JoJo's Birthday - Wipe out Style!

The highlight of Jonathan's week is watching the TV show "Wipeout." I have to admit, it is kind of funny... but it has always been his DREAM to try this over sized, messy obstacle course! For his birthday, Allison (Jonathan's niece from Ohio) and I created our own little version of wipeout.

The "Big Balls" are the highlight of the show so they had to be the highlight of the cake! Since we don't each sugar anymore, making this cake was a bit of a challenge, but it was pretty fun- and you have to have the guys falling off the big balls!

He was such a good sport- I love this guy!

Of course, as soon as he was done, Jonathan turned on the kids that "helped" with the course. Armed with silly string, water balloons and shaving cream, the kids had almost as much fun as JoJo!

Next year is the big "Three O" .... what will next year bring??

Unfortunately, the video didn't load, so if you want to watch it, you will have to checkout my facebook.

Yellowstone with Allison

We took Jonathan's niece Allison to Yellowstone a few weeks ago and it was BEAUTIFUL! I know it looks fake, but we really are sitting in front of the falls... and it looks like Allison doesn't want to be anywhere near us.

We saw the coolest rainbow directly over our heads!

Nothing like a little drive through Yellowstone.... and almost getting run over by Bison.

I am trying to find new perspectives to photograph. This picture was taken at the new visitors center at Old Faithful. Its a refection on the window. Someday I will get better at this whole photography thing!

I can't wait to take my parents back to Yellowstone in just a few weeks!

Happy Place

We all should have a happy place and I think I have found another one of mine. The other night, I was watering flowers while watching TONS of fireworks go off around me. When I finished, I decided to just sit in the grass and watch the show. As I was watching, I started to notice how peaceful my backyard was. When Jonathan and I bought our house 6 years ago, we knew we wanted to have a backyard retreat, but had NO IDEA how much work it would be. We did EVERYTHING ourselves. Looking across reminded me of the MANY, MANY, MANY weeks spent working on each phase of the yard- from raking up rocks, digging trenches, laying sod, putting up the fence, building the pergola-twice, laying pavers, putting in the gardens, building stairs, planting roses, and MANY, MANY more little things. I should mention that I put in the fire pit ALL BY MYSELF! Most of this was new to both of us and while the fence almost cost us our marriage, looking across our yard brings a smile to my face. We started with dirt....actually it was clay. And now, we really enjoy our backyard. While it's not perfect, we made it. I really hope that someday, when we sell our house, the new owners will enjoy it as much or even more, than we do.

Sunday Afternoon lunch

"I'm STARVING" are almost always the first words out of my cute hubbies mouth when we get home from church. The trick is getting the church clothes put away before they are covered with dog hair and then lunch made BEFORE my cute husband "melts" away from hunger. Our new solution- Rachel Rays' Sweet Corn Quesadillas! YUMMY! I did change it up a little big- I am lazy/cheap so I used canned corn and roasted red peppers from a jar but so good and so fast!

Just so you know, I HAD to make a 3rd one so I could take a picture because they were gone so fast!

You can check out her recipe -http://www.rachaelraymag.com/Recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipe-search/fast-recipes/sweet-corn-quesadillas ENJOY!