Planter Box

I have been missing doing yard work - yes - I know that sounds crazy!!!  Shane made me a big-size planter box so I have a little garden.  I love it so much!

The girls helped me pick out some herbs and flowers and they found a couple of fairies to put in the garden.
Isabella didn't want your ordinary fairy - she found a fairy dog.  She loves hiding it in the plants and now that they've grown so big you can barely find the fairy dog.  

Kennedy picked out a more traditional fairy girl.  Usually she is resting with her elbows on the edge of the planter box although Isabella likes to hide her too - and likes to hide her face down in the dirt. 

Debbie bought them two new little creatures for the planter box.  Kennedy got a lizard (of course).  I'm hoping this is as close to having a lizard in my house as I will ever have (I'm STILL anti-chameleon).

 Isabella got a snail and he's made friends with the fairy dog - they hide out together.   

Unfortunately, the girls found catepillars (Isabella said it was NOT a catepillar, it was an inchworm) in the garden this weekend which solves why many of my leaves have holes in them now.  Definitely not an organic farmer, I sprayed the heck out of them this weekend with pest control.  Hopefully those pesky inchworms go away.

La Loose Llama

Last weekend Nicole came to visit me.  Shane was working on the cabinets and wood flooring in his cousin's house so that left plenty of girl time for us. Because I was pretty sure I got a new full-time job (woot! woot!) and that my interview went good we took a tour through Target and picked out some work clothes for me.  Nicole and her good fashion sense picked me out some cute dresses and tops.  I didn't tear off any of the receipts until this week Tuesday when I officially found out the job was mine (yahoo!).

We went out to sushi and watched alot of Tabatha Takes Over.  She frightens me but I love her!

Kinda on impulse we decided to go to Lucas Marc Hair Academy (a school of Cosmetology).  I haven't had a haircut since October and needed a trim on a budget. 

 Cost of haircut = $8!! (can you believe that!?)
Cost of haircut + tip = $13!!! (crazy amazing!)
Time of haircut for 1/2" trim = 2 hours (ouch!)
I'm not sure Tabatha would approve of this time but the price point and customer service was good.

We also hiked Badger Mtn.  I warned Nicole that this hike isn't like the hikes we do at home...it's more of a hill than a mountain.  We burned a few calories and then burned a few extra chasing a llama around. Yes...you heard me right.  

On our way up we started to see a creature in the distance:

 It kept getting closer:

and closer:

It walked within a few feet of us and we realized it had a leash on it.  We let it go on by and soon after we saw a lady running down chasing it. She had stopped to take a picture of her llama and it had escaped from her. 

We continued walking up the hill and at the top there was a whole pack of them:

About an hour later on our way back down we found a man running in socks and Tevas chasing this llama all over the side of the mountain.

This llama would let him get just close enough and then run away.  We felt it most appropriate to bust up laughing and take pictures rather than help out.   We started to feel bad and tried to help wrangle it in.  Nicole and the llama-man-chaser had it cornered into a trench but it quickly escaped.

We did our best but decided since we were too chicken to grab the leash anyway (this thing had HUGE teeth) we would make our way back to the car.  When we got back to the car Llama-man-chaser had wrangled it in and was leading it back to the car for the lady.

All llamas were present and accounted for:

 La loose llama was an unexpected and great surprise to our windy hike. 

Kennedy School Picture

Here is Kennedy's 5th grade school picture:

Isn't she so photogenic?  She is beautiful.  I wish my school pictures were this good.  I don't have any school pictures of myself but I'm kindly reminded of how great they were every time I go to Mom and Dad's and see all 12 of them on the wall.  These are not me (obviously) but this one reminds me of my Kindergarten haircut:

Oh ya...Kindergarten mullet...I was all about it. 

 And this haircut reminds me of 4th and 5th grade:

Spikey mullet

Except thankfully Mom decided this was not appropriate and wouldn't cut my hair this way.......THANK YOU MOM!

While searching for mullet pictures on line I found this website that classifies mullets :
http://listoftheday.blogspot.com/2008/08/mullet-types-of-day.html

I particularly like this one but you apperently have to be older (55+) with a chrome dome on top to rock it:

The Skullet- The mullet is generally characterized by no hair on top and long usually grey hair.

 I kinda side-tracked a lil bit - my point was that Kennedy's school picture is beautiful :)

Pumpkin - Oh How I Love Thee

Fall is my favorite time of the year.  I always think that until it's been winter for awhile and then come March it's spring and everything is turning green, flowers are budding and the sun is out.  Then I say spring is my favorite time of year.  I love living in a place that has 4 seasons so that just as I'm getting ready for a change of scenery, a new season comes along.

So...things I fall for in the fall: soup, warm sweater weather, and pumpkin abundance!  I think I do my very best to tire myself of pumpkin just in time to put them aside and start making Christmas goodies.

Let's start off with my very favorite fall drink - Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte.  Never mind that the nutrition facts I found online at Starbucks say my version of the drink (grande, nonfat, no whip) has 260 calories, 50 g carbs and 48 g sugars. Ouch...that just almost takes the fun out drinking it - but not quite.

Since my wallet and my hips can't afford Starbucks everyday, I get the Keurig Pumpkin spice cups for most mornings:

with a lil dash of this:

And for occasions that call for a lil more there's one of my favorite seasonal beers (Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale):

I have pumpkin candles and Debbie bought me Pumpkin Handsoap from Bath & Body Works - yummy!

I've been making pumpkin this-or-that for the past few weekends.  I'm going to make Shane sick of pumpkin if I'm not careful!  I've been turning these:

into pumpkin loaf, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin tart and his favorite:

I am loving fall!

Lunchbreak

My schedule really shifted this past couple of weeks.  I don't get home till pretty late most evenings but the tradeoff (if you can call it that) is that I have to take a longer lunch break.  Last week, I had time to go to the park with a good book and eat my sandwich.

It was a nice breath of fresh air and wish I could do it more often (although, if I had to choose, I'd still rather be off before 8:00).

This is on my retirement bucket list: take my dogs, a lawnchair, and have a nice chat by the river.

Aprons

Debbie and I drove to Yakima a couple of weekends ago to get the perfect fabric for the playhouse curtain makeover.  On our drive back through Prosser we stopped at a gift shop and came across the perfect apron for Isabella.  Debbie got it for her and she loves it!  Now both girls and I have cute aprons. They do make cooking more fun! 

Birdies & Eagles

I had an amazing round...well, maybe not an good round, but I had an amazing two holes of golf this weekend!

I got a BIRDIE on a par three (hole 8) and an EAGLE on a par three (hole 10)...yep, an EAGLE on a par 3 is a HOLE-IN-ONE!!!!!

Here was the front nine scorecard...we were both playing so bad we decided to not keep score. 

Then, on the back nine, Shane had a great shot on hole 10:

After I hit, we drove up to the green and couldn't find my ball.  I was sure I had come in "hot" and rolled it off the back of the green.  Shane looked, I looked, and then he looked in the cup to find this:

Hall - le - lu -jah !!!!!  Can you believe it?

Shane was so happy for me and I was grinning ear to ear!  The back nine card looked like this (we were by then soooooooo excited and distracted we decided not to keep score :)

 

It was an awesome experience!

Love Potion

Breaking news! Due to popular demand, Love Potion will be available in quart size containers all year round now!!!  But only available by the scoop in February as their Flavor of the Month.  This required me to promptly by two quarts for dessert tonight and it absolutely made my day!

Mixin' It UP!

Oh la la!  I got a shiny new cobalt blue Kitchen-Aid mixer for my birthday.  Shane and his parents went in together and got me this beaut.  This is my first mixer and it's soooooo pretty! I also got new aprons for my birthday which are so exciting!  They almost feel too cute to wear - I don't want to get them dirty!  But the dirtier they are, the more it means I'm cooking, which was the whole point, so I am just trying to limit my messiness as not to get the aprons dirty :)

Another great thing about these aprons - they hide my clothing.  I just noticed in almost every picture taken at home, I'm in the same black Addidas warm up pants and white Hanes t-shirt,  Ya...about that...I apparently have gotten stuck in a comfy clothing rut.  I need some new sweat pants :)

Mixer bliss

I went hog wild and made whoopie pies - I was lookin' like a Cotton with little chocolate cakes spread out all over the kitchen.  The filling definitely wasn't what I remembered hers to be so the next Whoopie Pie batch I will have to try a new recipe for the filling. It made me appreciate all those mud pies of deliciousness that she would bring to every basketball game - not just for my team - but for pretty much all the teams.  How did she ever do that?  They take a lot of time to mix up, bake, and assemble.  Wow...she rocks.

I also tried Lemon Cookies this past weekend...Umm...no.  They were crumbling to pieces before I could even scoop them off the cookie sheet.  Something went horribly wrong.  But success was to be found in homemade pizza dough!  I tried 2 recipes - one for NY style and one for thin crust.  They were both good and I got to use my mixer's dough hook for the first time.  How did people ever used to knead dough by hand?  I will (THANKFULLY) never have to know!!

I look like I'm up to something...

Ya...this is more like it...it's a work in progress

Birthday Parties!

Shane was gone to Vietnam and I was bummed he couldn't be home but I had a great day and week.  Thanks for so many thoughtful calls, cards, gifts, and emails for my birthday!  It started with Debbie, Kennedy, and Isabella taking me to Red Robin (Kennedy's choice) for dinner - but they surprised me and turned it into a birthday party.

The girls gave me pajama jeans - yes - you heard me right - pajama jeans!  Shane had ordered them as a joke waaaaaaay back in January and they were (shocker) backordered.  They just now came so Debbie wrapped them up and the girls gave them to me as my birthday gift. 

Debbie even smuggled in tie-dye cupcakes in her purse that Heidi had made.  They were delicious and it was funny to see her whip them out.   You just never know what might be in a lady's purse :)

The girls gave me the cutest card with a golden retriever puppy on the front and I thought the inside was so special.  It brightened my week for sure:

After work that week, the dogs and I loaded up to Nicole's.  We got massages at the Davenport which was AMAZING!  I had never been to the Davenport and I couldn't believe how pretty it was.  I felt like I was touring the Biltmore again in NC.

Later that night, we met Aunt Rhonda at Steamplant Grill for dinner and drinks.  It was sorta sketchy walking there but the restaurant had a cool vibe and the company was awesome!  We got a complementary birthday dessert called "WOW".  And no wonder - it was the best free birthday dessert I've seen...actual scoops of ice cream, a big brownie, and a huge cookie.  Easily splittable for a table unlike most birthday desserts that barely feed the birthday girl.

We headed home to the farm on Saturday and Brittany, Ryan, and Reid met us there.  Mom made my favorite childhood birthday dinner: Chicken-n-Rice casserole and sprinkled brownies.  She also picked up my adult favorite birthday dessert: Red Velvet cupcakes.  So sweet!!  We had fun trying to make lemon drops, playing Life, and watching NC2A basketball.

On my actual birthday, I had to work and then taught evening classes at school - blah! But, Heidi and her boys brought me tulips at work during my lunchbreak - a total surprise - that absolutely cheered me up! And Shane had sent me a beautiful basket of flowers with lots of bright and cheery colors.  It was pretty special he had arranged that even while he was gone to Vietnam.  I missed him even more after getting the flowers but it was really sweet of him to do that since he wasn't home.

Oh - and I nearly forgot to tell you but the pajama jeans are VERY comfortable.  And yes...I have worn them in public ;) I'm not sure they can really pass for authentic jeans but they get an A+ for comfort (AKA stretchy wastebands).  These will be my go-to pants after Thanksgiving dinner this year.