MRE Cooking

A while back David had 3 days of drill up in Sandy for the state wide earthquake drill. He brought back some leftover MREs so I could get a taste of 'army cooking.' So tonight, for our emergency preparedness FHE we ate the MREs.

David home from the hunt

On the menu tonight: Mexican 

Flameless heater
This was pretty amazing. Add 2 tablespoons
of water at it is boiling in less than 10 seconds!

David putting his heater between packages
of beans and rice

After adding water you are to place the carton on a rock
"or something"

David waiting for his food to heat...

While it sits on "something" 

My flameless heater 

I was a bit curious about the nutrition quality of the meal. I was relieved to see that the army had not completely over looked that detail. Food=Energy=Top Performance! Food is important!

While we waited for our food to eat we broke out some appetizers: Crackers with cheese spread and wheat bread. 

Wheat bread: The densest bread you'll ever have yet almost
completely devoid of fiber 

Wheat bread with cheese spread 

Then we ate our Mexican food meal. I was surprised at how good it was. You'd never guess it had been siting on the shelf in a sealed bag for a few years.

Rice 

Beans and meat 

Going in for the first bite

Digging in like a pro

Our meal even came with dessert! We had a strawberry dairy drink. Needs cold water, not luke warm.  

We spilled a bit 

Pink and chunky 

Trying a sip (straw not included) 

The remains of our meal 

As we were cleaning up David decided to make himself a quesadilla with cheese spread and a tortilla

The taste was pretty good and the meal had lots of calories (a lot from fat) and vitamins and minerals. However, it was missing one thing...Fiber. When David was at drill he sent me a text asking if fat caused constipation. "No, not really. Usually the opposite," was my response. 

When he got home later I asked him what brought up the question. He explained that the soldiers at drill were talking about how eating MREs will "back you up" and the general consensus was it was from fat and that the gum provided in MREs was actually secretly a laxative to compensate for the constipation. I don't know all that much about MREs but I'm guessing that the constipation has more to do with the almost complete lack of fiber. 

Alleged laxative gum 

Now we are all revved up and ready to work on our 72 hour kits! David has his and I just won a nice hiking backpack in a raffle and am ready to fill it up with MREs and other emergency preparedness gadgets! For ideas on 72 hour kits and emergency preparedness look here.

We're back! I graduated and David is Facebook famous!

The past month got a little busy with school, finals, graduation, drill, a new nephew and a missionary home coming. In short, I totally forgot to blog, but now it is time for an update (in no particular order).

First off, I finally saw the first Lord of the Rings. We found an empty room with a projector in the Tanner building and for date night got together with David's former maintenance coworker, Ryan, and his wife Lizza. To be honest, I don't see what anyone ever saw in Legolas...

I graduated! I know this doesn't look like a graduation picture, but it is. Cap and gown pictures to follow.
The dietetics program had a reception for the 40 or so graduates and I was so excited to have my auntie from Wyoming, grandma, Julie and Ken and my parents all come.

We didn't attend any other graduation ceremonies at BYU. Thursday we ditched out for Tucanos (sit on hard benches for 2 hours or get a free meal...not a hard choice) and Friday my brother Michael had just gotten home form his mission in Honduras at midnight and was running a 100-103 F fever so we decided to all stay home and take it easy with him.

David became Facebook famous last week. On his way home from drill he stopped to change someone's tire. A couple days later he got a thank you card with a gift certificate for McDonalds and a print out of this picture from Facebook with the caption: This is the Uniform of a True Hero. Someone who does all that they can to keep the world safe. Someone who leaves their family, friends, and other loved ones behind to make sure that we can keep the freedoms that we so often take for granted. Someone who will serve the people first and help themselves last. Someone who gets far less respect then they deserve. LIKE AND SHARE THIS IF YOU AGREE OUR SERVICE MEN AND WOMEN DESERVE THE MOST RESPECT POSSIBLE.

I thought it was very sweet of them to appreciate David with the hand written card and I've enjoyed teasing him about being Facebook famous. David's comment on the subject: All I did was change a tire!

I got a Dietetic internship at Utah State University! This is great news for several reasons. 1) I will get to stay in Utah with my wonderful husband 2) I will start in June 3) I will be done by January and 4) My classes are online. The one down side is it is in Davis County which is a bit of a drive, but luckily I should be done with commuting by the time snow flies. The above two pictures are samples from my "professional picture" photo shoot by David. 

For David's birthday we had a pie night with a few friends. It was supposed to be a surprised. I had been so careful to bake all the pies while he was gone. My brother Josh even drove down to keep me company and help peel apples. I labored long into the night (okay, it was 11 pm, but that is really late for me). I cleaned up, hid the pies in the oven, and climbed in bed just 20 minutes or so before David got home. 


I listen as David walks through the door, puts his things down in the kitchen, and walks straight to the oven and opens the door! My dietetics friends had warned me his would happen. "Lisa, you have to remember, other people can smell!"Oh well. It was still lots of fun and instead of us surprising David, David would jump out and surprise guest as they arrived.

This is a small sampling of what we've been unto for the last month. More adventures soon to follow!