An outing at Brazos Bend State Park

We are proud new owners of a new Nikon D5100 dslr camera!  We took it out for a test drive on Saturday while at Brazos Bend State Park.  It was the most beautiful day and we had so much fun exploring, biking and snapping pics.  

Our day started out with a picnic lunch and a little crocodile watching.  Yep, they are right there hanging out in the water right next to the trails!  

 {This one is totally blurry but I love their smiles and the picnic table in the background}

 See the crocodile hanging out right behind the Roo?!

The baby croc was hard to see and I thought she was so cute sneezing but soon found out that she was hissing at us.  We decided to not stick around.

A few years ago I took a picture of the kids in this exact same tree.  

They have grown so much! 

 The trees there were incredible!  Perfect for climbing.  

Somebody needed a little help getting back down.

And the vines were perfect for swinging.

It was a great day and I'm so thankful that hubby somehow got that day off.  It was a much needed outside family time while the weather is still bearable down here.  We bought year long passes in hopes of getting out to other parks more.   Have you been to a state park lately?  Where did you go and what did you do there?  I would love to hear about it.

She's done! A painted armoire

This will be a picture post.  After two nights of our house alarm beeping on the hour, EVERY hour, I'm tired.  But I'm happy to say that she is finally done and my craft stuff is not in boxes on the floor anymore.

{New York City picture purchased from Hobby Lobby}

{hardware purchased from House of Antique Hardware}

And because everyone loves a good before and after:

{Roo is the happiest that the creepy handprints are gone.}

Linking up to:

Nutmeg Place Show off Saturday

random

The end of the school year is upon us and the days get busier and busier around here.  I've been on two field trips within two weeks and soccer is in full swing.  Throw in a quick trip for Easter and I'm lucky to have socks clean for the clan.  Anyway, here is what I've been up to!

Easter:

Food:

We (or I should say he) has made 4 recipes from this website in the last week and they were delicious!  Go and check this website out.  

Organization:  

I finally finished my personal binder!  I've been jealous over Erin's for so long.  It's really helpful to have a place for all of the thoughts swirling around in my head to go.  I'm still working on making a daily to do list.  I know it would really help me stay focused on the day if I did one.

I used my printables from Jones Design Company to add some decoration.  I can't wait to see her May selections.  

Music:

{Represent from the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus}

I heard this song a few weeks ago on Pandora and totally thought it was written for the Hunger Games.  Turns out it was released in 2009 but I've still been wrestling with the words.  Tell me what you think! And tell me I'm not the only one that connects to a song and listens to it over and over, please.

Fitness:

 And last, but not least, I'm on the 4th week of Les Mills Pump.  It's so different from Insanity that it's taken me a while to get used to it.  I really like it and can feel it is making me so much stronger.  I did two pull-ups the other day! 

Recipes on a ring

I use the same 4 recipes over and over again.  Hummus, scones, whole wheat waffles, and Malt-o-Meal Magic muffins.  I kept them tacked up in my spice cabinet and they were getting tattered and torn.  I figured laminating and putting them on a ring would make my life simpler.  But....I really, really wanted to create my own digital masterpieces using Picnik. Why? When they are closing down in a few weeks?  I don't know.  After an hour (or so) one Saturday morning trying to teach myself and downloading images that just didn't work, I gave up and headed on back to Skip to my Lou.  She had done it all for me.  I just typed in my recipes and sent them to print.                                       Back to simplicity.

Blogging has done this crazy thing to me.  I have put off so many projects and not bought so many things I like because I think I can make it on my own.   And I'm done with that for a while.  There are so many talented people out there that I should be encouraging and contributing to instead of not enjoying those things.    For example:

{via}

I have tried to get all the supplies to make my own necklace like this.  But I love Lisa Leonard and her blog so why not save up for the real deal?  And let's face it, mine wouldn't be sterling silver either.  

And another:

{via}

I've been toying around with creating my own grocery list template.  (Again with the digital masterpieces.)  Let's just say I'm giving in and letting the professionals take over.  Emily has awesome printables every month that I'm signing up for. 

There are many other things I have my eye on but I think you get the picture.  I feel a bit more free now to stay in the areas that I am good in and enjoy the beautiful works of others.  Now if I could just figure out what that area is!  But I won't stop learning and trying new things.  I'll just be doing it with a happier attitude.

So all this from a little recipes on a ring project!  Who knew?  I certainly didn't when I started out writing this post but I like how it's making me think.  

I'm off to get my hair done darker. 

 I think I may be a bit too influenced by the Hunger Games lately.

I hope you have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by.

Linking up to:

How we grill fish for fish tacos

....or maybe the title should say how hubby grills fish.  It's no secret here that he is the cook so I asked him to help me post this.  Also, I don't really love fish but when I eat it in a taco,  I really like it.  I have never been a seafood fan but we know it's good for us so hubby tried and tried many kinds until I gave him the thumbs up to fresh steal head trout.  Turns out that cooking this kind of fish on a gas grill isn't rocket science and since he's taught me, I've even grilled it a few times on my own while he's been away.

Here are the not so high tech details:

(This recipe is for a one pound filet of steal head trout)  It feeds our family of four just fine when we make them into fish tacos.)

1.  Pre-heat grill on high

2.  Prepare fish by placing it skin down on a vegetable grill pan and spray it with a little olive oil.  

3.  Sprinkle it with the following seasonings lightly.

{The third one is Cavenders all purpose Greek Seasoning}

 ****This is where there are no pictures of the grill.  How do you take pictures when dinner time is crazy enough and everybody needs something?****

 4.  Before popping it in the grill turn it down to medium and scrape off any charred food from a previous cookout if needed.  Place the fish in the center of the grill without the baking sheet under it.  (We use it only for seasoning the fish and transporting to the grill).  Hang out and watch the temp turn to about 400 and then let it cook for 10 minutes.

5.  After 10 minutes check it.  The fish should look like this:

and a little pinky flaky in the middle.  If not, cook for only a few minutes more.  

The meat should fall right off of the skin.  See, easy.

To make them into fish tacos, we add our homemade salsa on top with a dollop of no fat greek yogurt in place of sour cream.  Enjoy! 

Thanks to Bagster our shed is gone!

Our project for Spring Break was to remove the unused shed in our backyard.  It was falling apart and rotting and we couldn't even get the doors all of the way open.  I've always hated the way it peeked over the fence.  

The only pic I could find of the view from the street was one I took right after Hurrican Ike.  The palms, bushes and tall evergreen are all gone now too.  I don't miss any of them!

Woo Hoo!

The big green bag is the Bagster.  It would have taken us two days to tear down and haul away that shed if we hadn't used it.  Because we did, we got it done in a day!  You just set up (we moved ours to the street), fill it up, make an appointment online for them to pick it up and you're done.  No borrowing a trailer, no unloading trip after trip to the dump.  It was so easy!

After we got it all out of the way and onto the street, we  hubby created our new veggie garden.

It was so exciting when our Waste Management came two mornings later to pick it up.  Can you see J-man taking pics too?  A future blogger?  (-:

Roo got to work the crane after our stuff was all loaded into the truck.  Only with Daddy's help, of course.

If you decide to use a Bagster, watch the short video on their website about how to load it.  That way you know they won't deny your pick up.  Our sweet WM guy showed us some pictures of crazy loading that they denied.    

Here is an in progress pic of our garden.  We are planting today and I hope to be giving updates on our veggies soon!  

I've been given the go ahead to make it "prettier" but I'm not too sure how I'm gonna do that.  Any ideas?

p.s.  I was not paid by Bagster to do this post but I wish I was (-:  It really wasn't that bad though.  $35 for the bag and $100 to pick up.  Totally worth it for the time saving.