Stairway To Heaven -- Best Pizza Ever...

So for those of you that have followed us for awhile, you know that we spent several years in WA and have grown to call it home. Well, among the many things that we love about it out there, our favorite pizza joint is there in the PNW! For whatever reason, I've really been in the mood for it over the last day or two. So I finally decided to make my own version of it today. Why I haven't made it before now is beyond me. It's crazy simple, but when we're in the mood for pizza, we typically end up just getting takeout. This is so simple, though. I might have to start making it on a constant basis. It was definitely an easy way to get Samuel to eat his greens!

So, after having a few friends ask for the recipe, I decided I'll just quickly type it up on the blog...

Since I think the pizza dough recipe that we used is just alright, I won't bother telling you what that is. We're still on the hunt for the perfect recipe, but I didn't take the time to worry about that today. I had made a large batch of dough a few weeks ago from a recipe I found online, then froze portions of it, so that's what I used. Between making such a thin crust and having so much flavor from the toppings, you couldn't notice the mediocre dough so it all worked out.

So, it's fairly simple. This is all you need...

A couple Roma tomatoes

Basil

Extra virgin olive oil

Garlic

Fresh mozzarella

Shredded Parmesan

Arugula

Prosciutto (not pictured -- I totally forgot to buy that while I was out!)

Parchment paper

Pizza stone

There's no real need to get specific with measurements, as you can use as little or as much as you want. As you can see from the Costco-sized minced garlic container, we like our garlic in this house!

So after you decide what type of dough you want to use, you can begin to pretend you work at a pizza shop. James used to work at one in college, so he's always adamant about tossing the dough in the air to stretch it out. I'm clearly not a pro at that, ha.

While you're preparing the dough, you'll want to put the pizza stone in the oven and preheat the oven at 500 degrees for 30 minutes. You'll then put the dough on a piece of parchment paper and spray it with olive oil -- covering the whole thing. You can sprinkle minced garlic and basil across the pizza as well at this point. I pretty much cover ours, but that's personal preference...

Then add the fresh moz. Again, I load it up. Who doesn't love cheese?!

Once the oven is preheated, put the pizza (while still on the parchment paper) on the stone. It only takes 8-10 minutes, so keep an eye on the pizza. Just looking at the cheese bubbling up makes me want more. Yum!

While the pizza is cooking, go ahead and dice up your tomatoes...

Then once it's done, top the pizza with arugula, tomatoes, Parmesan cheese and then drizzle some more EVOO on top. And there you have it...Stairway to Heaven...

The great thing about using parchment paper is that the cheese that melted off the side comes right off!

The only thing different than the original from our favorite pizza shop is that I added basil and left out prosciutto. I hate that I forgot to add that to the grocery list, but I didn't feel like running back out when I realized it was missing. It definitely adds more flavor, but it's still great without it!

Samuel LOVED it!

Now to find that perfect pizza dough recipe...

If you have one that you love, please share!

And for those of you in the Pacific Northwest, go check out The Rock. It's our fav!

***Edited***

We made this pizza again last night, but used this recipe for the dough. It turned out MUCH better, but I think we're going to tweak it a little bit on our own to make it more how we like it. I would definitely recommend it as it is, though!

On The Road...

Man...what a week! Of all the moves we've gone through with the Army, we were clearly not as prepared for this one. We ended up spending Livy's 9 month Angelversary preparing for the movers and packing everything up for our drive! Luckily, it all worked out -- for the most part. Spending 3 days with the movers was just a bit stressful, as we watched them pack our stuff and load it onto the truck. Their packing methods weren't as good as we've seen in the past, and one of the packers tried to argue whenever we made a specific request...yeah that was fun. On the last day, one of them busted a set of blinds in the guest bedroom. Of course, no one would fess up so I guess I'll be taking that up with the moving company! Good times. I'm so glad the first half of the move is over. Now that our HHG's are on the truck, we don't have to stress about the condition of our household goods again until we arrive at Ft. Benning...so until then...out of sight, out of mind, right?

After we finished with the movers, cleaned up the house and cleared it with the owner, we headed over to our friends' house for the night. They were sweet enough to offer us their guest bedroom rather than staying in a hotel. It was a great opportunity for us to spend one last evening with them before we headed out, so I was glad for that! With such good company, we weren't really in a rush to head out, so we ended up getting a late start on the big drive. I guess with no agenda on this road trip, that wasn't really an issue though.

I'm so glad we are in no rush! With almost a month between leaving Ft. Lewis and having to report to Ft. Benning, we can take our time this time around. With previous moves, the only time we stopped was for a restroom or gas station, but this one is going to be much different. We plan to stop whenever we pass something of interest. In fact, we ran across our first detour just 2 hours into our drive today. After visiting my good friend, Cara, in Portland, we made sure to grab some Voodoo Donuts! We knew this was going to be the last time for a long time that we'll be in that area, so we better indulge. As luck may have it, we ended up witnessing one of the famous Voodoo Donuts weddings, too! We had heard about them, so it was fun seeing one firsthand today. I must say....it's definitely an interesting option! The "priest" determined the couple's spirit animals (ended up being a squirrel and a monkey), the couple had candy bouquets and boutonnieres, and before tying the knot, they had to get the approval of Kenny Rogers (there was a painting of him above the cash register) before saying "I do." Yeah...definitely unique! It was fun though, and they got everyone involved in it.

So even though that ended up cutting into our driving time, we weren't too bummed. Our goal was to make it to San Fransisco before the end of the night, but that definitely didn't happen! Oh well...we'll get there at some point tomorrow. Here's hoping the weather clears up and we can enjoy the city without the rain/fog that covered the entire PNW today!

Below are some pictures I just now got loaded up from the last week...

Oba watching the movers with much hesitation...

When one of the movers started packing up Liv's room, Oba took it upon himself to guard the door. He laid there crying the entire time she was in there -- Poor Oba had a rough time with all of this...

After the first day of packing, Obadiah decided to hang out in between our coffee table and end tables. It looked like he was in jail...

By the third day, he was comfortable with the idea of strange people coming in and packing up everything. Because of that, there were no more whines or cries, but he did try to make a run for it. After one of the movers chased him down for us, he lost all privileges and spent the rest of the day in the backyard -- left to cry and let everyone know the horrid abuse that he was experiencing!

Then fast forwarding to the delicious Voodoo Donuts...Man...I could live on those things! Since it was our last trip there, we each grabbed 2 for the drive. By the time we stopped for dinner, all I wanted was a salad...wayyyy too much sugar for one day -- but sooo worth it!

Oba was, of course, left to sniff but that's it. No donuts for the basset...

As we got closer to Grant's Pass, OR, we didn't deal with as much rain, but definitely drove into crazy amounts of fog at various points. This was just the beginning...

Best of all...we drove past a beautiful rainbow at one point...

For those of you that ever watch Tosh.0, you might remember the Web Redemption video with the guy that expressed a lot of emotion while recording a rainbow from his porch. As we drove past this one, James kept imitating what that guy said, ha.

Well, off to bed before another day on the road. Here's hoping it's clear skies and no traffic on our way to San Fransisco!!

Goodbyes...

There have been a lot of those lately. As we edge closer to our final move date, we've been trying to squeeze in as many as we can with our close friends around here. When the final goodbyes happen, it ends up being more of a "We'll see you soon" rather than "It was good knowing you" type of goodbye. I mean, we are in the Army after all -- it's smaller than you think! If you stay in long enough, you typically run into old friends down the road. Plus, our goal is to retire here in WA, so even those friends that are civilians...we hope to see them again when we eventually move back.

It's just kind of wild when we get to thinking about it. On our way to Bible study last night, we got to talking about the fact that we haven't even been here 2 years. Crazy. October 20th would be the 2 year mark, but we're leaving a month before that. It feels like we've been here longer! Here we had originally planned to try and stay here as long as we possibly could, but then with Liv's death, we jumped at the chance to move. We needed a change. We needed a fresh start.

Everywhere we go, there are memories attached to our pregnancy with Liv -- both good and bad ones. It's just so hard. We passed one of the local farms the other day and it was mentioned how we had planned on taking Livy there this fall for the pumpkin patch. Things like that are a stab to the chest every time they come up. We miss her so much, and there are so many things that we had planned for her. It's hard not to think of those when they arise...

When we said goodbye to our Bible study group last night, I thought about the fact that they were there with me through our entire pregnancy with Liv. They watched as she grew each week (along with my expanding belly), and they counted down the weeks with me as we got closer and closer to Liv's due date. With each week came questions of how the pregnancy's going, along with how James was doing downrange. Such a crazy time in our lives between the deployment and the pregnancy, and they were there through it all. They even threw a baby shower for me just days before Olivia passed away. So many memories...When it came time to say goodbye, we all prayed and agreed that we'll have to stay in touch through email. I'm sure that we'll find another Bible study group in GA that we'll become a part of, but this one in WA will always have a special place in our hearts. With them, I will always think of those exciting months leading up to Livy's arrival...

While Olivia will always be in our constant thoughts, at least the scenery in GA won't bring on the same kind of issues as it does here in WA (like the pumpkin patch). It will be new...with its own set of memories created down the road. If anything, GA will bring memories back from my visits to see James while he was attending OCS there -- what a crazy, but exciting time!

For the same reasons, I'm looking forward to the new house that we secured there in GA. With just 2 days until the movers get here, I spent a good portion of the day yesterday going around the house trying to take things off the walls, repair the holes, etc. when I finally ended up in Liv's room. Her room is the only room where we decided to hang curtains. So there I was...taking down the curtain rods, folding Livy's curtains and putting them in the crib that was already full of her stuff. I try not to go in her room too often, as it's just too sad, but I couldn't help but look through her things while I was in there yesterday. Not only do we have all of the diapers we had stocked up on, all of her clothes that were bought, bedding folded up, etc...there were also all of the gifts from her funeral. So much happiness mixed with so much sadness. Her casket flowers that we had dried, the angel blanket that someone had mailed us, etc. With our next house, there will be a 4th bedroom just like this one, but I don't know that we'll even bother unpacking it. It will house all of Liv's stuff just like this one does, but it won't have the same sentimental aspects as her room here has. I suppose that's just another step towards that fresh start. With the moves from Germany and here, we lost those rooms designated for Jake and Livy, but perhaps there might be hope of filling them at some point with their little brother or sister...

Well, speaking of the ongoing string of goodbyes, I better close this up so that I can get in gear and get ready for the day. Here in a couple hours, it's off to lunch with another friend. Luckily, it's going to be more of a "We'll see you soon" goodbye, as she and her hubby are hoping to follow us to Benning in a couple months!

We love you, Jake...

Well, today marks the 7th Angelversary of our son, Jacob Tyler. It was at 12:54pm on Sept. 4th 2003 that we delivered our sweet baby boy, stillborn, at 21 1/2 weeks. I remember that day all too well -- as well as the week leading up to it...

Sonic BOOM...

So aside from today being a horribly crappy day, we experienced something rather interesting around 2pm. While I was downstairs and James was up, I heard two LOUD noises and the whole house shook. I thought maybe something happened upstairs and James dropped something large. I mean, it would have had to have been a large dresser or something, so a little unrealistic, but what else could it be?! About 30 seconds later, James raced down the stairs and ran out the front door to see what it was. He obviously heard it too, and wasn't sure what caused it. We weren't sure if it was a car accident or possibly field artillery training on base. Well, after later reading reports posted by a friend on Facebook, we found out it was the result of two F15 fighter jets heading towards Seattle. I guess they caused sonic booms as they passed through the Puget Sound. Pretty wild. With President Obama speaking in Seattle, there were air-space restrictions and an unknown aircraft was violating them, so the jets responded to it from Portland. A few hours later, we heard that it was just some poor guy in a floater plane heading to Lake Washington from another nearby lake and didn't realize he was violating any kind of restriction. Crazy...

So yeah, that was an interesting experience! We've had our windows shake before due to military training on post, but nothing like this. I suppose with having such a downer of a day with missing Liv lots, at least there was something unique to remember from it...

And The Search Continues...

So, with knowing that we'll be moving soon, we've been trying to explore the more unique eateries in our local area as much as we can. Either by online reviews, things mentioned on The Food Network and The Travel Channel, or recommendations by friends...we've been on the hunt. Our list only seems to get longer as time passes so I doubt we'll be able to check them all out, but we'll see how things go...

Well, we decided to try a burger joint this afternoon after seeing something about it on Yelp. People actually compared it to In-N-Out! If it gets a rating like that, it's definitely worth checking out! This particular burger joint was called Van's Burger. The actual building wasn't much to brag about, but the line of cars waiting to order reassured us that we should definitely try it.

Since it's just a small drive-thru only joint, we had planned on just eating our lunch in the car -- with Oba drooling and staring at us the whole time. However, we soon realized they had picnic benches (they were nice and CLEAN!) spread out so you could enjoy your burger while soaking up the nice weather. With it being right on the edge of a golf course, it provided nice scenery and silence. I would almost take this style over going to a busy Red Robin, where it's loud and rowdy...

Anyways...as it turns out, today -- of all days -- was their 10th anniversary of being open. If you said, "Happy Birthday!" before you ordered, all sodas and milkshakes were on the house. Can't beat that! So, of course, we enjoyed our free milkshakes, and let me just say...the burger was great!

Oh, and as a way of making the entire family happy, Van's Burger offers free puppy patties. So, even Obadiah got a little taste of heaven, ha. If we were going to be living here longer, I'm sure we'd definitely be repeat customers.

Here's Obadiah after he consumed his puppy patty...I'm sure he was hoping we'd be generous and share some of ours...

Unfortunately for him, that didn't happen...

Sunset on the beach...

With our move date getting closer, we want to take any opportunity possible to soak up our favorite places as much as we can, so a day off meant we better hit the road. So after a late start to our day, we decided to head west. With clear blue skies, we knew it would be the perfect day to sit back and enjoy the sunset on the beach.

It turned out fairly well, aside from us not thinking about the fact that a Saturday night would mean lots of campers. The beach that we had planned on hanging out at has a great view from a cliff, but that cliff was jam-packed full of RVs, so after walking the beach for awhile, we headed a little further south to a more open beach -- no cliff, but way less crowded. Here are a few pics from our time on the beach (South Beach) -- notice the beach itself was nearly empty, so I guess everyone just wanted to stay in their tents/RVs...

Obadiah and James look like they just had a fight and refuse to look at each other...

Such a little old man...

A few guys fishing -- I never thought you'd be able to catch anything so close to the beach, but they kept bringing them in one after another!

I love the pebble beaches...

And all the driftwood...

So does Obadiah...

He kept wanting to eat it...

With all of the temptation, who can blame him?

It was soon after that last shot that we headed to the next beach to actually sit and watch the sunset. By the time we watched the sunset, the temperature had drastically changed from what it was earlier in the evening. The truck claimed that it was 52 outside, but with the wind, it felt much worse. Nevertheless, we had fun and came prepared with blankets -- which we stayed under while Oba sniffed the air. Here are some pictures from that beach (Pacific Beach)...

Trying to get some energy out, and possibly warm up a little...

While being watched by the birds...

Comfortable on the bed of the truck and ready to relax...

There it goes...

I love sitting on the beach when it's not crowded. It's so peaceful and relaxing. It was great just having the three of us together with no agenda or rush to get back. If Liv was here, it would've been absolutely perfect...