Mother-Daughter Day

Today started out like any other Saturday; I invited mom to come to get coffee with me first thing (8:30 a.m.). However, I decided we needed something different after this breakfast/coffee outing. So, we traveled an hour to a lavender farm that I had been wanting to visit for months now. After that, we felt so good that we came home, made lunch, then headed out to the local winery! It was a fantastic day, and I thank my mom for going with me! She's a great side-kick.

Homemade Pizza Rolls

Justin is a great cook. Seriously. I don't even have to ask, and he's got all sorts of recipes ready to try out. I have to say, it's been a bit more common with it being summer schedule for us teachers -- and I'm loving it! (I enjoy cooking to a degree, but I just don't have the interest in it like he does.. maybe one day?)

So, today J decided on a whim to make homemade pizza rolls. Basically, he made dough from scratch and cut it into rectangles. We then took a piece, flattened it, and filled it with whatever we wanted -- pineapple and pepperoni; pepperoni and mozzarella; and my favorite, broccoli, ricotta, and tomatoes. Mmmm. After filling one of the rectangles, we folded the dough together and pinched it to keep it together. Top it off with some garlic spices, butter, and parmesan, and you create goodness. Here's a quick visual:

Fire Pit

After many hours of working, loading, digging, and sweating because of it, we finished our fire pit. I should mention that Justin did most of the digging, and the loading, but hey, I did my share of helping when I could. I helped place the sand, rocks, and all of the bricks to create the fire pit itself, so I was proud of that. I also helped mix the mortar. Woot!

We are extremely proud of this new little addition to our backyard. We've been dreaming of having one of our own for a couple of years now - of course, we were always in a college apartment, so we were never able to use our own land or yard.

It's the little luxuries that are going to really give our house the feeling we want. We didn't have to spend that much money (under $200) for something like this, and it will be the mood-setter for many family nights with our future children and our relatives. Perfect.

I'll try to show you the steps to make one of these in detail later, but basically, you:
1. convince your wife (in our case) that it's a good idea
2. dig a hole
3. show your wife so she feels proud of you, therefore allowing you to proceed
4. make it level and make it round (a lot harder than it sounds)
5. place drainage gravel (bag of rock) into hole at least 6 inches
6. tamp it down
7. place sand on top of gravel - at least 1 inch
8. tamp it down and level
9. place one layer of bricks in a circle, forming the base for your fire pit
10. tamp them down
11. place mortar on top of bricks
12. place next layer of bricks
13. repeat as many times as you need!
14. be proud

Disclaimer: this is not as easy as it seems (even though it was rather easy-ish). You may not get the rocks perfect at first, so you will be readjusting as you go - no biggy. You will take numerous water breaks and you will sweat more than you think. We did, however, choose to complete a large portion of the project on a 90+ degree day, but I would suggest otherwise. Enjoy!

J and I had a great 1-year anniversary. It was pouring down rain almost the entire day, which was funny because it almost rained on our wedding day, but it held back. It was just a reminder of how lucky we were the year before. :)

We started the day by sleeping in until almost eleven, which is extremely rare these days - more like unheard of. It was great! The sound of the rain was perfect. Later in the day, we went to one of our favorite restaurants for lunch; we got calamari, shrimp, and a steak with a crab cake on top. So good! After that, we bought all of the needed materials to start our wedding scrapbook. We were going to buy an album, but this is more of our style. I'll show you what it looks like closer to the finish line!

In other news, today is the first day of summer!! The weather proves it; it's close to 100 degrees today. We're staying inside... mostly...

...and we're building a fire pit! Here are some shots of our process so far. Justin has been doing most of the work. I'm so excited to actually use it in the near future.

Happy 1-year anniversary to my real-life superhero. You keep my world shining. 

enjoy

Summer time, sweet summer time

Summer has already been treating me (and the family) pretty well!

Here are a few things I've been up to lately:
- coffee with a variety of dates
- playing outside aka planning the fire pit
- shopping with mom and Dana
- cleaning out my classroom with J's help
- watching fun trash t.v.
- planning cookouts with the family
- yard work and planning
- cuddling with a variety of animals and one particular person
- hanging out with my handsome nephew
- going to movies with my bro
- random hang-outs at mom's
- driving with Justin and hour just to get free lunch

I'll start taking more pictures to show you... so far, I've just been enjoying the present moment and forgetting my camera.

Other than the above, I've started a gym plan. It's a certain number of days for a certain amount of money, and it allows you to use everything in the gym. It's meant to get people into better health and shape - a doctor has to recommend it. Because of my acid-reflux and lung issues (asthma, etc.), my ENT recommended the program. I'm supposed to lose at least twenty to twenty-five pounds - this is a way to hopefully get any minor health issues under control. Again, there's nothing serious, but hey, I'm taking the opportunity.

So, here's my picture for day two of the machine I used. I might be posting these periodically to show any progress I make.

Maybe I'll actually look and feel different after this summer! I'm believing in the possibility.

Have fun, everyone!

I would be lying if I said that the past few days have been easy. There were a variety of changes introduced at school in the last two days, some of which have to do with me, so it will take some getting used to -- nothing bad, just different. Basically, next year will be a start-over as far as curriculum goes. I won't be able to relax yet.

Besides that, things are beginning to look up. Although J and I are still hoping for him to get another job interview soon (changes in his side of things, too, unfortunately), we haven't heard anything. But, it is summer, and summer is a time for love and enjoyment. We plan on visiting family, building a fire pit (yesss), and hopefully visiting the beach, as well as other small day trips. It should be nice.

Another big venture is my photography. I'm trying desperately to get better. The first step? I bought a new lens. It's a 50 mm, so it's nothing huge with zoom or whatnot, but it's much better quality than the one I was using. I've already practiced with it a little, and the pictures are turning out better than they were previously. Like I said, things are looking up.

I hope you all have a great summer. Let's hope it's all as good as it should be.

Parker + new lens

 

Fun with the new lens...

More on this later! :)