Corned beef tacos

I'm a quarter Irish; my dad's dad immigrated here to become a jockey when he was a teenager. So when Chris and I heard about Taco Tuesday at a local Irish pub, we decided to celebrate my 'roots'. If you haven't tried corned beef tacos, your missing out.

Hooley's is now a 25 min drive from our new place, so we have only gotten to go once since Caden was born. What do you do when you can't have your favorite restaurant meal? You recreate it at home, of course. 

Seriously, try it. It is simple and delicious.

Tacos:
Corned beef with seasoning packet
White corn tortillas
Shredded cabbage
Shredded cheddar cheese

Sauce:
Ranch

Your favorite hot sauce



Place the corned beef in the crock pot, add the seasoning, cover with water, and cook on low for 10 hours. If I am short on time, I cook it on high for about 4 hours, and low for another 4. It turns out just as good.

When it's done, let it sit on a plate for a few minutes, then scrape off the fat and shred the meat.
Heat up the tortillas however your heart desires. I put them right on the griddle for about 30 seconds each side.

Make the sauce as spicy as you like it. I mix ranch with a little red hot. 

Assemble these babies! Take your warm tortilla, add corned beef, a little cabbage, a little cheese, and top with your spicy ranch.

 

We've had a hard time deciding what to serve with these (Oh, to be healthy or not). In the picture, I served them with corned beef mac n cheese as another ode to our favorite pub, and I've also done salad, but french fries also sound good. Enjoy!

 

Marriage in One Year- The Hard Moments

Last week, I shared some of the funny moments from our first year of marriage. This week, it is some of the hard moments.

My grandfather passing away While Chris was at boot camp, my grandfather went into heart surgery. It was almost three months of going in and out of the hospital, and me making the road trip from Tucson to Phoenix on the weekends, before I got the phone call that said I needed to come home right then and there. Chris was in a-school at the time, and I called him crying as I ran around my dorm room trying to get my stuff together. Two days later, Chris surprisingly got approved for emergency leave and flew home just in time for the funeral. Losing my grandfather was so hard on me because he was the father figure in my life, and also because I never got the chance to tell him that I got married. Even though my grandfather liked Chris, he would never have approved of me getting married so young and so quickly, so my mom and I made the decision to not tell him. It was heartbreaking that I had to hide something so important, and that I never got a chance to tell him. I couldn't have been more grateful that my husband was there for me during the funeral.

The day of the funeral

Starting out our marriage as a long distance couple We got married while Chris was in a-school, and I flew home from Chicago after the weekend to go back to school. It was definately not the way I imagined my first few months as a newlywed. What kept me positive was the fact that all I had to do was finish the semester, just two months, and by that time Chris would have gotten his orders, and we could start planning to live together.

Deployment Chris came home for his two week leave in between a-school and his new duty station and then flew to his ship in San Diego. We planned that I would come down there in about two weeks so that he could take house hunting leave and we could go apartment hunting, then after spring two weeks with my family, we could move in. Chris called me the first night he was there and said, "The ship is getting underway tomorrow." I was not ready for this first real experience as a navy wife- we hadn't even gotten a chance to live together! He left for a week, flew home for the weekend, left for a week, and then I flew down to San Diego for five days before he left for three months. During one of his days home, he went and signed a lease for an apartment that I had found online so that I could move in before his ship got home. In our first six months of marriage, we got to spend three weeks together (split between four visits) , and most of our communication happened through email. That first homecoming was definately memorable though.

June 2010, the weekend before RIMPAC

 

Realizing that military life really was going to be as hard as I expected Experiencing a long distance relationship for the first six months of our marriage and dealing with a three month underway definately tested our limits, but at least it prepared me for what life would be like as a military life. Of course, I still struggle with military life three years later, but at least I had some idea of what I was getting into from the beginning.

San Diego Zoo 2010

 

I miss cuddling with my baby

Up until a couple weeks ago, Caden had to be sung to sleep in our arms before being put down for bed. I have avoided cry it out techniques as much as possible during our sleep training, but when he started really fighting while I tried to put him to sleep, I started putting him in the crib and walking away. Most of the time, he was asleep within 10 minutes and rarely needed me to do a check or give him his binky a second time. During this time, I was telling my mom about his new habits, and she said, "Maybe he wants to put himself to sleep now." I should have been ecstatic to hear that, but all I could think was "my baby doesn't need me anymore." (I know, I know.)

So, after four months of having Caden sleep in bed with me at least three hours every night, and then two weeks of him not wanting anything to do with cuddling or sleeping with his momma, I miss it. So much so, that I made a collage of all the sleeping with mommy or daddy pictures I had on my phone.

Funny Stuff from our First Year of Marriage

Kalyn at Love. Laughter. Happily Ever After. has started a very sweet series, Marriage in One Year that I am super excited to read about. The series features 10 brides who got married in June 2012 who are going to share their experiences from the first year of marriage, but anyone is invited to link up. This week is all about the funny moments from the first year.

In March, Chris and I celebrated our third anniversary, so we aren't too far from that newlywed mark. Our first year of marriage was an interesting one, to say the least. Here are three of my favorite funny memories from our first year:

1. This one technically happened before we were married, but it is too good not to share. After Chris graduated boot camp, we got engaged and decided that we would get married in the court house and plan our wedding later. I flew down to Chicago on a Friday, and that afternoon we went and got our marriage license. In our excitement, we walked out without our license. It wasn't until after the cab driver dropped us off at the mall (so I could find shoes) and drove away that we realized. We literally got to the vital records office as they were closing for the weekend. I was nearly in tears the whole time, but now we look back on it and laugh.

March 2010

2. Hands down our favorite story.. Chris and I were pretty broke our first year of marriage, there wasn't much room in the budget for furniture, and a credit card wasn't really an option for us. The only furniture we had for about six months was a bed, a dresser and two bar stools. We lied down a comforter and pillows in the living room and used that as a couch. When we started looking to buy one, we were not willing to spend over $500 for a couch, and I am a big germophobe, so I wouldn't buy a second hand one off of craigslist. One day, we stopped by Rent to Own next to the grocery store, and we noticed a used leather couch for $200. I didn't have a problem with buying leather used, since I could wipe it clean, plus it was comfortable, so we were ready to get it. Then we realized, it was part of a sectional, and it only had one arm. For some reason, we were okay with it. So we had that ugly one-armed couch for two and a half years. Chris even grew attached to it and begged me to let him keep it in Caden's room instead of selling it to get a nice and bigger one! Oh, the one armed couch.


Our first month in our apartment looked like this. Thank goodness we have a giant entertainment center though.

3. Speaking of furniture, our dining room set is another good story. I have a passion for antiques, which we can't afford, so I had an idea to get an old dining room set from the thrift store and fix it up (something I still want to do). Chris agreed to do the dirty work, and one day we found a set of six chairs that were super cheap ($30) because they needed new seat covers and were a little banged up. We brought them home, and they just sat in the dining room as if some little kid had been using them to play school bus. One day, Chris took the first step and unscrewed the seats from the chairs so that he could sand the wood and I could reupholster the seats. Once again, they just sat there. My in-laws planned a visit, so we decided to buy a table, but we could find one we liked in time so we just bought one of those long plastic tables.. It was embarrassing looking. Not to mention the fact that we had to tell everyone to be careful because the seat bottoms were not screwed into the seats. Only one person took a tumble that weekend! It was actually a lot of fun that we didn't have any furniture our first year because it encouraged our family to tell us their funny stories about their makeshift furniture when they were young. Don't worry, we now have a normal table that we bought from a furniture store. We are still talking about buying patio furniture though..



June Green Series: All Purpose Cleaner

In an attempt to organize my blog, I'm going to post a green series once a month with some recipes or tips that I have found.. I'm going to start with an all purpose cleaner, since it's a staple in our house that we use almost everyday!

About two years ago, I started making my own cleaner for around the house. Now that we have a little one, I am even more in favor of my chemical free cleaner. There are a ton of cleaner recipes out there, but I use a pretty simple one:

1 part water
1 part vinegar
1 part hydrogen peroxide
20 drops tea tree oil
20 drops lavender or lemongrass

In case your worried that an all-natural cleaner won't be as effective as your bleach or other chemical cleaner, here are some facts to ease your mind:

Vinegar kills most mold, bacteria and germs because of its high acid content.
Hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizer and disinfectant.
Tea tree oil fights bacteria, fungi, and viruses and stimulates the immune system.

I was a little nervous about the vinegar smell, but its really not an issue. The lavender and lemongrass don't completely cover up the vinegar, but it goes away as soon as it dries. Honestly, I would rather smell vinegar than a chemical bleach smell.

I usually make one big bottle and switch between the lavender and lemongrass. It's the only cleaner we use- for dusting, wiping down the sinks and kitchen counters, cleaning the bathroom. Just like any cleaner, let it sit for a few minutes so it has time to work its magic!