Come Fly With Me!

Jason is off work today so I won't be on here much. I thought I'd make a quick post and share some 'old' photos for Outdoor Wednesday.... and you'll be happy to know they aren' t garden vegetables!

Years ago when we lived in Maryland (2003 to be exact) Jason's hobby was building and flying remote control helicopters. We would sometimes go out to a field with him and watch him fly. These photos were taken when we went to a special Helicopter Association event. It was June 2003, little Kiki was just 2 1/2 years old.... the photos are probably self-explanatory - so enjoy!

Little Miss Cutie!

Jason flying his heli (you might be able to see it if you click on the photo)



Jason won 1st place in the 'Intermediate' section!

Don't forget to visit Susan at A Southern Daydreamer to see all the other participant posts.

Mac and Cheese

Time for another PW recipe.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of mac and cheese, well certainly not the box type,(although I will eat it on occasion) but I thought making it fresh with 'real' cheese might be worth the effort - that's why I picked this weeks recipe from the PW cookbook Macaroni and Cheese.

It's a pretty simple dish - you can find the full recipe HERE. Boil your macaroni pasta and make a cheese sauce!

First I melted the butter in a pan then added flour. Cook this for about 5 minutes (I think I only did mine about 3!)

Then pour in the milk

next I added the cheese (I've actually already 'tempered' the egg and added that too)

mix the sauce with the pasta

pour in to your dish and sprinkle cheese on top

bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, until hot and bubbly!

Verdict: I can't say that I love this dish, but nor do I dislike it.... it was just OK for me. Jason really liked it, but I think why I wouldn't rave on about it is that like any pasta dish with a lot of cheese in it, it just screams 'unhealthy' to me, and it does taste rather greasy! Not to say it didn't taste nice, just not a dish I love. And if I'm honest I really think my sauce 'curdled' a little even though I took careful steps to 'temper' the egg like PW tells you. Kristen didn't care for this dish but that's not surprising, all she's ever had is box mac and cheese and she said she preferred that still (no surprise there).

Would I make this again ?.... probably not, but it was fun trying it.

Linking to Lisa at Blessed with Grace for TMTT.

Sunday Musings . . . . June 27th

I kinda missed my Sunday Musings post last week because I did a Father's Day post instead. But I'm being 'on the ball' so to speak this week and posting my weekly update actually on time.

This week started off like any other, just the usual pottering around, doing housework and laundry on Monday, taking Kristen to piano lesson on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday Jason left for a couple of days to work in Denver. I took Kristen round to the pool that morning, then we had a quiet rest of the day together. I don't think I spoke to another 'adult' until Friday night!

On Thursday I took Kristen to see Toy Story 3! What a funny movie, I think the adults laughed even more than the kids :-) 'Ken' had me in stitches - if you haven't seen it yet I'd highly recommend it.

Of course we had to see it in 3D :-)

While we were there Kristen announced that her front tooth had come out! It has been loose for months and it's only the 3rd tooth she's lost!

After the movies we went to Chick-Fil-A, then later that day Emily came over and had a sleep over. On Friday I took the girls to the pool for a couple of hours then off to McDonald's for lunch.

I finally spoke to another 'adult' on Friday evening when I popped over to Cheryl's for a glass of wine. I didn't get to see hubby til Saturday morning. He flew home from Denver at 11pm but his flight was delayed there for two hours so he didn't get home til 2.30am and came to bed at 3am!

A few weeks ago I won a giveaway on Karina's sweet blog Siestas and Cupcakes. I hadn't posted about it because, well for one I'm such a procrastinator and I thought I would post to say thank you when I received it. Karina drew my name as the winner on May 1st, but I only received the pretty necklace last week. There was an unfortunate delay when Natalia who was sponsoring the giveaway from her site The Adornments Boutique received a damaged necklace and had to return it to get a new one before she could send it on to me! Well, this is the pretty necklace I finally got, it was hard for me to get a good picture of it so I'm using the one Karina had on her blog. Thank you again Karina for having the giveaway and to Natalia too.

Today Kristen wants to go to Chilis for lunch (she loves their cinnamon apples and hasn't had them in months, in fact it might have been more than a year), so that's about all we'll be doing. It's so hot here now we don't do anything else but stay indoors or go to the pool! Hope you all have a lovely Sunday.

End of Spring Reading

I can't believe it's been 3 months already since I posted about Karina's Spring Reading Challenge. It ended this week, Monday to be exact - the first day of Summer. I thought I'd recap and tell you how I did. You can see my original post on it HERE. I listed 6 books in total and a few I hoped to read with Kristen, they were:

Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
Made From Scratch by Sandra Lee
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers
Magic Tree House series (to read with Kristen)

I must admit as much as I love reading, I don't do it half as much as I'd like to ... it always seems to take a back seat to my knitting and I only seem to pick up a book at bedtime, but I did read the first 3 books on my list (mainly because they were book club picks - ok, not totally true, I couldn't get in to Atonement so I only read 1/4 of it and then rented the movie!)

I still haven't finished Sandra Lee's Memoir nor have I got very far with reading Pride and Prejudice (this could take me months but I'm determined to finish it). I did start reading Redeeming Love but had to take it back to the library and couldn't renew it because it had a hold on it, so I hope to get it back out next week and finish it.

I also read one other book which was The Ladies of Covington Send Their Love. It was a sweet and easy read about 3 elderly ladies who start life again in a small town. There are a few books in this series which I may read also. It reminds me of the Jan Karon series in Mitford :-) Now that Spring Reading is over it doesn't mean reading is over. I have just started reading Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for July's book club meeting.

Kristen and I read a few Magic Tree House books together, and I'm happy to say she is in to reading more right now too. She's picked quite a large chapter book called Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism! She reads it at bed time too and keeps telling me it's rather funny.

I've ordered Julie of the Wolves from Amazon that we should get this week, I'm going to read that with her this summer. I'm not sure if there is an actual 'Summer Challenge' in blogland, I think Karina only does Spring and Fall, but I think I'll make myself a list and see what I can get read while school is out.

What are you reading this Summer? One book? Two? I'd love to know!

Outdoor Wednesday

It's been a while since I joined in with Susan's Outdoor Wednesday, so I thought I would bring you a few photos of the back garden again today.

Sad news - Hubby has lost interest in the garden! Not surprising really, the bugs this year have really taken their toll on the plants and despite the fact we were getting a few green beans and I've had some tomatoes, alot of the plants just look nasty :-( Their leaves look terrible and other than reverting to pesticides (which we haven't done) we don't really know what else to do.

You may have noticed I haven't added any pictures to my garden blog for a few weeks and it's because of the lack of interest, which in turn makes me not want to go out there (that PLUS the heat, oh I can't stand the heat this time of year!) - well, I do my best is all I can say! Here's a few pictures I snapped earlier this week. . . .

The sunflowers did go crazy, but they have tiny heads. These aren't the ones hubby said he planted which he thought were 'giant sunflowers'? At least we don't think they are. Hubby thinks some plant from last year seeded itself - I haven't a clue, I just know it looks like a jungle in that bed and they will eventually have to be pulled out!

There's no denying they're pretty (click on the picture to get a closer look) but something is eating even these poor plants, which you can see when you take a closer look . . .


Here's a picture of some of the garden, in the forefront is my herb garden - the basil is finally taking off, and in the background the new bed of beans I planted a few weeks ago.

The bed to the left of the herb bed has some butternut squash in it, they seem to be doing ok - you can see their leaves creeping over the ground to the left there....

and here's a lovely butternut squash. I have two big ones like this. I hope I can make my yummy soup with them once they are ready.

Above pic! A broccoli plant that never got any broccoli on it and has been eaten alive by bugs :( We did get some heads of broccoli off 3 other plants and I'll post them to my garden blog when I update it.

Finally, I cut some of the sunflowers and put them in a vase outside with some mint and thyme from my herb garden that are flowering too! Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday. Don't forget to visit Susan and the other wonderful participants today.

Also linking to An Oregon Cottage for Tuesday Garden Party

Egg in a Hole!

There are many names for this week's dish, picked by Melanie. The one I like best which is as simple as the dish itself, is 'Egg in a Hole'! You simply take a slice of bread, cut a hole in it with a cookie cutter, fry the bread in butter and drop the egg in the hole - what could be simpler than that? Nothing..... this dish was so easy to do and a perfect way to spoil my hubby on Father's Day. Yes, this, along with a delicious hot cup of coffee was his 'special breakfast' on his 'special day, and he loved it :-)

I used my cast iron skillet

what made it even more special was the bread... baked by my hubby himself, this is his wonderful honey wheat bread that I had in the freezer.

flip it over and it's nearly done!

Voila! Breakfast is served!

Verdict: I could only get one slice of bread in my skillet at once, but I made another one of these for Kristen too. It got two thumbs up from both Jason and Kristen.... me? I'd give it 3 thumbs up if I could - not the healthiest of breakfasts (I don't even like to think of how much butter was soaked in to that bread) but totally delicious, and perfect for Lazy Sunday Mornings. Definitely a keeper I just can't bring myself to make it very often (which I think my arteries will thank me for). But yay, another hit from PW :-)

Linking to Lisa at Blessed with Grace for TMTT

Happy Father's Day!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL OF YOUR WONDERFUL MEN FOLK.

I hope you ladies are spoiling the special men in your life today ;-) Our 'Father's Day' spoiling started yesterday! Jason had to go in to his office for a few hours to finish some task off ready for next week. He mentioned before he went out that maybe tomorrow we could have a movie marathon, perhaps Star Wars or Lord of the Rings? We're such home-bodies that we would prefer to just stay home and relax together than try to go out and battle the crowds in restaurants etc. I said Star Wars would be better because Kristen could watch with us. So while Jason went in to the office Kristen and I dashed up to the grocery store and bought some 'Star Wars' paper plates and napkins, a pizza for dinner and a cookie cake for dessert.

When Jason came home we surprised him with dinner and put the movie on while we ate :-) The spoiling continues today. . . . Kristen woke up Daddy with a balloon and some cards (she made one for Boo to give Daddy!) I just made a yummy breakfast from the PW cookbook but you'll have to wait til Tuesday to see what it was (it was our recipe of the week picked by Melanie) ;-) and now Jason and Kristen are playing on the Wii together while I sit here and type this. Later today I have hotdogs, corn on the cob, potato salad and bbq beans for dinner.

This is a picture of Jason on his very first Father's Day..... 9 years ago!

And 7 months earlier, his first DAY as a Father!


In Loving Memory
1924~1998

To my sweet and special Dad ~ oh how I miss you.
(the above pic is taken with my older sister (not me) it was possibly taken near his very first Father's Day too.)

Hotspots! What Hotspots?

Yay, look at my lovely clean table :-) This took all of two minutes to clear up and polish! The problem is, it takes about that long to mess it up again. It's a constant battle to keep these 'spots' cleared and cleaned, but I will keep on trying.

I also cleared the counter off and just left a nice candle there. Want to guess how long it will stay like that? No prize for the winner but if you were to say less than a day you might be right ;-) I put it down to pure laziness why these 'spots' just keep getting cluttered. It's something I want to change, I really do and I WILL keep on trying!

It's Friday and I'm going to give the house a little 'home blessing' as Flylady would say. She talks about how she does this each Monday as you're making your 'Control Journal' (see step #5) I did this a little on Monday but I've come to the conclusion that I might have to actually do this twice a week instead of just the once. Not necessarily changing sheets and polishing doors and mirrors, but more the quick dust and vacuum 'room rescue' kind of thing, so the house looks nice and tidy for the weekend. I'll also put laundry away (something I always put off doing and it usually sits for a few days in the laundry room or over the back of a dining room chair! Then, it's off to the pool for me and Kristen :-)

Later tonight I'm popping over to my neighbor Cheryl's for a girlie 'wine and cheese' night :-) I wish you all could join us. Have a great weekend.