I absolutely, positively, without a doubt, can't stop thinking about, how much I love FALL!

That was probably a weird non-realistic sentence, but that's okay.  My point is - Fall is upon us - shortly - and I can't wait!!  It's hard to think about fall, when it's literally 104 degrees outside, but I have faith that it will cool down very soon.  This weekend is Labor Day weekend (my unofficial start date of the Autumnal Equinox - I know, it's actually September 22) the first day of Fall!   For me Fall starts on Tuesday, September 3, the first day of school for Minnesota high schools. My whole school career that is what signified the start of Fall for me and I think I'm just going to keep thinking about it that way.  I cannot wait for cooler days.  It's been even too hot for walks outside, so I'm looking forward to doing that.  Fall makes my life a little busier, but I'm not complaining.  Tuesday starts swimming lessons for my little girl and Wednesday night they do baby story time at the local library so we might try that.  My weekends are already pretty much packed until November, and even November is busy but I'm not thinking about that too much yet.  Anyway, I can't wait to pull out my canner and get the fruit that is in my freezer done and get my tomatoes turned into yummy salsa.  I've been on Pinterest a little today while babygirl naps and I found some awesome pictures of fall and little sayings that remind me again how much I love the season, so I will leave you with this:

Oh and this picture, I think I have to find it for Gwen: 

Oh and one more thing: I have a mom date tonight and I am so excited!  It's Endless Pasta at Olive Garden right now and 4 other moms and I are leaving the kids with dad and heading there tonight - can't wait!! We never get to visit sans kids so it will be nice :) We love our kiddos but one of us is always running off to fix the latest crisis.  

And so it goes...

Well hello again dear Blog,

I've neglected you once again.  This time it's been for very good reason.  We've been a traveling...for some fun reasons - and some not so fun reasons.  First of all, we took a much needed mini family vaca to the cabin for a whole weekend.  That sounds crazy, I know, but the hubby had a Saturday and Sunday off so we took off late Friday night and did it.  It was fabulous!  

Then, we received devastating news on Tuesday morning the 13th that hubby's 19  year old cousin died in a car accident the night before.  It was a terrible week.  We ended it with going to the funeral and paying our respects.  No mother should have to bury a child and that's all I will say about that.  It is truly tragic.

The weekend brought some fun when my BFF and her little girl came to visit and we went blueberry picking and to the pool.  It's tough when you have littles that have a schedule and need naps and go to bed early because you can't squeeze that much in, but it was a wonderful weekend visit and I can't wait to see them again.

This week I've been cleaning up.  And going to a birthday party. And going to a new book club meeting to get signed up.  And tomorrow I'm babysitting. And Saturday we have a wedding.  And then it's already a new week! EEK!  Time is flying.

Well, in about 84 minutes I have a lady from the "La Crosse Welcome Committee" coming to give me a welcome packet full of gift cards and brochures, etc, so I feel like I need to clean up my mess a bit.

Until next time, Mr. Blog.

Feeling Too Plugged In

I find myself too plugged in these days - not so much via my blog (obviously!) but with facebook and texting...it's very time consuming.  And I don't like it one bit!  This weekend I'm making a promise to myself and my family that I'm unplugging.  Admittedly, I'm starting small....I'm just putting my phone on silent and checking it once or twice a day....and I'm not checking facebook!  And then once I get a handle on that, I plan on shutting off the phone for a whole weekend at a time.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about what we've been up to - we had a house full of people for about 5 days.  We celebrated a Baptism and had multiple cookouts!  It was a great time, but I'm exhausted and we still aren't cleaned up from last weekend's fun!

Whew!  Better get back to it!

Another Week Flies By

Whew, is all I can say about our last week!!  We took off last Wednesday for my hometown to partake in a family reunion.  It was a blast!  But I'm exhausted (and it was last weekend!)  We had over 200 people show up.  The food was awesome, the visiting phenomenal and overall, it went off without a hitch - which is great, because my mom was one of the primary organizers and so it was a bit hectic and stressful leading up to it.  The county fair was also going on during the weekend we were home and I was able to take babygirl there to visit all the farm animals!  She loved it!  I have pictures, but they are on my camera and that's in the other room and I'm too lazy to go get it right now.   We drove back on Monday and it took us 14 1/2 hours!  So, needless to say, Tuesday we did nothing.  Literally, we napped, ate, and watched TV.  Wednesday we had a playdate and then did more napping.  Thursday, my little peanut woke up with a temperature and was crabby ALL day :(  She's teething and was not a happy girl.  Friday was more of the same, but she did a bit better towards the evening so we went on a family walk and to the Farmer's Market to pick up some peas and rhubarb - yum! That leads us to today, which we spent going to an Art Fair, doing some yard work and cleaning.  I still have a lot of cleaning to do to make up for my lack of everything this past week, but I think it can wait until tomorrow and I can go to bed...cuz I'm tired!

Weekend Run-Down

So Friday babygirl and I had a visit from Grandma Karyn (Ryan's mom).  We had a blast!  We hit up Caribou (an obsession for both of us) and the Harley shop.  We got a little lost on the way to the Harley shop but it was quite an adventure.  Turns out we just went the wrong way on the highway and had to do a big loop to get back.  Then, we hit up the pool for 2 hours!  Gwen had a blast!  I didn't get any pics cuz I accidentally left my phone at home :-/  I think Grandma snapped a couple so I will have to get those from her sometime.  

Friday night we went on a family cruise (old school car style) South of town to check out some of the smaller towns along the river.  We grabbed some DQ (minus some for babygirl - she was out like a light!) and just drove.  I love going on drives, so it was perfect.  

Saturday we dilly dallied all day long about what we were going to do (even though I felt like there were PLENTY of options) and ended up attempting to go on a walk through a place called Goose Island that we discovered before.  It was super buggy though and we ended up cutting out walk pretty short and heading down to the riverfront for Crazy Days.  Crazy Days weren't as exciting as I thought they'd be, but then I learned that we hit it up on the very last day....so I'm thinking that Thursday and Friday were probably more hopping - plus it was like 90+ degrees!  Yuck!  Saturday night we rented a movie - Identity Theft (I've heard mixed reviews, but we liked it).  

Sunday we hit up church in the morning and came home and babygirl and I both took naps while Daddy did some reading.  Then we went to SAMS club and got a membership and loaded up on groceries (lots of produce!!!)  I am thrilled!  We then came home and grilled out and this evening I have a wild hair to clean, clean, clean - although it's like 11pm and I should go to bed!  We have a super busy and exciting week - I can't wait to share it with you!  

Goodnight!

Taco Pasta Salad

So I'm on a little bit of a food kick here.  Last night I made Taco Pasta Salad - recipe via Pinterest of course! Anyway, another hit :)  Hubby said "So I think you should be keeping track of these recipes and we can put them in a hat and draw out the week's meals once we get a big pile of them" :-)  So he likes 'em!

Ingredients: 

1 lb browned hamburger seasoned with 1 package of taco seasoning

1 box of rotini noodles, cooked and drained

1 small can of black olives, drained

1-2 tomatoes, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

1 bottle Western Salad dressing (I used Light)

Optional 2 cups shredded cheese (I forgot this)

Mix all together and enjoy!   We ate it warm.  Recipe technically says to eat cold, so I assume it will be delicious both ways.  Hubby ate his over a bed of lettuce and I ate mine plain, so again, tons of options with it! I loved it because it was a super easy one pot meal (Kind of, I had to brown the hamburger separate I guess) but overall, it was one pot once it was prepped and it was delicious and we have leftovers for tonight! 

Oh yes, and recipe also called for sriracha sauce OR Western dressing.  I don't like things TOO spicy so we opted for the dressing.  

BBQ Chicken, Apple & Avocado Salad

Last night I tried a new recipe.  I sometimes feel like we get in a rut of eating the same old things and wanted to try something new. So, I headed over to Pinterest to find a new recipe and came up with BBQ Chicken, Apple & Bacon Salad.....but when I made it I forgot the bacon :-/.  It was still delicious!  But I'm slightly bummed.  I looked at the recipe just once and didn't look at it again, so apparently bacon just slipped my mind.  We grilled the chicken, added the BBQ sauce, sliced up one granny smith apple and one avocado, added our lettuce and then topped it all with Bleu Cheese Dressing.  Highly recommended!  I'm happy to say I have a new salad to add to our "regular" menu :)

Here's the Pinterest pic: