Buttermilk Caramel Syrup | Creations by Kara

Buttermilk Caramel Syrup | Creations by Kara

I just found this recipe for a buttermilk syrup and I think this will be good with pancakes this Sunday morning.  It is worth giving a try…

The Get More Out of Google Infographic Summarizes Online Research Tricks for Students

Here is an interesting link for anyone who would like to search more proficiently on the web.  I learned a lot and even bookmarked this site for later when I cannot remember .

The Get More Out of Google Infographic Summarizes Online Research Tricks for Students

Frugally Sustainable: Instant Oatmeal: A Less-Waste, Frugal, Homemade Alternative

We tend to love the instant oatmeal.  It is also a quick filling meal for hunting morning when you need something before you leave camp to beat the daylight into the hunting spot.  It is definitely expensive though!

I think we will give this recipe a whirl.  I would love to have a lower calorie alternative for breakfast on these cold mornings.  I also think I will see if there is anything else interesting on this “Frugally Sustainable” blog.

Frugally Sustainable: Instant Oatmeal: A Less-Waste, Frugal, Homemade Alternative

Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake Cupcakes | Annie's Eats

While I was cruising Pinterest.com I stumbled upon this wonderful cheesecake recipe.  I need to make a treat for the end of the month for Warren’s crew so I think this will fit the bill!  I look forward to trying this out in the next week .  I may just change it up a bit and use raspberry coffee flavoring instead of pricey raspberries though – then I will have flavoring left over for my coffee too – BONUS!

Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake Cupcakes | Annie's Eats

60 Small Ways to Improve Your Life in the Next 100 Days

60 Small Ways to Improve Your Life in the Next 100 Days

This is a pretty interesting article full of items to improve your life. I can't imagine having enough time to do all of this everyday for 100 days but I wouldn't mind trying a few out.

One of the things I love to do is take pictures.  I try to put my camera to use everyday even if I am just taking pictures of the animals.  Here is one picture I took while we went on the “Fruit Loop” tour in August.  Beautiful flowers everywhere up there

Creating From What You Have

Ucreate: Creative Guest: Nike from Choose to THRIVE wall pocket idea

http://choosetothrive.blogspot.com/ Nike's blog This is a really great website for using the stuff you have.

I am going to try this wall pocket idea because I need one and I think I can make it :-}

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty…

I took Hunter out to shoot his 12 gauge yesterday.  We went out to a patch of BLM directly across from the Pronghorn entrance about 9:15 AM.  I noticed the large cougar track when we drove in but I didn't want to alarm Hunter.  The hair on the back of my neck stood up and that was enough to make me more aware of my surroundings.

I ran the trap thrower and he did all the shooting.  He is practicing for a big pheasant hunt he has coming up on the 17th.  I have to admit, the kid is damn good with a shotgun.  He hit about 90% of the clays and burned through 3 boxes of shells.  Here he is packing up the left overs and the pigeon launcher.

On the way out I stopped to see the tracks.  I thought that maybe I was imagining how large the prints were so I wanted to get out and check them.  They were actually a little larger than I had thought on the first pass.  Here is Hunter putting his hand next to one for reference.

Hunter’s hands are good size.  This boy wears a size 12 shoe!  I think someone needs to take care of this big kitty.  I don’t think I would want to be out on the golf course at Pronghorn with this big tom watching me.  Gives me the hibee gibees!  Big cats creep me out a little.  I know how calculating the common house cat can be.  Multiply that by 10 and you got a big nasty ball of fur with large claws & teeth,

Warren & Hunter have cougar tags…maybe I need to invest in one since we need to get a little more practice in before the 17th.

I wonder if a big kitty like that would like a big pile of catnip…hummmmm….

New School Year and a New School

Out of all the changes we have had this year the hardest one will become real this week.  Hunter will be starting a new school.  He finished 6th grade at Crook County Middle School.  The last month of school was a blur between moving, 6th Grade Camp and Hunter staying at Mom & Dad’s the last week.

We did manage to register at the new school the very last day they were in session.  This allowed Hunter to put in for electives ahead of any “new” kids registering this fall.  It seems that this did help because he got the elective he listed first.

Drum roll please….

And the new school is…

We went in and paid fees, signed up for football, received his locker number & combo and got his class schedule on the morning of the 24th.  That evening they had an open house so we were able to take Warren with us to meet the teachers and tour the school.  We also loaded up the majority of his school supplies and took them to his locker.  That will sure cut the load down on the first day of school.  Here he is at his locker…

And this is his science classroom…

The night after open house we had to go back to the school for football equipment to be issued.  Since he is in sports he got his PE locker issued and it is a big locker.  I don’t have any pictures but I am sure you will see some coming soon.

Change is always supposed to be for the good.  In this case I think that this change will be great.  Everyone we met at the school was extremely friendly and respectful.  The coaches are really down to earth but strict at the same time.  On the whole everything was very organized and the campus is beautiful.  I was pleasantly surprised with everything and I think this is a step in the right direction.  Hunter is excited and that is good because school starts on 9/7/11 – tomorrow.

The Best Invention in My Kitchen

OMG!  This is one of the most awesome things I have used in a long time.  This is called a “NINJA” and it eats everything!  It has a large and a small pitcher and comes with a blade for each pitcher, a whipping blade and a dough hook. We received this as a housewarming gift from my parents and we cannot thank them too much.  It has altered our lifestyle a lot.  We use it almost everyday and I cannot buy enough fruit to kept it satisfied .  There is no fruit going bad at our house anymore.  We make smoothies like they are going out of style.  The only reason I have to cut the fruit up is to get the pits out.  If they don’t have a seed that needs removed they go in whole.  This bad boy can take it!  I even fed it whole cooked chicken breasts and it just burped a little when I opened the top and said, “give me more!”.

This little concoction is strawberries, bananas, vanilla yogurt, peanut butter, honey and a little ice.  This one tasted a bit like a peanut butter & jelly sandwich – gee, whoda thought?   Of course I usually put twice as much in but the picture looked a lot better with just half of the ingredients.

Lately I have been mixing bananas, black plums, peaches & nectarines with a little plain yogurt and ice.  I add a little Sweet-N-Low because this mix tends to bite back since the yogurt is plain.

Bananas are a great base and we always have a bunch sitting around that are ready to go in.  It is kind of fun to grab fruit and just grind it up into this sweet yummy drink.  I can make 72 ounces of yum in about 5 minutes.  I think I will start experimenting with a little mocha next.

This baby also does dough and it will crumb a pack of Oreo cookies in a split second.  I am looking forward to doing this with Nilla Wafers an graham crackers for desert layers or as pie crusts for pudding pies.  I let a couple Oreos fall in the smoothies a few nights ago and it was pretty good.

Oh the possibilities…

Thank you once again Mom & Dad!

16th Anniversary

We celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary on Friday, August 26th.  I came home from my class in Prineville on Thursday night and I found these little beauties waiting for me!  They are so pretty.  I just had to take some pictures of them.

It is now more than a week later and they are still going strong and I have 2 more left that need to open up.  Unbelievable!

Of course I got some other goodies too!  These little babies are to make pearls!!!!  Applause!!!!!  You just squeeze these and make whatever size pearl you want.  And, I can make them in all of these colors – YAY!  I also received a couple of Copic markers and a video on learning to use the Copic Sketch markers.

My wonderful hubby received camo.  Here he is kind of avoiding the camera in his new beanie and long sleeve shirt.  Not pictured is his hard camo phone case.

My picture seems to be a bit blurry – GRRRRR!  I guess you get the idea though…

My sweetie also took me to the Saturday Markets in Bend.  That was a lot of fun and really nice of him.  Here is the kicker…

Saturday was opening day of bow season.  Anyone who knows my husbands knows that we are usually in camp on the eve of opening day.  I had completely expected him or all of us to be in the woods but he stayed home with me this year!  I guess I must finally be growing on him – poor guy!

Silver Lake Continued…

The continuation of the trip to Silver Lake is finally getting completed!  I have been just a bit distracted with school registration, school supplies, school clothes, school shoes and football equipment.  Gee, does anyone see a pattern here?  Yes, school is about to start but more about that later.

I think the last time I posted I went over or dinner at the Dinner Tree.  I do not think I mentioned the white butterflies that appeared everywhere when we arrived in Silver Lake.  There were swarms, flocks, groups, or whatever you call them everywhere.  They were all just floating around.  We woke up fairly early on Sunday and I was able to catch them resting in the pine trees.

Kim made us a wonderful sourdough pancake & egg breakfast.  Totally yummy – I need to get the sourdough recipe .   Here she is cooking away and Hunter enjoying his plate full of goodness.

After breakfast Al, Kim & I got down to business and created the artwork for “Al’s Welding Works” to be used on business cards and a vehicle magnet.  Here is the finished product.

That “retired” father-in-law of mine will be drumming up more business than he wants now   It was a really enjoyable work period for me.

We were able to visit a bit more on the back porch before we left.  We played ball with Shady and enjoyed the weather.

And then it was time to head back home.  I took a few parting pictures of the dragon flies and we said our goodbyes…

I especially enjoyed chatting and laughing with KIM.  We had a very wonderful visit and it will be nice to go back soon.

Weekend in Silver Lake

We traveled to Silver Lake over the past weekend to visit with my in-laws, Al & Kim Espinola.  We had a wonderful time visiting and I wish we could have stayed longer.  Funny that I wanted to stay longer b\c I am really a home body.

We got a late start Saturday morning and we only had about 85 miles to go.  We stopped in Lapine to pick up a craigslist item I had been begging a man to hold for me .  We also stopped at Subway to grab some breakfast which was totally yummy!

We eventually arrived and visited most of the day; only stopping to eat some fruit salad and cheese with crackers.

Saturday night we went to dinner at Cowboy Dinner Tree.  

Ariel Pic of Cowboy Dinner Tree

http://cowboydinnertree.net/  We got a nice salad, melt in your mouth dinner rolls, beans or soup, baked potato, a 26 oz. steak or a whole chicken and a berry cake desert.  Of course it was too much food to process so we had to take it home in a baggy.

Kim & Al know everyone that works there so we met all sorts of interesting people.  Al was just filling everyone in on Triple E Promotions too – thanks for all of the advertising!  You just never know when you will land a job

Here are some pictures I took while we were out to dinner.

This is the gift shop.  The actual restaurant is off to the left but I didn’t get a picture of it; the building is similar to this one.

Here is Warren & Hunter Standing in front of the cook shack.  All the meat smelled sooooo good!

Factoid:  Al built the chicken cooker a long time ago and they are still cooking away on it.

Here is Kim!  She is usually a blur in photos b\c she is always in a state of movement!  This time I got her and the only thing blurry is her earring that is still moving.  She is visiting with a longtime friend in the gift shop.

And here is a picture of the boys in the gift shop.  3 generations of Espinolas standing there.  I think Hunter is just about the same height as Papa Al !

We went into have our dinner after all the visiting and it was dark by the time we came out.  I did get one picture of an outside wall that had a bunch of neat antique implements on it.  It looks like old tack and maybe a bed warmer there in the middle.

That’s all for now – more on our visit with Kim & Al tomorrow.