van.nurse@gmail.com – Page 26 – The Adventures of a Calamari Queen

Blueberry Picking!

Hi Friends! Happy Monday! I wanted to share something we did last week, blueberry picking! Aunt Candy (Hub’s Auntie) invited us along with her friends to do some blueberry picking. She’s been doing it for many years now and thought that little Mia might enjoy doing this. We all did! It’s my first time to do this (I’ve done apple picking before) and I had so much fun. Mia enjoyed it at first (picking and eating) but after 30 minutes she went back to her stroller and rested! HA! We picked 16 lbs. and already shared some with family and have the rest in the freezer for future use (we will use it for smoothies, pies,pancakes). Aunt Candy was nice enough to prepare lunch too, we had sandwiches and fruits! Can’t wait to do this again next year!

Weekend Fun!

Hello Friends! How was your weekend? The Hubs and I watched the movie Mission Impossible last Friday night (a very rare event since we had Mia) my In laws watched her. So nice to watch and had a dinner with the hubs! What an action packed movie!

The Blue Angels performed in Seattle this weekend. We’ve watched them before and it’s really fun, would be great to have Mia watch them perform but I think she’s too young for that right now. We saw a couple of them though while we were in the mall parking lot. We wanted to bring Mia in the mall and let her play in one of the bouncy / play area kiddie place but she fell asleep in the car on the way to the place! HA! We ended up eating in the car so as not to disturb her.

My drink while watching Mission Impossible!

Mia got a new toy! A little grocery cart!She is so loving it!

Saturday evening, we had to bring Riley to the vet. His allergies are back with a vengeance! He’s OK now but we have to give him ear drops for 2 weeks. This has always been an issue for him. Mia wants to be there for her fur brother, Riley! They’re frenemies!

We had brunch with my In laws after church! I had Salmon Lox Benedict! YUM!

My Hubs cleaned the yard and cleaned Mia’s kiddie pool! Thanks Ga! You’re such a good daddy:)

Have a great week friends!

Weekend Fun!

Hello Friends! How’s your summer going? We’ve had a busy weekend with family and friends! We got to enjoy our friend’s beautiful backyard, had s’mores and other yummy summer food! We don’t get to hang out often but it’s always a blast every time we get together. We also celebrated my Sis In law’s birthday and Mia had fun with every body. She particularly loved visiting Aunt Candy’s (our host) garden. She loved picking her raspberries! So much fun to watch her do things for the first time.

Happy Birthday Auntie Juju!

Our local Park had a kids festival and we checked it out too. Lots of activities like a petting zoo, food trucks, live bands! We stayed at the beach and let Mia hang out in the water for a while! She seems to enjoy watching the ducks. We’ll have to go back sometime and swim and have barbecue.

Another hot summer day here friends, have a good day!

Summertime!

Hello friends! It’s officially summer here in the PNW. It’s been hot outside and as much as I enjoy this weather, I don’t want to stay outside for a long time. It’s so nice to have an AC, one of the best decisions my hubs and I made regarding our house. We have been doing a lot of house updates these last couple of weeks. We had our house and fence painted and we really like the colors. The painters are done now (thank God!) Riley’s been barking nonstop at them. He’s so territorial. Very protective of us. Love our Riley!

My Hubs got a Traeger Smoker and he made beef brisket for our 4th of July celebration. He spent so much time on that thing, and I’m glad it turned out so well. I hate to see him disappointed when he puts so much effort and time into a slab of meat!HA..

Our little Boo is spending a lot of time in her kiddie pool! She loves to splash and chilax in there! Her Grandma watches her every Wednesday and they go to McDonalds because she really likes their play area!

making sure she got enough sunblock!HAHA

Playtime with Grandma!

Have a great summer friends!

Weekend Fun!

Hello Friends! We went to the farmers market this past weekend! I really wanted to get their raspberries. The best ones I’ve had were in our farmers market last year, so I have to check again this year. We stopped at Costco after because they’re just in the same area. We got a whole prime brisket for the 4th of July tomorrow. Hubs will prepare it! Looking forward to tomorrow:)

We also celebrated Riley’s 8th birthday! We got him dog treats and gave him a scoop of ice cream! He loved it. We ended up having sushi for dinner. Happy Birthday Rat, you’re the best fur baby! Love you so much:)

Excuse the dirty refrigerator! I’ve already cleaned the mess!

We got this at the farmers market,and it is so good on our toast!

We love sushi! If it wasn’t so expensive we really would have it once a week! HA

It’s going to be a sunny day here and we plan to be outside and have Mia play in her kiddie pool! Have a great day friends!

Hello Summer!

Hello Friends! It’s officially the 1st day of summer here in the U.S! It’s actually gloomy here in Pacific Northwest today. We’ve been having summer like weather these last couple of days and I’m kinda glad to have a break right now. We are having so much fun in our community pool. We got a 3 months pass so hopefully we will really take advantage of that! HA! So far we’ve been to the pool twice now and Mia really loves being in the water. The hubs got her a kiddie pool also that she’s been using everyday since we got it. Our yard is crazy right now, we don’t have a lot of space so it’s tight with our patio table plus Mia’s kiddie pool.

We’ve been going to the park too, and visited a newly opened burger place in our neighborhood twice in a week! When it’s really hot in the kitchen, I tend to get lazy and convince the Hubs to just eat out! It’s in the budget so no guilt at all. 🙂

Have a great summer friends! Blessing to you and your family:)

Father’s Day weekend!

Hello Friends! I hope you were all able to celebrate Father’s day with the Daddies in your life! We had our family here for a nice dinner to celebrate my hubs and DIL! Good, decent, loving fathers are so worth celebrating everyday. I thank God for blessing Mia with a loving and hands on Daddy. My father is not here with us anymore, but I always think of him often! We surely missed him and wish he was able to see Mia.

For our dinner, we got some Rib-eye steaks at whole foods and some charcuterie. My hubs likes meat and cheese so much and it’s been a while since we had it. That’s why we decided to shop at Whole foods (we like their prosciutto) everybody enjoyed the charcuterie! Good job Ga (he selected all of the meat and cheese)! We also got some crabs at the asian market, and roasted some veggies, corn. We had some blue cheese sauce for the steaks, and Hubs made watermelon juice for everybody! Perfect for summertime:)

Making sure we got everything on our list!

Happy Father’s day Ga! Thank you for everything you do for our family! We sure do love you:)

Weekend Fun!

Hello Friends! Happy weekend:) It’s been a rainy day today, after Church we just lounged and napped most of the afternoon. We just had sushi for our dinner. It’s so nice when you have a decent sushi restaurant in your neighborhood! We went to the farmers market yesterday and got the freshest strawberries, so different from what we normally get from the grocery stores. I just love the fruits from the farmers market. One of my fave things to do during the summer season!

Friday night dinner! Chicken wings at the Wing stop! We love this place…

Fresh cherries from the farmers market! They’re so sweet!

she will not let go of this cherry bag!so funny

Lunch at Habit Grill, they recently opened at our neighborhood! The charburger was really good!

Grandpa and Grandma had a quick visit and we watched Justify win the triple crown!

I’ve cleaned and chopped all of the strawberries! YUM!

Have a good Sunday evening and a great week, friends! Off to bed now:)

Memorial Weekend!

Hi friends! Belated memorial day to all! Thankful for all the men and women (and their families) in this country who sacrificed everything for our freedom! We had a simple celebration at home. We grilled some burgers (they were so good!) and had all the fixins. The hubs got a lot of yard cleaning done during this weekend and then we got to enjoy some time out on the patio. He also prepared the majority of our food, I don’t even remember what I was doing! HA! I helped a little:) Anyways, I’m so looking forward to summer night dinners at home now that our picnic table is out and yard is cleaned and pressure washed! Mia loves being in the yard too. She’s our little gardener like her Grandma! Have a great weekend friends:)

Rhododendron going crazy in the front yard!

pressure washing the yard with our little helper!

Hubs about to enjoy his dinner! Thanks Ga for all your memorial weekend cleaning! You sure deserve that burger! HA

Farmers Market and Life

Hi Friends! How are you all? It’s been a while since I posted, not much going on here! Aside from watching my In laws dog (they’re already back from their vacation!), going to parks during nice days (we’ve had a couple of sunny days), our local farmers market officially opened, and we started our garden (the slugs are already eating some of our veggies!UGH!)..Life is good! We “failed” our WHOLE30! HA! Day 21 during Mother’s day, I ate rice with my ahi poke! My mothers day gift to myself! So we basically lasted 3 weeks of the journey! Between me and the Hubs we lost 14lbs! Hubby is still going strong though! We still plan to eat whole foods, plus will probably “tweek” things around like adding creamer to my coffee, and treats every now and then!

She’s so happy whenever she’s in the yard!

Off to do some gardening right now, I still have some annuals to plan! Have a great weekend friends!