Wow, it’s been a while since we’ve actually had a Sunday Night Dinner between Father’s Day and the Lake. After the 4th of July party last Saturday, we had left overs so we thought that Left Overs would be a great menu!
So this last Saturday we had our annual 4th of July Party! It was a lot of fun as you’ll see from this picture overload! Hope you can handle it!
Jalapeno Peppers – YUM!
I’d like to point out with the help of JT, I grilled these dogs!
Smoked Pork and Smoked Brisket
My Patriotic Toes this year.
After dinner, the kiddo’s went swimming again until it was time for desserts. The funny thing is our pool NEVER gets warm. It was like 74 degrees in the pool. And the other funny thing about our pool was how people swam in shifts. It was crazy.
It’s not a party until there is a bump on the noodle-noggin (aka the head)
Tbug and Zebra girl waiting for dessert. They were chilly.
And who can forget homemade ice cream?!?!
Vanilla, Chocolate, Mint Chocolate Chip & Pineapple-Cherry
Then it was time for the kiddo’s to go shoot off fireworks!
Tbug, Zebra girl & MF decided to watch from the distance.
And I even found a glowstick in the bottom of our pool…. apparently Hubby and JT put it there for the fun of it.
My FIL’s dog Bud was ready to go home when it was all said and done.
Sunday Night Dinner took a spin this weekend by moving to our house. It was pool party night. Now if you look at our pool in these photos, it looks cloudy. We got our cover on late last year so we got a bunch of acorns and leaves in the bottom. Heck we even found a patio chair in the bottom of the pool. Yeah cool huh? Along with that we found a Red Solo Cup so we claimed that someone was drinking in the bottom of the pool… lol.
Anyway, one of the awesome things about the group of friends we have, is there are certified Scuba Divers in the group, so that means, when hubby asked JT to come over and help clean the pool, they actually used scuba gear to get to the bottom of the pool. I love my group of friends. We may be friends, but we’re more like family!
While hubby and JT were cleaning, Moo and Waldy were having fun swimming. This is quite the feat for Moo. We’ve been working with her every year on swimming. By the end of the night we had her jumping off the diving board with noodles and swimming to the deep end along the side of the wall without the life jacket! Woot!
Waldy is grounded from the diving board, so he was jumping off the side into the deep end.
Can you tell where the 2 scuba divers are?
And then JT accidentally came up under hubby. It was quite comical.
We usually call dinner at 5, but we don’t usually eat until closer to 6. While we were finishing up the food, Pokey went into the office and was using hubby’s reloading equipment.
Faye & Uncle B brought pizza. That was used as the appetizer and I actually didn’t even get any of it. I know there was pepperoni but from there, I couldn’t tell you what were in either box really.
JT brought French Onion Dip and a few different types of chips.
Hubby & I smoked some Pork Tenderloin.
Diver Girl brought baked Beans.
Mr T brought Linguini with Chicken
And 2 kinds of Potato Salad – Red at the request of Earl, heck yeah! It’s the best
And the Mustard based type.
No one knew of any dessert that was coming so I whipped up a quick batch of brownies. {Recipe soon to follow}
Monkey got a new life vest to swim with. Her daddy put her off into the deep end but she hated it because the water was soooooo cold. Which we’re on well water so that makes our water quite a bit chillier anyway, then we had to pump more in after hubby and JT were cleaning on the pool. Finally Monkey got Uncle B to jump in. Later, Mr. T got in with the scuba gear and the meter read that it was 67 degrees in the pool. Brrrrr!
We were all discussing the C25K event again and around 8pm, we all decided that we’d run home, get running clothes and meet back up at the Lake and walk/run – train for the C25K and so that’s exactly what we did.
It was a nice, balmy 72 degrees outside.
And we’re off. The lake was extra crowded this weekend because of the kids fishing day, normally it isn’t quite so crowded, but this picture is mainly us.
See, you just never know what this crazy bunch of people will get into next 🙂 Hang on and enjoy the ride is all I can tell you!
Linking up with SS & IA!!
Here we are approaching the 2nd Anniversary of the Joplin Tornado. A tornado that did major devastation to my part of the country and yet we’re not the only part of the country that is hurting. Just yesterday Moore Oklahoma was hit by an EF5 tornado. I have a college friend and her husband who live in Moore. She said they were okay and that their house was 1000 feet from being taken out by the tornado.
I really am starting to wonder why Mother Nature is so upset lately. Is it just me and the fact that I’m older so I pay more attention, or is the weather becoming crazier? Can anyone shed some light on that?
So Sunday afternoon we were headed to pick my mom up from her work trip to Germany. She was in Germany 2 years ago when the Joplin tornado hit. She found out by watching International news and calling my dad at 1am to chew him out for not telling her what was going on. I tried to call her but dad said it would be the middle of the night and that he’d call her first thing in the morning. Just so happens our mornings here started 7 hours after her morning there. Rude awakening for everyone involved. Then mom called me at work to chew me out for not making dad call her. My phone call came in at 10am.
Anyway, they were calling for bad weather. This is what the sky looked like just before we left to head for the airport.
Which was a bit eery seeing as though this was the predicted forcast for the evening. 
Ok so I work for a manufacturing company, I do however work in the corporate office, so I’m not out in the plant grinding away. I actually work in the area of the office that tries to make sure that all employees make it home safely with the same 10 fingers and 10 toes they came to work with, the same arms and legs, the same eyes and nose, you know, keep them safe basically.
Our Continuous Improvement department teaches a lot of different methods to make the company run more efficiently. A concept that is used a lot is the 5S method, although our company has added an additional S which is Safety (other companies may do the same thing…).
Now normally they teach this to the manufacturing side of the business, however they’ve decided to focus on the corporate office. Not only preach it, but do it. Sweet!
And I was volunteered from our department to go attend these classes. I could handle it, I’m was up for the challenge! So the last few weeks I’ve been in and out of classes learning these different processes to make the company run better as a whole.
But, the cool thing about the 6S concept, you can use it at home. And seeing as though Spring is right around the corner (although Punxsutawney Phil said it was closer than it was….) and everyone gets in the mood for Spring Cleaning, myself included, I thought I’d show you what’s been going on around my house.
First and foremost… Don’t start on to large of a project. Instead do smaller projects so that you get quicker results and you’re more apt to stay with it!
So now it’s my duty to tell you this… find your area. Our first area is my kitchen! I’m tired of the clutter and not finding things easily. So identify your safety hazards.
ie if you have a plug in next to the sink/faucet, don’t plug your toaster in right there. Probably not the best route.
Or if your paper towels hang from your top cabinet, don’t plug your toaster in right below that.
This is all pretty common sense 🙂
So I started with a cabinet that you have to put everything in there just right or it all falls out and goes boom and I have no idea what all is in that cabinet to begin with, that’s what started this whole cleaning spree at my house (no pictures, before or after really….).
Turns out all that stuff didn’t need to be there so it was all moved and sorted out into keep piles, get rid of piles, move piles, etc.
But keep in mind, if you don’t know what to do with something… put it in a “holding area” also known kind of as a red tag area so you can sit on it and think about it for a given time (in manufacturing it is 48 hrs) and you can decide if you want to keep it, or if someone else needs to come go through it, etc.
So Sunday I felt so good about cleaning out one cabinet (although I wound up with some things needing homes) that we started working on the pantry & spice cabinet. I have 2 spice cabinets, one in the kitchen, one in the laundry room. Then all the dry goods are kept in the laundry room. Boy was it all a mess:
before photos:
So first identify the safety hazards.
Then Sort. Does it belong here, do I want it, is it out dated.
Straighten – everything has a place and there is a place for everything. Label. Make foot prints (you know the lines around it so you can tell at a glance it’s missing)
Shine. No one wants to put newly sorted things back into a dirty area or on a dirty surface.
Standardize. Take a picture, use the labels, something to help ensure everything goes back where it belongs. You spent this time, why not help other people figure out where it goes.
Finally Sustain. That’s the hardest one. you spent that time, that effort, maybe even money to make it look pretty. Now, let’s keep it looking pretty! A little bit here and there, a walk through once a day, once a week, maybe once a month, fix anything out of place and you’re good to go. No more spending useless hours working on this…. and there’s always a reward. Dinner perhaps?
Oh and just so you know, I didn’t mention anything about you having to do this by yourself. Get yourself a team… have the family help out!
after photo of the pantry:
Thanks to Marlie & Audrey we wound up with a bear in our yard! Ack!
LOL, happy Monday!
Welcome to Missouri… where the winter will surprise you every time! We’ve pretty much been going through a drought the last couple of years. What’s new, a lot of the country has been. Our last big snow happened in February 2011. Last year we didn’t get any, or well a light dusting. And then this year was shaping up to be the same.
Back in January, we got a small snow. Not much at all and by the next day it was gone. As you can tell, the road is pretty well dry. This was the next day.
Sure the woods and the field still had a bit of snow in it because no one drives through it… ok well that’s a lie, we did… but that’s besides the point. When we got home that day hubby asked if I wanted to go with him. I said, absolutely, so away we went.
The timber was pretty, although it was mainly ice, not as much snow. That’s really pretty typcical for Missouri weather anyway… ice. Back in 2007 we were without power for a week. We had a huge ice storm come through and knock power out for most everyone. It was not a fun time. Getting up in the wee hours of the morning and seeing your breath in the bathroom. Nope, no running water either.
Living out in the country where we do, we’re on well water, so no power, no well. No well, no water. We went and bucketed it up from the creek. Boy that was fun, lemme tell ya. We didn’t have a generator so at night we sat in the dark or next to candles. It was like being transferred back to pioneer days after you had all the modern day experiences. By the end of that week I was grumpy.
So anyway, back to my story present day. I watched the weather channel all fall and it said we really would have a dry winter. So when we got this very light snow fall, we went and enjoyed it, thinking this might just be it. That was the case last year anyway.
When you have snow melting and very cold nights (ok so not very cold compared to some of my readers, but cold for Missourians) you get nice icicles that form.
Yes, I kind of made an unhappy discovery in the back of the beast… It is in the form of my roasting pan covered in mud. This was sure a fun one to clean :(… NOT.
It was nice while it lasted, but like I said, it lasted about a day. Of course I get sick of the snow very easily because I’m a hot weather girl myself.
So jump into February and more particularly last week, we were under a Winter Weather Advisory. We were in the southern tip of it (however I hear that parts of Texas got dumped on about the same time) so we didn’t get much. It was all gone the next day.
Then this week hit. They put out the Winter Weather Advisory on Sunday. Said our area was in the 1-3 inches category, but be prepared. And this was the beauty I got to drive to work in come Tuesday morning.
And it really snowed all the way into Wednesday afternoon, then the sun came out. Rule around here, if you don’t like the weather, hang around 30 minutes, it’s bound to change! 🙂
When the sun came out, we hit about 35 degrees and everything started melting. All the prime time to get photos, I was stuck at work. Oh well… such is life.
That and I really don’t like snow, but it sure is darn pretty while it’s falling!
Now our field is half visible half white. That’s after a day of “warmth” as they call it. I’m going to call it more a day where the snow quit falling.
But it sure is pretty!
Although Marlie, Audrey & Rio didn’t agree with me so much.
So now, we’re at Friday. The snow has moved out of the area. We’re looking at a high today of 34. A high tomorrow of 39 and a high of 54 by Sunday. Yeah I told you, if you don’t like the weather, hang around, it’ll change.
Oh well, at least I got to experience some snow, right. It was the ice I could deal without! I slipped and fell at work the other day in the parking lot on ice. My pride was hurt more than anything, although my body aches. I landed on my laptop, my camera fell off my arm and slammed against the concrete and there were spectators to watch. It was a grand day. But at least I’m safe and the snow/ice will be gone! 🙂
Have a fabulous weekend!
Back before my husband went to Afghanistan he drove a 1999 3/4 ton extended cab white Ford. Apparently he LOVED that truck. The only thing he hated was the fact that it was just 2 wheel drive so it sucked on ice. Then somehow jump forward a while (don’t know the time) and his sister-in-law & brother-in-law drove it. But sadly after 350,000 miles or so though, she died.
Oh that’s not totally true, she’d run REALLY hard, that is once you got her running (why I’m referring to the truck as a her I’ll never know but go with it!) and you couldn’t drive over 45mph (which if you google that for my lovely fans that don’t drive in miles per hour that’s 72.4205kph 🙂 now I would round down to 72kph or up to 73kph?) And even then you couldn’t be guaranteed she wouldn’t die somewhere along the way.
So the truck had been sitting in our fence row pretty much ever since we moved to our house. Hubby has spent a little time trying to get it back up and running but didn’t have all the equipment needed to really get it running properly. So finally I begged pleaded convinced he decided to put it up on Craig’s List to see if we could get rid of it. He’s been wanting a 4-wheeler so he put it up for a swap.
67 text messages later (not all from the same person obviously) we wound up with this:
Little did I know The Beast would soon be in my future.
Our pond doesn’t really hold water… except of course for a short period after it rains. And what should you do after it rains? Go muddin’ of course. Because, duh that will so seal up the pond… just ask hubby :).
I really thought we had a black truck though… maybe I was mistaken! :). This was after the third trip into the pond. Don’t worry, it went again… Just had to make sure we really knew what color it was supposed to be.
My mother-in-law says you have to grow old but you never have to grow up.
And ok it was kind of fun swirling and swinging around the mud, especially because I walked away clean! That was the best part!
What can I say… Boys will be Boys!
I had so many different ideas for a blog post today, but none of them happened. Partially because I have a cold, partially because we have no AC at my house. You take your pick.
Friday at work I started feeling awful. That feeling that you’ve been crying and now your eyes are swollen, but you haven’t been. Friday night we made plans to eat dinner with my parents and my grandma. The car showed 100ish degrees, I laid back and we had the windows down and I was actually feeling ok. Does that tell you how I felt?
We decided to go eat at Johnboat Cafe. On my birthday Monday we ate at Red Lobster and my grandma kept talking about wanting Gumbo. Johnboat has Gumbo, so we decided we’d take Grandma to get her Gumbo.
When we got to our house after picking up Tbug from Cheer, we were greeted by a Sonic Blast of heat. Not a good sign, especially when you hear your AC running!
I didn’t feel good, hubby was upset about the AC, we finally gave up and went and stayed the night at my parents house.
This was the beautiful sunrise we woke up to Saturday morning.
My parents house has lots of windows. Tbug got to sleep on the love seat and when I went downstairs, my dad said look at this. I guess the light was a bit bright for her. She used the puppy dog to block the sun.
Saturday night my mom & hubby decided we were having stuffed jalapenos & steaks for dinner. While hubby was out grilling the steaks a freak rain storm blew in. Supposedly bad weather hit around us – info via facebook. My dad is on one of the local road districts and he got a call saying there were tree limbs down everywhere.
I spent most of Sunday in bed. I didn’t feel good and I didn’t want to make other people sick so I just stayed in bed away from everyone. We had some pizza dough in the fridge from last Thursday night we needed to use, so I suggested pizza for dinner. Isn’t my hubby the sweetest? He made what I asked for.
So that was my weekend. Now it’s Monday morning and I still have this dadgum cold. Grrrr! I really want to be sleeping but… I owe I owe, it’s off to work I go.
Peace out & happy Monday!
Let’s get started…
The first thing that EVERY kitchen needs is a refrigerator. I don’t care if you never cook, a fridge is still your best friend! If nothing else it keeps your drinks cold :).
