BnB '14 the Summer Edition

Let's lighten things up, shall we?  Many fun things have happened that I haven't shared.  Let me recap one very fun week I had in June.  It was Booze & Beads 2014 (minus the beads, but we thought about them)!  It was time for T2's yearly visit. 

We started our week together by opening a box her mom had sent the prior week with instructions to wait to open.  She knew what was inside.  It was an awesome box of lovely handmade items including this quilt!  We also got an assortment of beautiful kitchen towels.

If you can't tell, this is a BACON themed quilt

We had an entire week planned with shopping and gardening, eating and drinking.  We had rain every other day with at least one good old fashioned thunderstorm with some pretty amazing lightning.  Overall, it was an incredible week.  

We started the week by shopping locally and had wild success at finding way too many ridiculously cute clothes.  That rarely happens for both of us, so that was even more amazing.  We never made it to the waterpark with the world's tallest slide, but that's OK.  It hadn't opened yet anyway and there's always next year.  I wonder if we will have the guts to do it... 

Here's what we ate for breakfast:

Puffy Pancake!

Breakfast sammich

Here's what we ate for lunch:

Naan pizza (pretty self explanatory on this dish)

We had lunch at Blanc Bottles & Burgers, like we have had a few times in the past.  Except this year, when we arrived to our destination, we realized... it's closed.  They moved.  That should have been our clue to change it up, but we sought them out.

I took a great picture of my burger:

At least it LOOKED good

Overall we were disappointed in this place.  Why?

1. I make a better Pickle Martini according to pickle-martini-aficionado Tullybird.  
2. My burger had very little bottom bun which meant that by the time I was half way through eating my burger, the other half I was trying to hold onto went to mush and disintegrated in my hand so I ended up eating it upside down like an open faced sandwich.  
3. Cold/old onion rings (which happen to be photogenic).  At least the sweet potato fries were fresh because they initially brought me the WRONG fries.  (Uhhh, no, I don't like your truffle oil-bomb fries.)
4. The waiter was clueless about the coupon I had.  
5. It was BLOODY HOT in there.  
6. No martini/drink menu--WTF?  

Time to find a new place--which I happen to have picked out already!

Here's what we ate for dinner:

We had steaks, tomato/basil/mozzarella salad, smashed taters, and asparagus from the garden. 

Mmmmm, beef

Mexican Lasagna
Mix all of your favorite burrito ingredients together such as:

• Seasoned ground meat
• Refried beans
• Corn
• Green chili's
• Black olives
• Grilled onions

Mix it all together and layer it between tortilla shells (flour or corn) with taco/enchilada sauce and cheese, then repeat the layers like a lasagna.  Cook until heated through (350 for 30-40 min).  

Enjoy with your favorite tasty beverage, such as a cream soda and chocolate vodka.  Or not, like if you enjoyed one too many Bahama Mama's the night before (not judging).

Tasty to the 10th degree

We had magical stuffed burgers.  This BBQ sauce smothered burger was hugging a hot juicy load of blue cheese and grilled onions: 

I highly recommend stuffing your burgers with blue cheese

I would have taken a picture of the middle of my burger, but my hands were kind of messy with oozing cheese and grease.  You'll just have to make one for yourself.

We also had this for dinner:

RRRRrrrrribs!!!  Very tasty ribs

Tullybird cooked us dinner!  She found a fabulous recipe which I've already made again (with grilled onions and blue cheese), it was that good.

Put on a burrito with scrambled egg for breakfast the next day and enjoy the leftovers

Tullybird said that she wanted to play pinball, so we had a few pinball players over.  I knew if we didn't have a night designated for it, we would probably never venture to the basement.  Fortunately, my evil plan worked.  We played pinball for several fun hours.

We served pulled pork, coleslaw, baked beans, and Rotel/Velveeta cheesy dip.  It was yummy.  Someone decided to eat it all together.  I have to admit, it was pretty (but I'm a boundaries kind of eater).

Garbage sink nachos, anyone?

Pinball night!

And then there was this with the pulled pork:

Chimichangas and guacamole

Here's what we drank.

Most importantly, here are some of the tastiest beverages consumed that week.  I know you've been waiting for this list.

We had Bahama Mama's. I may have loved them a little too much.  You can find a boatload of recipes on Pinterest. 

Warning:  these might be too tasty

While building electronic kits for Todd, we had Pickle Martinis which I had planned for months....

Pickle Martinis

• Pickle Vodka* 
• Pickle juice
• Spicy pickle relish

Place in a shaker with crushed ice and do a little jig.  Strain into a martini glass, garnish with a pickle, and sip.     

*2 months prior to indulging, cover drained spicy pickles with vodka in a mason jar.  Screw on the lid and place in the fridge.  Wait patiently.

Personally, I choked.  I couldn't handle the spice.  So that left more for her.  I'm a giver like that.

I'm really glad SHE liked them!

Adult Strawberry Lemonade

• 3 parts Moscato wine (white or pink)
• 3 parts Lemonade
• 1 part Strawberry rum (or Dragon Berry which is a combination of strawberry and dragon berries, whatever those are)

I'm not a white or pink wine fan, but let me just tell you how stinkin' good this combination is!

Try it, and then come back and thank me.

Orange You Happy

• Orange Float Malibu Rum (seriously, if you've never had this and even remotely like orange, you must try this stuff)
• White Moscato wine
• Ginger ale
• Pineapple OJ
• Apricot nectar

I don't remember ratios, but you can basically go by the relation of the container sizes in the picture.  Mix some, try it, adjust to your liking.  I liked it juuuust fine!

 

Didn't even have this one planned!

And now for the most whacky experiment of the week...

Cucumber Jalapeno Margaritas

• 1 Frozen cucumber (cubed)
• A small chunk of frozen chipotle in adobo sauce (drained before freezing)
• Tequila (3 parts)
• Triple Sec (1 part)
• Squeeze of fresh lime
• Ice

Mix it all in a blender and enjoy the burn!


Grape Margaritas

• A bunch of frozen red grapes
• Tequila (3 parts)
• Triple Sec (1 part)
• Chambord (or raspberry liquor) (1 part)
• Squeeze of fresh lime
• Ice

Mix it all in a blender and blend, blend, blend.  Keep blending so all the grape skins are pulverized.  This could entice you to put that fancy shmancy super-expensive blender on your Christmas list next holiday season.  Cause you know you wouldn't have to blend this long...  Sip and enjoy the sweetness!

Cucumber Jalapeno Margaritas and Grape Margaritas (guess which one was mine?)

I would have to say the margarita experiment was a success.  She loved hers.  I loved mine.  She's savory, I'm sweet.  Just means I get to experiment more! 

At the end of the week, we were tired from having so much fun...

Jessie

Keystone

Joey

I can't wait for next year.  But who knows, maybe she will be back for BaconFest this September!

It's Been 3 Years

Happy holidays!  It's already that joyous time of the year when everyone is over extended: going to too many parties/planned events, trying to get all the gifts bought/wrapped/mailed, decorating the house, while keeping up with laundry, paying property taxes, cooking, cleaning, caring for the animals, oh yea and going to work, etc., etc., etc.  I can't believe Christmas is only a few weeks away.  Good thing I've been shopping for months.  Too bad I haven't been wrapping!

The last 2 months have just FLOWN by for me, and the first thing I gave up was blogging.  But now I'm ready to get back to it.  I'm not sure how many readers I have anymore, but whoever you are, I've missed you!  I've had a very fun fall, so I will eventually recap the highlights for you.  For now, I'll talk about this past weekend:  Thanksgiving!

Joey was tired after his Thanksgiving holiday

It's been 3 years since I started this blog!  Happy anniversary to my little cyber garden.  This Thanksgiving has been really great.  We "got my parents" this year, so they were here to help celebrate and cook (well, my mom helped with the cooking and dad dog-sat the pups).  It was a perfect meal!  

Here is Todd's beautiful fresh bird.  I don't know if it was so special because it was fresh and never frozen, or all the love Todd put into the brine.  Whatever the reason, it was magic.

I'm not that big of a turkey fan but I LOVED THIS BIRD

Here is my wonderful plate of perfect food.  It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!  And Todd's gravy was the best ever.  I could drink that stuff with a straw.

The perfect plate

And then we had pie.

I can smell the goodness just looking at this picture

You all know that my Thanksgiving breakfast tradition is to bake monkey bread.  This year was no exception.  Every year I have a dilemma because my bread grows so much that I wake up to an evil monster lurking in the kitchen.  This year, I decided to outsmart the small bundt pan, and make it like the restaurants who serve it on their buffets.  In a big pan.

Before

Finally, I woke up to what I expected!  The bread had risen without a mess!  I learned that it is more difficult to cook this way.  I need to put foil over it so that it completely bakes without over-browning.  Oh well, next year will be even better!

After
You can't see all the oozy gooey goodness on the bottom of this dish, but it's there

And this is what we got to eat!

Our breakfast:  Yummy!

Our pups had a great time being SPOILED rotten by their grandparents.  They went on walks, and took naps on the couch, and got belly rubs all day and night long.  Just LOOK AT THIS!

Jessie and Joey adore their grandpa

And look at THIS!

Keystone was exhausted from all the partying

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, however you wished to celebrate!  Thanks for reading, and I'll yap with you again soon.

#14

We enjoyed our 14th anniversary by doing what we love the most--spending the day with our furry kids.  We love finding a swimming hole/creek to go splash around in and frolic until we are worn out.

We found a great state park to go play.  We were hopeful that Jessie would finally learn to swim.

Here are the kids when we arrived at our destination:

Keystone was the only one with a clue

We were able to walk out to the water.  Jessie thought she could just run around without getting wet.

Aren't you going to get in, Jessie?!?

Keystone LOVES to swim!

Joey loves to swim too!

Jessie sort of...

... skips along ...

      ... the surface!

 

Eventually, we found a spot deep enough, where we all waded/swam across to the other side, leaving Jessie all alone.  Would she do it?  Would she swim?

Come on, Jessie!  You can do it!

The answer is YES!  She DOES swim across!  She was very hesitant about it, but she figured it out.  Finally, all of our dogs are water dogs!

This part was deep for a few paddles

It was so fun walking up the very shallow "shelves" of water

Here are more of my very favorite random pictures from our day.  It was the best anniversary day ever.

 

Jessie "the bullet" takes the lead

Having fun running up the shore

My Keystone

My goofy puppies

We went to our favorite local Italian restaurant for dinner.  Had an amazing meal.  I'll have to share pictures of what we had soon.  We had a very adventurous day!

Awwww, The Dog Days Of Summer

Howdy!  How's it going?  How ya doin'?  Anybody out there?

I think everyone is too busy to blog.  It seems like even regular bloggers out there have turned it down a few notches.  The flame has fizzled.  But I still think about you... 

So, the pups are 9 months old now.  Can you believe that?  I can.  Every time I look at their size, I am amazed.  They look like 1 year olds to me, who happen to act like 6 month olds....  They are really testing us these days.  But good thing they are cute, because even after all the I-Can't-Hear-You, and rebel rousing they do, we still love 'em.  

Here are some pics from when we visited a really great friend who loves dogs.  Loves 'em so much, he adopted Yoda and opened his pool to any fur-bodies who wanted to jump in.  We went over to his house about a month ago...

Joey got in.  Jessie looked on... from afar.

Keystone was tuckered out after his swim.

Jessie looking innocent

Joey looking all field stock.

Keystone LOVED the pool!

Yoda is not a swimmer, but she is a lover.

More posts to come soon from more recent events.

Oh yea, and Tullybird is coming to visit us in just a few weeks!!!!  I'm so excited.