Apple Picking!

It was a beautiful day for picking some apples!  Oh and yes, eating some apple cider donuts...  There was no denying that I was going to inhale at least one or two;)  These are the times when I do not even feel like it is a cheat.  We get these donuts once year and I do not eat donuts any other time of the year, so what is there to feel bad about, seriously?

I can't wait to make some clean eating desserts with these bad boys:)  My wheels are already turning with ideas!  We came home with braeburn, fuji, golden delicious, and granny smith apples all ready to be eaten.

Excited after she got over her fear of being held up so high.

Laughing, but yep that's a tear running down her face...someone Rich knocked her head into a branch. 

Cheese

Look at those beauties

Time to eat 

The monkey in the group

I'm 15 1/2 apples tall! 

What I'm Loving Lately

Using my Garmin on longer outdoor runs to keep me motivated and sweaty!

Lots and lots of eggs and egg whites mixed with random veggies!

Eggs, egg whites, greens, fresh tomatoes, onions

Spending time on the boat!  

After weeks of work, Rich just finished painting and putting in new seats and carpet in the boat, as well as painting the trailer and installing new LED lights.  Did I get lucky or what with my Mr. Handyman husband?!

Showing off the newly refurbished boat!

My favorite captains

Squash Bugs and Good Eats

While talking to Jennie on the phone a couple of nights ago, I decided to check out the garden because we have so many tomatoes getting ripe.  To my surprise the squash and zucchini plants had quickly turned brownish yellow and the veggies were dying.  Without much inspection at all, my eyes caught the movement of hundreds, dare I say thousands, of bugs!

As I'm inspecting them I'm giving Jennie the complete rundown....

        Me, "They look tick-like....what the heck? It just pooped!  Gross. Gross. Gross."
        Her response, "Did it squirt out like gel?"
        Me, "YES!"  
        Her, "Well, that's how stink bugs poop."
        Me, "Holy crap, they DO look like baby stink bugs!!"

You can imagine the next 15 minutes of me freaking out about these nasty critters (known as Squash Bugs) that are killing my squash.  After consulting numerous websites to figure out what they were and what the heck to do about them, Rich and I went on an all out killing rampage armed with dish soap (Palmolive) and water mixed in a water bottle.  We pulled up all of the squash and zucchini plants along with hundreds of bugs and eggs and tied them up in garbage bags.  The rest were doused with the spray and died within minutes.  Over the last two days we've checked the rest of the plants and iced any stray bastards that we could find.

The eggs!

The babies

Hailey was the official spotter while we sprayed

Look at those suckers making a run for it. 

On a positive note, we've picked dozens of tomatoes so I've been enjoying my favorite summertime food, fresh tomato sandwiches.  We also made something similar to Mimi's famous macaroni and tomatoes by combining whole wheat egg noodles, a little trivia, salt, and boiled fresh tomatoes.

Can you believe that we grew all of those!?

Noodles and tomatoes

And, today we checked the red potatoes and harvested each of the plants.  We sliced some of them, drizzled them with a little olive oil and salt and pepper, and baked them at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.  They were delicious!

Straight from the garden!

Straight into my belly. 

Our beast of a zucchini

This morning Hailey and I checked out the garden to see if we would be having fresh veggies for dinner.  And, what did we find?  Several squash, zucchini, bush beans, onions, carrots, and lettuce!  While we were busy picking the produce Hailey yelled out, "Look at that gianormous one!!"  To my surprise we found a HUGE zucchini that was waiting for us to discover it.  We are going to make light work of this monster for dinner tonight:)

Stacking up our loot

John Deer or urban farmer? 

The beast

Washed up and ready to eat!  Onions and lettuce are ready too!

I'm still not sure when you are supposed to pick carrots or for that fact when you are supposed to know that they are the right size, so I randomly pull a few out every week to see where we stand.

After spending the morning outside we decided to cool down in the movie theater by watching Brave!

Choco-Oat-Chip Protein Cookies

I think everyone had a sweet tooth tonight after eating chili, so we decided to check the back of the Nestle Toll House semi-sweet chocolate chip bag for a recipe.  We cleaned up the recipe and got baking!  We used stevia instead of sugar, xylitol brown sugar instead of regular brown sugar, unsweetened applesauce for butter, oat flour instead of all-purpose flour, and then we added in milled flax seed and egg protein.

Get you some!

The approval of a 4-year old!

Choco-Oat-Chip Protein Cookies
Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 c oat flour
• 2 1/2 c old-fashioned oats
• 2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips (Nestle Toll House)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 c xylitol brown sugar
• 1 c unsweetened apple sauce
• 1/2 c stevia
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp almond milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp milled flax seed
• 2 scoops Vitol vanilla egg protein

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• Combine all ingredients.  I'm lazy and don't like to combine the dry and then the wet and then mix together, but I'm sure this works better.  Oh well!
• Bake for 9-10 minutes for chewy cookies or 12-13 minutes for crispy cookies.  
• Cool for 1 minute and then enjoy!

Memorial Day Fun!

First, let us thank all of the fallen heroes who lost their lives in combat, all of the veterans who laid their lives on the line for us, and all those actively serving to protect us.  This is what today is all about!  Take a moment of silence today to remember those who are no longer with us or their families.

After hitting the gym for a back/bicep workout and some HIIT on the treadmill, Rich and I picked up Hailey from Grandma's house and headed home.  What did we find when we got home?  Some little kiddos in Hailey's pool!  Our neighbors' grandkids were playing in their sprinkler when they noticed the new pool.  They asked E if they could come over to play and that's the end of that story.  Hailey burst into tears when she saw them in "her" pool, but quickly changed her attitude and introduced herself, got lathered up in sunscreen, and jumped in to join them! They had a good ole time splashing around!

New friends!

Amelia is 2 months younger than Hailey.

"I got ya!"

:)

Squeals!

Uh oh!

Ameila, Hailey, and Alana

Three amigos

Someone else was getting in on the action!

Lifeguards

Hot and Humid

The entire weekend has been hot and humid.  Since we have Hailey, we decided to cool off in a new pool.  We hit up a sale at Target this afternoon and then enjoyed the new purchase.  Rich was the lifeguard on duty, although I don't know if drinking Miller Lite is allowed on the clock.

We set up a hard plastic swimming pool for Jack to enjoy as well.  I'll get some pictures of him going crazy in his pool tomorrow. I plan on getting my tan on tomorrow and then jumping in the pool as well!

Super duper excited

Swimming!

Nice job trying to hide the beer, honey. 

Growing Like Weeds

This weekend we had to tame the out of control garden.  The rain that we got over the last couple of weeks along with plenty of sunshine has caused some serious growth!  We added bamboo poles to the tomatoes and beans to see if we can get some upward growth so they don't crowd the smaller plants like the lettuce.  I think it would be prudent to remove some of the squash, but for now we are wrapping them up a bit to see what happens.

We harvested one of the sweet onions and enjoyed it on our turkey burgers last night!

Harvesting at dusk.

hehehe

Jackal McSchmackal enjoying the yard...he's getting used to the Furminator! 

Miss Maddie Moosie will turn 13 years old on June 6th!

Someone is always along for the ride. 

Popeye Would Be Proud

Sunday we harvested our first crop from the garden!  We had two square feet of spinach to harvest, so Hailey and Rich went to town while I worked with the dogs and the invisible fence.  Tank and Dixie have it down, but Jack still gets a little too excited and runs out of the yard unintentionally.

I think Hailey had more fun harvesting than she did planting. However, I was shocked when she wanted to eat the spinach leaves after I washed them off.  She took each one by the stem and chewed the leaf off, leaving a pile of stems on the counter.  We made some English muffin pizzas with a side of spinach for dinner, but this time she dipped the leaves in some ranch:)

We are replanting spinach so that in a few weeks we'll have more!  Lord knows we eat our weight in spinach around here.....probably 4 cups a day and that much or more in mixed greens.

Check out that growth!

Everyone was in on the action.  And yes, that is Jack's hair in the background....more on the Furminator later!!

YUM

Did I mention the great location of this garden?  At the base of our screened porch!

Our little urban farmer

Get you some!