Life and Blogging

I've had a few e-mails wondering how I've been doing, since it's been a while since I've posted, and I'm happy to say that everything is going great around here.  It turns out that life has gotten in the way of blogging, which is such a better statement than blogging got in the way of life.  I'd much rather report that endless hours at the pool have put a crimp in my screen time, instead of telling my kids that "mommy just has to finish this post."

Along with lots of pool time, there's been some water balloon action,

and exhausted kids at the end of the day.

I haven't stopped baking or creating, but my camera hasn't captured the step-by-steps needed for a tutorial. I did snap a pic of this strawberry crepe cake that I made the other day.  It's made like my chocolate crepe cake, only without the cocoa powder, and using a strawberry mousse.

I hope to find time to share some projects, but I make no promises, because there's a finite number of summers available and the pool is calling.

Thanks for popping in and bearing with the sporadic posting.

National GO Day

I like to celebrate the random national holidays, like National Donut Day(June 1st) and National Ice Cream Day(third Sunday in July.)  But today, I invite all my readers to take part in National Get Outdoors Day aka National GO Day.

GO - Dig in the Garden.

GO - Take in a Baseball Game

GO - Throw a Line in the Water

GO - Explore Nature

GO - Flip Rocks in a Creek

GO - Make a Splash

GO, now, turn off your screens, and GO

Thanks for popping in and Getting Outdoors with me.

Redneck Pool Heater

It was blazing hot this weekend.  The temperature reached 95 on Sunday, and SB and the Princess spent all day in her pool.  Sorry about the crummy phone pic.  Her parents put up her pool this weekend, and filled it with water from their Rinnai on demand water heater.

Our pool is still a frigid 60something.  I've shared pics of the kids playing in our pool here before, and various pool related projects like when I made a DIY buoy line out of a dollar store pool noodle.

See that stone wall back there?  It's holding back the hillside.  Not just any hillside - a heavily wooded hillside.  

I like trees, and the boys enjoy trekking back there with paintball and airsoft guns, but all those trees mean a shaded yard.  And a shaded yard means a cold pool.  We have on the roof solar heaters, but there's only so much they can do with our limited sunlight.  We looked into gas heat, but those things are really expensive.  I checked the webosphere for cheap pool heaters, and that's when I came across the concept of a Redneck Pool Heater.  We had some copper pipe sitting in our garage after we switched to pex tubing when we did our kitchen reno.

It took several evenings and one nasty blistery burn for CG to put ours together.

Voila!  Our very own Redneck Pool Heater.  It sits in our grill, but can be removed when it's done heating up the pool.

And here it is with the lid down.  We tested it out and the water coming out was 7 degrees warmer than the water coming in.

A couple of days with this running continuously, and about 3 propane tanks, and we should be able to start using our pool.  In May.  Craziness.

Thanks for popping in and checking out our new pool heater.

Hotlanta - Part 1 - The Accomodations

We just got back from a fantastic week in Atlanta, so I have a ton of blog reading to catch up on.  I answered e-mails on my awesome new phone, but spent very little time doing any web browsing, because I figured I couldn't tell the boys to go easy on the laptops, if I was mesmerized by the screen, too.

WD playing War Crack Warcraft.

Through the magic of pre-writing and scheduling posts to launch, I was able to continue to post this past week, but we've been enjoying fun in the hot southern sun for the past week.

Normally when you read one of these travel posts, there are some pics of the hotel room or cruise ship cabin.  We stayed at the Hotel Mom and Dad.  My parents love having their kids and grandkids visit, and retired to a home that perfectly accomodates all of us(4 kids + spouses, and 5 grandkids so far.)  This trip it was just us visiting, but we've all converged on their home before.  CG and I stayed in the cavernous upstairs master suite.  I know all my fellow bloggers are drooling over the campaign furniture and wondering why I haven't gotten my hands on it.

I could do cartwheels in the en suite bath.  There are separate his & hers vanities, a jetted whirlpool tub, and in the other direction there's a 6'x3' linen closet(larger than the one that serves my whole house,) a huge walk-in shower, and a large toilet alcove.

Your unpacked luggage can go in the campaign furniture, or the ample hanging space in the walk-in closet.

Whirling Dervish's and

Snuggle Bunny's generously sized rooms

are connected by a Jack & Jill bath.  One of the knocks against J&J baths is that people forget to unlock both sides, and you have to go around anyway to get in.  This bath is set up with the double vanities in the initial shared space with a door to the right that leads to the shower/bath and toilet area.  All the private space is behind the one door while the shared J&J vanity space has the double doors.  Forgotten locks aren't an issue.

As nice as the accomodations were, the boys didn't spend very much time in their rooms.  They were too busy playing games like bocce,

and fishing

with their Papa.

My parents' home has a lakeview, and it's a good thing because it was just a short walk back when they were caught fishing in a sudden downpour.

Most of the time was sunny and hot, so the boys had a great time in the subdivision's pool.  Atlanta kids are back in school this week, and WD found it particularly nice to be swimming when school buses had been by in the morning.  We won't head back to school til after Labor Day.

SB was having so much fun in the pool.  The pool goes from 3' in the extreme shallow end to 5' in the deep end.  Perfect for a beginning swimmer who's been a little afraid of the deep end.  Here he is jumping in without his swim vest

into water above his head.  Woohoo!

During the hottest parts of the days we retreated back to the air conditioning and played video games in the gaming room, ping pong in the large game room, and watched movies in the theater room.

But for me the best part about staying at Hotel Mom & Dad?  The home cooking.  Pho(noodle soup,) Bun Rieu(crab soup,) Banh Xeo(vietnamese filled rice crepe,) Banh Cong(shrimp toast,) too many missed authentic dishes, most of which I inhaled before thinking about my camera.

Thanks for popping in and checking out the home side of our Atlanta stay.  I'm linking up to Decor To Adore's Wayfaring Wednesdays.

Scrub a Dub Dub - More Outdoor Sprucing Up

*It's not to late to enter my Picture Letter Art giveaway here*

It's been blazing hot lately, and hot on the east coast means humid, heavy, drippy, sticky hot air.  This means we've been getting a ton of pool use.  Snuggle Bunny and the Princess have been spending hours in the pool during the day, and Whirling Dervish has been using it in the evening with his friends.

We love seeing all the kids using the pool, because there have been years where we've spent several hundred dollars on pool chemicals and maintenance only to use it a couple of times all summer.  The water has been crystal clear, and high 70s because of the solar heater, and the sound of the diving board has been pretty constant.  Unfortunately the diving board base was looking pretty scary.

Eek, right?  It was looking like we should have a tetanus booster shot at the ready, and the yucky outdoor carpet surrounding it was covered in a carpet of moss.  Yuck.  First thing I did was pull up that yucky carpet, and pull out the sandpaper for a good sanding to get all the rust and bits of flaky paint off.

I then taped off the top of the board, and pulled out the spray paint.  1 coat of primer, and 2 coats of white.

Here it is all shiny and new again.  No more need for tetanus waivers.

Thanks for popping in and painting with me.  Don't forget to come back this Thursday for my Before Blogging party you can read more about it here.