Peanut Archives | Page 2 of 24 | Midwestern At Heart

Time to Play on the Horse Walker (again)… Coronavirus Day 19

When I was a kid, my parents bought this horse walker. What is a horse walker? It is exactly what it says, a horse walker. There have been times we had horses get hurt and we had to slowly bring them back (think physical therapy for people, but for horses). You can put them on the walker and it helps build back muscles. Say you have multiple horses and you need to warm them up or cool them down, you place them on the walker. Say it is winter and you want them to get outside and stretch their legs, hello horse walker.

It’s a machine that helps the horse walk around in a controlled manner.

When I was a kid, one of the arms had a swing put on it for me to ride on. The horses learned how to stop the machine and as a kid, I loved to ride the thing… it was my job to keep the horses walking. (more…)

Christmas House… Coronavirus Day 7

Here we are… Day 7 of this “You Should Stay Home Suggestion.” At this point, that’s where we are. There are some states I’ve heard who already have stay at home orders, but we’re just highly encouraged at this point.

Truthfully I am a homebody. I’m okay with being home. But this is eating at me. I like to go when I want to. I’m trying to do what’s best though, I don’t want to be the cause of a spread. At this point, there are no known cases in my county. So we’ll see.

This kind of feels like we’ve been given the gift of time. Nowhere to be and a lot of things canceled already so we have time. Just how on earth are we going to fill our time? Well today, at my house anyway, we’re doing the Christmas Gingerbread House. Say what? (more…)

Out of Our Control – Coronavirus Day 3

No truer words have been spoken. There is a lot of weird fear and hoarding going on lately. It is rather sad really. I don’t know anything more about the future than the next person. I did a little research on why people are hoarding toilet paper. It’s supposedly because when you can’t something you don’t understand, you feel better when you can control something. I guess being able to control the fact you have toilet paper is a happy thing? I’m back to being a little lost sadly.

My dad and husband both are constantly reminding me to not worry about the things we cannot control. That is really harder to do than said. (more…)

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

We’re moving right along. At the school Valentine’s Day party yesterday one of the gals asked how I got my little to read. Obviously, in Kindergarten they accept parents reading to the kids as the kids reading. The kids are sitting and listening to reading. I said, does it count if I am bribing a little. She wants to watch the movies, so she has to read the book first. They kind of laughed at me. But it works. We’re ahead of the reading curve. Have been even before we started the reading of the Harry Potter series, but still, we’re ahead and I like it!

The goal for the students is if they read X-number of books (I can’t remember the number) that they get to duct tape the vice principal to the wall. It’ll be exciting and I want to see if it can happen. (more…)

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

When it comes to reading the Harry Potter series, I know I am way past the prime reading time. But here’s the thing… I read this book long, long ago. I’m bringing the next round of “fan” into the reading world.

Last fall when the little started school, we learned we had to read 30 minutes per night. No big deal. Then one weekend we watched the Harry Potter movies. Since then all she’s done is beg to watch them again. So I made her a deal. We had to read the books (as well as other books because come on she needs to learn to read)… and as a reward, she’d get to watch the movies.

It seemed like a fair enough deal, right?

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

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Orange Beach, Alabama – Part 4 (the end)

Here we are, winding down the trip to Orange Beach, Alabama. Make sure you read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Thursday morning started with breakfast. Earlier in the week, when we went to the Mexican Restaurant, I saw a place to get Beignets. Now, I know that’s more of a signature New Orleans item, but still, I wanted to try them. I mentioned it to hubby and he was all for it. So off to Café Beignet, we went. Again, we left my MIL and little one to get dressed at the hotel. Note: They never got dressed when we’d go off to get breakfast.

Café Beignet

Rouses Market
25405 Perdido Beach Blvd
Orange Beach, AL

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Dinner Club – Taste of Italy

Back in 2009 a group of friends and I decided to start what we called Dinner Club. I have mentioned this a few times I know. It was a lot of fun. At that time we had a few “rules,”

A non-chain restaurant
Local – within about an hours drive or so
The dress was business casual or dressier

That was about it. Business casual consisted of the ladies in dresses of some sort and the guys in khakis and at least a polo or button-down. We had a few dinners where the guys wore suits. This is why my husband owns a suit. Although he never wore it to a dinner club.

Side story:

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Orange Beach, Alabama – Part 3

Before you start, be sure to read Part 1 and Part 2.

We had a friend tell us about an Alligator zoo we needed to take the little one to. It was about a 20-minute drive outside out of Orange Beach, but totally worth the drive. I know I keep saying that, but it truly is.

Alligator Alley

19950 Co Rd 71
Summerdale, AL

We woke up early and drove out to Summerdale to go to Alligator Alley. We almost missed the driveway. Our directions said, turn left here and we passed the entrance because it blended in with the trees. When you bought tickets to get in, they had different size cups of feed you could buy to feed the alligators. Truthfully, it looked like horse poop. I’m just saying it like it is. haha.

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Orange Beach, Alabama – Part 2

Today I have even more photos for you… as in around 78 or so. I’m sorry. Alabama was so awesome and it was totally worth the trip. I’d recommend it to anyone for a relaxing time. If you haven’t read Orange Beach Part 1, I would. I’ll try not to let this post drag on, but we’ll see what happens. I’m sorry if it does. And if nothing else, enjoy the photos!!

When hubby was in Mobile the few weeks before, they informed him that this is one of the wettest cities in the country. It gets moisture off the Gulf, etc. I’m pretty sure it rained almost every day we were down here. Never for very long and really only enough to make it humid.

Waking up every morning to the sound of thunder was beautiful. It was also fun to see the storms move across the sky. We were greeted with a rainbow Monday morning. It was beautiful. And of course, you know pictures don’t do rainbows justice, unfortunately. It always takes tweaking in photoshop to get those vibrant rainbows caught on film (or digital…).

The other fun thing to watch was all of the boats zooming out of the rainstorms. Case in point here. Every morning. (more…)

Orange Beach, Alabama – Part 1

I really want to be like those bloggers who can do multiple weeks in one post, but I just can’t. That’s just not my style. There are 51 photos in this post. People who do those week+ long posts usually have 25 total photos. It’s just not my style.

Now 2, this was about our vacation this last summer in August 2019. Yes, you read that right. I’m just now getting to it. I’m sitting here on a cold snowy day in January wishing I was in Alabama in summer enjoying our vacation. So without further ado, I bring you Orange Beach, Alabama

Headed to Orange Beach

From our house, there are two ways to head to Alabama. You can go through Arkansas into Mississippi, across to Alabama. Otherwise, you drive clear across Missouri to Memphis, then down. We chose to head through Arkansas. I did some research and it was supposed to be the “faster” route. Because we were headed through Arkansas, Jared told us to meet him in Rogers for lunch at a place called Hapa’s Hawaiian Bar & Grill.

Now here is where I tell you that once I got just outside of Rogers it started POURING rain. So bad at one point I really could hardly see anything in front of me. I was driving this stretch. It was awful. Then our GPS took us to the wrong place. We were only 5 miles to the west of where we were supposed to be but traffic was so horrid that it took us 30-45 minutes for that 5 miles. By the time we got there, I was done.