Mackenzie's 15th birthday!!

Some people don't like Friday the 13th, but our precious Mackenzie was born on a Friday the 13th, and I would most DEFINITELY say she certainly was not bad luck!! Happy 15th birthday to you, sweet little girl -- you're one of the best presents God ever gave me!!

2nd birthday --


3rd birthday --


4th birthday --


5th birthday --


6th birthday --


7th birthday --


9th birthday --


10th birthday --



11th birthday --
15th birthday -- TODAY!!

Apple Crisp Cheesecake

Apple Crisp Cheesecake

Ingredients

CRUST:
1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup quick-cooking oats
4 teaspoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons butter, melted

FILLING:
2 packages (3 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons sour cream
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
2/3 cup sliced peeled apple

TOPPING:
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon quick-cooking oats
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons cold butter

Preparation

In a small bowl, combine the cracker crumbs, oats and brown sugar; stir in butter. Press onto the bottom of a 6-in. springform pan coated with cooking spray; set aside.

For filling, in a small bowl, beat cream cheese and brown sugar until smooth. Add egg; beat on low speed just until combined. Stir in the sour cream, cinnamon and ginger. Pour over crust Arrange apple slices over filling. For topping, combine the flour, oats, brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over apple.

Bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Carefully run a knife around edge of pan to loosen; cool 1 hour longer. Refrigerate overnight. Just before serving, remove sides of pan. Refrigerate leftovers.

Caramel Cheesecake Bites

 I keep running across yummy sounding recipes and then promptly losing them. I'm going to start posting them on here for safe keeping!  If you try one and enjoy it, please let me know!

 

Caramel Cheesecake Bites
 
19 ounces cream cheese
3 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
 
Caramel:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup evaporated milk
 
Crust:
1 cup almond meal
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine Sea Salt
1/4 teaspoon ground Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 cup melted butter

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Crush your slivered almonds.
In a mixing bowl whisk together the almond flour, almonds, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add the butter and combine with a spoon.
Line a muffin tin with liners. Push the almond mixture into the bottom of the liners.
Bake for 10 minutes to set.
Turn oven down to 300°.
In a mixing bowl, add cream cheese, vanilla, sugar and eggs. Beat until light and fluffy.
Spoon mixture into the muffin tins with prepared almond crust.

Bake for 40 minutes.
While cakes are cooking, start on the caramel.
Combine granulated sugar and 2 tablespoons water in a medium, heavy saucepan over medium-high heat; cook until sugar dissolves, stirring gently for 3 minutes.

Stop stirring and continue cooking 10 minutes or until the color of light brown sugar. Remove from heat; carefully stir in butter and milk. Place pan over medium-high heat until caramelized sugar melts. Bring to a boil; cook 1 minute.

Remove pan from heat; cool caramel to room temperature. Cover and chill 1 hour or until slightly thickened.
Take cheesecakes out of the oven when they are done. Once cool, the middle will slightly fall and this is the perfect indent for the caramel.

Spoon about 1 tablespoon caramel over each cheesecake.

What the heck is a "derecho"? (Part 3)

I saw this link with this amazing picture and just had to share.

http://earthsky.org/earth/videos-and-images-violent-us-storm-of-june-29-2012

Shelf cloud from the developing derecho in Chicago on June 29, 2012. Image Credit: NWS Meteorologist Samuel Shea

On June 29, 2012, a violent wind storm system – called a derecho – advanced eastward across Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and in parts of New Jersey. It produced hurricane force winds that gusted as high as 91 miles per hour in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Millions of people were left without power as trees snapped on power lines. The Storm Prediction Center (SPC), reported nearly 800 wind reports from this derecho. Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell declared a state of emergency Saturday, June 30, 2012 – which also affected Washington DC – after the storm devastated the region. In fact, McDonnell announced that the derecho that pushed into Virginia made it the largest non-hurricane power outage in state history. As of now, at least 13 people are known to have died from this destructive storm system, with six deaths reported in Virginia, two in New Jersey, two in Maryland, one in Kentucky, one in Washington D.C., and one in Ohio. As of 5 p.m. EDT on June 30, 2012 (21 UTC), at least 1.6 million people were still without power, which is bad news because residents in these areas are experiencing hot temperatures over 90°F. Check out these images and videos from this destructive and deadly derecho event.

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What the heck is a "derecho"?? (Part 2)

June 30 -- We awoke to find the power still off.  Now THAT was a bit unusual.  We have lost power many times over the years we've lived here, but usually not for more than 1 to 5 hours.  We had a  cereal breakfast, some fruit, and whatever didn't need heating (all my appliances are electric!).  Then we decided to take a drive around town and see what the damage looked like.  Here's what we found:

 House about two blocks from ours with a large tree on the roof

 

In the Laurel Lakes Shopping Center parking lot, the model sheds on display at Lowe's Hardware were all blown over onto their backs.

 This one was blown down the small hill behind where it originally sat.

 The rest of the shed that blew over the hill.

 Another view of the parking lot mess.

And THIS one blew down the hill and across a street!!  Amazing that no one was injured by all these flying sheds.

 Across the street from the shopping center were a series of five telephone/electric poles in a row that were pulled over or broken.  A few others were heavily leaning in one direction or another. 

 The car sales lot took some damage.

 This pole landed on top of a Range Rover!

 The broken pole fell on top of an old bank building (currently vacant).

Here's the equipment that WAS on that pole!

 Various view of Cherry Lane....

 more trees down on Cherry Lane...

and even more.

 This tree fell in the parking lot of some apartments near our home; the tree narrowly missed several cars.

 This tree is located in a field in the same apartment complex.  It split off.....

narrowly missing a brand-new chain link fence that was installed around the complex's swimming pool this past spring.

This tree fell onto a fence behind a gas station.  The blue tent/tarp apparently blew in from some other location.

 Cleaning up our yard wasn't TOO bad -- here's the first set of larger limbs we drug to the curb....

....and the first trash can of small yard debris.

This is a terrible picture; I took it at dusk out of a moving car.  But if you look carefully, you can see many balcony doors open, trying to cool off these apartments, and there are also a number of people standing or sitting on the balconies.  Can you imagine how hot it would be in a 14-story building with no A/C?  

The digital indoor/outdoor thermometer I have in my upstairs showed that at 10 pm it was 86.4 degrees outside, 86.0 degrees upstairs in my home.  Needless to say, we ended up sleeping in the basement Saturday night -- much, much cooler!!

~~~~~

What the heck is a "derecho"?? (Part 1)

Do you know?  I didn't -- until last week.  According to Wikipedia, a derecho is " a widespread, long-lived,straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms.  Generally, derechos are convection-induced  and take on a bow echo form of squall line, forming in an area of divergence in the upper levels of the troposphere, within a region of low-level warm air advection and rich low-level moisture. They travel quickly in the direction of movement of their associated storms, similar to an outflow boundary (gust front), except that the wind is sustained and increases in strength behind the front, generally exceeding hurricane-force." I highlighted and underlined the last part as emphasis. I feel like saying -- yeah, really?? That was the understatement of the century!! 

Last Friday, June 29, a derecho blew through the DC area around 10 pm.  This was a storm that tore apart our region in less than 30 minutes, with very little warning.  We were among the fortunate -- we "only" lost power for about 54 hours.  Several of our friends didn't get power until last night, so it was a full SEVEN DAYS in this blistering heat without power. 

I'm going to chronicle, in several parts, what happened over the last few days.  It was pretty rough!  I have a new respect for the people who originally settled in this part of the country, before there was refrigeration or air conditioning.  I do not know how they survived -- seriously.

Friday, June 29 -- We were out for some dinner and a bit of late-evening shopping.  We came out of Target in Columbia, MD to see lightning off in the distance.  At first, we thought it was heat lightning, but it was frequent, intense, and getting closer by the minute.  As we drove home, we turned on the radio to hear about a "severe storm" with winds gusting over 80 mph approaching our area.  We drove home quickly, making plans about who would take trash cans in, who'd get the dogs out quickly, and so forth.  We rushed to accomplish those things, and literally within eight minutes of getting home, the storms started.  Huge, HUGE winds; some rain, but not anywhere in proportion to the amount of wind we were getting.  Lights started to flicker and at 10:45 they went out.  This is not an uncommon thing in our neighborhood, and so we always have flashlights at the ready.  We kicked on a battery-powered radio, listened to the weather reports and waited for the storm to blow through.  And really, the worst of the storm was gone in about 45 minutes -- how much damage could it possibly have done, right???  Wrong.

As we listened to the radio, we began hearing the reports of power outages from all over the area -- 60,000, 80,000, 100,000 customers without power -- and the numbers kept rising.  It became clear that we wouldn't be getting power back anytime before bed, and so we all headed off to sleep.  Can't do much else around the house without the electricity.  The house was fairly cool, the sun was already down; we figured we'd be fine until the power came on.

~~~~~

RIP, Lance Cpl. Eugene Mills

~ In Honor Of Marine Lance Cpl. Eugene C. Mills III ~

Lance Cpl. Eugene C. Mills III, 21, of Laurel, Md., died June 22 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

 

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-marine-death-20120625,0,5908644.story

Laurel Marine killed in Afghanistan remembered as patriot, 'all-around great kid'

21-year-old man, killed by enemy fire, had dreamed of joining military since 9/11

A U.S. Marine carry team moves the transfer case of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Eugene C. Mills III, during a dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Del. Mills, 21, of Laurel, was killed in combat in Afghanistan. (Getty photo / June 25, 2012)

•  
•  Laurel Marine's remains to arrive at Dover
•   Marine from Laurel killed in Afghanistan
• Naval Academy grad killed in Afghanistan
• Topics
• Afghanistan
• September 11, 2001 Attacks
• Camp Lejeune (military base)

By Kevin Rector, The Baltimore Sun

9:04 p.m. EDT, June 25, 2012

"Pops, when I come home, Natty Bohs and crabs?" Lance Cpl. Eugene C. "Gene" Mills III asked his father, Gene Mills II, during an impromptu phone call early last week, about a month before the younger man was due to return home to Laurel from Afghanistan.

"One more mission, Pops, and I'll be home," the son told his father. "Love you, Pops."

Those were the last words his father — a retired Prince George's County police officer known as "Big Gene" — would ever hear from "Little Gene," 21, a High Road Academy graduate and Marine stationed in Helmand province, on his second deployment to the country.

On Monday, Corporal Mills' remains were returned to the United States at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where family and friends — including his father; mother, Theresa Mills; stepmother, Melissa Mills; and brother, Jacob "Jake" Mills, a rising senior at Atholton High School — were waiting on the tarmac.

On Friday, Corporal Mills, a member of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force out of Camp Lejeune, N.C., was leading his five-man infantry team on a patrol in the province's Sangin Valley when they became involved in a firefight. Corporal Mills was shot in the upper left chest, his father said. He was treated by another Marine on the ground, then transported to a medical facility in Afghanistan, where he died, his father said.

Two Marines and Laurel Police Chief Richard McLaughlin brought the family the news.

"There's nothing worse," Gene Mills said, choking back tears. "You know it's not good. I prayed that it was just he was injured, I prayed that he lost a leg, I prayed that he lost two legs but was OK."

The news of Corporal Mills' death quickly swept through Laurel, where the Mills family has deep roots.

Mayor Craig Moe announced flags in the city will be flown at half-staff in honor of Corporal Mills until his funeral services, which have not been set.

"Everybody's coming together," Jim Collins, president of the Laurel Volunteer Fire Department, said of the city's support for the family.

Corporal Mills had first announced his desire to join the military on Sept. 11, 2001, his father said, after watching live news coverage of the terrorist attacks on a 13-inch television in his room, unknown to his father.

He had come out of his room, a concerned look on his face, and asked his father what was happening.

"So I sat down with him and discussed everything, and I said, 'Everything's going to be all right. We're the United States of America. We can survive this,'" his father remembered. "And he said, 'Dad, when I'm old enough, I'm going into the military, and I'm going to help protect us.' "

Corporal Mills never lost sight of that goal and joined the Marines shortly after graduating from high school, onFather's Day2008, his father said.

He was first deployed in 2010 to Now Zad, Afghanistan. He left home for his second deployment in the country in March. His family would send him care packages, and he would give most of what was in them to Afghan children, his father said.

"Gene was just the all-around great kid," his father said. "He wanted to make a difference."

Corporal Mills' superior officers have recommended he receive the Purple Heart.

Though funeral arrangements have not been completed, Mills will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery after a service at Grace Community Church in Fulton, his father said.

krector@baltsun.com

 ~~~~~

Gene is the son of a friend of mine from junior high and high school, Theresa (Stea) Mills. Semper fi, Eugene.

 ~~~~~