Picture Posts: Local Beauty

by 6:00 AM
Taking time for myself has proven to be a bit of a challenge lately. Between all of our business ventures, dinner, and attempting to keep the house semi-clean in the process, I feel like I haven't  had a minute to spare. So this morning I woke up extra early (5:30am) to be out the door for some me time by 6am.

I headed on a short walk to the little pavilion and dock in Fort Ann, I have kind of fallen in love with it down there. It's always empty and it can be pretty peaceful. If you can ignore the fact that the water is brown and look past the empty beer boxes from some teenagers party there, it really can be a beautiful place. I really wish it was taken care of a bit more, I think I am going to start taking a trash bag with me each time I go down there.
I am sure I just made it sound terrible, so I'll show you what it can look like when you ignore those things, a picture is worth a thousand words right?









It was a very nice little break this morning, sitting on the dock snapping a few photos. I hope you all enjoyed!

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Friday Faves: Grilled Chipotle-Lime Fish Tacos with Brown Rice and Bean Salad

by 3:06 PM
Monday night I made these fish tacos, they were delicious! They are Gluten Free, but those in extreme cases may want to substitute the Vinegar. 

So, I decided to share the recipe with you all as my favorite of the week. This does have a marinating time of 8-10 hours, I hate when I get excited about a recipe and realize it has too long of a marinating time for me to make that night and of course it doesn't say that until the bottom of the recipe after I've already put it together so, I'm saving you  from that experience now.

This recipe is for 2lbs of fish.


Marinade:


1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
4 TBS Distilled White Vinegar
4 TBS Fresh Lime Juice (about 3-4 limes).
4 tsp Lime Zest
1 TBS honey
4 Cloves of Minced Garlic (I just cut the garlic into small pieces since my garlic mincer somehow disappeared)
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Chili powder
2 tsp Chesapeake Seasoning (Such as Old Bay™)
1 tsp Black Pepper
2 tsp Hot Pepper Sauce (I used Sriracha)
2 lbs White Fish (the original recipe called for Tilapia, I used Pollock because that is what I had in my freezer)

A tip on juicing the limes, don't just cut them open and squeeze the juice out. First roll them on the table with the heel of your hand until soft. This will break up the lime before you cut it resulting in much more juice. 




Whisk all of the ingredients above together in a bowl (Minus the fish, obviously). Place the fish in a shallow pan (I used a 9x13 baking dish) pour marinade over fish and refrigerate 8-10 hours.

Cook the fish according to any package directions. I grilled it over medium/medium low heat for 7-10  minutes, next time I will definitely broil, since this was a very delicate fish and it fell apart all over the grill.

Chipotle Dressing:

I also made this in the morning and let sit in the fridge all day, I would do it at least an hour before to let all the flavors "Make a Marriage" as my mother-in-law would say (That's also the name of my wonderful Sister-in-Law's blog, if you click the link you can be taken there).

Originally I planned on making this with Greek Yogurt instead of Sour Cream, which I will do next time, but I promised I would make these to everyone in the house before I could get some from work. 

So,
First step, run to the gas station across the street because you forget to add sour cream to your grocery list.




1 8oz Container of Sour Cream
1/4 cup Adoba Sauce from Chipotle Peppers (the original recipe called for 1/2 cup, but this stuff is seriously spicy and not everyone in our house is a huge spicy fan. If you can only find the can with both the peppers and sauce that is fine but do not add the peppers unless you want serious spice, I'll show you what we did with the leftover peppers at the end.)
2 TBS Fresh Lime Juice
2 tsp Lime Zest (I omitted this and just added a bit more lime juice, I was having serious zesting problems and I did not add as much Adoba sauce as the original, it had plenty of lime flavor)
1/4 tsp Cumin
1/4 tsp Chili Powder
1/2 tsp Chesapeake Seasoning (Again I used Old Bay™)
salt and pepper to taste



Toppings:
You can use what ever you would like for toppings but this is what we had.
Tomatoes
Coleslaw
Avocados
Shredded Cheddar
Cilantro






Brown Rice and Bean Salad
This is a wonderful summer salad, it's cool and refreshing, and it tied together well with the tacos. I made it in the morning also and let it sit in the fridge all day. Let it sit at least an hour before serving, to chill.




2 Cups Cooked Brown Rice
1 (15 oz can) Kidney Beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15oz can) Black Beans, drained and rinsed
1(15.25 oz can) Whole Kernel Corn, drained
1 small onion
1 diced Green Bell Pepper (I used 2)
2 diced Jalapenos
Juice from 2 limes (original recipe called for 1 lime and zest, however, there were a lot of comments it was too dry, so I omitted the zest and added more lime juice, in the future I will add the juice from the second lime right before serving as it was still a bit too dry)
1/4 cup Chopped Cilantro
1 Clove Minced Garlic
1 1/2 tsp Cumin
Salt to Taste




I eventually gave up on the tacos shells and just tossed the salad in a bowl and put the fish and taco toppings on top, that was amazing! Anytime we do this in the future it will just be eaten "Burrito Bowl" style!


I actually cannot take credit for the idea on what we did with the leftover peppers, this was all Andy's idea, which he got from having this at his brother Christopher's house. So good job Chris.
We took all the peppers and placed them in a mason jar and filled the mason jar with Olive Oil, 10-24 hours later....Voila homemade dipping oil!



Original recipes can be found:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/grilled-fish-tacos-with-chipotle-lime-dressing/detail.aspx
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/mexican-bean-and-rice-salad/detail.aspx

 

Weekend Happenings

by 7:32 AM
There are so many great things that happened last week, the highlight would definitely have to be Drew and Sarah's grand opening of Travel Well. First and foremost it was just excellent to spend a whole day with Sarah, it's been far too long since we got to hang out, sure we were busy doing stuff but it was still great! Also their store is just absolutely gorgeous, check it out:








Then I got to have a completely spontaneous hang out sesh with Hannah! It was also LARAC (follow this link for information on what LARAC is) this weekend so Hannah and I walked around for like 3 hours, got some super delicious kettle corn, and just caught up on life. I got to see her adorable apartment which I had not seen yet. I almost forgot that our awkwardness seems to quadruple when we are near each other and in public. I am pretty sure every single person that saw us thought we were complete crazy people. Seriously we somehow couldn't even use an elevator that only spans 3 floors properly and lets be real, stairs just weren't a thing we felt like doing. One of us probably would have ended up falling down them anyways (it's okay, I give you permission to laugh because you know that's true and yes Josh I would have gotten a concussion). I am going to get all real for a second, I feel like I don't always give Hannah enough credit because it's hard for me to not picture the little 11 year old girl I met when Andy and I first started dating. However, hanging out with her this weekend really got me thinking about how much she has changed and grown up. It's been awesome to see the person that she is becoming and who her and Tyler are becoming together.
Okay sentimental moment over.

I feel like I have been working so much I haven't seen anyone! So it was wonderful to have all of Saturday to just see people.

Friday Faves: E3 Edition

by 5:01 AM
So 2014 E3 was this week and just ended yesterday. There are so many things I am looking forward to this year. I really had to try hard to keep it this small, so there wasn't like 7 hours of videos in this post, there were so many exciting things.

So the very first thing I want to talk about is the new Zelda for Wii U!! I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS GAME. There I did it, all caps. The map has been compared to Skyrim and the graphics in the short teaser look so cool! We don't know a lot, but we do know it will combine classic Zelda's exploration feel with new Zelda graphics. Puzzles will begin as soon as the player picks a direction to go in, hopefully no annoying owl every 5 minutes to tell you where to go. I am hoping it turns out to be bit more of a challenging Zelda game then the last few.


The Yoshi and Toad games. I know these annoyed a lot of people, especially the toad game, for some reason. But, I think they look fun and entertaining. I think in the shadow of all the really intense games from Microsoft and Sony people felt these were too "Kiddish", but lets be real we all loved Toad the most anyway and are pumped he has his own game now.
Since I have to buy a Wii U now before Zelda comes out next year, I will probably be playing these as well.



I obviously have to mention Little Big Planet 3! People went crazy during this announcement, they have some exciting new characters and the co-op mode they showed the game play for looked really fun! I really enjoyed that the people from Sony who did the game play looked like they were having fun while playing it.


Mortal Kombat X. Yes the title deserved to be it's own sentence, that is how excited I am. Andy and I saw and watched this trailer with our jaws hanging open! It just looked so freaking good! I feel like I have said that a lot this post.


Destiny, yeah maybe it is just Halo for Sony, but who cares, the game still looks freaking awesome! Also if you are my friend, have a PS4 and are playing this Beta, I have officially invited myself over to your house. I am so excited for this game! I know I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but you obviously didn't spend 6 hours watching game trailers like I did, there is so much awesome coming up in the next year!



No Mans Sky, okay so you may watch this trailer and be like "meh" no idea what this game is about. Now go back and watch the trailer again with the fact in your brain that it has an infinite map!!! According to the developers, they don't even know what the whole game looks like and gameplay should be a bit different for each player. I so hope it's good.



Obviously the thing I am excited about from Microsoft is Halo Masterchief Collection all in HD but, I don't have an XBOX 1, so I can only be so excited.



There are so many things I couldn't even get to on this list, Battlefield Hardline, Far Cry 4 (this really should have been first), Metal Gear Solid Phantom Pain (Seriously stop reading this and go watch that trailer it looks freaking amazing!), The new Smash Bro's game and more. Writing those down I feel like I need to re-do this whole list but, I already wrote this whole thing so, no. I think over all I was most excited by Sony this year, I will not declare a "winner" of E3 because it's a conference, not really a thing you can win. They touched a little on Project Morpheus, which I heard the one they had there for game play was glitchy and not up to par with Oculus, but catching up. I have high hopes that the VR equipment made and owned by a company that actually produces games and not Facebook, should win the VR race eventually. PlayStation Now and PlayStation TV both got me excited. Overall, I think 2015 will be a great year for games and I look forward to playing them all!

 Now to find something to do until they all come out.....

Did you know you can trade-in your games on Amazon.com? Even ones you didn't buy on Amazon! Support this blog (and earn yourself some cash) by trading your games in on Amazon!
http://www.amazon.com/b?node=979418011&tag=lampstancommu-20

Picture Posts: Around the House

by 1:05 PM
I don't think I give our house the proper appreciation it deserves. This places is basically a creative persons dream. A lot of this is owed to Sarah and Drew and their great sense of interior decorating, seriously I have no idea how they do it!
I remember talking to Abbey back in January when she was here to visit how inspirational this house is, but I haven't really given it a thought since then. It is so easy to get going so fast we forget to appreciation the blessings like our house! I mean seriously I am in this place every day, how do I forget to thank God for how awesome it is? So I went around and took some pictures around the house to share how exactly I see this place. Mixed in are a few older ones from last June.






Instagram Views



There was originally going to be a lot more Instagram photos but, then my phone decided to die so, you get only 3 old ones!


 That's it for today, just a few snapshots of the place I call home! With a call to everyone to think about all those blessings we tend to let slip our mind!

All the things!

by 3:35 PM
Hello!!


Instead of doing my typical social media blog post I decided to switch it up give you all an update on Andy and I! We have been up to so much and I want to share with you all the things we have done lately. I also really needed an excuse to breath some life back into my personal blog, there will be more regular updates here now (I promise this is not a trick). Anyways I hope you find all these new ventures as cool as we do!.

1. We designed and started selling some t-shirts and other things. There’s only a few designs now, but there is a lot more to come! If you have any ideas on new shirt designs, let us know, we’re all ears.


2. We started an eBay store! We’re getting all sorts of cool stuff, again kind of in that nerdy genre, but there is an assortment of things. Again this is brand new, so there is only a few products, but we’re working on more. Hopefully it will be full blown by the end of the summer.
http://www.ebay.com/usr/rainflysupply


3.I recently went on a photo shoot with Foxhound Forge and took some pictures. Here’s a few of my favorites, more will be periodically uploaded to Foxhound Forge Facebook page so make sure to like their page to see them all. Don’t worry about running out of new ones to see, there is about 1000 waiting to be edited still

























4. Lampstand Communications made a new website for a client and has 2 more coming up soon, so keep an eye out for those! We also have taken on some new clients and are super excited to welcome them to the Lampstand family!
http://www.windyhillconstructioninc.com/

5. I almost forgot all about this one! We also became an Amazon Affiliate! Basically we can have amazon ads on our sites and we get an amazon affiliate store! Our affiliate store has Art/Photography products, movies, books, and more. There's not an extra charge to anyone but we get a percentage of what get's sold. This huge way we can support our blogs and other online businesses. 
http://astore.amazon.com/makeart-20

We can also offer you a free 30 day trial to Amazon Prime because of it:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/primesignup?tag=lampstandcomm-20

That has been a short snapshot of our last few weeks! So if you are a friend or family member reading this, you can see why we have been non existent lately (sorry about that). We are loving working on such a variety of different things and are so blessed that God has been opening up all these doors. We can’t wait to keep adding things to this list!! If you want to keep up on what we're up to, make sure you like Lampstand Communications on Facebook, Follow Heather on Twitter , or follow this blog. Since we have really not seen much of our families, in our copious amounts of free time, we may start a vlog soon too (we have definite plans to start on in the future), to help keep everyone posted on what we're up to...if I can convince Andy, maybe making it public will help?
I hope everyone is well and we love you all!

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