Weekend Fun:Desert Aire

Hello Friends! We had a little road trip we took this past weekend at Desert Aire, WA! It’s a 2 hour drive from our place. It’s a small town  with a pretty view of the mountains and the Columbia River. We had fun together with our friends swimming, playing card games and just hanging out/catching up. Mia loved their community pool because they have a kids section that’s just perfect for her size! Thanks to Auntie Juju for taking care of Riley and the house this weekend:)

As usual we over packed again!

somebody got bored!HA her face:)
Mirror to the rescue!

Photo credit: our friend Lena! Thanks Lena:)

saturday morning breakfast!

Blueberry Picking!

Hi Friends! Happy Monday! I wanted to share something we did last week, blueberry picking! Aunt Candy (Hub’s Auntie) invited us along with her friends to do some blueberry picking. She’s been doing it for many years now and thought that little Mia might enjoy doing this. We all did! It’s my first time to do this (I’ve done apple picking before) and I had so much fun. Mia enjoyed it at first (picking and eating) but after 30 minutes she went back to her stroller and rested! HA! We picked 16 lbs. and already shared some with family and have the rest in the freezer for future use (we will use it for smoothies, pies,pancakes). Aunt Candy was nice enough to prepare lunch too, we had sandwiches and fruits! Can’t wait to do this again next year!

Picking berries is so tiring!

Summertime!

Hello friends! It’s officially summer here in the PNW. It’s been hot outside and as much as I enjoy this weather, I don’t want to stay outside for a long time. It’s so nice to have an AC, one of the best decisions my hubs and I made regarding our house. We have been doing a lot of house updates these last couple of weeks.  We had our house and fence painted and we really like the colors. The painters are done now (thank God!) Riley’s been barking nonstop at them. He’s so territorial. Very protective of us. Love our Riley!

My Hubs got a Traeger Smoker and he made beef brisket for our 4th of July celebration. He spent so much time on that thing, and I’m glad it turned out so well. I hate to see him disappointed when he puts so much effort and time into a slab of meat!HA..

YUM!
Our 4th of July family pic!
My In laws celebrated with us!

Our little Boo is spending a lot of time in her kiddie pool! She loves to splash and chilax in there! Her Grandma watches her every Wednesday and they go to McDonalds because she really likes their play area!

making sure she got enough sunblock!HAHA

Playtime with Grandma!

Parktime !

Have a great summer friends!

Weekend Fun!

Hello Friends! We went to the farmers market this past weekend! I really wanted to get their raspberries.  The best ones I’ve had were in our farmers market last year, so I have to check again this year. We stopped at Costco after because they’re just in the same area. We got a whole prime brisket for the 4th of July tomorrow. Hubs will prepare it! Looking forward to tomorrow:)

We also celebrated Riley’s 8th birthday! We got him dog treats and gave him a scoop of ice cream! He loved it. We ended up having sushi for dinner. Happy Birthday Rat, you’re the best fur baby! Love you so much:)

Excuse the dirty refrigerator! I’ve already cleaned the mess!
We got this at the farmers market,and it is so good on our toast!
We love sushi! If it wasn’t so expensive we really would have it once a week! HA
Mia enjoyed Mcdonald’s play area!
Happy Birthday Riley!

It’s going to be a sunny day here and we plan to be outside and have Mia play in her kiddie pool! Have a great day friends!

Hello Summer!

Hello Friends! It’s officially the 1st day of summer here in the U.S! It’s actually gloomy here in Pacific Northwest today. We’ve been having summer like weather these last couple of days and I’m kinda glad to have a break right now. We are having so much fun in our community pool.  We got a 3 months pass so hopefully we will really take advantage of that! HA! So far we’ve been to the pool twice now and Mia really loves being in the water. The hubs got her a kiddie pool also that she’s been using everyday since we got it. Our yard is crazy right now, we don’t have a lot of space so it’s tight with our patio table plus Mia’s kiddie pool.

We’ve been going to the park too, and visited a newly opened burger place in our neighborhood twice in a week! When it’s really hot in the kitchen, I tend to get lazy and convince the Hubs to just eat out! It’s in the budget so no guilt at all. 🙂

Park time with Boo
Our fave summer fruit! Juicy and sweet!
Habit Burger Grill!

Pool Time with Daddy!
Chipotle after swimming!
Community Pool
Daddy setting up the kiddie pool!

Pool time again with Daddy!
Best friends!
Lots of nap time coz SUMMER!

Have a great summer friends! Blessing to you and your family:)

 

Father’s Day weekend!

Hello Friends! I hope you were all able to celebrate Father’s day with the Daddies in your life! We had our family here for a nice dinner to celebrate my hubs and DIL! Good, decent, loving fathers are so worth celebrating everyday. I thank God for blessing Mia with a loving and hands on Daddy. My father is not here with us anymore, but I always think of him often! We surely missed him and wish he was able to see Mia.

For our dinner, we got some Rib-eye steaks at whole foods and some charcuterie. My hubs likes meat and cheese so much and it’s been a while since we had it.  That’s why we decided to shop at Whole foods (we like their prosciutto) everybody enjoyed the charcuterie! Good job Ga (he selected all of the meat and cheese)! We also got some crabs at the asian market, and roasted some veggies, corn.  We had some blue cheese sauce for the steaks, and Hubs made watermelon juice for everybody! Perfect for summertime:)

Making sure we got everything on our list!

Hubs, Riley, and Dad In Law!
Happy Father’s day Ga! Thank you for everything you do for our family! We sure do love you:)

Memorial Weekend!

Hi friends! Belated memorial day to all!  Thankful for all the men and women (and their families) in this country who sacrificed everything for our freedom! We had a simple celebration at home. We grilled some burgers (they were so good!) and had all the fixins. The hubs got a lot of yard cleaning done during this weekend and then we got to enjoy some time out on the patio. He also prepared the majority of our food, I don’t even remember what I was doing! HA! I helped a little:) Anyways, I’m so looking forward to summer night dinners at home now that our picnic table is out and yard is cleaned and  pressure washed! Mia loves being in the yard too. She’s our little gardener like her Grandma! Have a great weekend friends:)

Nap time before memorial weekend chaos starts!
Rhododendron going crazy in the front yard!
pressure washing the yard with our little helper!
Hubs made deviled eggs!
Hubs made guacamole
Preparing the burger!

Hubs made the fruit salad!
Hubs about to enjoy his dinner! Thanks Ga for all your memorial weekend cleaning! You sure deserve that burger! HA
Park Time!

Farmers Market and Life

Hi Friends! How are you all?  It’s been a while since I posted, not much going on here! Aside from watching my In laws dog (they’re already back from their vacation!), going to parks during nice days (we’ve had a couple of sunny days), our local farmers market officially opened, and we started our garden (the slugs are already eating some of our veggies!UGH!)..Life is good! We “failed” our WHOLE30! HA! Day 21 during Mother’s day, I ate rice with my ahi poke! My mothers day gift to myself! So we basically lasted 3 weeks of the journey! Between me and the Hubs we lost 14lbs! Hubby is still going strong though! We still plan to eat whole foods, plus will probably “tweek” things around like adding creamer to my coffee, and treats every now and then!

Farmers Market goodies

so fresh!

so worth it!goodbye whole30!haha
Mothers Day flowers from Hubs!

She’s so happy whenever she’s in the yard!
Gifts from grandparents!
cupcakes to celebrate Grandma’s bday!

Off to do some gardening right now, I still have some annuals to plan! Have a great weekend friends!

Whole30

Hi Friends! Hope you’re having a great weekend! The hubs and I started Whole30.

Basically you eliminate certain food groups in your diet for 30 days. We are entering our 2nd week and hopefully we’ll be successful! I totally miss my coffee creamer in the morning and my rice, while the hubs misses his milk consumption. I’m so impressed with him though because he hardly complains about missing his favorite drink, unlike me! HA. He just decided to join this with me for “moral support” haha! I’ve been thinking about doing this since February (since I got the whole30 book) and decided last week, to try the challenge and just do it!

Since starting this challenge, we’ve been to 5 grocery stores (not in the same day though)! Trader Joe’s, Safeway,Winco, PCC,Whole foods! I just want to make sure we have fresh produce always:) We both feel good and are looking forward to finishing this challenge. I’ve already had my meal plans this week.  You have to prepare as much as you can so you will not be tempted to just give up when you’re in that “hangry” time of day!

Grocery Hauls from Trader Joe’s

Safeway Hauls
Trader Joe’s again! They do have a lot of whole30 complaint products!

I’m tired of prosciutto this week, so I’m happy we found a sugar free bacon at PCC! expensive but its really good!

Some of the meals we had during our week 1:

Chicken Adobo with mashed sweet potato (recipe from the whole30 fast and easy cookbook). We really liked this one,and will make this again.

brunch:eggs,prosciutto,salsa,plantain chips
roasted sweet potatoes, grilled shrimp and pineapple,grilled steak
Taco salad
Hubs making homemade mayonnaise
chicken wings (clarified butter,franks hot sauce)

Winco skirt steak

 

Carne Asada marinade

The fresh guacamole and grilled skirt steak was such an amazing combination!

Shrimp and Grits!

Hello friends! How are you all doing? I was watching Food Network/Pioneer Woman where she was cooking 16 minute meal/fast meals! She did her “speedy shrimp and grits“.  It looked so simple and I had all of the ingredients in my pantry/freezer. I was inspired to cook it but to be honest it took more than 16 minutes when I did it! HA! It was worth it though because the family enjoyed it.

We’ll be adding this one to my recipe book for sure!