Camera Dump

To say this summer has been a whirlwind would be an understatement! Of the last five weekends, we have been out of town for four of them. We are also going to Atlanta this weekend, and I'm off to Austin the following weekend so Julio's traveling adventures are by no means over yet! The best part is that I love traveling. I love seeing new places and old friends, I love the feeling of coming home at the end of a trip, and I am so grateful we get to do so much of it!

Needless to say, I haven't posted pictures in a little while so I figured I'd do a camera dump and lay it all out there.

To start, my mom, Rick and I spent most of June clearing out our house of all the junk we've collected. We then repainted the entire upstairs, the baby's room, added a door to make an official guest room of our former office, and fixed some other mishaps around the house. There's not much to show of the work because I didn't take any "before" pics to compare... however, I think the most noticeable and exciting part of the makeover upstairs is our new accent wall:

Don't mind the pile of towels :)

Here are some pictures from our "babymoon" in Cabo. We really did a whole lot of NOTHING which was our goal for the trip anyway. So most of the pictures are of us lounging, drinking, eating, reading and generally being lazy bums.

The view from our balcony

Lazy mornings in bed

One of the three pools we spent our days at

We really were adventurous and even went to the beach a couple days!

Rick read his book...

And I desperately tried to find a name for Julio

Last weekend, we went up to Lake Geneva to spend the weekend with many of our friends. One of whom, Jacki, has a lake house at which she so kindly let us all crash! Between 12 people and 5 dogs, it was a full house! We ate a ton, played games, soaked up the sunshine and enjoyed the company of good friends.

Doggies were in heaven!

Rick making breakfast for all!

Finally, I must add a couple recipes that have turned out amazingly well! The first is a lightened up version of creamed spinach. It's made with Boursin (or Aloutte) light spreadable cheese and was so simply delicious!

Creamed Spinach - Lightened Up
Gina's Weight Watcher Recipes
Servings: 8 • Serving Size: 2/3 cup • Old Points: 2 pts • Points+: 3 pts
Calories: 95.8 • Fat: 4.9 g • Protein: 5.9 g • Carb: 8.2 g • Fiber: 1.8 g 

• 2 tsp butter
• 1/2 cup shallots, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1 1/2 cups fat free milk
• 2 tbsp parmesan cheese
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp fresh pepper
• salt to taste
• 4.4 oz Boursin Light
• 16 oz bag frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained of all moisture

In a large saute pan, melt butter. Add shallots and garlic and cook on medium about 5 minutes. Add flour to shallots, mix well and cook one more minute. Reduce heat to low and slowly add milk, whisking well. Add parmesan cheese, nutmeg, salt and pepper and mix well. Add boursin light and mix with until smooth. Add spinach and combine well with sauce, cook one minute, until heated through. Adjust salt and pepper if necessary. Makes 6 1/2 cups.

Then there's this:

Tomorrow night is one of my book club nights (yes, I belong to TWO book clubs! Nerd alert!) This book club is all my teacher friends from Hoffman who like to use "reading" as an excuse to get together to eat and drink. We usually do appetizers and desserts, and I wanted to take a stab at homemade, from-scratch pie. So, I figured this was the perfect opportunity. This is Martha Stewart's Peach-Raspberry pie recipe. The dough and pie filling were both so simple -- which I love. I love that sometimes the best tasting (and looking) things come from a simple list of four or five ingredients. I used all organic products for this one and from the looks of it... I think it turned out just peachy :)

Click here if you want the recipe.

And, finally, while my summer days have been full of cooking and baking, cleaning and errands, they've also been full of a very fluffy and very sweet companion. I never thought I'd enjoy so much  the time I have spent with this one:

She and I had a rough start last summer. It's amazing what a year can do to a little pup and her stressed out mom! Maizey has grown up a lot this summer and I've really enjoyed our daily walks together and afternoon snuggles. She's a great help in the kitchen, too! We have been working all summer long on getting rid of her crate so she can roam the house when we leave her alone. While we've had a few sad casualties (like my brand new gold wedges and a few of our baseboards) she has learned quickly (thanks to bitter apple spray!) and the crate has officially been disassembled for a week or so now! I can't lie... my heart pounds a little excessively as I come home. I never know if I'll find paper torn to shreds on the carpet or her laying on the couch. So far, we are very proud of our first baby!

I can not get over how fast this summer has flown by. It has been one of absolute balance. The perfect amount of work and play, laziness and productivity.  I still have a couple weeks left before the first day of school, and I plan to soak every minute of them up until that first bell rings!