July Weekend

I woke up this morning and went to Target to get the ingredients to make our newly favorite breakfast...the breakfast ring. While it was baking and we were watching the women's World Cup, Mom came over. We all ate breakfast together, then us girls set out to drive some back roads.

We found this beautiful neighborhood of estates all with land at least five acres. It was perfect!! One piece of land even had this windmill on it! I love windmills, there is just something very nostalgic about them. I had to drive up and take a picture. I kept looking out for spiders and snakes.

As we were leaving the neighborhood there was a beautiful display of flowers, bushes and trees. I loved the crepe myrtles. The little squirrel that comes in our backyard and we have named Billy has killed five of my crepes so far. When we came home today we saw he completely uprooted another. CC put it in a pot for me.

Anyway, I was never a fan of the pink crepe. I liked the white (my favorite) and the red. After seeing these, I think I have a new appreciation for the pink crepe myrtle.

I'm not sure what the name of this bush is but I LOVE it... I want one or two so bad in front of my house. I think it's just perfect!!!

The entire area is just so beautiful and peaceful. It's so secluded and private. I love it!! It seems like you are so far out in the country when you are here but in reality it's only about 15 minutes away from town.

We drove all the way down the main stretch of road and then turned on the highway that comes to the "T." We took a right and drove more. We ended up in a small town, Honey Creek, then Spring Branch. It was so fun!! I love going on little adventures like this. On our way back home we stopped by this fruit/veggie stand on the side of the road near that estate neighborhood.

He had such delicious looking tomatoes, peaches and oranges. He even had plants for sale.

We ended up buying tomatoes and peaches. Then, Papa Bear and I went back later and bought some small, red potatoes, a watermelon and oranges. EVERYTHING was delicious!

I made patties in the skillet, made a little fresh salad and chopped lettuce and tomatoes for the burgers.

I think homemade fries are THE BEST!!!

This evening I also tried my first attempt at making shortbread....Chocolate Covered Shortbread. It was simple and easy and oh, so good! But with one cup of butter I won't be making this too often!

Yesterday CC was trying to build a house of cards. I must say she did pretty well!


My sister and her family came and stayed with us Tuesday. Luigi had to sleep on the floor in Lena's room with her and CC. He's not used to sleeping on the floor. He has his whole 3/4 of CC's bed. He was so tired on Wednesday after everyone left. He jumped on CC's bed, laid his head on a pillow and went to sleep. It was Lights Out for him....he was snoring so loud!

On the days when I go to Austin, like this past Thursday, this is usually the traffic I am greeted with. On this particular day it took me 35 minutes to get from this spot where I am taking the photo to past that overhead on the highway. It was ridiculous!

Yesterday evening my sweet Papa Bear took us girls out to dinner. He had been wanting seafood and all the main seafood restaurants had major waiting lists, so I suggested we go to the Mexican Seafood place near our house. Great idea!! It was delicious!

After dinner we drove around the neighborhood next to the restaurant. We love this neighborhood and always say when we do move to a bigger house it will be here. It's just perfect! Seriously, really perfect!

There were deer everywhere, mama deer, bucks, fawns, it was so cute. They just roam up in people's yards and eat. Some yards had eight or so little babies just relaxing. It was so sweet to see.

This is really how dark it was. You had to drive so slow so you wouldn't have to stop fast in case one ran in front of your car.

Lightened....

We drove Mom through there today after we all ate dinner. We saw one house that had about ten or more deer in the front yard. The homeowner was hand feeding the deer. They just walked up and ate right out of his hand. I was sooooo jealous! I want that one day!

It's hard to believe we are almost in the middle of July!! Time is really flying! We are in such a drought I wish we could just get some rain!! It's so sad to see even drought resistant plants dying! I always look at weather.com to see our ten day forecast and it always tells me no chance of rain. I should just give up, but I guess a girl can dream!