Good morning my lovely friends, How is everyone today?

I'm certainly doing better, now that I've gotten in contact with a blog designer and will soon have a fancy schmancy new blog!

Our weather has been gorgeous the last few days and I am so energized by it that I'm tackling all sorts of projects. 

Yesterday I started sanding this desk I got for free from my neighbor

 yeah it certainly does not look like much now but it's sturdy and will work out great for the boys room. which reminds me as soon as I get the mountain of donation toys and clothing dealt with I'll finally show you the room.

All with the help of my trusty bat wielding sidekick!

I cannot wait to get my house back in order since I decided to clean out every closet and re arrange all my furniture this last week. 

I hope you all have a safe and happy 4th! I cannot believe Jess and I BOTH have the day off. we'll be BBQing on the back deck all day and I cannot wait!

Peace & Primer in my hair!

Our First weekend of Summer

Friday was Orion's last day of kindergarten and I wanted his first weekend of summer vacation to be really fun and special. We packed so much into 3 short days and I still worked 2 full shifts at work, really I'm not sure how we did it, but boy did we have a blast!

Friday I spent all day detailing and washing Jess's truck for his father's day gift and the boys helped out. Now that may not sound like much of a gift but the inside of his truck had not been detailed in over 7 years and the outside had not been washed in maybe 2 years. As I have said before he is a hydrologist/geologist so he spends all day getting dirty and driving on dirt roads. It was a lot of work but he was so surprised when he got home that it was well worth it. Even if I did almost blow up the shop vac cleaning all the junk out of his truck cab.

Friday Night we had a family BBQ on the deck with yummy kabobs, watermelon and a few of these which I definitly deserved after all that cleaning! 

Lemoncello Coolers

While we ate we wrote our summer bucket list which everyone contributed to...More on that tomorrow...

Then we set up the tent in the backyard and filled it with nearly every pillow and blanket in the house. Once it was finally dark we watched the graduation fireworks from the high school down the street while we ate strawberry shortcake with berries from our garden. There must be a fireworks specialist that works at the high school because they have real fireworks for all their football games,graduation, and other events. It's strange to me but hey at least we get to watch them from our house!

Saturday morning I made a huge breakfast of French toast and linguica and eggs. Then we all got ready and headed out to the river for the afternoon.

Even though the water is still too cold to swim in we had a blast watching our dog fetch her stick out of the rapids about a hundred times, and skipping stones, and looking for neat rocks

and eating chips!

For father's day we made breakfast in bed for Jess (which the boys ate most of) and then I was off to work.

I am so glad that the weather has finally cleared up, summer is much more fun when It's not raining!

I hope you all had a great weekend too and I'll be back soon to show you what I turned our handwritten bucket list into.

Peace remember your sunblock!

Spice Glazed Pecans

Today I finally got around to cleaning out the closet in the boy's room.  It was about a year ago when I first painted and switched their room with the guest room. It has seriously taken me the entire year to get all my junk out of their closet.  Today I got up, drank an entire pot of coffee, and tackled the closet. After it was all cleaned out I decided that it needed a fresh coat so I took out my roller and painted it a nice dusty tan. It feels good to finally be finishing the boys room, and I can't wait to share some pics with all of you...soon!

In the meantime I thought I'd share my favorite salad with you. I made a big bowl of this yesterday to take to the BBQ we went to and it was a hit. The combination of Feta, dried cranberries and pecans has to be one of my favorite flavors ever! All the greens in the salad are straight out of our garden and aside from a few strawberries this is the first harvest we had so far...Homegrown organic spring mix? Yes please!

Usually I just lightly toast the chopped pecans in a pan but this time I thought it would be fun to mix it up a bit so while the pecans were toasting I tossed in a few extra ingredients and came up with a simple and delicious recipe for spice glazed pecans. They are not completely candied but do have a lot of extra flavor!

Spice Glazed Pecans

1 1/2 -2 C. Chopped Pecans

1 tbsp butter

1 heaping Tbsp. brown sugar

1/4 tsp. Pumpkin pie spice

1-2 dashes Cayenne pepper

pinch salt

Add chopped pecans to heavy bottomed pan over medium heat. Add butter, brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice and cook until nuts are toasted and the sugar is bubbly and melted. Spread pecans out on a sheet of parchment and lightly sprinkle with salt and cayenne pepper, toss to coat evenly and allow to cool. Store in air tight container and enjoy on salads, in popcorn, or just by the handful.

This recipe seems pretty adaptable so if you want more sugar or less pepper feel free to play around with it. I think it would also be good if you added curry instead of pumpkin pie spice. Enjoy!

I like to enjoy this salad with a white balsamic vinaigrette but it is delicious with any dressing!

Peace pass the salad!

Fresh Watermelon lemonade and a Very Happy Birthday

Hello all my lovely friends, I hope you are all having as great of a day as I am.
Today is Orion's birthday, and in our family we like to make birthdays a big event. The day is usually filled with all of the birthee's favorite treats and activities. Here are a few photos from his party we had on Saturday. we had such a blast and having the party at a gymnastics studio really worked out great!

Watermelon Lemonade

 For a special birhtday treat I made up some special Watermelon lemonade to go with our dinner.

1 small seedless watermelon (or half a big one)
3 lemons
Grenadine syrup (optional)
sugar to taste

Remove  watermelon rind and cut into chunks. Place melon in blender and puree.  Add lemon juice and strain into pitcher. Add about 2 tbsp Grenadine and sugar to taste. Serve well chilled over ice or frozen watermelon chunks.

Watermelon cocktails

2 parts Watermelon lemonade
1 part Gin, vodka, or rum (optional)
2 parts soda water
Lemon slice
Mint leaves
Ice

In large pitcher mix Juice, alcohol, and soda water. Stir and over Ice into glasses and garnish with Lemon slice and fresh mint leaves. Enjoy! You can also mash some mint into the lemonade for a Mojito-ish twist!

Peace and smiling children!