Thursday, June 14, 2012
Summer Clubhouse
I've been thinking for a couple of months about ways to get the kids playing outside more during the summer. I'd been trying to think of ways to build a "clubhouse" of sorts for free or cheap with mostly items we had. I was kinda stumped until one day I realized that a couple of years ago, my Grandpa gave us an old little tent. So today I set it up in the back yard for the kiddos. I'm going to add some extra touches, but it was fun hanging out in this little corner of the yard this afternoon!
Mini-Getaway
Sunday after church, we loaded up the kids and the camper and took off for a few days. We drove down to Lake Corpus Christi, set the kids free with their bikes, and set up camp. The weekend traffic had already headed out, so we had the park nearly to ourselves. We spent the evening relaxing, swimming, game-playing, bike riding, grilling and eating.
Monday, we got up and made breakfast tacos and then headed for Port Aransas/Mustang Island, one of our favorite (nearby) destinations. We spent the whole day there and had a blast, as always--well, except for my botched attempt at pulled pork sandwiches (the seagulls loved them though!) and the fact that we all burned to a near crisp (turns out three applications of sunscreen is not enough for these pale folks!). We made it back to the camper that evening with plans to grill burgers, but we were all totally wiped out, so we drove to Dairy Queen for dinner and ice cream in the air conditioning. Heaven!
Tuesday, we decided we'd pack up early and head home. We were kinda underwhelmed by the park we were staying at (the lake was SUPER low due to the drought). We made it back to San Antonio and finished off our little vacation by going to the theater to see John Carter in 3D.
All in all, it was a great little trip. Looking forward to putting more of these on the calendar!
Monday, we got up and made breakfast tacos and then headed for Port Aransas/Mustang Island, one of our favorite (nearby) destinations. We spent the whole day there and had a blast, as always--well, except for my botched attempt at pulled pork sandwiches (the seagulls loved them though!) and the fact that we all burned to a near crisp (turns out three applications of sunscreen is not enough for these pale folks!). We made it back to the camper that evening with plans to grill burgers, but we were all totally wiped out, so we drove to Dairy Queen for dinner and ice cream in the air conditioning. Heaven!
Tuesday, we decided we'd pack up early and head home. We were kinda underwhelmed by the park we were staying at (the lake was SUPER low due to the drought). We made it back to San Antonio and finished off our little vacation by going to the theater to see John Carter in 3D.
All in all, it was a great little trip. Looking forward to putting more of these on the calendar!
Garden Update 6/14/12
Well, summer has arrived and the garden looks a little different than last time.
First off our little corner with the cucumbers, blackberries, and flowers (I have no idea what kind I planted) has taken off! Aaron found me some pallets a couple of months ago and I decided to use them as a trellis for the cucumbers. So far they seem to like it!
In our raised bed, we finally had to pull the pumpkins after harvesting about five of them. I think I may have sorta killed them when I trimmed them back (they were taking over our yard!) and they weren't doing so good. We'll be planting them again in July in preparation for Halloween. The tomatoes are taking off! We had so many tomatoes I wasn't sure what to do with them, so I've made several batches of homemade salsa lately,and it's been yummy! (I'll put the recipe below.) I pulled all but one of the brussel sprout plants, and I almost pulled that one up today, but lo and behold, there are sprouts nearly ready to harvest. Not sure if they'll be good or not this late in season, but we can try!
Fresh Salsa
Ingredients: 6-8 medium sized tomatoes
1 jalepeno, diced
2-4 cloves of garlic, diced
1/2 to full bunch of cilantro, chopped
Juice of 1/2-1 lemon
Cumin, Salt, and Garlic Powder to taste
Instructions: Bring water to boil in a large pot. Once water is boiling, add tomatoes and boil for three minutes, then remove from water and let cool. While cooling, combine remaining ingredients in bowl. Once the tomatoes have cooled, peel skin from tomatoes, then pulse in food processor until tomatoes reach desired consistency (I like to leave it a little chunky), then add to other ingredients and refrigerate! Lasts up to 1 week in the refrigerator.
In our raised bed, we finally had to pull the pumpkins after harvesting about five of them. I think I may have sorta killed them when I trimmed them back (they were taking over our yard!) and they weren't doing so good. We'll be planting them again in July in preparation for Halloween. The tomatoes are taking off! We had so many tomatoes I wasn't sure what to do with them, so I've made several batches of homemade salsa lately,and it's been yummy! (I'll put the recipe below.) I pulled all but one of the brussel sprout plants, and I almost pulled that one up today, but lo and behold, there are sprouts nearly ready to harvest. Not sure if they'll be good or not this late in season, but we can try!
Ingredients: 6-8 medium sized tomatoes
1 jalepeno, diced
2-4 cloves of garlic, diced
1/2 to full bunch of cilantro, chopped
Juice of 1/2-1 lemon
Cumin, Salt, and Garlic Powder to taste
Instructions: Bring water to boil in a large pot. Once water is boiling, add tomatoes and boil for three minutes, then remove from water and let cool. While cooling, combine remaining ingredients in bowl. Once the tomatoes have cooled, peel skin from tomatoes, then pulse in food processor until tomatoes reach desired consistency (I like to leave it a little chunky), then add to other ingredients and refrigerate! Lasts up to 1 week in the refrigerator.
Comfort
I've been in sort of a weird place spiritually lately. I won't go into all the details, but I'm at a place where I'm trying to really dig deep in seeking God and his truth (without the lenses or bias of my culture/society/upbringing). It's been challenging, but I feel like it's worth it. I sat down last week with my Bible and came across my favorite verse, Psalm 73:23-26, and it was like a warm blanket for my soul. I just felt God's presence and peace come over me, and I really felt him speak into my life.
I'm so thankful for the gift of his Word and his voice speaking to us. It's easy to let his voice be drowned out by all the other (sometimes even seemingly good) noise we let fill our lives.
Father, may I make seeking you my one priority.
I'm so thankful for the gift of his Word and his voice speaking to us. It's easy to let his voice be drowned out by all the other (sometimes even seemingly good) noise we let fill our lives.
Father, may I make seeking you my one priority.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Our Life in Bulletpoints
I haven't posted much of anything since Spring Break. I hope to think that I'll go back and fill in the gaps sometime over the summer break, but I still have trips and major events from two summers ago that have yet to be posted, so I'm not holding my breath. For the moment, I'll just do what I can and take a couple minutes before I hit the shower and then the sheets to sum up all that's been going on lately (in no particular order).
- Today was the last day of school for the kids. Hello, summer! I'm pretty excited, though the summer routine (or lack of) typically seems to wreak havoc on my work schedule and the very few other (minimally) organized things in my life. I have quite a few fun things planned, and I'm just really enjoying the ages Abby and Carson are now. There are quite a few things they have the interest/attention span for that they didn't possess a year or two ago. Good times.
- Speaking of the kids ages, in May we celebrated both of the kids' birthdays. Abby turned EIGHT, and Carson turned SIX. Wait, can that be right? Five and seven sounded better, don't you think?? But really... while their childhood seems to be flying by, I do love this stage in life. We celebrated Abby's birthday at home with a spa party and what seemed like about a million kids. Whoa. She loved every minute of it though, so that made me happy. We had a little party for Carson at the bowling alley last weekend that he thoroughly enjoyed. It's been fun celebrating these two amazing kids!
- I'm looking forward to NOT getting up at 6:20 tomorrow morning.
- You've seen the garden. That's been fun!
- Lots of parties. In addition to our two, it seems we were invited to about a million other celebrations. We went to several and had to say no to others. Looking forward to a slower paced summer (though I'm working all but one weekend in June). Even though June is looking to be quite busy, we're finding time for a little three day family camping trip, and then the kids and I are going to spend a week in Howe with my parents. Looking forward to opportunities to relax and really hang out with my family.
- We're teaching Financial Peace University at the NW campus, which has been fun and inspiring. While we'd already worked our way through the first two "Baby Steps" in D.R.'s plan, it's cool being re-inspired to get on the same page and make smart money choices. We're starting to really teach our kids about money too, and it's great seeing them start to get it. Abby asked the other day when she could start saving for retirement because she wants to have a million dollars.
- AT&T made me mad this week and I think they're dumb.
- My sister called me up a couple of weeks ago and asked if I wanted to run a 5k with her and my mom. For some reason I said yes. I guess it was her charm and adorableness. She made it sound so fun and easy. It's not. I'm about a week into training though, and truth be told, it's not that awful. Having a goal definitely helps me stick to it a little more. I don't want to be embarrassed on race day! I treated myself to a set of running clothes today. Shoes are my incentive to keep it up. That and having the chance to reach this goal alongside my mom and sister. That'll be cool. Pray for me.
- Our room got clean. I can take no credit for this. It was my husband. He's amazing. I never clean our room. I'm not sure why this is, since I'm happiest when our room (above all others) is clean. It rarely is because that's the room where all the laundry ends up when we get the rest of the house clean. I think if I had the money, I wouldn't worry about getting a housekeeper, but I'd love having someone take care of laundry. It's a monster and I hate it.
- My office got cleaned too! Real good! I know you don't care, but with as crazy as life has felt lately, I take joy in these little things, and am resolving to try and keep it up better.
That's all I can think of for now, but I'll work on keeping the blog up a little better. Happy summer!
- Today was the last day of school for the kids. Hello, summer! I'm pretty excited, though the summer routine (or lack of) typically seems to wreak havoc on my work schedule and the very few other (minimally) organized things in my life. I have quite a few fun things planned, and I'm just really enjoying the ages Abby and Carson are now. There are quite a few things they have the interest/attention span for that they didn't possess a year or two ago. Good times.
- Speaking of the kids ages, in May we celebrated both of the kids' birthdays. Abby turned EIGHT, and Carson turned SIX. Wait, can that be right? Five and seven sounded better, don't you think?? But really... while their childhood seems to be flying by, I do love this stage in life. We celebrated Abby's birthday at home with a spa party and what seemed like about a million kids. Whoa. She loved every minute of it though, so that made me happy. We had a little party for Carson at the bowling alley last weekend that he thoroughly enjoyed. It's been fun celebrating these two amazing kids!
- I'm looking forward to NOT getting up at 6:20 tomorrow morning.
- You've seen the garden. That's been fun!
- Lots of parties. In addition to our two, it seems we were invited to about a million other celebrations. We went to several and had to say no to others. Looking forward to a slower paced summer (though I'm working all but one weekend in June). Even though June is looking to be quite busy, we're finding time for a little three day family camping trip, and then the kids and I are going to spend a week in Howe with my parents. Looking forward to opportunities to relax and really hang out with my family.
- We're teaching Financial Peace University at the NW campus, which has been fun and inspiring. While we'd already worked our way through the first two "Baby Steps" in D.R.'s plan, it's cool being re-inspired to get on the same page and make smart money choices. We're starting to really teach our kids about money too, and it's great seeing them start to get it. Abby asked the other day when she could start saving for retirement because she wants to have a million dollars.
- AT&T made me mad this week and I think they're dumb.
- My sister called me up a couple of weeks ago and asked if I wanted to run a 5k with her and my mom. For some reason I said yes. I guess it was her charm and adorableness. She made it sound so fun and easy. It's not. I'm about a week into training though, and truth be told, it's not that awful. Having a goal definitely helps me stick to it a little more. I don't want to be embarrassed on race day! I treated myself to a set of running clothes today. Shoes are my incentive to keep it up. That and having the chance to reach this goal alongside my mom and sister. That'll be cool. Pray for me.
- Our room got clean. I can take no credit for this. It was my husband. He's amazing. I never clean our room. I'm not sure why this is, since I'm happiest when our room (above all others) is clean. It rarely is because that's the room where all the laundry ends up when we get the rest of the house clean. I think if I had the money, I wouldn't worry about getting a housekeeper, but I'd love having someone take care of laundry. It's a monster and I hate it.
- My office got cleaned too! Real good! I know you don't care, but with as crazy as life has felt lately, I take joy in these little things, and am resolving to try and keep it up better.
That's all I can think of for now, but I'll work on keeping the blog up a little better. Happy summer!
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Garden Update
This is our second year of having a raised garden in our back yard. Last year was alright in the spring, but before we could harvest much, summer (and our dog) came and wiped out pretty much everything but the cherry tomatoes. We tried again this year (and started a little earlier since our winter was so mild), and it's taken off! So far I haven't killed anything, and we've really enjoyed the past couple of weeks as we've been able to start harvesting quite a bit of food! We also planted some extra cucumber seeds I had over in the corner by our blackberry bush, so here in a month or so, we're going to have TONS of cucumbers. So if you like cucumbers, tomatoes, or pumpkins, we've got you covered!
The pumpkins are the big feature this year since we didn't actually mean to grow them! I began composting last year, so when I was prepping the garden in February, I went and mixed in all the compost with the soil -- not thinking about the fact that we'd put October's jack-o-lantern in the pile along with everything else. Come March, I realized there were plants growing where I hadn't planted them, and it turns out they were pumpkins! We harvested our first ones this week and have more coming. I'm planning to take seeds from these and plant a couple in July so we'll have some ready for fall. (Though I've read that these may keep that long.)
Not only have I enjoyed keeping a garden, but the kids love going out to check it, especially Carson! They've been learning about plants at school, so he loves telling me all about how they grow as we're out there tending to it.
The pumpkins are the big feature this year since we didn't actually mean to grow them! I began composting last year, so when I was prepping the garden in February, I went and mixed in all the compost with the soil -- not thinking about the fact that we'd put October's jack-o-lantern in the pile along with everything else. Come March, I realized there were plants growing where I hadn't planted them, and it turns out they were pumpkins! We harvested our first ones this week and have more coming. I'm planning to take seeds from these and plant a couple in July so we'll have some ready for fall. (Though I've read that these may keep that long.)
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Easter/Birthdays/Mother's Day
At the end of April, we took advantage of some vacation days that Aaron and the kids had, and headed north to visit my family. Since we weren't able to make it up for Easter, or Andre's birthday, and we'd be missing Mother's Day, we made it a weekend full of celebrations!
Friday was the big birthday party. We were celebrating Andre, Aaron, Dad, Abby, and Carson, so we went out and spent the day at the zoo in Gainesville, complete with bears, a picnic, and a birthday cake.
Saturday we went to visit Nanny and Pawpaw for a while at their house since we were all in town and hadn't seen them in a while, then we headed to Scurry for the annual Hot Dog Cookout and Treasure Hunt in celebration of Easter. (I think there was an egg hunt in there too.) As always, we loved visiting with Grandma, Grandpa, and GanGan. The kids, of course, loved being able to run around and explore and getting spoiled to death!
This year's treasure hunt was over the top wonderful. Each year, Grandpa tells the tale of the old pirate Whitebeard who used to live on his piece of land. This year, the tale continued with the story of No Beard the Teenage Pirate, and led the kids to a buried treasure at the foot of a real headstone. Impressive!
Saturday we went to visit Nanny and Pawpaw for a while at their house since we were all in town and hadn't seen them in a while, then we headed to Scurry for the annual Hot Dog Cookout and Treasure Hunt in celebration of Easter. (I think there was an egg hunt in there too.) As always, we loved visiting with Grandma, Grandpa, and GanGan. The kids, of course, loved being able to run around and explore and getting spoiled to death!
This year's treasure hunt was over the top wonderful. Each year, Grandpa tells the tale of the old pirate Whitebeard who used to live on his piece of land. This year, the tale continued with the story of No Beard the Teenage Pirate, and led the kids to a buried treasure at the foot of a real headstone. Impressive!
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