Birthday on the beach

Enjoying the sunset on Opal Beach near Pensacola.




Happy Birthday, Mark!



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Location:S 9th Ave,Pensacola,United States

Wizard Wonderfulness

Nothing like it. Frozen. Yummy. Butterbeer.






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Location:Hogsmeade's main St,Orlando,United States

Dinner on the road

Can you guess where we had dinner? Rachel's choice. Hey, it's vacation, right?



About 2 1/2 hours to our destination then we rest up for some serious wizard time tomorrow.


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Waking up in Mississippi.

I slept through most of texas & all of Louisiana. When I woke up in Mississippi, this is what I saw. Maybe I'll see a real one soon!

Love,
Rachel



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another neff adventure...

Our view as we head east toward Florida.




Then we looked behind us... A sign of good luck for this adventure!




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4th of July

"life in technicolor" by coldplay

saying goodbye

this post title may sound a little depressing, but it's really not...

i wanted to share some pictures from earlier this summer. my brother, nick, came by my grandparents'  home and took down the old swing set that all the grandkids (and greatgrandkids!) have played on over the years. this was just part of the process of helping mom and dad get their home and themselves ready for their move to the casita. it was bittersweet seeing it go. thank you, nick!

movie review

Hi everyone!

We've been on the road a bit, but during one of our trips, we had time to watch a classic... Steel Magnolias! I knew Rachel would like it, and it inspired her to write a movie review for anyone who hasn't seen it. For those of you who have forgotten how funny it is, you should read this too!

For a pdf copy (which is a bit easier to read), click below:
steel magnolias review by rachel

blueberry seems to be a theme...

rachel made these scrumptious muffins the night before a pool party. the next day, they were gobbled up by toddlers, young children and adults! thanks, rachel.
here's the link for the recipe pdf:

blueberry orange muffins

butter!!

getting prepared

ready to go in the oven...

now ready to be gobbled!blueberry orange muffins

experimenting with color

here's a project from this weekend.

rachel is pretty adventurous, so i agreed to try out this hair color technique. 

it turned out pretty cute and i think she likes expressing herself through color... 

who doesn't?

Hula Dog Update

she's gettin' it!

catching up...

lunch at Pei Wei with Nana... she scored a homemade purse and some press-on pesto labels.

 

Beck's Prime was the place to be on this day.

bath time! kinsey and rachel talked noah into it.

our giant and sad tim burton-esque tree (that needs to be cut down) dropped this enormous limb one morning.  it doesn't seem too big, until you see rachel next to it! even though it was a dead branch, it was HEAVY! the most amazing part, we never heard it fall, it didn't smash a thing, and it was sticking in the ground perfectly balanced on ONE tip! weird but true.

pool party

here are some scenes from a recent pool party we had at a friend's.
teachers' kids really know how to have fun!

Salsa Practice

today was "salsa practice."
this is a recipe that Kristi Alvarado shared with us a while back. it's so yummy, you have to make a big enough batch to share with friends (cause they all want some!). we followed Kris's basic recipe and made a few adjustments. the jalapeños we used weren't very spicy, so we added more, plus some of the juice for extra flavor. as rachel said, "we don't want salsa for wimps!" so, more jalapeños!

Salsa Recipe

click the link above to get a pdf of the recipe

i see more food processor recipes in rachel's future!!

Dog Wash How-To

This is a weekly ritual for the dog. Here's Rachel showing how it's done. Every Saturday!

my omega project

This is a project i did at the end of my 6th grade year. It's based on my science project and I did all the research, wrote the script, made the models, and did the video editing. My mom helped me shoot the stop-motion animation and with some editing details. I got a really good grade on it!
I put it here so I could share it with everyone.

lemon-blueberry cheesecake yumminess

is Pinterest good or bad? 

i don't know... you try this baking project and be the judge of the things you can find on the addictive information sensation that is Pinterest.

here's the original recipe that rachel and i modified on wednesday:

 blueberry lemon cheesecake bars from Inspired Taste blog

 for the most part, we followed the recipe, 

but had to go to Arlan's to get more cream cheese... too runny at first. 

ours baked longer, and the blueberries got squishier,

but the crunchy sugary butter topping made everything better.

even our little friend liked it!

doggy tricks

yesterday, rachel made her first attempts at teaching luna to jump through a hoop. dog loves jumping, let's go with it...

now a little further off the ground...

try it from further away...

it's easy to get distracted...

but she's a natural (the dog AND the rachel)!

upcycling

this little green thing was something we modified from a pinterest post:
milk jug craft

clean milk jug
craft glue, diluted with a little water
sharpie
craft knife
sheets of green crepe paper
duct tape

after cutting across the front for the mouth, we cut a 1" notch out of the handle and taped it back together. now the mouth stays open.

time to start painting on the glue and smoothing down the paper.

almost done... 

done!

here's our friend after adding some details. she's looking for a home, if anyone is interested.

the real start of summer

Rachel and I have always done stuff together. Hope you don't mind if we share a bit of it. I'm guessing some of it will be great and other stuff, not so much. Keeping track of it should be fun, though! Last week was a whole crazy mess of fun we call "Camp Happy," our annual Girl Scout Day Camp. Neither one of us would miss it, but that week is all about camp and we haven't done any of the other stuff we have said we wanted to do... yet. Pictures from camp...

This is Rachel as a first year "goddess." These girls are hard-core Camp Happy participants. Rachel has been attending since she was in kindergarten and this is the first year she got to be a helper. Her camp name is Potter. 
Anyone want to guess why?