Popcorn, lavender and hives...

On Wednesday Allen and I stopped by my grandparents house for a visit and to pick up some more plants that my grandma picked up for us.

Their neighbour stopped by with some lavender for me. She had just clipped her lavender plants and had a bag full of it for me.

This morning I put them into bundles...

I also played around with the ISO setting on my camera.

Thanks Anne from fANNetastic Food for the tips on ISO settings!

I learned so much!

After playing with the lavender bundles and camera...I made these popcorn snacks

I haven't tried them yet as they are "cooking" in the refridgerator. No bake popcorn snacks!

I will let you know how they turn out!

In other sad news....Miss Emma has the hives :(

She is either having a reaction to a mite bite...or an allergic reaction from something in her environment!

She also got another skin scrapping. She has a bacterial skin infection...

This poor poochie is having some bad luck...so are Allen and I's wallets.. :(

In good news though...

I have some exciting Long Weekend news...

but you will have to wait till after the Long Weekend..

Stay tuned!

B

Things I'm loving

I have a couple amazing recipes that I will be making this week, that I cannot wait to post for you!

Here is a sneak peak:

Popcorn Snack Bars

Source

BLT Salmon Tacos

Lasagna Soup

Thats all the recipe sneak peaks you get for now...

Besides all the amazing blog recipes I am loving...here are some websites I am currently loving or mildly obsessed with:

Pinterest

If you go and sign up, come find me! I owe this wonderful find to Amanda!

Food Gawker

I really don't know how it took me so long to find this website.

If you love to cook or bake this is the website for you!!!!

Lastly..okay almost lastly, here are a couple of items I just really want right now...

Isn't this watch just gorgeous!!??!?!

I want one of these bikes so bad!!!

Okay so I could go on and on...

So LASTLY...

I love Tina from Carrots n' Cakes recent blog post about Marketing and Promoting Your Blog

So much useful stuff!

What are you loving these days?

B

Caught me a fish!

This past weekend Allen and I headed up to his property on the west coast.

I love it here...

 

We are honestly so lucky to be able to spend so much time out here.

A couple of friends met us there with their poochie and boat.

Emma had so much fun playing with their dog, and we had so much fun fishing.

We saw so many porpoises, the water was pretty calm and the weather was amazing.

The best part?

Catching a 17 pound fish!!!

This is the biggest salmon I have ever caught. I am not any huge "fisherwoman"; however I do love the thrill of reeling a fish in. I also love providing some of the food that we eat!



The girls seemed to be the winners for biggest fish of the weekend. Both Laura and I caught bigger fish then the boys!

Pretty amazing, hey?!

We got lucky with the weather and the fishing...

we didn't get lucky when the boat motor decided to start smoking and die..

We had come in from fishing off shore and were tooling around Sail Rock when we decided to go grab the crab trap and head in. We were heading in when we spelt something burning. In no time the motor was smoking and we lost power.

We had to flag a nearby boat down to tow us back to the boat dock.

We had to row a bit as the boat that was towing us was too large to go in close to the boat dock.



Hopefully the boat ends up being okay...we still haven't heard anything yet.

Anyways the weekend was a success (minus the boat problems).

Last night we came home and cleaned the fish, gave Emma a bath then went to sleep! We were tired!

Guess whats for dinner tonight?!

FISH!!!

Photos from dinner are to come...

B

Sunny...well sunnier skies..

So the photos for todays post are brought to you entirely from my iphone. I don't carry my good camera around all the time so lately my iphone has been subbing in.

So last night Allen's dad and stepmom came up for dinner. They surprised us with some lovely bread from Cobb's Bakery as well as some yummy cinnamon buns and croissants. Everything is amazing.

This morning, Allen used some slices of the bread to make us delicious french toast. (photo to come...)

He did a great job on breaky!

After Allen left to go do some firehall stuff...I went for a walk...which turned into a run. It wasn't anything fancy...or long, but it was a start in the right direction...

Please excuse the horrible photo..I need to work on taking photos of myself on the iphone!


After my run, I did some errands....where I found this book

Apparently its a really good book and it was only $10 at chapters, so I couldn't resist!


After my errands, it was off to work.. As I write this I am still sitting at my desk... waiting for a student to show up.
This was my snack today :)

Anyways once I am done at work I am heading home to eat dinner which I cannot wait for. Since its nice out, all Allen and I want to do is bbq and I was craving smokies tonight....so guess what we are having for dinner!!?! Smokies!! :)
After that I believe we are off to the dog park for Emma to have a run around!
Hope you are enjoying this sunny weather!!!
B

Summer salad

Part of tonights dinner was inspired by dinner at our friends house this past Sunday. Spinach salad! To go along with the salad, Allen and I bbq'd up some white salmon for dinner. Overall it was pretty tasty especially since I was starving from work. I swear I couldn't get enough food today. I was hungry all day!

Our spinach salad consisted of strawberries, almonds, sunflower seeds and spinach. I used a store bought salad dressing, but tomorrow I am going to make a homemade dressing. :)

I put bbq sauce as well as a steak rub on top of the salmon. Seriously one of our better throw together dinners.



After dinner I headed out to meet Amanda for coffee and a stroll. I finally got to try a new coffee shop with her. I got a blended lemonade. Once we got our bevies we headed out for a nice stroll.

It was a great walk along the marina. We saw 3 people paddle boarding.... After Morgz post about paddle boarding, I have really wanted to try it out. Amanda and I watched jealously as the three paddled around....

I am off now to go read... I am starting a new book. I have been reading a book that I don't enjoy so after chatting with Amanda, we decided I should scrap it. Why read a book you don't enjoy, right?

B

Light and Lemony Bars

Happy Monday!

Hope everyone had a good weekend. Mine was pretty good. Friday night was spent hanging out with some lovely friends celebrating changes in careers and bon voyages. We went to dinner at a wonderful Greek-ish restaurant. Allen and I shared the calamari and I had the chicken souvlaki. So delicious! We all smelled of garlic after...a sign of good eating!!

Saturday after work, Allen and I headed to a campground to go visit some of his family for a little bbq. There were water slides and pony rides. A water slide at a campground!?!? I know, right!?!?! Pretty cool!

On Sunday Allen and I went on a search for a new bike for him. His last bike was stolen...and it was time for him to get a new one. He picked himself up a new bike, as well as treating us both to new helmets! :) After he got his bike we headed to a nearby trail. When we got there we realized my rusty bike had some problems. A tire has a funny bubble going on...then the best part...my back break rubs on the tire making a quacking noise! Yes my bike sounds like a duck. After 20 minutes I had had enough of my bike...its quacking and weird vibrations.... and we headed home.

After our bike ride I made these delicious light and lemony bars for dinner at our friends house.

These bars are great. Super easy! I definately recommend making these! They are great for dinner parties or bake-offs! :)

Anyways I think I am off to go pull some more weeds. It is finally nice outside! PHEW!!!

B

Simple Bean Dip

I got motivated..WAHOO!!

Allen and I are currently watching Saturday Night Live. Not sure if its a rerun but Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake= good combo!

I just made Court's amazing bean dip.

She made this dip for a girls night awhile ago and I fell in love.

It's super easy to make and it was just what Allen and I wanted for dinner tonight. I think I may play around with it a bit more as mine was a little soupy. I don't know if it was from the sour cream. Allen has devoured into it.

Guess what came on Friday?!?!?!

EPICURE

I got some fun goodies that I cannot wait to try. I'm particularly excited to use my sundried tomato herb dip mixture. I think it will taste fantastic on a summer pasta salad!

I have been thinking that I should use our lawn for a fertilizer commerical. I recently fertilized our newly hydroseeded front lawn. WOW does it work!??! I guess I missed some spots!

It kind of looks like a mini maze! Don't fret... I fertilized my missed spots ;)

Anyways I am off to go watch some more SNL....this is where I am going to plunk myself for the night...

I'll be back tomorrow with a post run photo (hopefully). Miss Morgz has been doing a great job with the post run photos!

B