Getting away from it all

Once or twice a year, we make the three hour drive down to Lake Eufuala to Donald's grandparent's place. We have barely any cell phone service and even though there is a TV, it only picks up one or two stations so we just don't even bother turning it on.  At one point there was a radio, but I don't even know if that is still there. So basically for three days, the only connection we have to the outside world is from those people that ride by and wave on their boats. No TV, no radio, no cell phone and definitely not enough of a signal for internet or something like Pandora.  I like doing this when we do it-meaning the once or twice a year. I could do it a couple more times throughout the year, but I'm not sure I'd want to do it every month.  It's weird getting back home and not knowing what's going on around the world, but it's also nice.  

This was Stella's first trip to the lake. She loved it. 

Donald had the bright idea to put the pack 'n' play on the dock so she couldn't be a human bobber.  Worked out great!

Stella likes to use Bandit as a drum.

I'm surprised he tolerated the beats for as long as he did. Then she decided to be really sweet to him.

 

Friday night we went to eat seafood/lakefood at Lindsey's Fish Camp. It was really good and Stella made one of the biggest messes. She was so pleased with herself.  I rinsed her off (for the 2nd time that day) and put her in this adorable outfit and Toms and hung out on the dock after dinner. Daddy caught some fish and gave Stella fishing tips. 

Saturday, Nini and Grandaddy came over for the day. Mema and Papa stopped by for a little visit.  We just hung around by the shore, splashed around and got super dirty.....again. She loved watching and hearing the boats go by and seeing all of the geese and big egrets fly over.

There's a similar picture of me at the beach in my diaper that I have to find and do a side by side comparison. I'm sure all of the people who say she looks like her Daddy will finally see that she resembles me.

The Toms we received as a gift from a good friends of the family, The Mayberry's. They were supposed to be red to match mine, but blue is perfect too.  She loves the velcro noise and can still kick them off, but they fit pretty well. I'm so happy she'll be able to actually wear them when she walks.  

Sunday we went for a ride in the boat and explored an island.  Stella did great in the lifevest on the way out but screamed on the way back in. She was sleepy so shoving her back in this restricted thing didn't help matters.

Look at that sky! It was absolutely gorgeous out.

She wasn't too sure about walking in the sand.  She kept high-stepping and wiggling her piggies.  I think this one here is hilarious.  Belly out, ridiculous face, love all of it. Donald says she looks like a baby orangutan sometimes. 

I recently got a new pair of Toms and was so excited to be able to wear mine along with Stella. Like, way too excited.

Bandit always enjoys his time at the lake. He gets to sniff new smells, chase after lizards and chipmunks, let his ears flap in the wind on the front of the boat and be off leash.  

He's such a good puppy.

We took off with bare feet to look at some Canadian Geese that were honking and playing in the waves. We ended up walking along the shore line for about 45 minutes.  Bandit found another dog to play with for a while and Stella came super close to falling asleep in my arms a few times.   We walked around half of the island and came upon all of the cypress knobs. Donald and I both commented that we don't think we had ever seen this large a concentration of them.  

The weather was perfect for this trip. Donald even caught some fish. The past few times we've been down, he's barely caught anything.   I told him Stella was good luck.  He got perch, catfish and crappie oh, and a bream or two. He only kept the crappie though and we had it for dinner Sunday night when we got back home. Life is good at the lake.  

52 Project; Week 15

Stella's first trip to Lake Eufaula. She played, splashed, walked a little, got dirty, fished with Daddy, rode in the boat and explored an island. 

Unicorn Farts-Color Run 2014

Back in January or February, I signed up for The Color Run with a friend. She ended up having to back out, so I became team captain and got three of Donald's coworker's to join me. Lisa decided our team name should be "Unicorn Farts" with all of the rainbows and color associated with the run. I immediately loved it. 

We puffy painted our team name and rainbows in the front and put our names on the back.

I purchased a yard each ($0.89/yard) of seven different colors of tulle from Hobby Lobby and we cut it into five somewhat equal strips. Those were our unicorn tails. We just pinned them into our rump. Originally, I wanted to make the rainbow skirts from tulle and boy am I glad I decided against that. I had enough cutting tulle just making our unicorn tails. 

While browsing at IKEA one day about a month ago I discovered unicorns on a stick (like the kid sized horse on a stick from our childhood). I so almost bought one to ride but then I saw unicorn hand puppets. I thought it would be a tiny bit easier to navigate a 5K with hand puppets. I decided to wait to see if anyone else wanted them before buying. We just went with our tails. 

The fun run was held at Atlanta Motor Speedway. We didn't run into any traffic until a few miles from the stands. We detoured and came up from the south which helped tremendously.  This is my main complaint about the Color Run. It says Atlanta, but when you sign up, you find out it's about 45 min (no traffic) or 1 1/2 hour (with traffic) south of the city. Is there really no where in Atlanta proper than can host a 5K? Doubt it. I heard a few years ago that it was at Turner Field. I don't neccessarily know that I want to run, ok walk 3.whatever miles around The Ted, but at least it would be in Atlanta.

 Team Unicorn Farts: Before

Standing proud like a unicorn should 

During 

Here's Stella just chilling, eating some puffs, doing some people watching.  

We are just starting to walk through here. I'm next to the guy turned slightly sideways with the mask on his face.

Here I am getting coated in purple chalk.

Here's the group in action.

Photo op-Kim, Ethan, Emma, Me, Lisa and Misty

Finish line

After

This happened because at certain color stops, there'd be a line because everyone would stop while the volunteers re-filled the bottles they use to squeeze the chalk out. Instead of waiting, I'd just scoop handfuls up and throw it at our group.

Happy guns!

My unicorn rainbow tail

This girl was so happy to see my about halfway through the race while Donald was taking pictures. She got so, so upset when I left. D said she cried for a while. Poor thing. She was super excited to see me again and even more thrilled for me to hold her. A lot of color came off on her. She ended up with a green face, lips and mouth (thumb sucking of course).

The last picture here was taken just before I hopped in the shower. I changed clothes in the car before I nursed Stella and realized that some of the chalk had "bled" through my clothes, but I had no idea until I got completely undressed.  It seeped in through the toe part of my shoes, staining my toes and feet. There was a dark purple outline of my sports bra and a smidgen of purple where my actual sports bra was. Mostly I was covered in blue and purple. I showed Donald just before stepping in and he said I basically looked like a dead body. Well that's nice! All of the color came off surprisingly easy, but one part would not budge. My right armpit and the area around it is this weird sunburned pink color.  My HAPPY tattoo is still on too. I didn't scrub it to get it off, so I guess I'll have to do that tonight because it's starting to look pretty crappy.  When I get out of the shower, I always blow my nose. Saturday was no exception. However, this time my tissue was blue! That's a first.

The Color Run really was a lot of fun.  Maybe next year, we'll have a bigger team.  #happiest5K #kindaawesome  

52 Project; Week 14

This girl is getting so big. She's in overalls and stands by herself more and longer. I took the mobile down this week because she keeps yanking on it (she ripped one of the creatures off a month or more ago). The crib was lowered to the lowest setting this morning . Oh and her attitude is bigger than she is!

Baking fool

Last week I was in such a baking mood. I had a bag of frozen blueberries so I decided to make a Blueberry breakfast cake from my Pinterest board on Tuesday.  It didn't really turn out that great. Usually I tweak a recipe a little here and there, but I truly followed this one. I'm not sure what went wrong. It tasted fine, but texturally it was a little off, sort of crumbly like a shortbread biscuit. It was a bit dry for me too, again like shortbread and I really don't care for shortbread. Stella seemed to enjoy it so I gave most to her. Then I deleted the pin. I've got so many other recipes to try, I didn't figure it made since to keep it around if it didn't blow my socks off.

Wednesday, I made the most delicious cupcakes for Britany's 30th birthday. Her birthday was on Thursday and she wanted to go out to eat after our husband's softball game. She always bakes the best cupcakes so I thought I would try to return the delicious favor. I had a recipe for Ellie Krieger's Healthy Carrot Cupcakes that I'd cut from the newspaper. I thought carrot cake was appropriate since it was the beginning of Spring. These were absolutely something I will make again. It was also nice in that to taste so indulgent, they really weren't too bad for us. Unfortunately, Britany's oldest was sick so she couldn't attend the softball game and yummy Mexican food afterwards. I gave Bob eight or so of the 24 cupcakes I'd made & iced and sent him home so the family could at meat enjoy them at home. We took pictures later on as everyone was devouring them and sent them to Britany.  The only change I made was not including walnuts in the batter.  I iced all 24 cupcakes and sprinkled chopped walnuts on 12 of the cupcakes. I left the other 12 nut free. In the craziness of trying to get everything done and having a 9 month old, I forgot to take a picture of these gems.  Oh well, next time. And there will definitely be a next time.  Here is the same recipe I found on Pinterest.   

Saturday we were attending JP's graduation party at The Carrerras House.  I wanted to make something sweet to bring, but something that didn't involve a ton of effort.  Enter this dessert, Biscoff Ice Cream Pie . I cannot put into words how amazing this thing was.  At one point, about 5 people were just eating out of the middle of it.  I made my own graham crust instead of buying one since I always have graham crackers in the pantry because they are one of Stella's favorites.  I made it Friday afternoon and let the tub of ice cream soften for 30 minutes Friday night while I took a shower. I mixed it with the biscoff spread when I got out, poured it on the crust and threw it in the freezer overnight. The next day, I drizzled and crumbled and possibly salivated while doing that.  This was a HUGE hit.  This is another one I will make again because it was delectible and super easy. It's not exactly cheap when you factor in a half gallon of ice cream (I got the all natural kind from Aldi), a jar of Biscoff spread is $4.99 at Kroger and the cookies are $2.50 I think.  I went a little cheaper route by making my own crust instead of buying one pre-made or making the crust from the actual Biscoff cookies which is an option.  With it's spiciness from the cookies, I think this would be a great dessert in the Fall.  It happened to be a little chilly last Saturday, but not too cold to enjoy this. Around 1:30 am Saturday (ok, technically Sunday), I grabbed it from the freezer and sat around the hot tub eating this with Donald and Justin.  That made it perfect!