This month I was happy about: getting some time away on a week long vacay! Our new neighbors are just lovely! I am so so excited and thankful to have good neighbors again. This month I was sad about: This year I’m going to rate the books & movies. Here’s my rating system: ♥ ♥ = Love it! A must read/see! ♥ = Really good! Highly recommend. ✓ ✓ = Good, not great ✓ = Not much to talk about X = Awful. Total waste of time Movies I watched were: TV Shows I watched were: The Baker and the…
Today I’m linking up with Shay and Sheaffer for What’s Up Wednesday a week late, because last week I was on vacation. What We’re Eating This last month we learned how to cook Spare Ribs. The university has a meat lab, and ever since the Pandemic we’ve been ordering from them more often. After cooking ribs on Memorial Day weekend, I found more ribs and Publix for really cheap, so we got a few racks. They are so yummy. Next time we make them I need to take pics, so I can share the recipe. What I’m Reminiscing About Lots…
I blinked and June is over. Here’s my Currently post for July! Hope you’re having a great Summer so far. I’m cooking… several shrimp recipes that I did back in Summer 2017 that I never shared. I need to make the recipes again and write everything down so I can share them with you. I’m photographing… my garden. We were on vacation last week and my sis-in-law took care of our cat and my garden while we were gone. It rained a lot, so when we got back my garden has exploded with tomatoes! Peppers are bigger. I’m sharing… a…
Over this time of quarantine, I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone and have really tried to up my Instant Pot game. I thought through what I make on a regular basis that isn’t really that great and Spaghetti actually came to mind! Yeah, my Spaghetti is never that great. The sauce ends up runny. The noodle and sauce separate. I decided maybe the Instant Pot will be all the answers to this issue. And I was right! It did fix all my issues. My spaghetti in the Instant Pot is melded together and my kids say its the best…
The other day I was thinking back through the last 11 weeks of ‘quarantine’ and all of the good that has come from this. Yes, there has been ups and down and scary times and unknown future for so many, I can’t dwell in the negative. My headspace needs to hover in positivity as much as possible. I believe it’s been. I have found so many blessings from having this time to slow down and just be. To enjoy family and enjoy doing these we don’t often take time to do. I want to remember this time so I’m sharing…
Today we’re continuing on our Mountain West Trip that I’ve been sharing. Click >>> Mountain West Trip 2019 Posts to see more about this trip. We got up, loaded the car, grabbed some hotel breakfast, and headed out for more open road! Not long after that we passed this sign that said Auburn, WY. Since we’re from Auburn, AL, we’re always interested when we see other states with towns called Auburn. It was hardly a town with a population of less that 400 people in the 2010 census. The first settlement in Auburn, WY was made in 1879. The bottom…
It’s time for another Currently post! I’m feeling… drained, but trying my best not to let it get the best of me. I need be rejoicing in the fact that I’m still working from home and the flexibility that gives. I am excited that our new neighbors moved in this week. We haven’t met them yet, but I’m eager to meet them. I miss having neighbors that we can stand out in the yard and talk to. I hope these new people are nice like that. I’m wearing… nothing special! T-shirts and shorts. I’m buying… lots of random things, but…
This is the landing page for our Pacific Northwest Trip, where we traveled the Washington Coast, Seattle, Part of the Oregon Coast, Cannon Beach, Ecola State Park, Portland, and more! (Click on any of the pics below to see related post.)
When planning this trip and knowing that the Rose Festival would be going on we structured it so we’d be in Portland at the right time. We decided that since we were here during the Grand Floral Parade that we needed to go. I was glad we did. It was also Fleet Week, which is always a sight to see. We were hoping to get over to ships after the parade to get a tour of one of the US Naval Ships but we missed it by a few minutes. So instead we walked up to the near by bridge…
In this post, I’m continuing to share about trip to the Pacific Northwest. This is the day we spent on the Oregon Coast, which is always my favorite. We first drove out to Cannon Beach. There’s several lots where you can park for a small fee as well as free street parking, which is what we ended up doing. After we parked we looked up on the internet to see when low tide was, because if you want to look for sea urchins and star fish you need to plan ahead. Luckily for us, low tide was about to occur…
University of Washington Tour The last day in Seattle began with a tour of the University of Washington that was done for the conference attendees and their families. Walking the campus, I loved the mixture of —style and new modern buildings. Here you see Gerberding Hall (GRB) on the right and Suzzallo Library, which are both Collegiate Gothic style of architecture that is so beautiful. This library is probably the most iconic building on campus. This is the Graduate Reading Room, which takes up the entire western side of the library at 250 ft.long, 52 ft. wide, with a 65-ft.…
Here’s my 2nd post to continue Day 5 from our Seattle Trip. I did the first post about Alex and my trip to Snoqualmie Falls. That evening we met up with Rob to get on a Riverboat for a Dinner Cruise. We boarded the Virginia V behind the University of Washington School of Oceanography, which is a special location just for this private event. The water way near the School of Oceanography is the Portage Bay which connects to the Lake Union. After boarding we went to the open bar and got some drinks. Soon after that they stocked the…
For today’s post, I’m continuing to share about our Seattle trip. I’m actually splitting this day into 2 posts. This post is about Alex and my trip out to Snoqualmie Falls, which is a beautiful waterfall about 30 miles east of Seattle. It’s located between Snoqualmie and Fall City, Washington. We parked at the Lower Observation deck. When we got there, I was happy to find a nice bathroom before walking to the falls. As we followed the trail to the sounds of the falls, I heard a woodpecker. I glanced over and saw a woodpecker through the trees. As…
If you missed my first 3 posts from our Pacific Northwest trip, here’s the links to those: – Pacific NW Trip: Quinault Rainforest to Olympic National Park – Pacific NW Trip: Seattle Mariners Game and the Waterfront – Pacific Northwest Trip: Sightseeing in Seattle We took the hotel shuttle to the Seattle Center, where we stopped the day before, but Alex wanted to play on the playground some more. As I mentioned in my last post, the Seattle Center is a really interesting place. The playground is like nothing I’ve seen before. On one side is the colorful and oddly…
If you missed my first 2 posts from our Pacific Northwest trip, here’s the links to those: – Pacific NW Trip: Quinault Rainforest to Olympic National Park – Pacific NW Trip: Seattle Mariners Game and the Waterfront Here’s Rob figuring out where to get breakfast in the hotel lobby, as well the Seattle Flat Iron building and a Target downtown. We checked out of the hotel and went to a Russian bakery called Piroshiki on 3rd 710 3rd Ave, Seattle We ordered their Meat Piroshki and a Raspberry Roll. We shared those 2 things and if it weren’t for that…
If you missed Day of our trip click here –> Pacific NW Trip: Quinault Rainforest to Olympic National Park. Today I’m sharing our 2nd day in Washington. We left Sequim after breakfast at the hotel and drove straight to Bainbridge Island to get on the ferry to Seattle. We had thought we would park and walk around, but it was still pretty early. Nothing was open yet, so we just decided to get in line and head on over to Seattle. The ferry we took was quite large with several decks just for cars. If you got out of your…
Today, I’m going to start sharing with you about our trip to the Pacific Northwest. Rob had a conference at the University of Washington in Seattle, so we decided to make a vacay out of it. Alex, Rob and I left out one Friday after work and booked it over to Atlanta for our flight. We arrived at Sea-Tac around midnight, which was actually 2am our time. Some of slept a little bit on the plain and of course the adrenaline was flowing so we were doing good. We drove from Seattle to Auburn, WA, which is about 18 miles…
Summer officially starts this week. In case you wondered summer is from Thursday, June 21 through Saturday, September 22. Although, my 9th grader starts school August 8th and my college kid starts August 20th. And since both the boys have been done with school since May, I’ve let a several weeks go by. I need to get busy. – Make popsicles. – Make something off my Recipe Bucket List. – Make some bird feeders. – Go swimming. – Make root beer floats. – Go on a quick family trip somewhere fun. – Go on a family hike. – Visit family.…
I’ve missed one of my favorite posts the last couple months, so this month I’m so happy I remembered to do my Currently post for June. Be sure and check out Anne and Sarah for this month’s link-up. /traveling/ This month, I am staying home and enjoying (hopefully) getting stuff done around the house. Honestly, my Fibro is kicking my butt lately and I’m just not feeling like doing much of anything, but when I have the energy I have a new ‘toy’ that I hope to be sharing with you soon. This is a hint: /grilling/ I love to…
Happy June, y’all! Are your kids out of school yet? Both mine are and I am so glad. I love summer because we aren’t running here and there in the evenings after work. Most nights I can go home and relax. I just haven’t had much of the cooking vibes lately, so I decided to try a new crockpot recipe. This summer I’m pulling some cookbooks off the shelf to try. I’ll be tweaking them to make them as easy as possible, like this recipe which I got from The Texas Cowboy Cookbook, which I made into a crockpot recipe.…