Outer Banks

We had an excellent time in the Outer Banks! We stayed at Waves Village in Rodanthe. Eric's mom came along with us this year, so we got to soak up some relaxation, too! We may never vacation without family again! :o) Let's face it... vacationing with a baby is never truly a vacation unless you can escape from them for a little while. ;o) Know what I mean? I can honestly say, though, that our date night was kinda lonely without her. On our date night we ate at a seafood calabash kind of place, hit up Wings for some cheap souvenirs, stopped at the Food Lion for breakfast items for the next morning, and took a short walk on the beach. Relatively uneventful... but still wonderful! What else did we do on vacation? Well, we lounged on the beach, by the pool, on the couch, received massages & pedicures, and pretty much vegged for the week. :) It was amazing... I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking... Enjoy!

So, I start with this picture because this was our welcome gift when we got to the condo... one absolutely unbelievably gorgeous sunset. Eric mentioned a little something about me taking 800 pictures (not quite...but almost) of the sunset the first night we were there, but it was so breath taking I couldn't stop. Nature's beauty... how can you even take scenes like this for granted? You can't... you gotta take 800 pictures and capture every minute of a beautiful thing....

Man, I love this...

It was one of the simplest and most amazing things I've ever observed... I know, it's just a sunset, Liz.... but really it was amazing to watch the colors in the sky change from red, to orange, to blue, to purple, and eventually to black. I guess the simplest things just do it for me....

Ava enjoyed it as much as momma... :o)

Our view from inside the condo... it was gorgeous once the sun got low enough that it wasn't blinding us anymore...

Basically had the beach to ourselves!

Love these guys!

Ava absolutely loooooved the water & beach!!

Took me a little while to get in completely... kinda chilly at first!...but trust me, I was boogie boardin' by Thursday!! Eric didn't get any pictures to prove it though...

My little fish... I will be putting her in swim classes this winter!! She loves swimming... absolutely loves it.

In the pool... her 2nd favorite place to be! Beach was #1!

We've tried using this floatie with her for two years now and she hates the thing!! She can't stand it... I guess she'd just rather be free to swim, swim, swim!

I had to capture the baby footprints...

Would have been cute to get one with all our feet... oh well, next year!

Using her bucket as a purse... everything is a purse to her!

Those sweet blonde curls... man, we are blessed...

Just diggin their way to China... no biggie ;o)

Grammy says, "Yaaay Vacation!"

Before our date night... yes, our clothing coordinates... you gotta have some cheesiness in your life! ha!

Our little family.

Dad and his girl.

See, we don't always match... ;o)

Family pic!

We stayed at a kiteboarding resort. This day was very windy and there were lots of kiteboarders out to watch! It was neat watching them do flips and stunts on the boards... and yes, that is a doggie in the water...see it? :)

Breakfast at Grammy's diner. She made us some delicious sourdough french toast!

Packing up to go home... she is such a lil stinker! ;o)

I have so much more to tell about our vacation, but time is of the essence and I've got lots more posts coming up! Hope you're all enjoying the start of fall weather and football season! It's my FAVORITE time of year... and not just because my birthday is in October. ;o)

To All The Fans...I'm Sorry!!!

Slap a slacker sticker across my forehead already! Daang! My last post was weeks ago...ugh...I will try to keep up now...I promise!

In my defense...ahem...this summer has been out of stinkin' control busy. If I had to give this summer a name it would be The Work Your Pants Off Summer, because that is EXACTLY what we've been doing. On one hand, it stinks...who wants to work alllllll the time? Especially in the summer?? Not me! BUT, on the other hand, we are getting in a really comfortable place financially. Have any of you heard of the financial guru Dave Ramsey?? Well, I got ahold of his book Total Money Makeover (thanks Jess! ;o), and his plan roped me in immediately. I'm always on the lookout for some financial smarts books... because honestly, where else in the world am I going to learn how to make smart financial moves? It certainly wasn't taught in high school...or college... or in our home growing up. And let's face it... your entire life revolves around these little green bills. It does... and without it, you'd be living in a little brown box. Ha! But anyway, it's basically a common sense plan of paying cash for everything and getting rid of consumer debt like car loans, credit cards, and student loans as quickly as possible, and then making your hard earned money work for you by putting it in mutual funds, kids' college funds, retirement, and of course have extra to give away (one of my favorite parts of this plan... he's not preaching greed, and I think it's awesome that he includes giving to charities in his money makover plan.:). The idea is to never have debt to pay on...because with debt comes interest and you end up paying more for everything. Pretty common sense, huh? However...Dave Ramsey's plan says to basically take 18 months or so and use every extra penny you have to pay off consumer debt...which implies that you would spend no money on vacations...or christmas presents...or birthday gifts...etc. Yea right! We are altering his plan slightly to fit our lifestyle ;o)...plus Eric and I both decided that we still want quality of life! Not sure if this plan will get me to be a stay at home momma some day, and after realizing how much money really goes into my retirement account by my employer I'm not even sure if I should strive for staying home--ha! BUT...I am thankful to have a good paying job and a husband with a good paying job and side-work up to his eyeballs. In this economy...well, I don't even have to go there...we all know the economy stinks right now!

Speaking of spending money :) :)....We are having a heck of a time trying to decide where to go on vacation in mid September. We've been thinking about it for months....go to the beach? the mountains? stay-cation? Chicago? the lake? Ahhhhh!!!!  I think we're coming to a conclusion....pack up and hit the North Carolina shore! I think we'd like to head to the Outer Banks, rent a little beach cottage, and do nothing but sit our bums on the beach for the entire week. Cook breakfast & lunch and go out for dinner....make smoothies in the evenings and go for beach walks at sunset and breathe in that salty ocean air. Okay, yep...just made up my mind! Outer Banks it is!! ;~))

These last few weeks have kicked off harvest time at the gardens! If I'm not working, I'm at mom's. It's been awesome...I love hanging out with the whole family for harvesting, canning, freezing, and cooking. It rocks. My mom rocks. She knows it all! (shhh...do not tell her I just admitted that! ;) My sister and I are a hot mess without her around to guide us through the tedious steps of preserving. Take this instance for example...
Last weekend, we were getting together at moms to can peaches. Mom had a Dr. appointment that morning, so she left Tammy and I some directions to get things started while she was gone. So Tammy and I show up at moms house, walk in the kitchen where all the equipment, towels, and recipes were all set up waiting on us. The first instruction: "put peaches in hot water on stove for 30-60 seconds and place in ice water bath; peel skins off, cut peaches in half." Tammy and I were like, "Okay...easy enough, we've got this." So we begin the process...heat the peaches, dump them in the ice water, start slicing them...and possibly by the 3rd peach that Tammy picked up, she went to cut it in half and instead sliced through her pinky finger!!!!!!!!!! My mom's knives are the SHARPEST things ever! As a matter of fact she sharpened them that morning so they'd be ready for 4 bushels of peaches. :) Immediately, my sister.... a nurse... about had a heart attack... pale as a ghost. Granted, the cut was deep...fat was busting out of it and she was convinced she could feel nerve damage kicking in. "We have to go the the ER right now!! Come on lets go...right now!" Meanwhile... I'm trying to hold in my giggles because she was completely overreacting like most nurses would. She was spouting off things like, "I'm gonna have to get a wound vac on this thing!" and "I'm diabetic Liz! Now I'm going to lose my finger!" and "It better not get infected with MRSA!!" Bless her heart... she did go to the ER and came home with 5 stitches. Proof that we can't do anything without mom's guidance. :)

So far this season we've canned green beans, hot pepper mustard, peaches, spiced peaches, pasta sauce, blueberry lime jam, strawberry jam, blackberry peach freezer jam, peach freezer jam, and froze sweet corn. We also made some butter the last day I was up at moms. She used to make it when we were little from the cream from our goats' milk. Since there wasn't a goat in the backyard these days we used heavy whipping cream. Just stick it in the blender and turn it on low. Before long (couple minutes), the whipping cream turns into a big blob of sweet cream butter. Then you drain off the buttermilk and wash the butter itself with cold tap water and work it in a bowl until the water runs clear. Easy peasy lemon squeezie! :)

I will stop boring you with reasons why I haven't been updating as frequently and just cut to some pretty cute pictures! Enjoy...

My faithful lil cheeser... :o)

Peach snatcher! She must be saving that blueberry lime jam for later. ;o)

This is what whimsical 8 year olds do to entertain themselves while the rest of the family slaves over the stove.... make flower petal paths!!

Mmmm....JAMMM!!!

Canning is a labor of love... Lesson learned: moms knives are even sharper than we thought!!

Pepper butter in the making (or mustard..whatever you wanna call it! :)

Pepper peelin' Dale!

The girls discovered the mister on the hose!

8 was a fun age! ;o)

Loooong day at Granny's... time for bed Ava!

Playground near our house...

My girl.

Love these girls!

Sometimes you just gotta... 8o)

Backyard pool time!!

Ava's new table daddy picked up in Iowa.

Hope you're enjoying your summer!! As you can tell, we are eating ours up!!! Leave some love--I'd love to hear how everyone's summer is going! I know you've got some Outer Banks info up your sleeve, too...we've never been there so I need some pointers! ;o) xoxo

Random Shots...

Just because I have slacked lately, I will make up for it with a totally random post about nothing in particular... ;o)

Sweet shades, Ava! Or as Ava would say, "Cooool!"

Let's go for a ride, Mom! And by that I mean please push me in this car up and down the sidewalk 8000 times even though it's 94 degrees outside and we're dripping in humidity and sweat. ;o)

We call this outfit Ava's hoochie mama dress. It's a little "slim-fitting"...it's a night gown apparently, but it's really tight! And it's a size 2T! So we've dubbed it the hoochie mama dress...and what goes better with a hoochie mama dress than mommy's hoochie heels?? ;o)

Just an afternoon at the park with her buddy Eli and friends...

As soon as her eye caught a glimpse of this baby doll lying there with nobody around to claim it Ava ran over and snatched it up. She looks mighty possessive over this baby that doesn't belong to her...and Georgia (the baby's mommy) wasn't around to defend baby doll so her little brother was trying his darndest to protect it while sis played on the swings...

I'm learning that Ava can hold her own in many different situations. Isn't this picture hilarious? Look at those two disgruntled toddlers. Ha! Little Brother is disappointed he let her get away with baby and let Big Sis down...and Ava's just ticked that some boy with cooties would even try to take "her" babydoll from her...hmmpf.

Oooh this girl...will forever keep me on my tippiest of tippy toes...

Sad Face.

We miss daddy.

Gardening at Granny's

Ava and I headed to mom's today for some green bean harvesting and freezing. It was a fairly productive day. Aside from keeping little girls out from under our feet, we were able to pick, prep, blanch, french, and bag some 33 quarts of thick and juicy fresh green beans. I enjoy summertime most for days like these. :o) It was hotter than hades today, and we worked up a few beads of sweat, but I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. Except I missed my sister & her family!!! All this gardening business never feels complete without them around! Darn busy lives...

Onto the pictures... Ava had lots of fun romping around granny's house with her step cousins! No pictures of our hard work today... hope you'll enjoy these instead!

Scoping out granny's garden... taking mental notes hopefully! She has the best gardens around!!

Ava and Abby...running around like real country girls do...with the grass between their toes! These two are only a couple weeks apart in age... completely opposite in personalities! Abby is sweet and quiet, just sits back and observes what her big sister and everyone else around her is doing. And Ava, well, she's boisterous...and dominating...and strong-willed. Very strong-willed.

Nothing beats little girls...Seriously. Love. 'Em.

Abby. So sweet.

Oh my...didn't I just mention something about this girl being boisterous?

Grandpa...taking the girls to let the chickens out of their coop. The smaller two are deathly afraid of the chickens. Hence, they are holding onto Grandpa with vice-like grips.

Running wild!

Peek-a-boo!!

Buckets of water keep little girls busy for hours. ;o)

New Bikes!

We've been looking into getting new bikes with infant seats, or at least buying a bike trailor, for a couple months now. While I was away in San Diego, Eric found a couple bargains on craigslist and surprised me with them when I got home! He's sneaky like that. :o) We love them! Ava wasn't sure at first, of course, but she has warmed up to both, the infant seat and the bike trailor! Oh, and the helmet...that was torture at first, but she puts it on herself now before we go for a ride.

Trying out the infant seat...

She loves this trailor!!

Yep--kid tested and approved!

Wait...you mean I have to leave this thing on my head the whole time? Not cool, Mom...not cool.

4th of July!! (a little late ;)

I know, I'm a little late on the July 4th post! We went to Red, White, & Boom in downtown Columbus for our July 4th celebration this year. To say the least...it was not worth it. Not that we didn't have fun just being with friends...and not that my daughter was feisty, she was actually a complete peach, even for the 2 hour drive to get downtown (aaand, my house is normally a 15-20 minute drive from downtown!)...but it just wasn't worth the hours of sitting in the car waiting to move a few inches. We were elbow-to-elbow with 18 million people and the lines to get food were UNBELIEVABLY long...which is not cool when a girl is hungry! Needless to say...we won't bother with this again...UNLESS (!) we plan to make an entire day of it...tailgate style...complete with cornhole. ;) On the upside, Ava LOVED the fireworks! She hung out with Kurtis through it all! Which is saying a lot...because she has turned into a fussy butt when it comes to men...she thinks they're smelly...and have cooties...and sometimes have weird hair growing on their faces.... ;o)

Look at that cutie pie...

Her unexpected buddy for the evening...she had him wrapped tightly around her little pinky. ;o)

Waiting patiently for some fireworks... :)

The girlies...

The dudes...I love this shot...they're so excited to run the camera! Can't you tell?!

So this is Katie. Ava and Katie have met about 3 times...on this night, at this particular moment, one would have thought they've been lifelong buddies. Ava practically jumped into Katie's arms when she bent down to say hello, and then she just snuggled right into Katie's hug. It was pretty sweet. :o) Ava must find Katie's body nice and snuggly!

See...still snuggling. :o)

Happy July 4th!!!