Weekend Review & Thanks

We were lucky enough to enjoy a bit of an indian summer here this weekend.  The temperature soared up to 80 and the skies were blue and clear.  Yay!  Perfect timing for the holiday weekend.  A friend, the Grill Master, invited us down to his cottage on Quaker Lake in Pennsylvania.  I made an apple crisp to bring along, and we piled in the car to go enjoy a day on the lake.

The leaves were absolutely gorgeous and the lake was dead calm and perfect for the kids to go out boating.

Why yes, that is a 9 yr old at the helm.  Don't worry, we weren't being negligent.  It's only a trolling motor and doesn't go fast at all.  Plus the lake is small enough where the kids were always in view from the dock.  The bigger kids went out in the canoe and kayaks.

Have you ever seen a sky so blue?

I could have spent all day on the dock.  The day was that perfect.  Actually I could have spent all day on his neighbor's dock.  Words can't even express how much I love the cantilevered deck/dock of his neighbor's home.  Can you imagine living there year round?

Still we did have to tear ourselves away from the water come dinner time, but GM took care of that.  While he'll stand around & drink with the guys(GM on the left,)

 there's nothing he likes better than manning the grill.  There were the most succulent shrimp kebab appetizers, as well as enough chicken & pork loin & portobellos to feed an army.

That was my terrific day spent out enjoying the last bit of warmth before the snow starts to fly.  And now for some Thank Yous.  I had a pretty terrific week starting with a package of Luna Bars that landed on my doorstep from Jamielyn at I {heart} Naptime.  Luna Bars are the perfect protein packed post workout snack.  They're gluten-free, and come in terrific flavors like cookie dough and chocolate cherry almond.

I was fortunate enough to have been featured a couple of times, too.  My Brownie Covered GF Oreos were featured at the Saturday Evening Pot as part of her 100 day countdown to Christmas series.  And Mamie at Homegrown Beanes and Carrie at Dittle Dattle both featured my Breakfast Pockets.  Thanks for the features, ladies!

I hope you all are having a terrific holiday weekend, too.  Thanks for popping and checking out my weekend.

Weekend Review

After months & months of rain, we finally had our first completely rain free weekend.  Don't get me wrong, there's been plenty of moments of sunshine, but there hasn't been an entire weekend without precipitation of some kind all year.  You'd think we lived in the PNW, not the Northeast.  So how did we spend our first completely sunshiney weekend?  Out on the water, of course.

The jet ski finally went into the water.

There were some lazy moments in the sun swinging

and of course some fishing.

For those of you concerned that CG has no clothes, he just has about a dozen grey tank tops, and several red basketball shorts.  What can I say, he likes the familiar.

CG & SB built a bat house for my FIL for Father's Day.  If any bats move in, they should help with the helicopter sized mosquitos up at the cottage.  We only have some pics of the building process, but I'll try to see if I can put together a post on it.

The wave petunias are loving the sun, too.  The local nursery had these in good sized pots for 4/$10 so we snagged a couple to bring home for our front garden.

Thanks for popping in and enjoying the sun with us.

Weekend Review

It was another packed weekend.  It seems like this time of year, every weekend is packed to the gills with fun things to do.  SB's best friend, the Princess, celebrated her birthday with a party at Skate Estate.  The kids had a great time skating, then played some Laser Tag.  CG strapped on a laser vest, too.

The blue team crushed the red team, but it was a bit unfair since all 3 of my boys(including CG) were on the blue team and we actually own a handful of laser tag vests and guns.  SB recorded 11 kills, while a half dozen of the other party goers only recorded 2.  This despite the fact that he was the youngest guest at the party.  After laser tag, they headed outside to play mini-golf and hit the water slides.

Sunday we headed to the Northeast regional motocross championships.  Carrie over at Dittle Dattle was up with her family.  Her son is a phenomenal racer who'll be competing at nationals mid-summer.  Carrie is just the sweetest person ever and I'm so glad we had a chance to meet up.  With as many awesome powertool heavy DIY projects as she cranks out, I was surprised to see how tiny she is.  Isn't she adorable?

We had a fantastic time meeting Carrie and her family and watching the motocross action.  I was so impressed with how fast and how high the racers rode their bikes.

Watching the younger participants was really fun, too.  I had no idea that kids started racing so young.  SB actually said, "Look they're so tiny, they're so cute" to which I replied, "ummm, they're the same size as you."

Both my boys were impressed with how quickly the racers remounted their bikes after a crash.  Sometimes the gasp wouldn't be all the way out before the rider was already back on the course.  My rough and tumble WD who takes slashes to the head, and has had his arm pulled out of socket, had to give props to the riders for their toughness.

I'm so glad we got to hang out with Carrie and her family.  They're the kind of awesome people that you'd want to barbecue with every weekend.  So that was my weekend a whole lot of fun in the sun, between the thunder showers. 

Thanks for popping in and reading about our weekend fun.

Thanks, Weekend Review & A Sneek Peak

It's been crazy hectic around here lately, and I have several overdue Thank Yous to hand out for some recent wins.  A big Thanks to Tiffany at Savor Home who sent me a copy of Gwyneth Paltrow's new cookbook, My Father's Daughter, a few weeks ago.  It's a great read.  I love how simple most of the recipes are, and even moreso, I love the stories she weaves throughout the book.  She writes of food & family & togetherness, and how her father fostered that love of food.

This isn't a gluten-free cookbook, but most of the recipes easily translate, and several use spelt flour, which many gluten-free eaters can tolerate.  Several recipes are already in my arsenal, but I can't wait to try making her homemade sriracha recipe as soon as I run through my bottle of the storebought stuff.  Her vietnamese prawn sandwiches look just like the ones from Little Saigon, and are on my list of must makes.  Her salad section is just bursting with creative combinations that I can't wait to try as soon as my garden starts producing.

Speaking of my garden, it's going to be a great harvest this year, because Bianca at Little Brick Ranch sent me this bag of Organic Worm Castings. 

When it came, I skipped into the kitchen to grab a knife to open the box, and WD asked what it was.  I responded, "Organic Worm Castings," and he said, "No, really, what is it?"  I repeated my response, and when I opened up the box and pulled out the bag, he asked, "You're this excited about worm poop?"  He'll be excited too when I'm pickling all the cucumbers and making kale chips.

Gerry at Foodness Gracious awarded me with a Lovely Blogger Yummy Recipe Award.  Gerry is a stay-at-home-dad who shares some amazing recipes & food photography on his blog.

We were up at the cottage again this weekend.  We did a whole lot of drinking,

and tried to do some fishing,

but we were mostly catching gobies.  Yuck!

For those unfamiliar, the goby is an invasive foreign species of fish that eat bass eggs and negatively impact the bass population.  The NYS DEC categorizes them as invasive, and any that are caught must be killed and not thrown back into the water.

It was cold out on the lake Saturday.

Still you can't complain when this is your view.

It was much warmer Sunday when the boys went back out on the lake.

The girls all went to a baby shower, which I wish I had pics of, but the camera was left at the cottage.  The mother-to-be was radiant, and it's not often so many of CG's extended family is present all in one spot.  For some pics of the shower, check out CG's aunt's blog, A Summer's Day.   That's what I've been up to, and here's a sneak peek at a big project I'm working on(and when I say big, I mean get-on-a-stepladder-huge.)

Thanks for popping in and checking out what's new.

{Almost} Wordless Wednesday - Weekend Review

Camping Weekend

Water Park

Games

and Lots of Rides.



Night Time Fun, too.

Wiped Out.

Thanks for popping in and enjoying the camping trip.  I'm sharing this at Decor to Adore's Wayfaring Wednesday.

Weekend Review - Gone Fishing

I hope everyone had a good weekend.  Blogger had only just come back up online when we left for the cottage for the weekend, so I'm just now getting back into the swing of things.  Incidentally does anyone know if our posts from Thursday are lost forever or will they show up at some point?  It was a nice weekend up at the cottage visiting with Computer Genius's family.  We did a lot of fishing.  Well, everybody else did a lot of fishing, I threw my line in several times and was stripped every single time.  Apparently, I've lost my fishing mojo.  Snuggle Bunny hasn't.  Here he is casting off the dock,

catching some sunfish and bluegills.  SB also caught a bullhead later that night.

CG has plenty of fishing mojo.  Here he is with a 16" bass caught right off the dock.  He also caught a silver bass out on the boat.

WD loves taking the bass boat out on the bay to fish into the shoreline.

The rain eventually chased everyone in.  We brought our XBox Kinect, and the cottage is stocked with games for rainy days.

Bullhead fishing is a lot of fun.  You set up lighted bobbers and watch the little dancing lights, waiting for one to disappear.  It can be hours, though, and it was raining.  You couldn't pay me to sit out in the rain at night to fish, but everyone else enjoyed several hours of bullhead(catfish) fishing.  It was very, very wet.  Check out the bottoms of MIL's jeans.

Victorious!  BIL with a bullhead.

Thanks for popping in and checking out our weekend fun.  I'm linking this up to Watery Wednesday and A Beach Cottage's Good Life Wednesdays.