More Birthday Photos

For Meggie's birthday we traveled south for a day at The Gardens Mall.  We did a bit of shopping, had a nice lunch (her choice was Subway...LOL!), followed by more shopping and finished up with Starbucks before our trip home.

She wore her new A&F tee shirt straight out of the store.

I couldn't convince her to eat at California Pizza Kitchen, darnit!  

And you can see by the look on her face that she wasn't  

exactly happy about being photographed while eating.

This girl loves her Mocha Frappacinos!  

After a short rest at home we went out for a birthday dinner at the place of her choosing.  Surprisingly it was a Mexican/Caribbean restaurant, The Key Lime Cantina, the same place we had a girls lunch when my aunt was here visiting.  (Meg was not with us.)

But the biggest shocker of all.....this girl ordered and ate shrimp!  

After dinner she chose to have frozen yogurt at a shop downtown.  This was the first year we didn't have a birthday cake nor any candles.  "sniff"

(Excuse the bad Iphone photo....and notice Randy's shadow in the background.  LOL!)

On our way home Meg remarked, "This was my best birthday yet.  I wish I could get up and do it again tomorrow."

She's twelve and just spent a wonderful day with only her parents.  I know it won't last but it I think it was her best birthday ever as well.  

Catching Up

We recently traveled across state to my brother's for the wedding of my sister-in-law's sister.  I am still in the process of editing photos but have one I'd like to share.  

Daddy beware....she's growing up!

Birthday Girl

This girl turned 12 yesterday....

I'll tell you about our fabulous day in a later post but right now, as part of her gift, she wants help rearranging her room.  Wish me luck.  :-)

Graduating to the Gym

Randy has been talking about joining a gym for over a year but hasn't taken the time to follow through. I took the initiative and bought him a membership at LA Fitness for Father's Day, which Meggie and I have given him early.  While there and viewing what they had to offer I decided to take the plunge myself.  I love walking but it's so darned hot and with our wacky rainy season, my window of opportunity has decreased substantially.  I hope to hit the elliptical, bike and some light machines on my "off-walking" days.  Because of my great PT I am aware of what I can and cannot do and promise (Mom) to be careful.  Hopefully the variation in workouts will help me rid these last 10 pounds.  I was there tonight for my first workout and it felt so good to feel "normal" again!

Change is Good

I was at the AT&T store with a friend recently.  (I'd finally convinced her to step out of the dark ages of the flip phone into the awesomeness of the Iphone world.)  While there the sales guy asked me if I'd be interested in Uverse.  My immediate answer was an emphatic "no" but because I had to wait on my friend to finish, I agreed to listen to his spiel.  Long story short...they were running a great promotion, I've never been happy with Comcast's service, and it sounded like I could get a whole lot more for the same price as I was currently paying. What the heck?  I agreed.

Fast forward 3 weeks later.  I LOVE IT!!!!  Awesome, Awesome, Awesome!!! The selling point for me was the fact that we could record any show from any TV and watch it later on any TV, something Comcast definitely can't do.  We only lost one network in the switch, The Hallmark Channel, but gained dozens more.  My favorites are The Smithsonian Channel and Wealth TV.  Both are filled with lots of travel and history.  (I later found out that Meg's beloved Brady Bunch airs on The Hallmark Channel but I discovered that many, many episodes could be found on YouTube.)

For anyone not happy with their current service provider I'd highly recommend trying Uverse.  The customer service is great. (We did run into one problem with a port down the street but they were persistent, fixed it, followed up several times to make sure all was well, and gave me a credit on my next bill.) The internet speed is fast, the phone works great and the TV selection is fabulous.   Totally AWESOME!

Food Randomness

*  Made these to take a BBQ over Memorial Day weekend.  They were a huge hit.

I combined two different recipes to make my version.  I used the crust from this salted nut bar recipe and added this homemade PayDay recipe over top. They were delicious!  I kept a few behind and even when stored in an airtight container they dried out fairly quickly.  I'd recommend they be prepared and eaten the same day.



*  Always a hit are these easy-peasy snacks which I also made for the same BBQ.

*   No personal photo but prepared this salmon recipe last night for dinner and it was absolutely delicious.  My only deviations - lemon juice instead of lime (only because that's what I had on hand) and baked at 350 for 18 minutes instead of broiling.  I plan to use the sauce recipe on chicken in the future.



*  The optimal growing season in FL is fall-spring so our garden is pretty much kaput with the exception of these.

I'm finding them a bit strong in flavor but very tasty if finely chopped.



*  One of my BFFs just returned from Wisconsin.  I'd asked her to bring me home one of my favorite snacks.

She said they "squeak" when eaten.  Randy didn't care for them.  I only have Meg to fight off.  LOL!!!



And finally an update for my folks, lest they think I've fallen off the wagon with all of this talk about food.  I logged 76 walking miles in May and am officially down 20 lbs!  :-)  Ten more to go to reach my pre-shoulder injury weight.