What we did over the holidays - Part 1

So I promised a "what we've been up to" post and here it is.  I started out doing 1 post, but soon realized it was a little picture overload, so I'm splitting it up.

For those of you who don't know, I'm a veterinarian and currently working as a relief vet.  Basically, that means I'm a "substitute" vet, and I work for whoever needs help at the time.  I have a few clinics I work for on a weekly basis and several who just call me to fill in.  In this line of work, the holidays are very busy.  Since everyone else is taking time off, they call me to help.  Starting around Thanksgiving, I've been working 50-60 hours a week.  Add that in with all the shopping and decorating for my favorite time of year - I've been very busy.  At one point, I just had to let go and tell myself I didn't have to do everything.  Some of the grand plans I had for this Christmas just didn't happen.  I wish had some great pictures of the house decorated, but that didn't happen either - maybe next year!

For our Christmas picture, we decided to include Dean, our foster dog.  He may not be a permanent addition to the family, but he is definitely special.  That did make things a little more difficult since he is afraid of cameras.  Here's the final pic:

As for Christmas, we headed up to Memphis to spend the holiday with my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and 3 year old nephew.  We had an amazing time!  We ate plenty of delicious food - including Gus' fried chicken - which really is the best chicken you will ever eat.  In fact, we ate there twice on this trip!

Gramps & Elijah

 And there was plenty of playing with my nephew...

every kids needs a superhero cape!

he loved the nativity

and when he was done, he put everything up

 baked some Christmas cookies

Took our annual family photo for the Christmas card

playing with the camera

And as with every 3 year old, there were plenty of tears, 

but Aunt Heather wasn't going to let them last long...

an iphone helps...

 Christmas morning takes a while with a 3 year old.  He wants to play with everything as he gets it.  In our family, we take turns opening gifts so everyone gets to see what each person received.  Elijah ranked the gifts in importance by how long he looked at it with you.  Apparently, adult gifts aren't very interesting.  I did get a new lens for the Nikon, which I am very excited to play with.

Christmas morning

not sure what Gramps was instructed to be here, but he did it!

And it SNOWED!!  Not much, but plenty for this southerner.  When I used to go to my parents house in Maryland for Christmas, I would always hope for snow.  It never happened - until they moved to Tennessee!

just enough for a little snowman

trying out the new lens

We even made time to get out and do a little sightseeing around town.  One night we ventured out to see one of those drive-through light displays.  When we got out at the little Christmas village, they had camels you could ride!  I have to say, I kinda wanted to do it...

  Chris, Emily, Cameron, and I went downtown to visit Sun Studios.  They discovered Elvis and recorded many of the classics from back in the day.  I was surprised to learn they are still an active recording studio.

posing with the same microphone Elvis used.  Doesn't Cameron look thrilled?

Then we walked around Beale Street for a while before meeting up with Nana, Gramps, and Elijah to watch the Peabody ducks get out of the fountain and go upstairs for the night.  I think it's funny that they get these ducks to get out of the water and walk down a red carpet to the elevator every day.  It was really crowded since it was Christmas time and a bowl game was being played in Memphis.

Later that night, Cameron and I headed to the midtown area to meet up with my vet school friend, Jane Ashley.  She grew up in Arkansas just over the state line and was in town for Christmas.  I haven't seen her since we graduated and it was soooo good to catch up!

We had a wonderful time, but the trip was way too short!! 

Stay tuned for part 2...

Happy New Year!

Remember me?  I'm Heather, and I used to blog here...

I apologize for the extended absence.  Life took over and the blog took a backseat.  I was working crazy hours for the last couple of months and my free time was spent preparing for the holidays, spending time with family & friends, a little traveling, oh yeah, and a tornado.  Don't worry - everyone is safe & sound, but I will catch up on the recent happenings in another post.  On to the topic of this post...

via

 Today marks the beginning of a new year - and the 1 year anniversary of my little blog.  I have to say it's been fun, and I'm looking forward to another year.  I thought it would be a good idea to look back at my 2012 resolutions and see what I accomplished (and didn't!):

1) Start a blog - Check

2) Learn to operate the fancy Nikon camera - working on it.  I have definitely made improvements in this area.  I at least know how to take it off auto and how to make some adjustments to improve the pictures.  Not quite where I hoped to be in a year, though.

3) Scrapbook more - Fail.  This one really didn't happen at all and will roll over to the 2013 list!

4) Improve my cooking repertoire - yes and no.  I did make a lot of new recipes this year.  But my goal was to branch out into other categories besides main & side dishes.  I did some of this, but not quite as much as I had hoped.

5) Exercise - not bad.  I accomplished my goal of running my first 5K, but running still didn't become a habit for me.  I still run off and on depending on my schedule.  My endurance is much better than it was a year ago though, so I'm happy with my progress.

So what do I want to accomplish in 2013?  I have to say my 2013 new year's resolutions aren't that much different.

1) Be a better blogger.  I doubt that I will ever be a daily blogger, but I do plan to post more regularly and not have extended absences. 

2) Continue working on my photography.  One way I plan to do this is through a photo-a-day challenge.  I found Fat Mum Slim through Pinterest.  Each month she posts a list with a picture challenge for each day.  While I'd like to do this for a whole year, I'm just taking it a month at a time - got to be realistic, right?  I may stray from the list at times, but my goal is to use the Nikon each day.  Get ready for lots of photo dumps!

3) Scrapbook / craft more.  See 2012, 'nuf said.

4) Be a better housekeeper.  Instead of cooking, I'm adding housekeeping this year as my "suzy homemaker" resolution.  Don't get me wrong, there will still be plenty of recipe experimentation, but I think I did pretty well last year.  Time to work on something else.  Cameron and I are both pretty good about the "surface cleaning" - picking up, sweeping/vacuuming, etc.  It's the deeper cleaning we never think to do - like baseboards, wiping down doors, cleaning windows...  You know, the fun stuff.  My mom is a great housekeeper and their house is always spotless.  I never realized quite how much work it took to keep it that way - especially when you have 4 fur-babies!

5) Exercise / Running.  Yep, it's back on the list.  (Isn't it on everyone's list?)  This year, I want to make running a habit - at least 3x a week.  And I want to run in more than just 1 race this year.  The only thing standing in my way of this one is myself (and laziness!)

So that's my list.  Here's to a new year and new beginnings!!

Yard Crashers

Cameron & I definitely lack green thumbs, and our yard shows it.  This is what the yard looked like when we moved in:

A few bushes & azaleas in the front and nothing in the back. 

Our first spring in the house, we got the itch to do some yardwork.  Because that's what homeowners do, right?  We tore down the decrepit swing, and laid out some beds with brick edgers.  We planted a few plants and hoped for the best.

After we covered the deck, I started to spend more time in the backyard and yearned for a beautiful yard.  It's a lot to wish for given that we have 2 (now 3) rambunctious dogs and 3 water oaks - not a good combination!  This summer, I had had enough.  I called in the big guns - MOM.  My mother comes from a family of gardeners.  My grandmother, mom, & aunts know their stuff.  For years they have been trying to pass off cuttings of this, and bulbs of that to me.  I was just not interested - until now.   When my mom visited this summer, we talked a lot about where the sun hit in the yard and what plants would work where.  She advised me to hold off on planting bushes until it cooled off.  Last week, Cameron & I took a couple days off work, she came down from Memphis to help and we went to work.

Here are the befores on Thursday:

And here are the afters:

In the front, we dug up the 4 white azaleas to relocate them to the backyard.    We moved the pink azaleas to the end and added boxwoods & pansies on both sides.

On the side of the house, we have an orange tree that was massively overgrown.  I didn't take a before picture, but here's everything we cut off the tree...

and here's the finished result.

We went ahead and picked the oranges, even though some still have a ways to go before they are ripe.  We ended up with over 100 of them. 

And I saved the sweet little bird's nest we found.

As for the backyard -

We kept the same layout for the beds, but filled them in with more soil.  We added loropetalums and some azalea cuttings from my mom's yard in front of the camellia - one of the few survivors from my first attempt at landscaping.

We added several Indian hawthornes & golden euonymus in the sunny area.

Then more azaleas, a few sasanquas in a beautiful bright pink color, and several cleyeras on the shady side.

Around the deck, we planted gardenias & Japanese holly.

While I wish we had a lush, beautiful lawn - baby steps.  This spring we will address sod.  But for now, I'm thrilled with the improvement.  Now, if we can just keep everything alive...

Happy Birthday, Lilly!

Last Thursday, we celebrated Lilly's 4th birthday.  Yep, we celebrated our dog's birthday.  That's completely normal, right?  We may not have 2-legged kids, but we definitely view our dogs as our children.

Her "Uncle Harry" came over for dinner, and I tried out a recipe for dog-friendly cupcakes that I found on Pinterest.  The dogs sure loved them, but they weren't exactly "people-friendly!"  They had oats, pumpkin, and applesauce in them with fat-free cream cheese for "frosting."  You can find the recipe here.

They humored us with the party hats, but I could tell Dean was not very excited.

 Harry brought Lilly a new toy, which he proceded to tease her with...

I think Lilly enjoyed her birthday ;)

Dean

I realized the other day that I never mentioned our new foster dog, Dean, on the blog.

I guess he's not really "new" anymore!  Dean came into our life at the end of August.  Some of you may remember we had a foster dog, Hank, this spring.  Dean came to us through the same organization, here.

 

What can I say?  We're sucker for German Shorthairs!  Dean was pulled from a shelter in Tennessee.  He was horribly emaciated.  He lived in another temporary foster home for a couple months until one of the group's coordinators contacted me about being a permanent foster for him.  How could I say no?  He was transported by multiple rescue volunteers to Evergreen, AL, where we picked him up at a truckstop.  He was still very skinny when we got him, but I have worked on putting some weight on him!  Since he was a stray, we don't know much about him.  He is about 5 years old and has a limp.  He is skittish if you make any sudden movements, and scared of the cat, but he has got to be the most affectionate dog I have ever met!!  If he could snuggle up with you all day long, he'd be the happiest dog in the world.

Quite frankly - I'm attached.  I tease Cameron that we may be "foster failures" with this guy, at which point he reminds me that our house is a bit of a zoo with 4 animals!  In fact I still haven't posted him on the group's website.  It's on my to-do list - promise.  Secretly, it's because I don't want to let him go.  But I agree, while we love him very much, I want to find him the perfect forever home.  So if anyone out there is looking for a sweet older guy to snuggle with, let me know!

***Updated 11/12 - If you are interested in adopted Dean, you can find out more information here.

Redfish on the Half Shell

Our nephew, William, loves his Uncle Cameron.  Apparently he talks about him a lot at home and "calls" him on his pretend phone almost daily.  So a couple weeks ago, Cameron decided to treat him to a special day, just the two of them.  They started out with lunch at Chickfila, then took the boat out for an afternoon of fishing.

They had an amazing time.  I think it is so special for Cameron to share these moments with our nephews.  Needless, to say the older two were very jealous and already planning when Uncle Cameron will take them fishing - without William!

Since Cameron brought home a good-sized redfish, we decided to have redfish on the half-shell for dinner.  We've done it before, but I actually remembered to take pictures this time.  Cameron filleted the fish, leaving the skin on.

Then he made a mixture of melted butter, lots of garlic, Worcestershire sauce, Tony Chachere's cajun seasoning, and some lemon juice.  Sorry, there are no measurements - he's just not that kind of cook.

Then, he put it straight on the grill...

And we ended up with this.  So good!

Tonight, we're having the whole family over for a fish fry to enjoy the rest of their catch that day.  Should be delicious!