{a dinner with the banta's}

We are attempting to eat a little more vegetarian around our house. Trying to be slightly more healthy. One of my best friends, Malorie, convinced me to try quinoa. I was a bit skeptical, but she told me she loved it, so I got some, and Ian bravely tried it with me. We love it! We consistently eat this, so I figured I would share the recipe I came up with.

Take the quinoa and follow the directions to cook it. While it is cooking, cook some shrimp (we had Key West shrimp in honor of our honeymoon tonight), cut up some cilantro, and half an avocado.  When the quinoa is almost done, add those ingredients, as well as a clove of garlic finely chopped, some salt and pepper to taste, and some chili powder (or anything spicy you may like). Finish it off with some lime juice and some mango salsa (mangos, onion, garlic, jalapeños, cilantro, lime juice, salt and pepper) and some tortilla chips to add some crunch. It's for real delicious and super healthy!

Let me know if you try it!

{life after wedding}

we are home!!!!! and settling into our home as husband and wife, and it's pretty great. i recommend marriage :)

our wedding was perfect- thank you to so many friends and family who helped pull it off!  it was everything ian and i could have wanted and more.  we are so blessed by the many friends and family who joined us to celebrate!  to say we are thankful is to put it lightly.

our honeymoon was so much fun.  prior to the wedding, i was much more concerned about the weather on our big day (not that i would have been upset if it rained- we had plans for rainboots and umbrellas!), but a few days before leaving while packing for the honeymoon, i checked key west's weather. RAIIIIIIN. we promptly packed rain jackets. which turned out to be a good thing.

let me preface this by saying key west has the best weather of any of the tropics. it has never gotten below 40 degrees (they cancelled school when this happened), and has never gotten into triple digits. it also only rains 30-40 days of the year, and those are usually sprinkles.  well, we got a rare view of 3 full days of rain in key west. tropical storm andrea hit while we were there!  we didn't let it stop us.  we still explored the hemingway house, the southernmost point, and picked out all the places we'd eat all week while it was raining. we got to see the butterfly conservatory, feed sharks and stingrays at the aquarium, and even went to the beach in the rain.  it was perfect, really!

the last few days, the sun came out and typical key west showed us her side.  our favorite part of the trip was an ecotour with the man who ran our bed and breakfast we stayed at.  we went out to a private island (until the boy scouts showed up...), found awesome seashells, snorkeled a bit, and found dolphins that swam right up to our boat and hung out for about 30 minutes! one of the coolest things i've ever experienced- they wanted to see us and check us out... crazy! sadly, i had dropped my camera in a wave, so we didn't get any really close-up pictures of the dolphins (the onces you see are from our boat captain), but it was an experience i will never forget!

they got even closer than this! literally touched our boat

one of the neatest parts of our vacation!

our loot

now life is starting to feel normal... i'm back to working a few hours a week doing home health, we're organizing our new home (praise the Lord i married an organizer!), and life is good!

hope you enjoy a few pictures we didn't post on facebook :)