Just Enjoying Life

Happy Thursday!  How is everybody doing?  I could get used to not working.  Too bad I would miss the dinero, too!  HA  The past 2 days have been fairly low key as we wind down the last few precious days of vacation.  We stayed out on the deck until the wee hours of Wednesday morning, then I was awake by 8.  Needless to say, I drank a boatload of coffee.  But breakfast came first. This is a packet of Nature’s Path flax oatmeal jazzed up with some coconut butter and carob chips.  DELISH!  Nature’s Path was kind enough to send me a few items to review, so I’ll be getting to that just as soon as I try everything out.  One review I can share now is for their newly revamped line of granola bars: These were in the box that was sent (YAY!!) and you can read all about what we thought about them by clicking right here.
I pretty much spent ALL morning reading blogs.  Time really flies when you’re having fun!  I know I haven’t been commenting as much, but I’ve been reading each post.  Once I’m 100% caught up I’ll be back to full fledged commenting!
I eventually got hungry for lunch and whipped out my smuggled turkey artichoke sandwich half from Panera.
I opted to eat it cold and liked it lots better!  I’m not a big re-heater of things like pizza, sandwiches, etc.  I much prefer those kind of leftovers cold.  My hubby, on the other hand, likes everything to be steamy hot.  He was kinda grossed out that I ate this cold.  LOL  And the last few deck photos, I promise.  Just wanted to show the completed projects that I’ve been babbling on about so much!  :)
And here are how the deck lights from Target look, both with and without the flash(taken last night at dusk):
And here are some shots of the gardens I’ve been working on.  Ya know, in case any of you thought I was slacking the past few days!  HEHE
In both the above photos I turned all the dirt by hand with a shovel.   I also did the edging and extended them a wee bit.  The picture underneath is still a blank slate.  That patch is under a huge maple tree and doesn’t get much light so the grass never really grew properly.  I finally decided to clear out all the weeds and roots and in the fall I will be transplanting some of my perennials there so it will look gorgeous in the spring.  This one was a back breaker and my hands are still sore from clearing the space!  DOH!

We had a great summer dinner last night.  I made bison burgers with my smuggled ground bison and there was also fresh corn on the cob the my neighbour gave us.  I served my burger on a bagel thin with pickle, roasted red pepper, tomato and lettuce.  For dessert I cubed a ripe, sweet pineapple for us all to share:
My kids have been helping the neighbour with some yard work so she took them to DQ last night and treated them to Blizzards.  While they were gone my hubby and took our adopted doggie for a walk:
 
When we got back I tried this Skinny Cow ice cream cup:
This was not very good.  Wegman’s was selling them as singles so we bought 4, but I wasn’t hungry for mine after my salad so I threw it in the cooler and popped it in the freezer when we got home.  It didn’t have a lot of taste to it except for the bitter aftertaste.  Good trial run, though.  I know now not to fork over the cash for them here!
We were late going to bed again last night and early to rise.  I spent another morning on the computer entertaining myself.  LOL  While at that I downed a bowl of my favourite Kashi cereal ever; Kashi U:
Crunchy flakes, walnuts, blueberries….Mmmm!  I won’t say where I enjoyed my morning activities, but I’m sure you can guess!  ;)  Before I knew it lunch time had rolled around.  I wasn’t terribly hungry, but knew that eating lunch where we were heading would be a challenge so I took one for the team and used all the burger topping leftovers and a few extras to make a light salad. 
A little bit of lettuce, tomato, corn from the last cob, cuke, tuna and pear & blue cheese dressing.   I also enjoyed half a Panera chocolate chip cookie. So!  We took the kids to a water park that’s one city over from us.  Can’t believe I haven’t been since I was a teenager.  DS had never been down a “big” waterslide so I wasn’t sure if he’d like them or not, but he had a blast.  And I knew without a doubt that DD would be jazzed.  Here she is hitting the bottom of one slide. Unfortunately, everyone one I took of DS shows just a big splash!  But here is is at the bottom of a tamer slide: DD went down some “cyclone” slide that dumps you into a cylinder and spins you before you get dropped in the water.  No thanks! And lastly, the 2 of them happy as clams! Before we left they each got a “fake” tattoo… The fun and sun made us all peckish and the fam got soft serve cones at Mc Donald’s.  I wasn’t feeling one so I waited until we got home then had a piece of Stonemill pumpkin seed cranberry bready with a touch of butter,
I tended to the veggie garden a bit and picked myself some kale for dinner.  It’s so pretty! We did a beer butt chicken on the BBQ so I decided to turn my dinner into a big salad.  I tossed the kale with some cucumber, yellow tomato, green pepper and a dressing made with some olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, chili powder, honey, salt & pepper.  Then I topped the whole beast with some chicken breast! My sweet end was a chocolate Oikos yogurt.
Last time I bought the caramel and I like them both very much.  A  great healthy treat!!  After dinner we hauled butt over to DS’s soccer game.  He’s got one friend from school on his team as well as one of his All Star teammates and on the opposing team were 2 classmates as well.  I had the camera so I annoyed them all taking pictures!  Here’s the 5 of them;
DS is in the centre.  The little rascals….but they’re all great kids! 
Well, my hubby just came outside from having a shower and his back is BURNT.  Guess he didn’t do such a good job with the sunscreen.  I’m off to lather him in aloe…..  ;)
Bye for now!!

Officially on Vacay

Bonjour!  Hope everyone is doing well!  It’s technically only been a day since my vacation started, but I’m already having a blast.  Yesterday we tackled more yard work in preparation for our ground level deck extension which we’ll be tackling next week.  I made myself a grand breakfast to carry me through a 1.5hr soccer practice and beyond:
I turned 2 English muffins into French toast and topped them with strawberries, walnuts and agave.  Mmm, Mmmm, GOOD!
I’ve been overrun with zucchini from the garden lately so I decided to make some muffins from ED&BV.  They came out fantastic!  My hubby ate 4 over the course of the day.
By the time these were in the oven it was just about lunch so I pulled my Hungry Girl cookbook and made some zucchini fries:
I served myself a heaping plateful with Dijonnaise for lunch.
This is the point where some serious sweat was shed in the yard.  The yards on my side of the street are pretty secluded and don’t get a whole lot of wind.  It gets hot back there!  By the time dinner rolled around I just wanted a huge ass salad.
All the veg you see came from my parents garden; the lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers.  There was also feta, leftover beer butt chicken and roasted red pepper dressing.  I ate a few cookies at Mom’s as usual for a Sunday night.  When we got back home we set up the cute little fire pit we bought at Walmart (also intended for said deck). See that concrete pad in the background?  That is the area we will be extending into a 12 x 16 deck.  Our raised deck is directly above that.  I can’t wait to have another liveable outdoor space!  The kids REALLY wanted to roast marshmallows…. 
And I set out the fixing for s’mores. 
I enjoyed 2 myself.  That was more than enough for me!!
Enter some TV, sleep and 8am wake up time to get breakfast and head off to Pilate’s.  I needed something quick and cereal was the way to go.  A bowl of Kirkland cinnamon pecan crunch to be exact!
My hubby and I cruised the net looking for a few things to do over the next few days that will entertain the kids.  At 11 &  8 we have to ditch some of the places we usually go because they’ve outgrown the attractions, rides, etc.  We managed to find a few areas of interest and printed off tickets and coupons.  Before I knew it lunch had arrived.  I made big salads for DD and I with greens from the ‘rents garden, feta, hemp seeds and cashews.  The dressing today was pear & blue cheese…
I also ate a muffin with some almond butter on top;
We spent the afternoon catching some rays at the “beach”.  It’s really the local conservation/campground park, but the kids love the beach area there!  They splashed around..
While I chilled on a towel with my hubby:
I coated us all with SPF 50 and was impressed that we were all OK after 3hrs of sitting out.  DD was tuckered out by the time it was time to jet home!
HA!  We stopped for Chinese take out on the way because neither my hubby or I felt like cooking anything.  I had some lemon chicken, low mein, beef & broccoli and fried rice.
This was good but made me very, very thirsty!  I have sucked back 2 bottles of water already!  Yikes!  Dessert was some pineapple coconut froyo.
As soon as the kids go to bed my hubby and I are gonna watch a movie or 2.  We have some plans set out tomorrow which will have us leaving the house by 10am.  Should be blasty!  See ya tomorrow!
Bye for now!!

Time for a Holiday

Hi everybody!   Hope your weekend is going well!  I’ve got 3 days of eats to cover so I think I’ll just get to it….
Thursday
I had a dentist appointment first thing (ugh) so I had a quick bowl of cereal before giving my teeth some extra attention. This is the Kirkland cinnamon pecan cereal: Very good indeed!  I snacked on the last Kardea bar before going to the gym: Thursday was 30 Day Shred day at the gym and 4 of us sweat and grunted through it.  :)  Later on in the day I ordered the Jillian Michaels “No Trouble Zones” DVD.  I’ve seen it around blog land and heard good reviews so I’m eager to try it out!
Thursday and Friday were still clean-out-the fridge-and-pantry days so my lunch morphed into a salad of sorts. Corn, edamame, cucumber, feta and white balsamic vinegar.  Turned out pretty decent!  I really didn’t get hungry for an afternoon snack, but whipped up an amazing little dinner for myself.  WW pita, lettuce, mayo, dijon and falafels.  Yummy!  I munched on  blueberries, too; Thursday night was soccer night and SYTYCD night.  I was pretty tuckered out so a night in front of the tube was needed.   This asthma business of mine seems to be taking a lot out of me and I don’t like it.  *sigh*
Friday
It was a rainy morning and I just wanted some comfort food.  Enter my dark chocolate cherry mocha oats: Doesn’t that just look divine?  This is probably my favourite bowl of oats ever.  Thank you Starbucks for the inspiration!!  :)
Morning snack looked like this: I’m still not over the moon about these bars.   Have any of you tried them??
I hoped on the treadmill for a sweaty incline walk on the treadmill.  I set the incline to 7.5% and the speed to 4.2.  Thirty five minutes later saw me pretty red in the face!  LOL
I was getting pretty desperate when it came time to pack my lunch and ended up with goat’s milk yogurt, blueberries and Bear Naked granola.  There was also pear ginger jam mixed into the yogurt: Aside from eggs, yogurt and granola is a go-to meal for me.  Tell me your favourite go-to meal, K?  A co worker brought in some carrot cake after lunch and I took a small piece.  Mmmm…not so good.  For some reason it tasted like there were grains of sand in it.  I ate it to be polite….I’m not feelings hurter!  How’s that for improper grammar??  LOL
My hubby finally broke and bought oven ready pizza for supper.  The one he picked for me was a thin crust with spinach, feta, mozzarella and edam:
I enjoyed this so much I had a third piece!  The crust was light and crispy and reminded me of a croissant.   After dinner I finally went to do groceries.  I was a little scared that I would have to spend a fortune, but the bill wasn’t much more than what I usually spend.   Once again I was exhausted by 9pm and just got comfy on the couch with a book.  T’was nice!
Today
After a glorious 10hr sleep I awoke fresh and ready to tackle the day.  I was quite hungry so another bowl of cereal was definitely the way to go This is a fave of mine; Wildroots.  YUM!  We spent a good chunk of the day pulling weeds.  They’re much easier to get out when the ground is wet.  We’re planning on extending our walkout deck so my hubby took all the measurements needed for the job.  After showers and a quick lunch of salad and the last piece of pizza… We went to Home Depot to price out the wood and somehow ended up at Walmart.  Backing up to my salad a minute….I used the last 3 falafels and dressed it with some Renee’s pear & blue cheese dressing;  

At Walmart I came across a very appealing sounding Hershey’s chocolate bar that HAD to come home with me!
BOOYA!!!  For dinner we did a beer butt chicken, quinoa and corn: Dessert was some homemade pineapple coconut froyo.   Oh, yes I did!!!  More on that to come very soon. 
So I’m very excited because we start 2 weeks of vacay on Monday!  YIPEE!!  I plan on kicking back and having a great time while off… And maybe getting a bit goofy, too.
Should be a riot!!
Bye for now!!