Campbell Battalion Military Ball 2012

So I had my military ball was yesterday.  I had a good time.  The All American Chorus performed for us and they did an amazing job.  They performed a neat demonstration of an airborne jump.  They also performed some great patriotic songs by Toby Keith including "American Soldier" and "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" as well as "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood.  The only thing that was missing was my husband but it was for the better.  He had a ton of work to do with his team and some of the guests in attendance at the ball put a bad taste in his mouth so we decided it would be best if I go alone this time.  He did comment on how beautiful I looked though before I headed out to my ball.  Hopefully next year this time, he won't be deployed or anything so he can join me.  =)

Anywho, I got a scholarship award of $850 while I was there.  I felt pretty darn proud of myself.  I was one out of six people I think that got the award from our Battalion of 200+ cadets.  Another cadet from UNCP got the same award too.  It was nice to be able to represent UNCP at the ball like that.  Another funny thing about the ball was that purple was the color of the night when it came to the ladies dresses.  Now I wasn't particular on the color of my dress when I picked it out.  It was just the one I liked best on me.  I was also shopping last minute so I only went to one store.  I picked up my dress at Ross for $40 and my shoes at Shoe Show for $10.  Talk about a deal!  My hair cut and style was $40.  My neighbor did my makeup and I painted my own nails so my expenses came out to less than $100 and I did everything within three days of the ball.  I call that skill lol.

Here are some pics of the night.  Enjoy!

All American Chorus

Here are some videos of the All American Chorus.  I was able to find one that shows part of the airborne demonstration and also one of the chorus singing "God Bless the USA".  I know its not the same as seeing them in person but even the videos give me goosebumps.  I love seeing our soldiers singing songs like these.  Just shows how talented our Americas soldiers are...that they would make time out of their regular MOS jobs to be apart of a chorus like this.  God Bless the USA =)

More Rainbows: Blog Shares

So I'm still exploring different rainbow treats lol.  I think what intrigues me most is the combination of so many bright colors.  Today I have a few of my favorite rainbow treats I'd like to share from some blogs that I follow.  Enjoy!

1.  The first on my list is from one of my favorite bloggers SugarBelle.  She makes the most amazing cookies ever.  These are her rainbow cookie favors.  I love how she bordered the edges of the cloud.  The scripting for the name is so precise too!  Can you see the little heart used on the i's?  :)

SugarBelle's Rainbow cookies

2.  Number two on my list is from Darla from Bakingdom.  I think this cake is just awesome how she made a heart inside the cake!  This one was so neat.  :)

3.  Third is Caroline from Chocolate and Carrots.  She made a mini rainbow cake...not so mini once all the layers are stacked but still beautifully delicious all the same.  :)  You can check out more pics of this cake on her guest post on Bakingdom.

4.  Number four is Manda from IamBaker.  She made some really neat homemade rainbow sprinkles and decorated her cake that way.  

You can also check out some cool rainbow recipes at Tablespoon.com

Again with my rainbow fetish :)

So my rainbow cake was a hit yesterday at my neighbor's birthday party.  All the kids loved it and so did all the parents.  Everyone wanted a piece!  There was none left by the end of the party so my husband didn't get a slice by the time he showed up haha.  Next time I'll make a 9 x 13 instead of a 10" square.

So this morning I was still in my rainbow mode and so can you guess what we had for breakfast??? LOL  Yep rainbow pancakes.  I decided to get a little creative and cut out little stars from the pancakes.  You might be thinking I made these pancakes for my kids except I have none aside from my lovely chihuahuas. Yep, a grown woman and man ate rainbow pancakes from breakfast haha.  My chihuahuas ate the cut-out leftovers from the pancakes.  My husband says I'm going rainbow crazy.  Maybe I am haha!

Rainbows Everywhere!

Lately I've been obsessed with rainbow treats.  I've discovered a recipe website called Tablespoon.  This website has so many neat recipes and especially rainbow treats!  My neighbor is having an early birthday party for her daughter before her husband deploys so I volunteered to make the cake for the party.  Last night I attempted one of the rainbow treats I found on Tablespoon.  The recipe I used was actually to make mini rainbow cakes but instead of making the cake into small cakes, I left them as is.

The first step was to make the colored cake batter.  I used classic and neon food coloring for the colors as directed by the recipe.  For the orange, I used a 2:1 ration of classic yellow and red.  This gave me a nice vibrant orange.  Depending on how much batter you are using (I used a little over a cup of batter each), you'll need between 15-30 drops to make sure your cake gets a nice bright color.

This blue came from the neon food coloring set.  I only need about 15 drops to get this color.

The green was a mixture of classic and neon greens.  I didn't actually record how much of each I needed. I just kept mixing until I got a bright and vibrant green.  I think I used about 25 drops.

Next was to bake each color separately.  First, I put parchment paper in my baking pan and then spread one batch of cake batter.  The parchment paper helps with easy clean up and faster baking.  Once the batter is spread out on the parchment paper, it may not look like much but once the cake is done, it will be a nice thick cake.

Each layer bakes for only 10 minutes.  Like I said, the parchment paper made for faster baking.  I was able to switch the layers out quickly to cool.  Let each layer cool for at least 10 minutes.

Once all the layers have been baked and cooled, it's now time to stack and frost!

At first, it's going to look messy but once all the layers are stacked and frosted, I put the cake in the freezer for two hours.

After 2 hours in the freezer, I took the cake out and cut off the sides to make the layers even.  Next I frosted the top and viola!  You have yourself a rainbow cake!  It's not the most amazing but hey it looks pretty good for my first one!  I chose not to frost the sides because the colors were so pretty.

You can check out this recipe here.  Try it for yourself.  Post a comment and let me know how yours comes out.  =)

Officially Sworn In

So many of you have read about my struggles with retrieving a contract with the Army ROTC.  It has been a long and hard fought journey.  I started off doing Air Force ROTC in 2006.  I spent two years with them trying to get a scholarship.  I was getting ready for Field Training (30 day evaluation of officership) and I still hadn't gotten the scholarship, so I got out of the program and kept going to school.

My dreams of becoming an officer were a far off memory for a couple years until last summer.  We had just moved to NC and I talked to a friend who really sparked my interest in the program again so I signed up for ROTC my first semester at UNCP (Fall 2011).  I hit the ground running.  My motivation was at 200% and I performed everything to best of my ability last semester.  I started the contracting process in early September.  Lots of bad news came...first was around October, the Army was cutting officer slots for commissionees for the years 2012 through 2015.  My year was 2014 and our contracts got drastically cut.  Our battalion is made up of four universities and there were only 13 possible contracts to be split among 66 potential cadets.  Talk about slim to none.  The next bad news came in December, my medical examination came back as disqualified because of my history of psoriasis.  I thought my chances were done, but my cadre pulled together in February to send out a request to waive my disqualification.

Then the waiting began....the months dragged by as I waiting for the ultimate outcome but I continued to give my all...not just in ROTC but my classes as well.  If the ROTC plan were to fall through, I wanted to make sure I continued to be efficient in my classes striving for As in all my classes.

This past Tuesday, my Captain came to me with the best news ever.  I was going to sign my contract and ASAP.  He wanted me to go up to Battalion right away to sign the paperwork and swear in.  I think my heart literally jumped out of my chest when he told me this lol.

So yesterday, I officially swore my life to the United States Army.  Next week, I get all my paperwork together to start the SMP and from there it's a rap!  Just keep trucking until May 2014.  I can't believe I've come this far.  It seemed like such a long road but in reality time has flown by me.  It was just around this time last year I was telling myself that I had three years until graduation.  I'm coming up to the end of this semester in less than 30 days, then I start my evaluation year for ROTC, next summer I'll be going to LDAC, and then the countdown begins to graduating and commissioning.  Wow how time flies!

Weekend Ranger Challenge

So Saturday, I did a 6 mile road march with my Ranger Challenge team.  It was a lot of fun but hard work.  Friday, we went to the gym and worked out on our legs hard....I mean hard!  I got challenge by one of the other cadets to push my hardest and I ended up leg pressing 300 pounds.  Talk about beast! haha  Well I was hating life early Saturday morning when I woke up to screaming muscles.  I double checked my ruck to make sure it was ONLY 35 pounds so I wouldn't be killing myself too much.  Once I had that checked, I got dressed and headed out to Fort Bragg to meet up with my teammates.

I was hoping the rain would lighten up but....it didn't.  Then I hoped our team leader would cancel the road march but....he didn't! lol  So by a little after 7 am, we were on the trail starting what seemed as never-ending in the beginning.  I remember how I was thinking when we took off on the first mile, I have 5.8 miles to go and my legs are so sore!  And with the rain tolling down on us, our rucks and our clothes got heavier as we climbed up and down hills.

I was so happy to get to the 3 mile mark.  It meant I was half way to getting back in my car and relaxing my legs lol.  But it also meant I was trucking along great.  We made great timing the whole way.  By the 4th mile, we were 53 minutes in.   That's the same timing we did for our last 4 miler except this time we had extra variables weighing down on us, so I have definitely gotten faster.

As we neared our finish line, we slowed down a bit to finish with the team we started with.  Like our team leader says, we are only as strong as our weakest link.  But it felt good to finish out with them...as a TEAM.  :)

Tomorrow I have a special surprise for all your readers.  It's something I've been anticipating for a while, but I want to write about in detail later.  Stay tuned!