Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Love 4th Of July

Love love love the 4th of July... It's my very favorite time to gather with family and friends for good food, good wine, and good fun!

Here is a fun recipe from myrecipes.com. Soo festive and very yummy, although mine didn't look exactly like the photo (wink wink).

Old Glory Cherry-Blueberry Pie

Ingredients
  • 5 cups fresh sweet, dark cherries, rinsed and pitted, or frozen pitted cherries (see notes)
  • 3 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries, rinsed and drained, or frozen blueberries
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 2 Pie pastries
  • 2 teaspoons butter or margarine, cut into small pieces
  • Vanilla ice cream (optional)

Preparation

1. In a large bowl, mix cherries with 2 tablespoons lemon juice. In a smaller bowl, mix blueberries with remaining 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Combine sugar and cornstarch; gently stir 1 cup of the mixture into cherries and 1/4 cup into blueberries.

2. Spoon cherry mixture over 3/4 of the pastry in pan, leaving 1 quadrant free. Spoon blueberry mixture into unfilled area. Scatter butter evenly over fruit.

3. Top filling with stars and stripes for flag pastry. Set pie in a foil-lined 13- by 17-inch baking pan.

4. Bake on the bottom rack of a 400° regular or convection oven until fruit is bubbling in the center and pastry is well browned, about 1 hour. If pastry edges brown too quickly (check after 40 minutes), cover loosely with foil.

5. Let pie cool on a rack at least 3 hours; let stand at room temperature up to 8 hours. Cut into wedges and serve with ice cream, if desired.


The best wine for summer time is always Sangria (That's American, right?!). Here's another great recipe from myrecipes.com.

Red Wine Sangria


Ingredients
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 (750-milliliter) bottles dry red wine
  • 1/2 cup orange juice
  • 1/2 cup peach nectar*
  • 1/4 cup orange liqueur
  • 2 to 3 cups club soda, chilled
  • 1 lemon, thinly sliced
  • 1 lime, thinly sliced
  • 1 orange, thinly sliced
  • 1 Granny Smith apple, thinly sliced

Preparation

1. Bring sugar and 1 1/4 cups water to a boil in a saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, and let stand 10 minutes.

2. Combine sugar mixture, red wine, and next 3 ingredients in a large container; cover and chill 4 hours. Stir in club soda and next 4 ingredients just before serving. Serve over ice, if desired.

*1/2 cup orange juice may be substituted.


Try them out and let me know what you think.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY TO EVERYONE!


Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Its a Girl

Introducing "new baby" Dowda! Born June 24, 2009 at 727am.

Congrats Angie & Zak! She's beautiful.

Friday, June 19, 2009

The Uniform

Erik is an official FPO now, with a uniform and everything! Lookin' good babe :)

THE NAME TAG

THE OFFICIAL PATCH

THE BADGE
OOH YEAH!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Baby Birds

You may remember that some time ago we were doing everything we could to get the Robin to stop making a nest above our garage. We even had a stuffed penguin nailed up there for several day... BUT there was no stopping her. She now has a name "Tweet Tweet" and has made herself a lovely little home for her 3 babies right where we told her not to.
Yesterday when we came home from work, one of the babies had apparently tried to fly... unsuccessfully :( There he was looking helpless, right in the middle of the driveway.

So, Erik decided to help the little fella out. With gloves on, of course, while Tweet Tweet looked upon from afar.

Here are all the little birdies, back in their nest.

Hopefully they had a better day today :)

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Ickle Me, Pickle Me

I ran across this book while I was at my parent's house recently, and couldn't help but open it to my VERY FAVORITE poem from when I was a kid. Love love love it! You have probably heard it before, but just in case, here 'tis:

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too
from the book "Where the Sidewalk Ends"

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too
Went for a ride in a flying shoe.
"Hooray!"
"What fun!"
"It's time we flew!"
Said Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.

Ickle was captain, and Pickle was crew
And Tickle served coffee and mulligan stew
As higher
And higher
And higher they flew,
Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too,
Over the sun and beyond the blue.
"Hold on!"
"Stay in!"
"I hope we do!"
Cried Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.

Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle too
Never returned to the world they knew,
And nobody
Knows what's
Happened to
Dear Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me too.


Thursday, June 11, 2009

Taste the Rainbow

This beautiful rainbow appeared the other night over the mountains by my house. At least there's one benefit to all of this crazy rain...

AND if you look close, it was even a double rainbow!

This brings to mind a very inspirational thought:
As we struggle through the turmoil of this poor economy, it is important to remember, "One can’t have rainbows without the rain!"

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Sisterly Love

For all of you who know Bandit in the slightest, this is totally out of character for her. BUT it was totally cute! They really do love each other :)

Monday, June 1, 2009

Dog Day Afternoon

The day started with a visit from Harper and a swim in our luxurious backyard pool...
Brandi thinks it's really just the world's largest water bowl

Then we took the girls to the baseball game on Sunday afternoon. Sounds like chaos, right? Well it actually turned out better than expected! They met lots of friends in all shapes and sizes, including Brandi's new crush, a 170lb male St Bernard. Sooo cute.



Brandi, checkin' out her boyfriend...
We only got a butt shot of him, but you get the idea
After the game they we're VERY tired. Slept the whole way home!

California... Knows How to Party

Had an awesome time in Cali with my BFF over Memorial Day weekend! Went to the beach, got a tan, AND well yea that's all that really matters...

Looks like Jeff's tan still needs some work ;P

OH yea, we went to the AVP volleyball tournament too! Hot boys playing in the sand can never be a bad thing! This is the Gold Medal team Rogers/Dahlhauser playing in the finals. They won.


Jeff and Erik had a litte 3 point competition at Six Flags. The grand prize for making all of the shots was a big screen TV! Funny how they walked away with 2 teddy bears and $40 short.

Our last night in Cali was spent in true soul mate style with Jen-aritas and fajitas!