Isabelle Visit

Friday after work, I went over to Street 360 in Portsmouth to meet up with Aunt Maggie, Lisa and Isabelle for a yummy dinner!!

Aunt Maggie's Killer salad!

Lisa's yummy burger :-)

Isabelle's chicken fingers

My bun-less burger and tapioca chips - gluten-free!!

Iced Tea was great for cooling off and there is no pic of the
SUPER tasty Curry Fries because they were so good they vanished!

After dinner, Maggie and Lisa went home and Isabelle climbed into my car for a weekend of lazy fun. ie, how can we stay cool in 94 degree HUMID heat icky-ness?
We hit up the grocery store early Saturday morning and spent the rest of the day sitting in the wonderful AC watching TV and making these delish no-bake (no oven for us!), healthy chocolate coconut coffee balls. Don't worry! They don't take long to make :-)

The recipe comes from Mark's Daily Apple: To read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/cocoa-and-coconut-snacks/#ixzz2VNF6r1uw

1/2 cup each:

• Almonds
• Walnuts
• Pecan nuts
• Hazel nuts
• Pumpkin seeds
• 3-6 dates
• 2-4 tablespoons virgin coconut oil

To taste:

• Unsweetened cocoa powder
• Freshly ground coffee
• Shredded coconut

Instructions:

Run the nuts and pumpkin seeds in a food processor until ground into a fine flour.Remove the nut flower and grind the dates and shredded coconut in the food processor until smooth. Mix these ingredients together with coffee and cocoa powder according to taste. Finally, add the coconut oil and mix it all together by hand. Roll the paste into small nibbly balls and sprinkle them in shredded coconut.

By Saturday night we were ready for a change of scenery but knew we'd still need AC, so after a quick review of what was playing at the  local theatre, off to the movies we went! We saw EPIC, which was fun and light-hearted. It reminded me of Fern Gully - I know, I'm dating myself!! - but the music was good and the cast was great to listen to. We gave it two thumbs up!

Sunday was filled with sleeping late, BRUNCH!, a quickly sorted basement project - Isabelle is super fast! and playing with Reese - who truly enjoyed having 2 people chase him for the ball :-)

New Trees!!

This spring, we were given trees! 5 new little dogwoods from the Viana's and a lilac 'bush' from my parents! After much debate, we decided to extend the tree line along the driveway with the dogwoods, and plant the lilacs out back where we can enjoy them from the dining room windows.

Before

Added Cleveland Pear

New Dogwoods going in

All done! see the black mounds of mulch?

here they are closer up so you can kinda see the little trees

And here's a shot of the complete row!

The lilacs: they were big enough to split into 2 groups!

View of the back of the house with the new lilacs

Additionally, we also put down GrubbEX to help kill off any remaining Japanese Beetles (last year they ate EVERYTHING!).
Next up? The entire lawn gets a nice layer of grass seed and we start prep on the basement project!

Memorial Day!

I didn't hang out our flag this year as it was cold, windy and rainy for most of the weekend! Instead, I put out  our star.
I still go back and forth about putting something on that short, blank wall to the right of the door..... don't get me wrong! I think the black door (last fall project) definitely helps the porch, but I wonder.....

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day!

Land of the Free, because of the Brave!