Fishing Tournament & A Lean-To

We had another pretty big weekend. Friday evening, Kelly & a few of his buddies started putting up the lean-to on the back of the pole barn. 

We have one too many vehicles and lawn mowers (three lawns mowers anyone?!) So this extra storage should cover at least a vehicle plus a bit. When it's finished, we'll finally be able to paint the back to match the rest of the pole barn, which should make our neighbors happy not to look at a mis-matched, puke green & white building anymore. 

Saturday and Sunday were spent in Saugatuck helping with a fishing tournament. It was a beautiful weekend spent with friends & family!

Here are a few pictures, if you're interested...

When I Dip, You Dip, We Dip

I had my first Fondue experience this weekend and it was awesome. Kelly's mom invited us over, so we finally were able to break out our brand new fondue pot that was a gift from my bridal shower.

Between all of us cooking and playing cards, I didn't watch one second of the Super Bowl. Okay, that's a little lie because I did sneak in for part of the halftime show. That stage was stellar and I really need one of those giant iron tigers to ride around. Plus, Lenny Kravitz is hunk-a-licious. 

It stormed all day so when we got home Kelly plowed the driveway, then we let all of the dogs out to play while we shoveled the piles and piles of snow that got dumped.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!

Oh, PS.
We had a sleepover with some crazy girls this weekend. Last night I discovered that during said sleepover, my phone was hacked.

Guess who...?!

 

Family Photo Sesh

A couple weeks ago, my sister spent the weekend with us.

For Christmas last year, she got a very nice camera because she has always loved doing photo shoots. I remember a few years ago when my Rottweiler Crue was just a few months old. It was around Christmas time and one of the news channels was doing a contest for the cutest puppy. My sister came to me and said that we just had to do it. The rules were simple, you had to send in three photos of your puppy in three different, creative scenarios.  I can't find any of the photos on my computer, but he was dressed as a jazzercise puppy on the treadmill (sweatband and all), he was 'sitting on the dock of the bay' with a fishing pole (in two feet of snow), he selected some wine from the wine refrigerator and he was also a pinball player. 

I mean, this girl is like Austin Powers in 'The Spy Who Shagged Me'- give her a camera and she can go all day. So needless to say that on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, she was doing a photo shoot. She went through my closet and she went through Kelly's closet until she had three different outfits, then she went outside and picked three different areas to take the photos. This girl cracks me up. 

Anyhow- she's sent me the photos that she took of us with the dogs, so let me introduce you to the pack...

Lazy Days

A sweet pillow we picked up on our honeymoon.

Today you were suppose to be reading wondful new post filled with before and after pictures of one of our rooms upstairs that's been in progress for ages. Alas, the room is not quite where I would like it to be because I was a bit of a slacker this weekend!

Here are some photos from the weekend, if you'd like to see...

Nostalgia

My last horse show of the season was this past weekend at the Ingham County Fairgrounds. This was such a nostalgic place for me because it's where the below photos were taken over thirteen years ago.

We'd stay in our horse tailer for the weekend, which was pretty much a vacation in heaven for me. See the picture on the left? We would hop that fence to go play in the park next to the fairgrounds. Every morning, we'd wake up, take our dollars that we'd bummed off of our parents and run over to the main arena to buy a donut.

Patches was the sweetest horse on earth, I could ride her around the fairgrounds bareback with just her halter and lead rope. The picture on the right is before one of our early morning showmanship classes. I'm bummed that I didn't think to take a photo of Myystr and I in the same place with the same pose.

 

The show this time was complete opposite of last time. Our warm up this time was horrible, to the point of me almost wanting to scratch. In the above photo my trainer, Chris, is trying to calm me down. Once we got in the ring? He was a perfect angel.

 

It felt good to be back.




**PS.
Below is a sneak peek of the pole barn project we've got going on. More on that soon:)

Recipe Round-Up

There's not much better than a Sunday afternoon nap, especially being woken by an amazingly scrumptious aroma wafting from the kitchen.

Kelly had gone Salmon fishing on Lake Michigan with his stepdad Sunday morning, so what I was smelling was fresh caught salmon baking in the oven and chopped veggies from the garden being steamed.  I couldn't believe my eyes, nose or mouth. See, this was the first dinner he'd ever cooked for me and it was to-die-for yummy. Well, let me tell you, it's going to have to happen a little more often.

Since our fridge is bursting with fresh salmon, I searched some of my favorite food blogs for a few recipes.



Skinnytaste

Here's a recipe for Naked Salmon Burgers using red and yellow bell peppers. I don't think I'd leave them naked, probably dress them with a little of her Zesty Avocado Cilantro Dressing and stick on a toasted pretzel bun. Yummmm.

 

Design Love Fest

Spicy and sweet Salmon Tacos with Mango Salsa. She uses chili powder as the fish seasoning, but I think I'd switch it up for cajun and maybe a dash of cayenne pepper.















Wait Til Your Father Gets Home

 

This one is a little nostalgic...our sitter's family had a cabin on Trout Lake in the U.P. Whenever we'd travel up there to stay, we would stop at this little convenient store to purchase some of their smoked salmon dip. With a box of Wheat Thins, we would have the container of dip devoured before we even made it to the cabin. This Smoked Salmon Dip recipe looks like it might just take me back.



















Dinner a Love Story

This Salmon Salad might be on the menu for tonight. Potatoes, corn, green beans, cucumbers....yum.Yes. Definitely on the menu tonight.











Do you know of any good Salmon recipes?

Blast from the Past

I have been volunteering for programs that offer equine-assisted activities and therapies since 2007. Fall of 2013, I found a center close to home that offers classes year round. After a few months of weekly classes here, I decided that I'd like to become certified a therapeutic riding instructor. My mentor suggested that I start taking riding lessons as part of the process.

After searching a few different places for lessons, I came across 'Winning Edge Training Center' in Hudsonville. This perked me up a bit because, when I was little, the barn and trainer that I started riding with were in Hudsonville. I clicked on the link for the website and was looking at pictures of the facility and thought, oh my goodness- that is my old barn! As I'm clicking further along, I find that it's my old trainer as well!

I picked up the phone to call her and I think about gave her a heart attack when I told her who was calling. I starting riding with her when I was a little girl until about age thirteen. It turns out that she had been here and there training and just came back to the old barn in 2013. Is that fate or is that fate?  Now she's married with a sweetheart of a daughter and a young son.

Needless to say, I started taking lessons from her again. I dug around and found one of the scrapbooks that I made years ago, these pictures take us back thirteen years to some of the best days of my life.

This old beauty is Classy Patches, one of the sweetest mares known to this world. I would ride her all around the show grounds with just her halter and lead rope.

 

This handsome fella is Dyamond in the Rough...aka 'Monty'.  The picture on the left is from the same barn we all came back to. Crazy how the world works. 

Can you tell I didn't like him much? 

Let's go back to this spring...

Sweet Nothings

This weekend was fabulous in that we had nothing to do- a big, sweet, fabulous nothing. See, I’m normally a homebody. I have no problem being at home all weekend with nothing more than a good book, my dogs and a couple projects.  So our weekend consisted of a bonfire with friends, afternoon naps, fishing, cleaning out a room upstairs and just plain lounging.

Here some pictures, if you’d like to see…

Sunflower Fields Forever

Saturday night we were on our way Van Buren State Park when we passed the happiest field I ever did see. 

 

 

Honey said that maybe he'd start farming sunflowers... I'd be okay with that.

Saugatuck Big Lake Classic

Elbow deep in fish guts is how we spent our weekend.

Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But there were fish guts involved.

 

 

We spent Saturday and Sunday helping with a fishing tournament where Kelly's family works each year operating the weigh-in station. Each day, the competitors lug their giant coolers full of fish and pick their one biggest catch of the day to weigh for the 'Big Fish' contest, then weigh their total fish. They receive points based on the total weight of all their catch, plus points for total number of fish caught. The fishing teams were split into Pro Division and Amateur with rules and regulations regarding the number of fish, lines in the water, species, etc. 

 

 

 

 

Here's the Tweedle Brothers hanging up the 'Fish Drop-Off' sign. This is the one time a year that Kelly breaks out the shorts, can you tell?

 

While his stepdad was out fishing, the boys were in charge of weighing the fish, which meant grabbing them by the gills and setting them in the bucket. They'd first weigh the 'Big Fish', then add the rest of them for the total weight. Then came the fun part when all of those fish were dumped back into the team's cooler, causing a revolting splash of slimy guts, scales and blood to spray up their arms and acros their shirts. EWW. And I hope you weren't reading this over lunch.

 

 

 

 

I was pretty upset that I wasn't able to get my hands all up in that bucket.

 

Kidding. His mom and aunt were in charge of completing the scorecards, while his sister ran the cards from the weigh station to the scorekeepers table. After they were logged into the scoring system, I ran them outside and wrote the final scores on the giant boards for the teams to see after they docked and came up for lunch.

 

It was the first time I'd been to a fishing tournament and it was really cool! I loved seeing all of the different boats with their bajillion fishing poles and colorful lures. The DNR had a station next to the weigh-in where they would do a little research on the fish after they were weighed. On the second day, they brought us over half of a smoked salmon that one of the teams had caught the day before. It was so yummy I could've eaten the whole thing myself.

 

 

 

On Saturday his grandma came and hung out for the day, then on Sunday his other sister joined in the fun. I wish I had more pictures, but we were so busy once the boats started coming in with their fish that I got distracted and didn't even think about it.

We had a sun-filled weekend by the lake and now our freezer is stocked with salmon, that's pretty okay in my book.

 

Symphony of Destruction

It was like FernGully in our woods this weekend. I could practically hear the poor little faeries scrambling for a new tree to call home.

This is the entrance to our little forest. Not very pleaseant for an evening stroll, unless you're decked out in coveralls and a helmet with a face shield. 

 

Enter Mr. Bobcat Forestry Cutter.

Kelly's cousin, who operates this type of equipment for a living, was kind enough to haul this monster to our house and spend his Saturday afternoon clearing a path so that we could enjoy our woods a little more.

We went through and marked a tentative destruction course with a pretty high tech trail marker that some of you may have heard of. Toilet paper. Then he went at it! 

There are no pictures of the monster in action because this thing could send a wooden spear through a person quicker than Joffrey could lop off Ned Starks head.  I wasn't gettin up close and personal with that.

 

 

The machine leaves behind a trail of stringy wood over the smaller mulch, but after a couple hours (and a few blisters) with some steel rakes, we had a nice clear path that was covered in smaller mulch.

I did have to take one small break to, you know, enjoy some eye candy.

 

 

We're so grateful to Troy coming over and clearing this path for us. Don't mind the dog butts, they love the trails as much as we do

I am calling them my horse trails. One might be sweet enough to point out that we don't actually have any horses, but dare to dream, right?