Fun, Food, Old Friends, Non-Fiction, Fire & Furry Animals

That’s a lot of F’s.

A lot has been going on–me sitting at my computer hasn’t been one of them… now I’ve got this crazy backlog of photographs and things we need to talk about.Whether or not I can cover them all will be determined by the time I wrap this post up.

Keeping in the theme of F’s… I will FIRST say that our sweet & feisty little Rover turned 3 today! Doesn’t seem possible does it? Wasn’t he just born? He keeps me on my toes at all times. He’s matured into a kind yet rambunctious, independent yet needy, three-year-old, with absolutely no shortage of spunk. He’s all about testing his boundaries, and I’m all about keeping him in range. This picture cracks me up but also serves as a good representation of life with the Rover!

Justin did the birthday shopping this year. This is impressive, as shopping is not one of his strong suits but taking great care of his little man is. He picked out a Cars themed tricycle that was destined to please. Despite Rover’s special request for a TV with a ladybug remote control {we have no idea?}, he was thrilled with his new tricycle.

While Justin covered the gift part of the birthday celebration, I was assigned to the decorations. A   quick trip to the Dollar General for balloons, ribbon and a banner, and we were all set for his usual 6 am wake up call!

In other news, we are self-proclaimed pool rats. This has been greatly influenced by the fact that the girls have been enrolled in swim lessons for two-weeks. As every mother knows, by the time you have 3 in bathing suits, and lathered up in sunscreen, you might as well stick around for a while. The girls worked hard on their strokes, and Morgan even worked on her dives and flip turns.

One morning the clouds rolled in, and we decided we’d go to the little zoo in Gulf Shores.

Look, a Joey Bag of Donuts! This is all I could think of when I saw these joeys in bags, then I wanted Moe’s.

The zoo was good entertainment for a rainy day, but consider yourself informed that should you choose to go, once inside there are individual “exhibits” that you pay to see up close. For instance, we could see the little joeys in bags through the fence, or we could go inside the fence for $5/person. I gave in on the little “petting zoo” exhibit,  but the rest we enjoyed from the outside.

In the afternoons I’ve been reading, either in our bedroom {above} or on a lounge chair tucked away in the shade of the deck, where a breeze is almost always constant off the water.

These have been my entertainment, and all non-fiction entertainment at that…

The Glass Castle, Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, The Art of Simple Food, and A Homemade Life. I was going to muster up a summary/review, but I don’t think I have it in me right now so here are a few brief thoughts. Like many of you told me, I think you should read The Glass Castle. I’m convinced writing a memoir takes an incredible amount of courage, which apparently, Jeanette Walls has no shortage of. Nor is she short on grace, and while I’m not sure if she’s a woman of faith, I believe anyone could walk away from The Glass Castle with a great appreciation of her humble acceptance of her parents despite their enormous deficiencies, much like the grace we so undeservingly receive.  Ree Drummond’s book was a fun and easy read. It too, I’m sure, took courage to write, despite her story being a great contrast to Jeanette Wall’s. It made me laugh out loud more than once. I consider it an easy pool/beach-read. I’m in the middle of A Homemade Life and loving it. Who knew a cookbook could be a page-turner!? Molly Wizenberg {of Orangette} accompanies each recipe with a well-written short story that she effortlessly weaves into an introduction of the recipe. If you enjoy a well-written story and a good recipe, you should read it! After reading each story, I want to immediately run to the kitchen. This afternoon I found myself wanting chocolate one minute and tuna the next… an unlikely pair to crave within minutes of each other.  The Art of Simple Food is a collection of simple recipes, none of which I’ve tried yet, so I can’t really speak to it.

While I read this afternoon, Morgan and Paige were very entertained with chalk.

Our patio is covered with mermaids, sea turtles, hop scotch courses, American flags… and our girls are subsequently covered in chalk dust!

Now, moving on to fire & friends, which seems a suitable place to wrap up, despite not making my way to the food yet!

Gulf State Park had quite a devastating wildfire that started last Saturday. I think over the course of 5 days over 600 acres  have burned. This is the view of the smoke from our dock. The sky has been peppered with falling ash and the smoke can be seen for miles. My understanding is that it is now under control.

Last Saturday, Justin and I slipped in a little date. Did you know that dates by watercraft are always exponentially better and much more romantic than a car ride? It’s true.

Once we arrived to our destination {Ono Island} we had an even better view of both the sunset and the smoke.

It was a fabulous evening in the company of old friends. There’s just something special about old friends. These are friends of mine from Auburn, friends who, over the last ten years, I’ve bumped into occasionally and some not at all.

They remind me of Auburn, they remind me of being younger and staying up late, so much so that we pretended to be young and stayed up really late, or maybe it was early. We ate, we laughed, we danced, we sang, we talked, I DJ’d, we danced some more, ate some more, took a few pictures, laughed really hard, and had an absolutely wonderful time. They reminded me that though the years may pass good friendships don’t. They also remind me of just how much I loved my years at Auburn, I look back on those years with incredible fondness and I am thankful for sweet memories. They also reminded me that I still like the  Red Hot Chili Peppers.

This next picture cracks me up because Emily is not a friend of fluoride, Brett to her right is an orthodontist.

I feel certain by the end of the conversation either Emily was ready for Crest or Brett was ready for baking soda, I just can’t remember which way it fell.

And this was taken around 1 am, about 4 hours after my bedtime, we were all danced out but miraculously still awake with eyes opened. Fear not, I have made a mental note not to do the “cheer squat” for pictures.

The end.

Food, coming up next.

PS: These cute things rolled in this week and have been listed!!