistachios and cook for another minute. Remove from heat.

Cut off the end of the romaine hearts, rinse and pat them dry. Place the lettuce on the plate first, and then pile on the chicken mixture. 

Forrest was really skeptical because he had never eaten lettuce wraps before, but he told me during dinner that he was impressed that I could just throw something like that together without a recipe and get such great flavor.

 So here is to starting 2012 off with eating healthy! I'm linking up to Tasty Tuesdays over at 33shadesofgreen. Check out lots of other delicious recipes there today!

Well Hello 2012!

Okay...warning...I have had my coffee today and for some odd reason I am a bit shaky and my thoughts are kind of all over the place...so this post is kind of random.

Wow. 2011 has flown by. What a crazy year. A year ago today I had no clue that our lives were going to change...so drastically. But now, 2 moves later, we are settled into our new home where we rang in the New Year with some great friends. Here are a few pics of the food fun:

We started out the New Year by enjoying breakfast at a local restaurant with Gary and Alexis, then headed out to walk around the beautiful campus at Duke University. The weather was amazing....in the high 60s! Later in the afternoon we took down our Christmas decorations and got to meet some of our neighbors. Probably the highlight of our New Year so far though was when Forrest stepped through our ceiling while stowing away our Christmas decorations in the attic. Thankfully he didn't fall through because it is a 2 story drop from where he was walking. We have patched it up though temporarily and I am searching today for someone to come out and fix it.

What can you do about it?

So...2012. What kind of excitement will come our way this year? With the start of each new year I always have ideas going through my head like crazy about things I want to accomplish, new things I want to try, and ways I can improve. For right now though I have just 5 simple things I want to accomplish this week:

1) unpack the remaining 2 boxes from the move and return the boxes to our dear friends who lent them to us
2) clean out the front closet in our kitchen so we can store the vacuum there
3) hang our wall art and put out our pictures
4) finish up details for my lil sisters' bachelorette weekend in Nashville
5) come up with a list of things to do this year and post it on the blog

Okay...so while that is my list of things I want to do...I have to go now take care of the things I have to do: like...find someone to fix our ceiling so our propane bill doesn't go through the roof (get it...haha), take care of the laundry, wash the dishes, get eye Dr. appointments, apply for a job as a fitness instructor at another gym, do some BodyStep to loosen up my back from dead lifting so I can squat today, call and figure out why we got charged rent for January, go grocery shopping...okay I better just go now and start getting this done instead of writing about it.

Happy New Year everyone!
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