Key Lime Pie

Our lime tree is finally producing limes (after about 2 years)! Soooo, we decided to make a Key Lime Pie. We used this recipe and it turned out wonderfully. We did have to add some store-bought lime juice to the fresh lime juice. We had a lot of limes but even after squeezing them all we had only about half the juice we needed. Squeezing them was a workout!

We made the pie, then had dinner and washed the dog. we made it early so it would have time to chill long enough before we ate it. It was so refreshing on a hot day, and something to look forward to while we washed our dog (always an adventure). Kevin is amazing at smashing graham crackers into crumbs...our blender wasn't doing it, so he just used a ziploc bag, a rolling pin, and his own strength....

I think this was my first attempt at a pie from scratch - except for maybe a pumpkin one as a kid when we'd carved pumpkins around Halloween. This was so much better! and the whole kitchen smelled of graham cracker crust all evening (drooling just thinking of it). We had enough crust makings leftover to make a second crust and will make another pie (maybe chocolate this time) after we finish this one.

We are seriously considering digging up the tree and taking it with us when we move. It took so long to produce limes and has such a great smell....we first noticed it when Kevin was cutting the grass and realized he smelled limes.

More evidence of how special our dog really is

This morning I let Smokey out, and noticed he was striping (fur on his back standing on end) and growling, I looked around and all I could see that it could possibly be was (scary music): two large mushrooms in our yard. My reaction to the mushrooms was - hoorah! our yard is wet enough to have mushrooms - it has been a hot and dry summer so far He was eyeing them and wouldn't leave the patio. After a while of this I had the thought that maybe there was something scarier in the yard, he can't really be leery of mushrooms. I go outside looking for something, anything (I have read reports of more snakes in yards trying to find water), but nope, its the mushrooms. They weren't there last night so they are new and not to be trusted. While I was out there, he finally got really brave and sniffed one of them (then finally did his business), but he was still not very happy about them being there.

I left him outside to finish getting ready for work, come back and he's laying down (at a safe distance) looking right at them......oh, so special..anything new or different, he is not a fan of....

Niece!

Our niece was born yesterday! Kendall Danielle Tucker was born just before 1pm. We are so happy she's finally here.

After work, Kevin and I went to the hospital to meet her. We passed Kevin's parents and Kaden who were heading out as we arrived, and they went back up with us to see Kendall. Kaden (the new big brother) had wanted to leave, but us arriving got him excited enough to go back to see her again, and he even helped to feed her, which made for some great photos.

She is so tiny. I got to hold her, and she is just so small, its amazing that we all begin that small. She was bundled up tight to get warmed up to the temperature the nurses want her to be, and poor little gal got hiccups on her very first day out in the world.

Here are pictures we took last night. Cannot wait to start spoiling our little niece!





If you're on twitter or facebook you've probably already seen my good news (how many different networking sites does one person need?)

Howl at the Foo

We have a very special dog. He is a good dog - very loyal to the point of clingy and, thanks to us, spoiled rotten. but he definitely has some odd quirks. Every time the song "Let It Die" by the Foo Fighters comes on the radio he bawls and yowls at the radio. I was able to witness it yesterday driving home from my in-laws. Kevin has heard it several times before, and said this was the most vocal he's been to the song - we think because he was also in the car (he already cries during car trips sometimes), he just keeps yowling and crying during the song - turns his head up and yowls, we tried (unsuccessfully) not to laugh. We think it must be some certain frequency in the song he doesn't like, that or he just likes to sing along with foo fighters song...it is a good song, so maybe we gave him good taste in music...

It is so strange what attracts his interest - last night on tv, polar bears on tv....he thinks they are literally in the TV, and doorbells on the tv set him off thinking they're at our door. The other funniest thing he would do was yowl and bark whenever he'd hear our voices on our answering machine - even when we were in the room! He doesn't have to worry about that anymore since we use voicemail as part of our phone service and got rid of the answering machine.

He is a neverending source of entertainment.

I've never had a dog so often I have to rely on Kevin's background with dogs to go, I've never seen a dog do this before....

Anniversary

We got our hopes up last night that we might get rain. We heard thunder and the lights went off and on half a dozen times, sometimes staying off a few minutes (ruining our chances of finishing our movie since the tv and all had to start back up every time). We went outside to take the umbrella down and also just to watch the lightning, it looked like quite a storm -- really windy too! I've never been so excited to hear thunder and see lightning! After all that, we got just a few drops - we looked at the radar and it actually went around us. The street was wet this morning, so we must've gotten some rain, but nothing like I was thinking we'd have after that intro.....I am so glad to hear that some people got rain, the whole area needs it so badly.....

I often hear people say, this summer is much worse than last summer or other similar comparisons of weather to other years (milder winter, colder winter, etc., etc.). I am hopeless at remembering weather from one year to the next, with this exception -- I know that 2 years ago June was MUCH wetter, it rained nearly every day...I know because we were getting married at the end of the month and planned to have an outdoor ceremony, so I was anxiously watching it rain each day and wondering if we'd get the ceremony we wanted. We did get the ceremony we wanted even though we moved it inside -- it was still too hot and would've been miserable outside. I find it hard to believe that happy day was two years ago today. Happy Anniversary sweetie! We have no big plans since its a Tuesday - though we will have wine with dinner to toast the year and ring in the beginnings of year #3...we already know it will be a year of milestones - a move and our first niece...

Also a Happy Anniversary to Hillery & Mike and our next door neighbors! what are the chances that your neighbors will have the same anniversary you do? not sure, but ours do!

We thought the rain might've been an early anniversary gift (or a late birthday gift for Kevin). Here's hoping July is cooler and more wet.

Addition: We got a great anniversary gift - we were able to lock in a good interest rate for the new house!