Pictures of the kids

I have been spending a lot of time in the backyard getting eaten alive by mosquito's while watching the kids play. Mostly I enjoy watching them wrestle, but I also feel like I need to be a referee and make sure that Chewie doesn't trample over Abby. I don't think he would hurt her on purpose but their weight and size difference causes for concern for an accident. So spending time outdoors with the kids means that I am documenting every minute with my camera :) I won't bore you with all of the photos I took, but I did pick out my favorites to show you!

Last week Abby was trying to get onto the bed when she fell. At first I didn't know anything was wrong because she didn't yelp, but I did notice that she wasn't using her back leg. We gave it two days before we took her to the vet, we were hoping that it was just a sprain and would heal with time. I took her to the vet 2 days after the accident and found out that she hurt her knee and was going to need surgery. The official term is Tibial Tuberosity Avulsion. I found this explanation on petinfo.com:

An avulsion fracture occurs when a bone breaks and a fragment of the bone is separated by the pull of an attaching muscle, tendon or ligament. The tibial tuberosity is the prominent bump on the front and top of the tibia, the shin-bone, below the knee joint. This tuberosity attaches the patella (knee-cap) via a strong thick tendon of the quadriceps muscle group. A fracture of the tibial tuberosity often results in an avulsion fracture, by virtue of the pull of the quadripceps muscles.This fracture tends to occur in younger dogs, before this area of the tibia has fully grown and fused to the rest of the bone. The fracture occurs in puppies in association with trauma, often falling from a height and landing with the knee in flexion, tearing the bone fragment from its normal position.

I am taking her to the surgeon on Wednesday morning. I hope that it will be an easy surgery with a quick recovery! Will keep you guys posted.

Chewie and Abby saying Hi to the next door neighbor.


The Frisbee is Chewie's favorite toy so when Abby went for it, I kept an eye on them. Chewie was very gentle with her and only threw here around a little :)

Jim is no match for Chewie and Abby... they won the tug of war game

Leaping Chewie!!

Love this picture!! I can't really get on the ground to get any "from the ground up photos" with her because as soon as I get down she runs over to lick me

The King of the Backyard. His crazy long tongue always hangs like this after we play Frisbee

Jim had a tough day playing Frisbee as well... this is his treat :)

Pooped kids after a day of playing!

White, Green and Red Lasagna

It was Sunday night and I really didn't want to go to the grocery store, so I sat and stared into my fridge hoping that a dinner idea would pop into my head. After a few minutes it dawned on me... a white Lasagna. It isn't your traditional lasagna... white cheese sauce instead of marinara and ground turkey instead of ground beef. Still used pasta, veggies and cheese... and I thought it was awesome!

Turns out that the ricotta cheese I had was expired so I ended up going out to the grocery store but it worked out because we really needed milk and bread. This dish was easy to put together but it does have a lot of pans but the nice thing is you can make this ahead of time and then just pop it in the oven when you are ready to bake it. Next time I will use all of the cheese sauce in between the layers. I went skimpy thinking that it looked like to much, but once I pulled it out of the oven there was very little sauce.

For sauce
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup chopped onions

2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 cups milk

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup cheese (I used mozzarella)

For filling
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 container of frozen chopped spinach, thawed

1 package of ground turkey, cook in separate pan

3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon minced garlic
a 15-ounce container whole-milk ricotta (about 1 3/4 cups)
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
Lasagna noodles, cooked

1 tomato thinly sliced

1 zucchini, thinly sliced

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan (about 1 1/2 ounces)

Preparation

Make sauce:In a saucepan melt butter over moderately low heat. Stir in flour and cook roux, stirring, 3 minutes. Add milk/chicken broth in a stream and bring mixture to a boil, whisking until thick and smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste and simmer sauce over low heat, whisking occasionally, 10 to 12 minutes, or until thickened. Add cheese, melt through. I kept mine on low heat until I was ready for it.

Preheat oven to 350°F. and butter a 13 x 9-inch baking dish (3-quart). Add a little of the cheese sauce to the bottom of the pan.

In a bowl whisk together ricotta, egg, basil, spinach, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour 1/2 cup reserved sauce into baking dish (sauce will not cover bottom completely) and cover with 3 pasta sheets. Spread half of ground turkey, zucchini slices, and tomato slices over pasta sheets in dish, then scoop some of the cheese sauce over this mixture and top with another 3 pasta sheets. Spread half of ricotta mixture over pasta and top with another 3 pasta sheets. There is no hard rule of what toppings can be together or how many pasta sheets you use, so have fun with it :)

Spread remaining sauce over top and sprinkle with Parmesan. Lasagna may be made 1 day ahead and chilled, covered. Bake lasagna in middle of oven 45 minutes, or until bubbling and golden.

Weekend Fun


This weekend was a lot of fun since I was able to spend time with my good friends! On Friday night we met up with Dawn & Matt, Lindsay and Karie for her birthday at The Liberty. We enjoy going to The Liberty since it is a laid back bar where you can have fun with friends and have normal conversations (not yelling over music). And now they have a bonus... a fantastic food trailer in the back. We spent a few hours hanging out with everybody before we had to call it a night. We didn't want to leave Abby in the crate for to long.

Friday Night

Dawn and Lindsay-

with the fantastic port-o-potties in the back ground

Hot ladies flaunting their ta-ta's

We ordered a fried Brussels sprouts salad to share... Once I took a bite, I wanted to take it and run far far away so Jim couldn't eat any. It was so good, damn good... the Brussels sprouts were tender, the salad had shredded lettuce, cilantro, onions, mint, and jalapenos in a great spicy vinaigrette. I was sweating while eating this salad but it was SOOOO damn good.

We also ordered an order of the steamed buns with fried chicken thighs. We originally wanted the pork belly buns but they were out :( These were a good alternative. The bun was nice and tender and the chicken was crispy. There was sliced onions and cilantro along with the chicken. They were tasty but my favorite is the Brussels sprout salad. I do want to head back to try a few other dishes.
East Side Kings needs Lindsay to model for them
Lindsay, Jim, Me, Karie, Matt and Dawn

Jim and Matt... loving on each other... In the open... at a bar.

The flash killed the color photo, so I tried to save it by converting it to black and white. Dawn pointed out that the beer is placed (by accident) to prevent a nipple slip

Fun the the alley

Saturday Night

Our friend Brian made a pit stop in Austin this weekend. He has been living in Hawaii for the past 3 years and now he is moving to Naples Italy. He is in the Marine Corps, and keeps getting stationed in these fantastic areas! Of course, during that time he did do 2 tours in Afghanistan ,,, Thank you Brian for protecting our country! You rock!

Jim, Steven and Brian

Nicole was teaching us her fly dance moves... especially in those wedges. Girl has talent.

Mahvash, Nicole and I

Brian, me, Jim, Steven and Nicole

Nicole and I

Mahvash, Kyle (Brian's friend), and Brian

This cracks me up... Nicole and Jim dancing like they would have back in 8th grade

Jim, Brian and Kyle

Brian with a lady in the back ground... who knows what she is doing... but it cracked me up so here it is

Steven, John (Steven's brother) and Supawn

I don't understand it, but Brian and Kyle found it hilarious to take pictures with old dudes with long hair. We had a great time hanging out with everybody. Jim and I are planning on saving our money so we can make a trip to Italy to visit Brian. Hopefully in a year we will be able to go visit!

Our first week with Abby

Tomorrow will be a full week that we have had Abby. She has been a great dog so far. We still have some work to do to get her fully house trained, but with every day that passes she seems to understand it a little better (we just have to be more aware of her subtle hints).

Things we have learned....

• She bounces like a deer when she is chasing the ball, and she has a huge retriever instinct because she'll chase down and bring back just about anything that we throw.
• She loves her big brother, Chewie. They wrestle around all day long. Chewie doesn't have the stamina that she does so she'll need to learn when to turn down the energy at the end of the day.
• She is not afraid of the rain, thunder, lightening, or the vacuum. However she did bark at the broom when Jim was sweeping the kitchen
• She hardly cries when she is put in her crate at night,,, just a little whimpering and then she is done.
• She likes to attack my ankles when I walk in the back yard, but once I tell her "no" she stops.
• Watch out for her once she takes a drink of water... I swear she gets more on her and the floor than she does in her belly
• She makes the cutest little squeak when she yawns
• She likes sticks,,, regardless if they are on the ground or still attached to the bush/tree
• Our first walk around the block was a success... just a couple little hiccups when she didn't feel like walking, but a quick little tug and she was back to walking with me
  
  
  She got the jump on my camera,,, I couldn't get it to focus fast enough before she got to me
  

A rare quiet moment in the back yard

I'm not sure if she likes her squeeky ball or her frisbee better in the back yard

She is great about bringing the frisbee back, but doesn't quite able to catch it in the air

Abby loving on Chewie

Chewie sunning himself

Abby and Chewie playing chase

Muddy Buddy

It's that time again for the Muddy Buddy race. For those of you not familiar with the race, it is a race where two runners run and bike for 6 miles while doing 4 obstacles. But during the race, you are on your own because while you are running your partner is on the bike and at each obstacle you switch off... if you were running you are now on the bike. And the last obstacle that we do, is the mud pit. And we do this obstacle together. This is our 2nd year to do the race, and I believe we are hooked. This year was rough because it POURED the night before so the entire course was muddy.

I bought a disposable waterproof camera for the race, and I don't know if it was the camera or the processing, but all pictures have this weird blue tint. Not happy but not much I can do about it.

The happy clean couple before the race

Some people dress up for the race, not sure what these guys are.... Afro's with mustaches?

Here we are in our group ready to start! The race has different groups based on age (besides the one group that is based on weight, for the really big boys that are racing called "The Beasts")

Getting excited, the starting line


This is one of the obstacles... a 30 foot blow up slide where you climb up using a rope ladder then you slide down. HOWEVER, when you have shorts on, when you slide down there is a bit of friction

Jim was hating life here... the bike was jammed up with mud and the front wheel was jammed. It took a lot of work to keep the mud/crap out of the gears and wheel. When it was my turn with the bike I wanted to ditch the bike and just run. It was miserable to have a bike that wouldn't work.

Not sure if you can read the sign but it says "2 Miles to the Beer Garden... RUNNNNNN!!!"

The crappy camera didn't really get a good shot, but I was trying to get a good shot of the camera and my shoes caked with mud

We finished!!!! I seem to be a little more muddy than Jim but the mud pit was more water than mud due to the rain the night before The Muddy Couple

These guys were dressed up as firemen for the race (pretty sure they really were firemen since the pants they had on looked like the real deal). I REALLY wish I didn't have the mud sludge on the camera because these guys were looking good. But of course, not as good as my husband ;)

The infamous mud pit. On the right of the photo you can see where the runners come up to the mud pit, and then get on their bellies and slide down into the mud. But like I said, the mud pit was more water just because of the rain the night before

I was unprepared for this weekend... I didn't start running nearly early enough to get my body used to the distance. I am damn motivated to make sure that next year we will be ready to go!!