Deagan's Taco Tuesday

Last night we went to Lakewood to visit Chelsey, Trevor and their new kitten Orphan Annie. Our tenants at the condo actually found Annie in the construction area across the street and Trevor and Chelsey adopted her. She is such a cutie! She wouldn't hold still enough for me to get a good picture, though.

We went to Deagan's for Taco Tuesday and it was so good!

Thanks for having us over, guys!

Grandparents Visit

This weekend Gmom and Gpop were in town and it was lovely to see them!

On Saturday we went to a local consignment shop and also an Art Festival called Art-a-Palooza. There was some really neat stuff but I managed to resist all the local art and jewelry (surprisingly).

 On Sunday RJ and I took the Grands to Southern Gardens Tea Room (actually, technically they took us, thanks again!). It was delicious and they had a great tea selection.

Our Olan Mills style picture:

Always good to see them and we loved showing them around the new place and new town!

Vegetable Korma

RJ was traveling this week for his new job (he's going to be doing a lot of that now!). I always miss him a lot while he's gone but pretty soon he'll be working from home so that will make up for the traveling. It also gives me a chance to try out some recipes -using Harvie as a guinea pig. He's not that great of a helper though.. he likes everything.

RJ was gone Tuesday - Friday this week and I decided to try out an Indian Recipe - Vegetable Korma. We went to a great Indian Restaurant with Ryan and Michelle a few weeks ago and this is actually what I ordered. It was so good that I decided to try it out myself. I loved the outcome! It was strange cooking solo - usually it's a joint effort.

I got this idea and used some of the measurements from this recipe, but did a lot of substituting and improvising.

Here are the ingredients I did use:

-A few sticks of zucchini, chopped

-2 small tomatoes, chopped

-half a container of mushrooms

-Half of an onion

-Garlic Powder (you could use real garlic if your husband is home to do the chopping) - 1 tbsp

-Curry Power - at least 1 tbsp, more if you like it really spicy

-One good shake of red pepper flakes

-1 8 oz. can of tomato paste

-1 cup heavy cream (I didn't say this was necessarily healthy)

1) First cook the onion for a few minutes then stir in the zucchini, then the mushrooms & garlic

2) Let those cook for a few minutes then add the tomato paste

3) Add the spices (Curry powder and red pepper flakes)

4) Add the heavy cream and chopped tomatoes last

Serve with rice, salad and naan bread - so good!

The New Hammock!

We have been on the look out for a hammock for weeks and the other day we finally found one! We really wanted one that you could tie to two trees, since we have a great spot for it out by our shed.The are where we wanted to put it was filled with brush, weeds and branches so we knew it would be quite the job clearing it out. We figured before we got started we'd need a good breakfast, so decided to try a local restaurant called 'Woody's'.

It was very cozy and the food was great.

We left happy.

Then it was time to get to work.. 

Here is how the area looked before..

Harvie and Triscuit supervised.

After : All cleared out!

Big enough for two..

Make that 3..

At least one of us looks cute when laughing (it's not me).

Unfortunately we only had about half an hour to lay around until it was time to move on to the next project (setting up the home gym!) before RJ had band practice. I can't wait to get out there with a good book and an iced tea :)

Clips from the weekend

We had the best laid back Saturday night, it was lovely! We took Harvie and headed out to a nearby park on the lake. It's has a dock and a lot of people keep their boats there. We watched the sunset and watched people docking their boats. And of course, took pictures with my fun new phone. 

After that, we went to our favorite local restaurant/bar on the lake and had dinner. They always have live music and last night there was a bluesy band playing with a female guitarist. I wish I had taken pictures last Saturday - we went with Big Reed and Laura and saw a fun local band, Conestoga (a country-rock band).

In other news.. RJ got his company car on Friday! It's a 2011 Ford Fusion. We are beyond blessed!

RJ is going to get his Pathfinder all tuned up and then try to sell it. That way, our driveway won't resemble a parking lot (as much).

Today is a rainy Sunday. A good day for me to catch up on work (we have our big camp next week) and for RJ to have band practice. I hope it will clear up so we can take an evening bike ride later! We finally got helmets so I feel comfortable sharing the road with cars. Pictures promised :)

Last Weekend

Last weekend RJ got to do one of his favorite chores - organizing! He has been working on the garage for a few hours every weekend. He got some shelves and it's looking much better. We still have a lot of junk we are planning on selling in the end-of-summer garage sale.

Admiring his work:

We also got some bikes recently! We still need to get some helmets so we can take them out (and a little dip in temperature would be nice too).

He's got his cornhole boards finished - now we just need to paint them!

On Sunday KidzArt was invited to take part in a Breast Cancer Awareness event at Firestone Country Club. I got to do face and hand-painting and got a very official name-tag.

Most people wanted to get pink ribbons on their face or hand. I suggested that if they knew anyone afflicted with Breast Cancer, I could add their initials. I did mine on my hand with NLB for my favorite survivor, G-mom Breece.

An example of what one little girl asked for: