Dog Days of Summer

It is officially the "Dog Days" of summer. During these summer months Dog Fence DIY encourages exploration beyond the fence!

Every summer every teacher everywhere has a list of "goals" or projects that he/she want to accomplish.  There are many reasons for this: the first one being that we don't have to work every day (although I'm sure the majority of us are), but mainly because we've just spent the last ten months of our lives having no free time and this list that originally seemed do-able has grown and grown and grown to a monstrous, overwhelming list.  This summer I had lots of things on "the list" and some I've done, while others I've thought about doing (does that count???).  One of the items on my list was to read multiple books a week.  While that hasn't happened, I still have been reading during the week and am wondering what type of lack-of-sleep issues was I having to think I could read several books in a week (maybe if I did nothing else...)?!  

Another goal that I put on my list was to get outside and walk/jog {at the very least} 3 times a week.  There are many motivators behind this goal, such as having a desire to live a healthier lifestyle, as well as the super cute, 4-legged friend that I'm blessed to call mine....

Isn't he cute?

Princeton has definitely been on the receiving end of this goal as he has absolutely loved getting outside and nosey-ing around.  Most days I just take him for a walk around our 2 mile neighborhood, but on days when that doesn't feel like enough, we get in the car and drive to the park.  

It doesn't hurt that we live less than a mile from a ginormous "21st century" park that Louisville has started.  When they're finished with "The Parklands at Floyds Fork" it will be over 100 miles of trails connecting 4 major parks with a park drive.  It is pretty incredible.  The park by our house that we like to venture to is Beckley Creek Park...and it's pretty incredible.

Needless to say, Princeton LOVES going for walks here as it is a change of scenery from our regular walks in the neighborhood.  He also loves to sniff EVERYTHING and "hunt" (or pretend that he's hunting) in this seems-like-the-wild park.  Unfortunately Princeton is prone to getting carsick.  Thankfully, he's not in the car long enough to toss his cookies, as it is literally a 3 minute drive.  When it's all said and done, there will be a sidewalk at the front of our neighborhood that will lead us right to the park on foot.  I'm sure Princeton will be pretty stoked when that day comes!

The best part about taking him outside of the backyard and neighborhood is that this is what he looks like when we're on our quest homeward:

That's right - dead asleep.  And by the time we make it back to the house, he's out cold for the rest of the night:

His two favorite things are accomplished by my goal: he gets to go on a walk AND snuggle on the couch.  Score and score!

Patriotic Treats with a Side of Summer Accountability

It all started when I was pinning (which I do quite a lot now that school is out and when I'm successfully putting off doing something) away on Pinterest and I came across this pin...

Stephen and I were going to enjoy a cook-out at his parents house for Memorial Day Weekend and I decided that I was going to make one of Stephen's most favorite treats: Cake Balls.  Have you ever made cake balls?  Have you ever tried them?  If you've never tried them, you need to get your hands on at least one and taste the goodness for yourself - they are truly amazing.  If you've never made them, let me caution you: they are very time consuming.  Back in February I made the mistake of asking Stephen what he wanted for his birthday.  He insisted that he wanted nothing and I insisted that it was HIS birthday, I would make him ANYTHING he wanted (did you read my post from Monday to see how busy I was during this time?).  He decided that he wanted cake balls.  I'm pretty sure a part of me died a little inside when he said that...of all the things he wanted, he chose the most time consuming dessert possible.  However, I did tell him that I would make anything he wanted (dang it!) and so cake balls it was....

Fast forward to May - school was about to be out and summer was on the verge of happening - I was feeling adventurous!  I was going to make cake balls...not just any cake balls, Patriotic Cake Balls!!!  {cue the dramatic, excited music}

These were my inspiration from this website:

1st step was to make the cake balls.  If you've never made them before, here is the recipe (there are a million if you google "how to make cake balls" or "cake pops" and they're all about the same).  I used a half a tub of frosting to make mine.  I went with white cake (mine and Stephen's fav) and white icing.  After I made the cake balls, I arranged them in my 13x9 metal cake pan to get an idea of how many of my balls {insert inappropriate middle school boy jokes here} needed to be red, white and blue.

Once I figured out how many balls needed to be what color, I got to work and did each color separately.  I used the Wilton colored candies from JoAnns (or any craft store - even Wal-Mart carries them) to coat my cake balls.  I had lots of trays of different colored cake balls sitting around my kitchen.  Talk about needing self control to just hang around them without eating them!  If you do make cake balls, be sure you make lots of extras so you can just pop them in your mouth while you're working!

Unfortunately I did not do my math correctly and I didn't have the right amount of white cake balls.  What's scary about this is that I teach 4th grade math....this was a perfect example of math in real life (because everyone makes cake balls, right?) and yet I failed at it.  Stink.

The good news is that even though I was short on the white balls, they still tasted great!  It's a good thing that these desserts take a while to make, otherwise, I'm pretty sure I would make them entirely too often and my thighs would pay the price for this bad addiction!

For this upcoming 4th of July, I'm thinking about making this dessert from Betty Crocker:

I'm also thinking about making these to hang under the pergola by our family room window:

Now onto the side of Summer Accountability.  I know you probably don't care about how I'm spending my summer days and please know that this part of the post is entirely for me.  Last summer I found myself getting overwhelmed by all the different things I wanted to accomplish during the summer time. This overwhelming feeling kept me from accomplishing much of anything.  As a way to try and ward off laziness, I've decided that I'm going to blog about my daily activities during the summer.  Maybe it'll keep me from getting sucked into Bravo's Real House Wives Marathon because I'm ashamed to tell all of blogland that this is how I chose to spend my day!  So here it is, my daily what dos:

Monday: walked Princeton in the morning, changed the sheets on the bed and washed them, put sheets back on the guest bed, did the laundry and put it up, blogged, did my Bible study, worked on a small art project that I had been putting off, touched up trim in the entry way, went to Bible Study.

Tuesday: walked Princeton in the morning, put a first coat of paint on the inside of the front door, put up the last basket of laundry, went to dinner with my parents, took Princeton on an evening walk.

Wednesday: walked Princeton in the morning, put a second coat of paint on the front door, cleaned up in the basement, my friend Julie came over and we hung out most of the afternoon, took Princeton on an evening walk.

Thursday: cleaned up the paint mess, went to the grocery store, worked out in the backyard for 3 hours, vacuumed and tidied up, made dinner and Stephen's parents came for dinner, took Princeton on an evening walk.

Friday: filled the dishwasher, did the rest of the dishes, worked in the vegetable garden, painted the first coat on our bedroom closet, emptied the dishwasher, blogged.....

Do you think I'm crazy yet?  Feel free to skim past these random lists of my uneventful days...I'll be honest - I did get sucked into a few episodes of Real House Wives of the OC...it's like a train wreck and I can't turn away.  These women are SO mean to each other.  It's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that they exist, they're adults and I'm aiding their richness by being sucked into their drama.  Ugh. Do you have any "guilty" tv pleasures?  I'm not gonna lie....I also get sucked into Real House Wives of NJ....okay, enough confessions!

I'm linking up with these parties:

Thirty Handmade Days; Naptime Crafters; Simply Designing; My Romantic Home; Finding Fabulous; The Shabby Nest; Chic on a Shoestring Budget;  The Scrap Shoppe; A Vision to Remember; Tatertots and Jello; I Heart Naptime; DIY Showoff; Homemaker on a Dime; Sumo's Sweet Stuff; Craft-O-Maniac; Uncommon Designs; C.R.A.F.T.; Lines Across; That's What Che Said;  Creatively Living; An Extraordinary Day

Vacay 2012

Back in June Stephen and I ventured out west for a little bit of business and a little bit of pleasure.  Stephen had a convention for work in Denver, CO and ever since he found out about it he insisted that we tie our vacation in with it.  I'm not gonna lie: I wasn't thrilled with the idea.  You see, while I would LOVE to go out west and visit states I've never been to, I don't want that to interfere with a good trip to a tropical location (I do realize how snotty this sounds - judge away).  I'm one of those people (are there any others out there like me?) who would LOVE to live in dreamland where every year a trip is taken to a new location in this great nation of ours AND to an exotic location (I told you - snotty).  So, you can imagine how I felt when Stephen came home talking about this "great" idea how I wasn't initially on the band wagon.  Nonetheless the trip was booked and the time came to take it.  Needless to say, we had a fantastic time and I look forward to our next trip to visit uncharted states and see more of this beautiful country we call "home".  So, if you're interested, I'll share with you a little info/pics of our memorable trip and hope to not bore you :).

Itinerary: 

Saturday, June 9 leave for Denver, CO and enjoy a nice breakfast layover in Dallas, TX visiting our great friend, Jenn :)

June 9-12 Denver, CO

On Monday night Stephen and I had the privilege of meeting a dear friend from high school, Katie, and her husband, Josh for Ice Cream.  We enjoyed GREAT ice cream with GREAT company and an amazing view of downtown Denver!

Katie, being Katie.

The 4 of us

Tuesday, June 12 Conference is ova'!  Rent a car and drive an hour to Breckinridge, CO for the night

We ate dinner at this fun little restaurant in downtown Breckinridge called, "The Mother Loaded Tavern".  It was super yummy!

The view from our hotel room right before we left.  Seriously, Breckinridge was breathtaking.  I want to go back there SO badly!

Wednesday, June 13 hit the road, Jack! Off to Rapid City, SD!

On the way to Rapid City we drove on U.S. 71 and traveled through Ardmore, SD.  Turns out Ardmore is a ghost town...SO interesting!  Click here to read more about it!

We arrive and head straight to see Crazy Horse....Crazy Horse is seriously crazy!  They began carving Crazy Horse out of a mountain in the Black Hills in 1947 and they are no where near done with him!  

 A model of what Crazy Horse will look like when he's completed.  He'll be so large that the ENTIRE carving of Mt. Rushmore would be able to fit in his HEAD alone...NUTS!

 This is how far they are today.  You can see that his face has been carved, the area under his arm has been carved and they've marked the side of the mountain where his horse will be carved as well. 

I told Stephen to try and pick his nose....fail.

After many attempts we have a closer attempt at picking Crazy Horse's nose :)

This is a model carving of Crazy Horse.  The real Crazy Horse is 30x this size.  That's humongous!

Still Wednesday, June 13 off to Mount Rushmore!

 Mount Rushmore as we were walking in.  Quite possibly one of the most patriotic places in our country.

 Someone stopped us and told us how they wanted to carve our faces out of a mountain.  Yup.

So cool.

Thursday, June 14 Bear Country time!

Bear Country is a wildlife park that you drive through and you see the animals up close and personal.  The only thing standing between you and them is your car.  It was super cool!

Still Thursday, June 14 hop in the car and drive 2 hours to the Badlands National Park

On your way to the Badlands you drive in and out of the park.  Although this sign makes you think we just left, we actually hadn't gotten there yet.  Those tricksters!

 The Badlands are seriously bad and I mean that in a good way (ya dig?).  It was unreal to see how different this part of our country was.  God is definitely apparent in the Badlands.  Beauty is all around you!

Stephen and I were going to go on a hike and then I saw this sign.  As you may recall, this was only a few short weeks after I found a snake in my backyard.  I just couldn't do it.  So we improvised and climbed the structures instead.

I realize this is upside down.  But, when you get it developed, that doesn't matter and I was too lazy to rotate it :)

 Oh, Silly Stephen!

Me and Jason Aldean were tight that day! 

On Friday morning we woke up and drove back to Denver to catch a flight home.  We had a fantastic trip out west.  I so enjoyed driving through states I had never seen before and getting to spend some quality time with Stephen.  While do live together and we are married, we (unfortunately) don't get to spend a ton of quality, intentional time together.  This trip was fun because we got to experience beautiful sites together as well as invest in some good quality conversations.

I look forward to our next national trip.  I'm all for suggestions!  I would love to hear where your favorite place to visit in America is.  This will help spark ideas for our next trip!