awesome’ness
Pancakes & Friends
Hello all. Surprise, I’m alive. I know you must be thrilled after my sudden disappearance, which I’m calling a temporary sabbatical.
Well I am back, and I have an update for you to read and enjoy.
This past weekend we had a friend come and visit us. Her name is Kim, Stephen and I met her at UWF. We have some great memories from our “college years”, and it’s always a blast when we get together. Yes, I just referred to my college years in the past tense, since, well, that was a few years ago now… ya, time flies.
We arranged for Kim to come by Saturday morning just around time for brunch. I may have had ulterior motives in setting up the time frame because some of our most delicious memories are hanging out with Kim and her making her amazing from-scratch pancakes. She uses all fresh ingredients, even the eggs come straight from her parents chickens! I had never had real syrup until having pancakes with Kim, and Stephen and I have been hooked ever since. It’s amazing and delicious when your syrup has only 1 ingredient: Maple Syrup.
Here’s Kim making up a batch on our griddle.
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here’s a better look at the goods:
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imagine those stacked & covered in butter and syrup… sooo good!
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Before she left we grabbed a group shot. What did we do before camera’s with timers?!?!
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There ya have it. There’s a brief peek into our weekend. We also celebrated my little brother’s 25th Birthday with some delicious BBQ wings and cookie cake. I don’t know about you, but we had a delicious stomach-filling weekend here on the coast.
Road Trip
Stephen has been working a lot lately and I’ve been sick (looking at a computer screen gives me a headache) so I thought I would give a quick update real quick.
We went on a road trip to Houston a few weekends ago, so I thought I’d share some of our fun times with you 
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Got to visit our friends Kelly & Brian
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Lunch @ Swampy’s
(had some delicious Cajun food)
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Had a girls night with Sarah
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we were in Texas, so the guys wore some boots
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I think this is my favorite pic from the whole weekend
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Our group shots before we left
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a true personality shot
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After Houston we drove to New Orleans to see our friends Matt & Elise. It was great getting to see everybody that’s moved away over the past 2 years. Gotta love a good road trip
Styling Something Simple
I was reading through my google reader this morning and came across a post on the website BeforeAfter that has me intrigued!
The website posts daily before-after pictures that are emailed in from a collection of different people. It’s rather inspiring for people like myself that don’t want to pay high-dollar for good looking items, but instead find something that could look good and give it a lovely makeover.
This was today’s inspiring post that any and everyone that lives in the south could probably appreciate.
Take that not-so-lovely fan you have sitting in several rooms:
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and give it a Pottery Barn makeover with a simple can of spray paint and not spending a crazy high $$ price tag $$ .
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It looks decorative AND has the bonus of actually being useful!!
I am constantly amazed at the things people transform with a simple can of paint.
I think it’s time I purchased some and got to spraying!!
A Before & After
How was everyone’s weekend? Wonderful I hope
We were able to tackle a project we have had on our list since we moved in. We finally got to work on our backyard!
Since Spring it has turned into a bit of a jungle out back, and the last thing we want are our neighbors thinking we’re “those people on the street” that don’t know how to use a mower or hedge clippers. So we went ahead and took care of that.
Here are some photo’s to give you a better idea:
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Our lovely yard (and this was the beginning of June)
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Most recently:
We have a little “jungle” issue on our premises
Now, for the weekend-work-filled after photo’s…
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We have ground!
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and even more ground!!
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Also, I think I found OJ’s glove with a broken golf club:
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hopefully they don’t need that glove for evidence because it got thrown into the burn pile we’ve started:
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just don’t look behind the burn pile… we’ve only tackled the front 1/3 of the backyard
(what?! we have a really big yard!)
So what did everyone else do this weekend? Only 4 more days until the weekend 
A New Love For Mexican BBQ
I don’t know if it’s possible, but I think I get more excited each Friday when it’s time to start the weekend. Even more so when it’s a payday weekend!
We started this weekend off right by trying out a brand new recipe!! It was a beautiful combination of mexican and barbecue. That’s right, delicious cheeses topped with caramelized onions, barbecue sauce, chicken, and MORE cheese. Pure tasteful bliss.
I got the recipe from a site I read called How Sweet It Is. There are a lot of delicious recipes, so if you’re looking for something tasty click over and check out her site.
Here is a picture of what we delighted ourselves with tonight:
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This picture is from the site I mentioned, I was so busy cooking and then stuffing my face that I forgot to take a picture.
Not only was this a new recipe, but I also learned how to caramelize onions for the first time. Turns out it’s really easy (and WAY delicious!) I wasn’t sure about the combination of cheddar cheese, monterey jack cheese, AND bbq sauce, but turns out it’s a brilliant combination. That, and cooking the quesadillas on the stovetop so the shell is nice and crispy.
This was my first experience making quesadillas at home, so I am still high on new recipe satisfaction
I think we had ourselves a great start to the weekend!
Page Recommendations
One of the things I really enjoy about the internet is when I am directed to a website that interests me. Today was a day that exactly that happened.
The website is called Wordle and it’s not only fun, but really easy to use. The basic concept is that you are making personalized art for your home. However, instead of using images and pictures it uses words, phrases, names, letters, etc.
Check out what I made while playing with the site today.
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I was making something with the theme of “Trips”
You simply fill out a list of however many words you want, and then the site compiles them into a collage for you. You can choose the font, color, and layout of the words.
I am not naturally artistic, nor am I able to paint, draw or take awesome photographs. The idea that I was able to sit at home and make something artistic while sitting on the couch was pretty great.
I am very impressed with how easy the site was is to use. Personally, I plan on using this site to personalize our walls here at home.
If you have some time check it out. It’s really easy and fun. There’s a gallery of examples to give you idea’s of what you can do. Or, if you go at it like me, just type in some words that interest you and see what you can make! Have fun.
iPhoto Cleaning
I was going through my photo’s today, cleaning out all the eyes-half-closed pictures that don’t get deleted when I import large quantities, and came upon a rather good set.
I love browsing through pictures and having a good laugh. Here’s a good and recent example…
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A father’s day celebration with the family. The biggest pro to living close to home is that we are able to get together for celebrations (that, and stealing food from mom & dad’s house)! ;)
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Dad just couldn’t wait through 2 pictures to dive into that ice cream cake. It was good, so I can understand why.
That, and the lovely “wife swap” we have going on in the background made for a great family snapshot.
Another good party at the Wells house.
Where Would I Go In It?!
Whenever I go shopping I usually spare Stephen the JOY of going with me. The poor boy is usually left at home to his own devices. That meaning he plays video games until I get home and sees it’s dark outside and asks “what time is it?”
While we were visiting the Outlets the other day, walking off our dinner, we wandered to Banana Republic and Stephen pointed out a dress in the display windows and said “If that’s inside I want you to get it”.
Yes, you read that correctly. My husband was telling me to buy clothes. Am I lucky or what?!
After searching around inside we found the dress and I went to try it on. Standing at a whopping 5’1″ I have to try everything on because of how midget’y some clothes can make me look.
Let’s see what the dress looks like, shall we…
no, that’s not me
This is the only picture I could find online. It’s not quite the same because the dress in the AD is long, but the one we found was almost identical other than the length factor…
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yes, that’s me
Don’t you love the grainy and unfocused picture skills of my phone?! Ya, me either.
The dress is cute, and Stephen really liked it. However, I had to ask “Where would I wear this?” I have plenty of dresses at home I’ve worn 1 time to a wedding. Most dresses I own are only worn to weddings. I think we need more date nights…
At the end of the day we went home without the dress. While I know it would have eventually been worn, I know it probably wouldn’t be for a while, and who knows – I could grow by then I do know that I wouldn’t be using it this weekend at the lake… nope, this is going to be a swimsuit & tanktop filled weekend!
Have a Happy 4th everyone!
Switcharoo
I wish I could leave this wet rainy Florida weather and be sitting in the exact same spot I was Saturday afternoon…
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If I had wings I could make it there in under 1 hour…
A Drive & A Good Burger
On occasion Stephen has to visit a different location for work. The company he works for has 3 stores, and yesterday he went to one of their Alabama locations. On our drive that morning he asked me if I’d like to head over after work and have dinner together and visit the outlet stores. I, of course, said yes!!
After work I plugged in the address and our TomTom led me straight to him {side note: how did we travel before our GPS?!? It’s so incredibly convenient having something show me and tell me where and when to turn!}
After I picked up Stephen he took me to a small local place called Fish River Grill. When you sit down you are given a cup of soup called swamp soup. Both the look AND name made me question dipping my spoon into the greenish substance. Turns out it was really good, it had a mixture of beans & turnip greens. I have never been a fan of turnip greens, so to eat something that 1) looked like it was taken out of an actual swamp, and 2) had turnip greens it, really took me by surprise with it’s great flavor.
After the soup we received a basket full of fries and our burgers…
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Hurricane Burger
(can feed a family of 4)
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The Swamp Burger
(smaller, but still more than enough for 2 people)
Being in Alabama I should know better than to be surprised by the amount of food you get for 1 entrée. Stephen’s burger was about the size of my hand, and sooo thick. It was crazy. My own burger was huge (but thankfully a good size smaller).
We were even more pleased when the waitress came up and told us we get a free cozy for ordering burgers. We happily accepted and chose 1 for each of us.
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Stephen chose the Camo to “complete the Alabama experience”.
While there we talked to the owner for a bit and she was telling us how she under-predicted the oil spill effect on their place. If people aren’t coming to the beaches, they aren’t coming to the outlets, and aren’t eating at the local restaurants like this Mom & Pop burger/fish joint. The oil spill is really starting to hit the coast, so hopefully we will get some northern winds to whip the oil in a different direction and give the Louisianna, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida coastlines a break.
After dinner we went to the Tanger Outlet to walk around for a while. Driving with a full stomach is anything but enjoyable, so we wanted to walk off that full feeling. It was a good decision!
We made it back to town around 10 last night. I have to say, it was a nice change to my normal Tuesday I think mini-trips are going to become a new regular thing for us!
