party time

The Weber's Backyard Bash was a success last night.  I think we had about 22 people.  The heat index was 102 but the boys braved the heat on the back deck and then the girls joined them once the sun went down.  We had lots of fun with friends.

Me, Luke, Akisha

Luke and Akisha

Hamad and Kristin

Me and Jason

Dr. with his mosquito killer

Dangerous Dr.

Kristin with Luke

Smith with Luke

Nathan ( EM newbie) and wife, Smith

Akisha and Jason ( EM resident a year above Dr.)

My Besties: The EM wives in their sorority pose

Me, Kristin, Akisha, Michelle

Hamad, Kristin, and crazy Dr.

Smith (wife of a newbie) with Adrienne's kids

Me with Kristin, Michelle, and Kelly 

( all wives of residents but Kelly's hubbie is an ortho resident and she is an internal med resident)

Dr. with Jason, also an EM doc in the same year

Nathan (an EM newbie), Luke ( a year ahead of Dr.), David (an ortho newbie), Hamad ( a year ahead of Dr.)

Adrienne (wife of Jason) with her kids

my own personal hell

we had a wonderful weekend in 96 degree weather.  we worked outside all weekend.  we had a humongous stack of bricks that were covered with ivy and making our back flower bed tacky looking. ( it is still tacky looking but now there is not a big hump in the middle).  i overcame my fear of the ivy ( and the snakes that i knew were hiding in there) and removed about 150 bricks, no kidding.  we used some to outline our slow growing veggie garden and stacked the rest in the dog run.  there were tacky railroad ties surrounding our veggie garden that we moved to the tacky compost pile.  ( maybe the heading of this post should have been tacky!).  our tacky dog run has a cement bottom but had about a foot of dirt, worms, vines, etc. on top of it.  so i overcame the fear of the dog run (and the snakes ) and helped dr. remove all the junk. ( well maybe this post should have been titled "overcoming fears"!)  *note:  i never came across one snake.  i just have this horrible fear of them i guess.

so a productive weekend all in preparation for the Weber's Backyard Bash happening this Friday!  we are having everyone over for barbecue and yard games!  so far we have about 20 people coming!  yeah! this brings me to the actual title of this post.  because we are having a party, we are trying to spruce up the yard, hence removing tacky stacks of bricks and fixing tacky dog run.  dr. also informed me i needed to water the front grass due to significant lack of rain here.  well in order to water front lawn, two sprinklers are needed.  we use one regularly in the veggie garden.  i assumed the other one was in the leaves in the front bed next to the hose turner on-er.  anyways, i am in the boxwoods, going through the leaves to find my sprinkler and all of a sudden i am staring at something that is black with a perfect red line down it and perfect white lines next to the red lines.  it all happened in slow motion.  i stared, i thought, the thoughts were processed and the next thing i know, i am screaming running through my front yard and some how end up on the back deck.  dr.  has no idea what is happening because the only sounds that can come out of my mouth at this point were exactly that... sounds.  i was unable to form one single word and could not stop screaming and brushing the snake "air" (i guess) off of me.

so, all weekend, i am looking for snakes and know i will find one and i happen to have a run in when least expected and in a place that i go daily in order to water my flowers.  ugh.  

so that is that beginning of my own personal hell.  

now, this morning, i was putting up lights on our umbrella again in preparation for our Backyard Bash.  i am standing on the patio table, my head and arms all intertwined in the umbrella spokes.  i notice at the top of my umbrella is like dried leaves or something.  right around the top in the inside. so i take my little twist tie and knock the leaves out.  it was quite odd because the leaves were all in one mass.  much to my surprise there were no leaves.  this thing i had just gotten about 6 cm from was a BAT that had decided to sleep in the umbrella.  it at some point had gotten closed in the umbrella and passed away (poor soul, really).  so i am still intwined in the umbrella on top of a table and there is a flattened bat laying on my shoe.  

snakes and bats all in less than 24 hours is way to much for me.  i seriously feel like   

a.  dry heaving

b. screaming at the top of my lungs

c. dancing around and brushing off all the snake and bat air that has probably gotten on me  

d. taking a shower

e. pouring clorox all over my boxwoods in the front and all over the deck in the back

i am FREAKING out. ugh

family night

our wives alliance was going to have a family night out at the mississippi braves game.  unfortunately, it was quite wet and we didn't think a delay of game and wetness would be good for the kiddos.  we ended up at a mexican restaurant that was kid friendly and had two for one margaritas for the non-kiddo people.  initially we were going to have about 42 people.  even though we had to change venues at the last minute, we still had 28 people.  dr.  decided it would be hilarious to tell the mexicans (and i am not using that term in a condescending way they were really mexicans) that it was my birthday.  i got a wonderful spoon of whip cream shoved in my face by one mexican.  so in revenge, dr. got some shoved in his face.  anyways, here are some pictures. ( sorry they are sideways.... don't know how to fix that.)

mac and cheese

so since it is summer, i told drew that i would actually cook for him as much as possible.  hopefully i will be able to come up with some recipes that are fairly easy and won't take up much time to cook once school starts again.  anyways, i made some yummy mac and cheese the other night. ( kelly i stole your lady and sons book when i was home, thanks).  drew especially liked it and our neighbor (who we take food to when we have extras) said it was the best make and cheese ever.  so i thought i would share.  i give all credit to paula deen and the lady and sons restaurant.  i take no credit. it is so easy and i already had everything in the house!  can't get much better than that.

Lady's Cheesy Mac

Ingredients

• 4 cups cooked elbow macaroni, drained
• 2 cups grated cheddar cheese
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 4 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Once you have the macaroni cooked and drained, place in a large bowl and while still hot and add the cheddar. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining ingredients and add to the macaroni mixture. Pour macaroni mixture into a casserole dish and bake for 30 to 45 minutes. Top with additional cheese if desired.

brownie goose

as i mentioned earlier one of my friends sews the cutest clothes.  she has three new tops she is making for the girls.  look at the three top pictures at http://browniegoose.blogspot.com/

she also went back home to savannah, ga for her sister's wedding and got some simply fantastic fabrics.  they are oh so cute.  check them out at http://browniegoosefabrics.blogspot.com/

miracle grow

never again will we grow plants from seed.  ok, maybe i shouldn't say that but last year it took forever for any veggies to grow.  right now our veggies are growing at a snails pace.  they are all about a foot tall and trying to put out fruit.  i am not sure that a foot tall plant is going to hold up bell peppers and tomatoes.  doc and mk sent us cool topsy turvy planters.  this was exactly what we needed because all of our sun shines on our deck.  (hmmm maybe that is why our garden grows so slow!).  we pulled up some of our plants and stuck them into the topsy turvy.  right now we have some jalapeno and bell peppers starting to bud in the garden.  we have a watermelon plant that is about two feet long and one of our quash plants has a bloom!

hard at work

it is important to dr. that you see exactly what he did to his back house.  one of the pictures is a close up of the roof he built before painting it.  the other picture you will see a different view of the roof over the door.  if you notice the window on the first floor, you will see an area that runs along the top of the window.  that part was rotted out and black.  dr. chiseled out the rotted board and replaced it before painting and sanding any windows.