Spring Flowers have Sprung!

I realized the other day that I have not put a single flower picture up on here this year.  Usually I am snapping away at the first sign of floweryness...aka my snowdrops...but since it's been very un-Alabama this spring (which means we have actually HAD a spring this year), most of the flowers are taking their time; including my favorite smell-good flowering trees, which have YET to open.  They usually bloom mid-April, but since it's been cooler they have not quite bloomed out.

While walking the dogs last night I noticed a bright patch of pink on the shady side of the house that I had not noticed this year.  Upon closer inspection I saw that it was one of my amaryllis flowers and it is B-E-A-utiful!  I don't really remember it blooming last year, so I was pretty excited to see it.  While looking around on that side of the house (there are no windows or doors on that side of the house so I have to physically walk over to see the flowers on that side) I saw that one of my favorite bearded irises had bloomed, too!  After seeing those beauties I put the dogs in the pool fence and started snapping away at all of my pretties!

Left: Can't remember the name of this one, but isn't it pretty!?; Top Right: Bearded Iris; Bottom Right: Amaryllis

Left: Wildflowers behind our fence; Top Right: hybrid snap dragons; Bottom Right: can't remember the name of these either, but they're something that was sent from Mom's garden in MI.

Funny story about my snap dragons....4 summers ago when I first started growing flowers at our current location I bought 2 giant planters to go around the pool and put some snap dragons in them.  I put a yellow and a red snap dragon in each one.  The first couple of years I had yellow plants and red plants.  Last summer I noticed the snap dragons in one of my planters looked more orange-ish than red or yellow, but did not think anything of it.  Yesterday I was outside and saw the above snap dragons in the same planter.....they are bright yellow next to the stem, but the end of each flower is bright red!  I guess they cross pollinated over the years and now they are this really cool 2-toned flower!

I can't wait to see what else comes back this year!  Mom and I did some major flower planting last summer, so I am hoping that most of those pretties come back!

Weekend Recap: Football Reunion Weekend

If ever there was a weekend I needed another day to recover from, it was this one.  The sad part is that I had all day yesterday to recover and I still wish I was curled up in bed asleep.....but I'm not.  Since my mind is still in lala land I think reminiscing about the weekend is in order.

My weekend in pictures (the ones I have because I totally slacked on taking pictures and have NO pictures of us together or of us dressed up.):

Top: The CrossFit Competitors; Middle L to R: Eric competing, me chatting post workout, my awesome sunburn from being outside in my tank top for 4 hours; Bottom: Picnic time!

Saturday was the first annual Huntingdon College Football Alumni Reunion. This fall will mark the 10th year our Alma Mater has had a football team so the Alumni Association decided they would start an annual event in the spring to "induct" the graduation seniors into this "brotherhood."  I use that term loosely because it's not an official brotherhood, but these guys might as well all be brothers.  They certainly act like it.

The day started out with a CrossFit workout....or so we thought. When we got to the field at 10AM Saturday morning they had an entire CrossFit competition set up.  I have never done CrossFit before, but I do my fair share of workouts, and I figured if we had to be there that early I might as well participate and get a little workout in.  I made it through the first workout with no problems. It consisted of 5 rounds of a half gaser, 10 deadlifts, and 10 sit-ups.  I had not done deadlifts in several years but it was like riding a bike.  The second round was for the top 8 guys (about 50 guys participated), and since there were only 8 girls they let us all try it.  You had to do 30 squat thrusters to start the workout, and let's just say I made it through #15 and decided I wanted to enjoy the rest of my day so I bowed out gracefully.  That was another move I had not done since college and was a little more challenging for the tall girls since you had to squat down to a ball that was only about 18" off the ground.  Don't worry I am still feeling the effects of those 15 that I did.

After the competition they had a cookout.  Eric was the grill master and cooked up some delicious burgers and hot dogs for us.  After lunch the boys had an alumni association business meeting that they told us would last 30 minutes.  We [the girls] laughed and as soon as they went in to the field house took off to a restaurant right next to campus and had ourselves a drink and some girl time.  I know I have said it before but the girls in this group have all become really close over the years, and we look forward to these get-togethers as much as the guys do.

An hour and a half later the calls and texts from the boys started trickling in (we know them so well....30 minute meeting, yeah right!).  We got cleaned up (I was still in my disgusting workout clothes at this point 4 hours later) and got ready for dinner.  We had a really nice dinner and banquet to honor the graduating class of 2013, as well as some of the coaches.  Afterward everyone got to just hang out and enjoy each others company.  The place we had the banquet at was actually part of one of the bars downtown so everyone just stayed there after dinner.  I am not sure when but at some point total exhaustion hit me and I was done.  I actually told someone that my feeling would not be hurt if Eric came over and said he was ready to go. Not 30 minutes after that he found me and told me he was ready to go home.  After I did my little happy dance and we said goodbye to everyone, we headed to the house.  We had time to drive home, get something to eat at Huddle House and were in bed by 10:30pm.  10:30.....we're just that cool I guess.  I honestly don't think I would have made it another hour at the bar.  I would have been curled up in the corner asleep.

We both slept in on Sunday and I even took a nap Sunday afternoon.  I finally decided to get moving around 3pm.  We needed groceries for this week and the house looked like a tornado had swept through it.  It took all of my remaining energy to do that.  Eric grilled some chicken and steak for dinner, and we finished off the weekend watching a Discover Channel Special called Naked Castaway. The title of the show sucked us in and we watched all 3 hours of it.  It was actually really interesting.  The title comes from the fact that the guy was dropped off with no food, clothing, or shelter for 60 days on an island and had to survive.  It was fascinating.

This week is going to be a whirlwind, Eric starts spring practice for football this week and I have some traveling in my very near future.  I guess our downtime that we've been enjoying is over for a while.  It's time to get back at it!

One of my favorite pictures from this weekend:

One of the guys made this and sent it out.  These are the "old guys" from the 1st class who competed last weekend and one of their inside jokes.   I must say they held their own in the competition against all of the young guys.  Two of them made the top 8 and three others were very close to it.  

WARNING: This Post will make you Hungry...Very Very Hungry

I am proud to report that I had a rather productive day off yesterday.  There was a part of me that wanted to stay in my pajamas all day and watch trashy daytime television for a solid day, but luckily the sunshine peeping through the window and the dogs jumping on me caused me to do otherwise and my laziness only lasted until around 9:30.   The time that I didn't spend outside walking the puppies (they got 2 walks yesterday) I spent in the kitchen whipping up some oldie-but-goody and some soon-to-be-added-to-our-regular-rotation recipes.

Top: No-Bake Energy Balls; Bottom L to R: Avocado Chicken Salad; Guacamole

Instead of lunchmeat for lunches this week I decided we'd have Avocado Chicken Salad which has become one of my favorites.  If you have not tried this and you like avocados you're missing out.   Since I only needed one avocado for my chicken salad and I had an extra avocado I decided to make some guacamole....what else?!

Next up were No-Bake Energy Balls.  They're one of my favorite sweet treats. I went through a phase where I made them weekly but it's been a minute since we've had any in the house.  I have quite the sweet tooth and it's nice to have something somewhat healthy in the house to snack on.  I say somewhat because I did the math and figured up the nutrition facts for a batch (I am a nerd I know), and realized that there's about 90 calories per ball....yikes!  Eric was not to happy that he could only eat one, so I will try to make them smaller next time so he can eat more at one time and not feel so guilty.

Baked Honey Mustard Chicken                                                                Mashed Cauliflower

I decided that since I was home all day I should probably make something good for dinner, so I got on my recipe machine...aka pinterest...and quickly found a recipe that had my mouth watering.  It was a Honey Mustard Chicken that was super easy to make and was delicious! To go with it I tried out some Mashed Cauliflower.  I have been completely intrigued with the cauliflower recipes I have seen on pinterest the last several months and have actually tried out cauliflower bread sticks   Eric loved them....honestly I prefer the real thing.  I was skeptical of the mashed cauliflower and almost didn't make it because I figured it would take too long to rice the cauliflower and then prepare it.  I kinda got a late start on dinner because Eric and I went to the field to run right before dinner time, so I didn't start preparing dinner until 6:30...oops!  Luckily I was very wrong about how easy it was to make the mashed cauliflower.  It was soooooo easy! You cut it into pieces, steam it in the microwave, then put it in the food processor with what ever you want to add to it and bam it's done.  To me it tasted just like mashed potatoes (maybe not your grandma's mashed potatoes, but there was very little difference to the texture of the cauliflower vs.instant mashed potatoes).

And because what's a blog post without a good dog pic? This was the scene in our bedroom when I got out of the shower last night.  I'd say we have some spoiled boys on our hands.  FYI there are 3 dogs in this pic....can you find Hollow?

For the record this bed was MADE before I got in the shower. And Hollow is the large bump in the quilt on the right hand side of this picture....never underestimate the determination of a dog with burrowing tendencies.  I guarantee if Hawk weren't smack dab in the middle of the bed Hollow would have been under the actual covers.

Happy Tuesday!

P.S.  I am sending happy thoughts to my "little" brother who is giving his big engineering senior project presentation today!  You're gonna to great, bud!  I can't wait to see you in a few weeks!

Weekend Recap

Beautiful Sunset #lakemartin #nofilter

For once I am welcoming Monday, but only because it's still the weekend for me!  Thank you random state holidays! I have no plans for the day and the house is already clean so I plan on just seeing where the day takes me.  I see a few walks with the puppy dogs in the near future, but not much else and I am a-ok with that.  I would love to say that I am going to lay out by the pool today, but it's still not open yet and the high is only 67 today!  This time last year it was in the 80 on the daily.  I guess were getting an actual spring this year which I am not knocking....it's much nicer than going from winter to summer!

Clockwise from top left:  1)My new exercise heart rate monitor...$13 from woot.com...can't beat that!  2)Rolo Stuffed Cookies-1st batch of the year  3) wildflowers from the yard  4) CocaCola Chocolate Cupcake from Gigi's.  

Our weekend was a blast!  It was a warmer but not too terribly warm which made for perfect outside playing weather.  Friday night Eric and the head coach he works with went to a coaching clinic so it was just me and the boys.  I was planning on watching a movie, but then got completely distracted by the manhunt for the marathon bomber and ended up watching the coverage of that for  about 4 hours.  I am so glad they caught him.  I think my favorite part was how happy and appreciate the citizens of Boston were as they applauded the law enforcement vehicles that drove by as they were leaving the scene.  You have to be a nut case if you think you can do something like they did in America and think you can get away with it...I mean they SHUT DOWN Boston, Massachusetts to catch them.  That is amazing.

Saturday morning I got a jump start on cleaning the house.  I was in the mood to clean it for once-shocker I know-so I took advantage of that strange urge to clean and had the house sparkling by lunchtime.  It was a good thing, too, because not 15 minutes after I finished Eric called to say that we were hosting a fish fry that night. Instead of rushing to clean (like usual for me) I was able to enjoy my afternoon.  I took the boys on a walk, made some treats for the fish fry...you know fun weekend stuff.   Maybe there is something to getting the house cleaned early......maybe not.

Sunday I was up early and headed to church.  When I got back we got our stuff together squeezed in a quick puppy walk, and headed to the lake!  We have some friends who are getting married this summer in the Dominican Republic they had a wedding party/shower with everyone here this weekend.  It was a blast!  We could not have asked for a more beautiful day or better company!  I would say that it was the perfect end to our weekend, but I think having today off trumped that. =) I guess I am off to do whatever the heck I feel like today!