Weekend Recap: Mud, Gross Eyes, and Pool Time

 I am hoping that I can remember how this works... This is the first Monday I have had to work in 2 weeks.  Therefore my goal is to simply make it through the day unscathed. Today should not be too bad, but check back with me on Friday when I have been at the office for 5 days for the first time in 2 weeks to see if I am still standing. It's going to be an adjustment week for sure.  Eric starts summer football practice (which is basically just like fall practice schedule, just an hour later) so that means I have to figure our my new evening schedule.  It's been kind of nice having him home when I get home in the evenings and eating dinner at a decent hour. The good news is I will have no excuse to not get a workout or a run in after work.

But I don't want to think about the work week just yet.  I would rather relive my weekend.  =)  I was on my own this weekend.  Eric and some of his friends from high school decided a few months ago to run a Tough Mudder in Virginia Beach, VA.  A Tough Mudder is a 10-12 miles obstacle course.  It's not a timed race.  The goal is simply to finish the course, and for your efforts you receive an orange sweatband and a beer.   With obstacles that have names like the Arctic Enema and Electroshock Therapy, you can see why the goal is just to finish.  I am pretty sure people who run these races have a screw loose.  I love a good challenge, but I just don't know about this one.  Unfortunately, Tropical Storm Andrea had other plans, and the event was cancelled due to flooding.  They waited to make a decision on the event until the morning of, so the boys ended up driving over to Charlotte, NC for the weekend to hang out. They're going to change their registration to another event later this year.

I, on the other hand did what ever I darn well pleased and my weekend looked a little like this:

1. I have been dying to try Little Caesar's Deep Dish Hot N'Ready Pizza.  Growing up we always had pizza and movie night on Fridays, and since Little Caesar's was next to Blockbuster we always got pizza from there.  These were the pre- Hot N'Ready Pizza days, and at the time Little Caesar's mostly served deep dish pizzas.  Their deep dish crust is my absolute favorite one, and I can't tell you how long it's been since I had had one (at least 10 years, probably more).  I have been craving one of these pies since they started carrying them about a month ago.  I was seriously giddy in the car when I was on my way home from the restaurant.   I am happy to report that it did not disappoint!

2. Hollow did some shoe art while I was working on Cricut projects on Friday night.  He pulled our clogs out of the closet and arranged them on the other side of the bedroom.  Not sure why he just decided to pull those out.....maybe because of the fuzzy insides? 

3. My puffy, gookey eye.  Friday night I sat down to watch a movie and felt something in my eye (I rented This is 40...it was terrible and I turned it off which I rarely do).  I played with my eyelash trying to get it out for about an hour, but nothing worked.  I finally started rubbing it, which was a huge mistake. By the time I had given up on the movie my eye was really hurting.  I couldn't see anything in it, but every time I opened and shut my eye it felt like there was something under my eyelid. I decided to sleep on it because it felt much better closed and figured I would deal with it in the morning.  Side note: at this point I had come to the realization that rubbing my eye probably was not the best idea.  Saturday morning my eye felt crusty (like it had been watering) so I figured my tear ducts took care of what ever was in my eye, but it still hurt under my eyelid.  I called my MIL (who is a nurse practitioner) and she came to my rescue!  She came and looked at it and said I had a small scratch in my cornea (from rubbing my eye the night before).  She flushed it out and put an antibiotic on it.  It left my eye a little goopy for a while but it did the trick! I am happy to report that I am feeling 100% better!  

4-6. I spent much of my Saturday by the pool with the fur-babies, which is how it should be. =)

7. Hawk's favorite game in the pool.  He sits on the steps and lets his tennis ball float away from him until he decides it's far enough away and swims out to get it. 

8. When the pool pump is on the game takes on another element because the ball gets sucked in the skimmer so Hawk has to get out of the pool and get the ball.  He knows exactly where it goes.  I usually take the top off the skimmer so I don't have to get up every time it goes in.  It will entertain him for hours!

9. We started watching the North America series on tv Sunday night.  Since we're a few weeks late coming in we're trying to catch up on episodes. Shortly after we turned it on we realized that watching it will be a challenge with our television-loving puppy. We also learned that Hollow will bark at just about any furry animal that walks on 4 legs that is on the tv.  The bears and the deer got the most spirited reaction out of him, although the hummingbirds intrigued him, too. We had to make sure he was in one of our laps the entire time to keep him from running up to the tv and barking at it. 

I'm out of fun weekend stuff to talk about so I guess that means Monday really IS here.  Please be nice to me work week!

Squash Casserole

When summer rolls around I get tempted by every fresh fruit and veggie I pass in the produce section.  I know that isn't a bad thing by any means, but I am not exactly a raw veggie fan, so I have to have a recipe in mind when buying random produce so that it does not go to waste in the fridge.  Lately I've noticed lots of summer squash and zucchini on sale, so I decided we'd have some squash casserole for dinner this week.  I got on pinterest and did a search for "best squash casserole" and got a ton of results.  I settled on this recipe that popped up several times and looked pretty tasty!  I made a couple of tweaks to the recipe and our taste buds were singing at dinner!

What you need:

1lb diced yellow squash

1/3 cup vidalia onion, diced

1/2 can cream of chicken soup

1/2 cup light sour cream

4 Tbsp butter (divided)

1/2 box chicken flavor stuffing mix

10-12 Ritz Crackers, crumbled

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (I added a little shredded gouda I had leftover from our BBQ Chicken Quesadillas, too)

olive oil

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 11" x 7" baking dish, set aside.

In a large skillet saute squash and onion in olive oil on medium to medium low heat (if it cooks too quickly the squash will burn). When squash and onions are tender remove from skillet and place on a plate covered with a paper towel to remove excess oil/moisture.

In a large bowl, combine squash and onions with the rest of the ingredients EXCEPT for 2 TBSP of butter and Ritz Crackers. Melt remaining 2 TBSP butter in the microwave, and mix in Ritz Cracker crumbles.

Spread squash/onion mixture into greased baking dish, and top with butter cracker crumbles.

Bake for 40 minutes and serve immediately.

This was the perfect amount of casserole for Eric and I to have some for dinner as well as leftovers for the next day.  I actually cut my recipe in half from the original recipe. We paired it with some grilled chicken and grilled pork chips.  It's a perfect easy summer side dish!

Thunder on the Gulf

While we were down at the beach this past weekend, they had several events going on.  One of the events was Thunder on the Gulf...aka boat races. I've never really given boat races much thought, but I will admit I was quite intrigued when we drove into Orange Beach on Friday night and saw several ENORMOUS speed boats in the empty lot in front of the Wharf.  We soon found out that the races were on Sunday, but it was quite obvious that they were practicing all weekend.  We were a mile away from the beach and it sounded like the boats were behind the fence.  After hearing them run all day on Saturday, we (the girls) decided we'd go check out the races on Sunday.  We had some friends who knew some people staying in a condo right in front of turns 3 and 4, so we met up with them and were right on the water in front of the turns to watch!

The boats coming from the starting line....people were in the water the whole time. 

You can't see much of the actual boats but in that spray is from3 boats making the turns.  The other boats out there were just there to spectate.  I could not believe how close they were, but I think it would be so cool to see up close!  

Several of the boats coming out of the turn.

These were two of the boats.  They would get super close to each other.  I can't tell you how many  times I saw a boat go airborne!

 It wasn't much of race for 1st.  One of the boats jumped out to an early lead and ended up winning by almost half the length of the course.  The battle for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th was close and was like the picture above for much of the race.  I am not sure how many laps they did, but they raced for almost 30 minutes. I still can't believe how close they were to the beach.  Our friends told us that during the earlier race that day one of the boats flipped over in turn 3 right in front of the beach!

I got a video of one of their laps. We expected it to be really loud on the beach since it was so loud at the house, but it was not near as loud as we thought....no louder than it was at the house.  I guess the wind carried the sound up over the beach to the town.

I don't think I will be traveling up and down the gulf following the races any time soon, but it was a pretty cool thing to watch! Of course I just enjoy the being out at the beach part of it!

Perfection!

On another note, I saw that today is National Running Day!  I guess that means I need to strap on my sneakers and go for a run this evening.  At point I will take any motivation I can find.  There's something about coming off of a holiday weekend that sucks the desire to workout out of me.

Beach Weekend Recap

I am back from the land of sand and sun. We headed down to my BIL and SIL's house in Orange Beach this weekend.  They are still remodeling and needed help laying their new tile floor, so we and a few other friends headed down to help out.  The boys worked their tails off all weekend and finished it up Sunday evening.  It turned out gorgeous!  While the boys worked, the girls did our best to stay out of the way, which meant going on walks, laying by the pool, shopping, etc.  It was a tough job but someone had to do it!

1. Eric and I at Wintzell's on Sunday night.
2. The pool!  They just had this pool put in and it is beautiful! Yes that is a hot tub on the right side of the picture.
3. Campground fish fry!  We met up one night with some friends who are staying in OB for the summer at a campground.  Let me just say that campground folks know how to have a good time.  We knew just one couple that was staying there, but the people who were there welcomed us like we were old friends.  They were some of the nicest people I've met.  Eric ended up cooking the fish and his world famous hush puppies (of course).  I can't tell you how many people commented on how delicious they were.  The best part of the night was when an older lady who was staying there came to fix her plate.  She asked one of Eric's buddies how big his girlfriend was and then proceeded to ask him to show her his "guns" (his bicep muscles).  It was hilarious!  We talked to our friends the next day and they told us that after we left all the women could talk about was hoe good the hush puppies were and how nice our guys were to look at.....TOO FUNNY!
4. Boat races on the beach!  More to come on that when I get pictures downloaded from my camera....Thunder on the Gulf was in town this weekend!
5. Grilled Triggerfish (one of my favorites!) from Wintzell's.
6.  The biggest oyster I have ever seen. It took up the entire shell and was half of the length of a fork!
7 and 8. Bobby and Tera's new tile floor!  They found tile that look exactly like hardwood and it is gorgeous!  All the boys agreed that they didn't want to lay another tile floor ever....it was a lot of work (for them) but it was so worth it!
9 and 10. The boys opted to shower in the pool this weekend.  Trying to be one with nature I guess?

Since the boys did not finished laying tile until almost 6pm on Sunday and I didn't have to work on Monday, we decided to stay the night and drive back early Monday.  Eric had to be in Auburn for a call at 9, so we got up early (which is totally normal for him....he was up at the same time this morning to fish!) and were back home by 8:15am. After he left I spent the morning unpacking and cleaning....it's amazing how much 3 dogs can shed in a 4 days. I did manage to take a couple of breaks for puppy walks (of course) and a grocery store run so we would have food to eat this week.  I even convinced Eric to fire up the grill so we could have some chicken and pork chops to eat this week...thinking ahead since we have 2 softball games this week.

I guess I have to get this week started.....only 4 days left!