Sunday

You know....not too long ago I was watching TV and realized that I was ruined by old X Files shows, and some Mel Gibson movie about aliens....that bad things happen in and near corn fields. I swore I would never live near one. Then I realized....wow, I live with one in my backyard! A huge field. Only divided by a patch of woods (which should be scary too right?) and a wire fence.

Because of the hill, I tend to forget the corn is there until it gets very tall or occasionally I see somebody on a big tractor. No aliens.

Deer like to come out of the field occasionally. Today I was cleaning the kitchen and noticed one in the back yard. There is a wild apple tree that she was eating the ones that had fallen on the ground. It was funny watching her since she'd get all slobbery munching on them.

There are two that seem to hang around my house pretty often. There is a young buck who will stand in our driveway occasionally. We do have a pretty busy yard when it comes to wildlife. There is also a groundhog that lives up in our woods, lots of squirrels and robins (Who will stare at you when you are outside. They make me feel a bit self conscience. They are always in pairs too....weird.) Plus a cardinal that lives in our tree by our front window. There is a lot to watch.

Vacation continued - Mt. Dora, Florida

Brandon's family lives near this town called Mt. Dora. We had a day to spend with them, and his wife Ulgonda was thinking of places we could go to spend some time. I was thrilled by this place, and so happy that she suggested it. It was a Sunday, and unfortunately  many of the places were closed. We still had a great time spending time together, and letting the kids walk around.

There were neat shops and places to eat. It's probably a good thing that the stores were closed, since there were so many cute things I kept seeing that I probably would have felt like I needed to bring home with me. Especially these turtles - they were about the size of an apple. There was a shadowbox full of them in different colors and patterns.

Below: There was another store that had neat French themed things. I thought this display was beautiful. I think I have a thing for glass domes.

 Below: I also have a thing for boxes of any sort....and postal stuff. I couldn't pass this small area between some shops that had a long stairway up to another store on the second level. 

 After an attempt to go to another place for lunch....we did end up going to a Mexican place that Brandon and Ulgona said was really good. I think honestly, this was my favorite meal of the trip. We had a big table that was set up in a square so we all could talk, including the kids, and not feel like anybody was not part of the meal. Everything about this lunch was amazing. Definitely one of my favorite memories of this trip.

I have no idea what it was called, but they both recommended this house specialty. It is some sort of fajita type thing that is cooked in a lava stone bowl. It had chicken, steak, peppers, onions, potatoes and cheese with a bit of sauce on it, served with tortillas. OMG it was amazing. The best Mexican food I have had in four years. This was something that I still crave and I know I will probably spend a very long time looking for something to replicate it. It was gooooood. Even the chips and salsa brought out in the beginning were good. Good chips, and spicy salsa....unlike Kentucky salsa. I like mine with a lot of HOT. This was a good sign....lunch was going to be good.

After lunch we walked around. We ended up at a frozen custard shop. We looked in windows of more stores. The weather was perfect.

We ended up back at their house, spent some time there looking at photos and the kids played in the pool. (And their lab Bella.) We left in the evening, and started the drive home. I forget where we stayed, but it was in Florida. We still wanted to meander back home and enjoy the road trip. It was nice not being in a hurry.

Turtle mom, more summer stuff

 "Deep in the back woods of Kentucky....."
"There's a lot of back woods people in Kentucky, but none as back woods as the turtle man."

(We love Call of the Wildman on Animal Planet.) At first I saw it and thought, "Oh please, can we not have something that perpetuates the hick Kentucky stereotype?" People here are normal. Trust me. Well, most....I still laugh about the time my sister was out here and Kroger had a bluegrass band up at the checkout lanes. What? Every store doesn't' have live bluegrass? - The more I watched this show (mainly because of a shared love of turtles with my T, the more I love it.) So when all of the kids were sitting out and drying off from going swimming today, I was moving around the pool with my head above the water. Megan said I looked like turtle man. Live action! Yeeyeeyeeeee! That picture above is me looking like I'm in the pond, looking for the tell tale sign of bubbles from a moving snapping turtle! I did find two tortoises....at home....and made them a salad. I love our turtles.

It is HOT. Awful hot. Today was 102 and the last I heard this heat wave is supposed to last a couple more days. Thankfully again, good neighbors, who asked if we'd like to use their pool while they went to church tonight.

Backing up here....

to the days when the weather was still nice a little over a week ago. Megan's friend has horses. They recently bought this new thoroughbred, he was trained for racing but due to a respiratory health issue he never was in an official race. He is now a super loved and spoiled show jumper. His name is Cowboy, he is four years old, and he has got to be the biggest horse I have ever seen that wasn't a draft horse. He is gorgeous!

Megan's friend was down in Louisville, but her mom asked me if we'd like to come over and ride since the horses needed some exercise. I loved it. The boys even rode for a bit but ended up having more fun chasing barn cats, playing with the bunnies (background, second picture below) and playing with the dog. They also have a pond with a noisy croaking frog. We all had a great night over there, playing with animals and hanging out in the barn.

 Below: Megan's first batch of homemade loaves of bread. She has been very domestic this summer. She has checked out cookbooks from the library, and looks for recipes online. She has really enjoyed learning how to cook. - We have enjoyed it as well. She has made some really tasty things from chicken dishes, pesto from our basil plants, to baked desserts.

 Goofy face on the 4th of July.

I'm still promising to catch up on those vacation pictures!

Some funky weather

 My posts are going to be out of order, since I know my plan was to finish posting vacation pictures before anything else, but I took some pictures today that I wanted to post....

It has been HOT. Hot hot. We've had the most strange weather the past couple of weeks. First we had an entire week of perfect weather....the highs were in the upper 70s. Absolutely beautiful. There were times I really had forgotten what month it was.

Friday night, I was at work and left around 5:30. As I was leaving, Megan had called customer service (weird as I was standing right there talking to a friend right before leaving) and I could hear somebody asking for Kerry. She was calling to tell me to be careful coming home. I had been busy in the back of the store for so long I hadn't seen outside for hours. I knew we were supposed to get some severe thunderstorms that night, but this literally came from nowhere. As soon as I saw the windows at the front I walked as fast as I could to my car. It was so windy. I later found out on the news that they were hurricane force winds, in a line of storms that had crossed much of this area of the states. In comparison to other states, we didn't get it as bad. I'd hate to see 'bad' since this was very strange to me. There were trees knocked down, and a lot of people lost power. I got home fine, and it passed. In turn, the temperature dropped at least 30 degrees and Megan and I headed out for a really nice walk when the sun was going down. It's hard to believe that the temperature can change that quickly.

Now we're back to the heat. Summer is hot....but this is that yucky, drippy hot. We are in the middle of a heat wave for a few more days.

Our neighbors up the hill are simply the best. I love them. There are times I am ready for a bigger house, a newer house, or a change...and these are the types of neighbors that make you think, "I am lucky.....they are awesome....and not crazy." They used to own all of the property that our neighborhood is built in, so they have this great ranch style home with mature trees and landscaping, and a lot of time and love put into everything around it. The back deck that I see from our house looks like it is up in a treehouse. I would want to spend every minute I could out there.

So, yesterday I had a message that we were invited to use the pool at their house. They were going to be away for part of the day to a graduation picnic. The photo below....that is my house and deck in the background. We walked up the hill, and I talked with the wife in the pool for a bit. Then she left and we had the pool for as long as we wanted. It was wonderful. I especially loved being able to be done swimming and walk right down the hill through the back yard so we could make a late lunch. No driving, no wet suits in the car....it was nice. - Made me wish I didn't have to go into work tonight.