Our latest past time...

Our city's Athletic Center...


is where you will find us nearly every afternoon during the week.



It's a great place to cool off and get a little water exercise.

This is a fun contraption in the kiddie area.

The buckets fill up and dump when they get full.

There's also this fun "mushroom" fountain, which you can stand under...

A big slide that I am going to attempt one day...

A life size water tower that over flows...

And of course our favorite the lazy river... (Skippy is right there in the middle)


Here he is vigorously exercising his legs....

And me? Well, I'm contemplating the need of a pedicure...

Tomato Pie

It's that time of year....fresh homegrown tomatoes!!

And here's a great recipe to use them....

I didn't think about blogging this until I was almost done so there is no "cast of characters" and the recipe is completely blurry, but here we go...

Underneath all this lushness lies a bed of mozzarella cheese...

3/4 of a pound!!

Not 3/4 of a cup...

THREE FOURTHS OF A POUND!

IN EACH PIE!!

On top of a prebaked pie crust, the on top of the cheese is layered tomatoes, green onions, bacon pieces and herbs. Pop it in the oven and bake. Makes a really yummy lunch with a big glass of iced tea....


~PERFECTO~

Keepin' the kitchen cool...

The largest window in our kitchen faces the west...which means in the summer afternoons it gets quite hot near this window.

Well, this year I tried something different...I planted some morning glories outside this window, strung some twine from the top of the window to the ground and the rest is a nice window treatment made of morning glories.

Here's the view from the inside of the kitchen...it just LOOKS cool and does actually make a difference. I saw one bloom several weeks ago, but none since...these were suppose to be annuals but they come back every year, but this is the first year I haven't had plants full of blooms. They've even been doctored with Miracle Grow and Super Bloom and still a big fat nothing in regards to blooms. Oh well, they do provide a cool shade!

So now here's where I went over the top of making it a redneck project....

I had tallest son (6ft 4 to be exact) cover the sky light in the kitchen with tin (if you're real country!) or aluminum (if you're city slick)foil the last time he made a visit.

WOW, what a difference shading the sources of the sun makes!

Mud Bath

I ran across this and thought it might be fun to share. This was about 2 years ago. My how they've grown! Notice how well I enforce the rules....NOT!