Florida, Other Stuff

We were gone for 8 days and while the beach is amazing it's nice to see and do other things too.

On Tuesday while my Grandmother was working on a book her Republican women's club is putting together we went to the Zoo of Northwest Florida. It's a little hurricane battered and they are still fixing things from last season. I can't say its all that nice, but they did have some interesting animals. Lions, tigers, zebras, kangaroos, fruit bats...and the sweetest orangutans I have ever seen! Their enclosure made me sad, its really an enclosure, the walls are VERY high and you can only see them through a few tiny windows. I was sitting on the ledge of one of the windows talking to David when I heard a loud thump. I turned around and Mama and Baby O were pressed against the window making faces. So naturally I had to return the gesture!



We ate at Cantina Laredo one day, which I ate all the time in Austin and really missed, and this creole place called Pat O'Briens. They had great live music and Sam really liked my pasta! I think I got to eat maybe half of it, so naturally I had to have dessert. I wanted their hurricane mixed berries, but since they were out settled for beignets. Yum!

Every place we ate at Sam really seemed to like the waitresses. He smiled and waved...he's a flirt already.

Our last day there we took a Polaris four-wheeler off-road and went up the beach in Pensacola to Fort Pickens. It was built in 1834 and used until 1947. They restored it once but Hurricane Ivan really did some damage. They closed the tour office but you can still do self-guided tours. It was amazing, and we had the entire complex to ourselves. I hadn't realized that it was so far off the beaten path, or how long we would be there so I was a little unprepared, and a little grumpy. My outlook brightened considerably when I realized that the bathrooms and water fountain were in working order. :) The Fort was fascinating, Sam never smiles or anything for pictures but David managed to get this candid:

And here are a few other Fort pictures:

Florida, the Beaches

Last week David took some much needed time off of work so we packed the Pathfinder and headed to Fort Walton Beach (FWB), Florida! My Uncle/Grandmother have a house there so we were able to enjoy all of the beaches without the expense of a condo. It was wonderful!

FWB has the wonderful position of being two bridges away from Destin and about 40 minutes from Pensacola. In between there are any number of public beaches to stake an umbrella and dig a big hole. We did go to one of the Destin beaches one day but honestly weren't that impressed. Our favorites were the beach in Navarre and the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Navarre had pieces of sand dollars everywhere that if they had been whole would have been the size of a salad plate. By the time we got to the beach in the afternoons they had already been well combed of anything in one piece. The water was still pretty frigid and Sam would just run away from it. Towards the end he started to be comfortable with it and thought the foam on his toes was funny.

I've gotten very pale over the last few years so the combination of white sands, bright sun and waning sunscreen turned me into a lobster the very first day. Now I'm nice and tan....and molting. Totally worth it. Here are some pictures from our time at the beach. I'll add other posts for the other things that we did since its getting longish. :)

This is in FWB on Sunday. Sam and David buried me and then Sam sat on top of me. It took me awhile to dig out.


The wind was a little crazy the first few days and it made it pretty chilly by the water, not really bathing suit friendly.


Sam in the nice big hole David and I dug in Navarre. It took a couple of tries to get it going. Every time we had hole barely started Sam would climb into it. (Blogger keeps rotating this picture, it's not like this on the computer.)


Sam and Dad in the nice canal David dug at the National Seashore. Please note the stairs David put in to help Sam clamber into it. :)


Some of the nicer waters we saw at the National Seashore.


Need I say more? :)

Easter

I'm a little late to the blog about Easter party, but when you have about 300 pictures (literally), culling them down to the select few to post can take a little while.

For the weekend we headed down to David's parents house in Liberty Hill. My Mom (who has officially been named 'Gigi' and is no longer 'Grandma') flew to Austin (courtesy of David's parents, they're so great) and we picked her up on the way. It was so wonderful to get to spend the whole weekend with everyone I love!


We didn't really "do" much of anything the whole weekend. We just hung out and enjoyed each others company. Saturday we filled a kajillion Easter eggs to hide in the house, Sam's were filled with little puffs and organic biscuits so that he could have 'treats' as well. The upstairs part of their house has all of the toys and things from when various people were children. One of the things I love about their house is that almost everything in it belonged to somebody else somewhere up the family tree. Sam found Nonnie's rocking horse and absolutely LOVED riding. He squealed with delight and we couldn't get him off of it. Cousins Tori and Alee found Veggie Tales tapes and they watched them together, while Sam was on his horse of course.





On Easter we all went to church at First Baptist Georgetown, Sam slept through a little bit of it but then Daddy had to take him outside for the rest of the service. While we were getting ready Sam, Tori and Alee hunted Easter eggs. Sam got so excited with the first one he found that we couldn't get him to pick up any more. While we were all in our Sunday best we took some bluebonnet pictures, Texas is in a wee bit of a drought so they aren't as thick as they usually are. But they were still lovely.






Easter lunch was a lovely steak dinner, and then it was time to go. We headed back to Austin around 4:30 that afternoon. Gigi got to stay until Monday afternoon, lucky. Going to their house in the 'country' is always such a restful time. Austin and it's suburbs are rapidly encroaching, but for the moment we just try and ignore it. :)

Tangy Beef Stroganoff

This is one of the meals that a couple in our Sunday School class brought us after we had Samuel. It's a fast, different way to make Stroganoff have a little more zip. :) It's SOOO yummy, I make broccoli or salad to go with it.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound sirloin steak
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 cup sliced onion
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 2 teaspoons beef bouillon granules
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 cup (8 oz) sour cream (I use fat free)
  
• Hot cooked noodles
• Paprika and chopped fresh parsley

Directions:

Cut beef into 1/8-in. thick strips. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook beef in butter until no longer pink. Remove with a slotted spoon and keep warm. In pan juices, cook mushrooms, onion and garlic until tender; stir in flour. Add water, lemon juice, vinegar, bouillon, salt and pepper; bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Stir in sour cream and beef; heat through (do not boil). Serve over noodles. Garnish with paprika and parsley. Yield: 4 servings.

A little tip...

I love cooking, and as a result I have quite a few random herbs and spices lying around our kitchen. Ground fennel, cardamom, garam masala and herbes de Provence being a few of the fairly odd fellows. Most of you have at some point I'm sure looked at the prices of herbs and spices at the grocery store and thought, "Ack! $6.00 for 1.7 oz of ground coriander? Really?"

It's got to be fairly common knowledge by now, but if it's not here's a tip: you can buy spices and herbs in 'bulk' at Central Market and other similar stores! They have pretty much anything you could possibly ever need and for a fraction of the cost. I stocked up this weekend on some staples and here's what I paid. (The price is per baggie, and one baggie more than fills a 2 oz spice jar.)

Sesame Seeds, hulled, white: $0.88
Garam Masala: $0.66
Oregano: $0.33
Thyme: $0.41
Bay Leaves: $0.11
Parsley (2 baggies): $0.72
Basil (2 baggies): $0.50



Much better than retail no? I've been replacing Adams, McCormick, and Co. little by little as I run out with bulk in jars Central Market carries for $0.99. Another nice thing about it is that when you need something for a recipe that you make only rarely (or experimentally...) and you don't need a full jar, you can go pick up just what you need for pennies! It's wonderful.

Sicko(s)

The past several days has been all about doctors and resting and the pharmacy and praying for this to be over!

Last Wednesday (the 25th) after he saw the pediatrician, Sam's congestion woke me up in the middle of the night. He proceeded to have a cold through the weekend and is still a little drippy. This Wednesday he decided not to sleep most of the night because he had a high fever and was digging at his ears. The kid seems fairly ear infection prone so I just assumed it was another and so off to Dr. Cook we went, again. But no! His ears look great, his throat not so much. Some virus just let itself in and we're waiting for it to say goodbye. Today he seems better, finally, so hopefully it's nearly through.

I on the other hand, started running a fever last Friday and just assumed I was getting Sam's cold. The fever never abated but I never got drippy so I was kind of at a loss for ideas. I had to miss nursery duty Sunday morning, and David and I were both really looking forward to getting to play with Sam instead of hearing the sermon. Instead Daddy got Sam time and Mommy found an alcove to watch the sermon in alone, I really felt terrible. That night the fever spiked above 104 and things started clicking in my brain. "Feels like the flu, my right breast is huge for some reason, uh oh..." I have mastitis. Boo! Ladies, let me just tell you, not fun. But the worst is past thanks to some antibiotics. I had been trying to wean Sam but had to stop since I got the infection. Sam actually seems happy that I had to up the nursing for awhile. For a boy that wouldn't nurse until he was 2 months old it's amazing that it's lasted this long. I really will miss it when it's gone. But, as my OB said Wednesday, "If you want to keep breastfeeding, have another baby." Ha! I'll have my sweet memories to tide me over until God says it's time.