Puppy-Riffic!

We sure do have a BIG puppy on our hands!  We know she is for sure over 40 lbs and just in the last few days... we think think she has grown yet again.  We think she may easily be 50 pounds now.  She's getting too heavy for me to pick up anymore.  And she is 100% puppy... plays hard, sleeps hard.  I'm hoping she stops growing... but I can't say that with much certainty... One thing is for sure, the bigger she gets, the cuter she gets!  One BIG hairball she is!  I know one of these days I'll have to take her in for a haircut... I'd rather her just be one big fluffball and never have to cut her baby locks  :)  It's amazing how much a dog can consume all of our spare time, so much fun to hang out with, but she's sooo worth it!   Here are the latest pics!

Snuggly like a teddy bear

Our BIG baby

Getting tall and likes to dance

Bigger bed for a bigger pup

All smiles

She's not on the furniture much, but we give in if she wants up

Car rides are her favorite

Wind blown hairdo

"When's dinner?"

"Pass the remote control and that bag of Fritos"

Can't see eyes but one big nose

Lovin' Life

Basking in the sun

"Do I finally get my treat?"

"In the midst of playtime, the neighbors have caught my eye"

She has big floppy ears that fly in the wind

 

Loves to chill on the deck

Sunday Dinner

On Sunday I blocked out my afternoon to whip up our special occasion meal for no special occasion other than it sounded good.  I really like to cook but don’t really like going to a lot of work.  Well this meal is a whole lot of work!  Something I have to decide well in advance to commit to and not at last minute.  Peeling potatoes, boiling them, slicing them thinly, pounding out chicken, numerous ingredients involved, lots of measuring, lots of dirty pans, etc.   So if you are going to make this meal… you better go all out and that’s just what I did!  And this meal is worth every minute of it.   

At 3 pm, I turned on the R&B Soul channel and got busy.  Once it hit 5 o’clock, I popped opened our favorite bottle of wine, Cabernet Savignon Louis M. Martini. This is a fabulous bottle of wine and has become our house favorite.   This Sonoma wine knocks the socks off of any Napa cab I’ve had. 

Starting out we had iceberg lettuce, baby tomatoes, dried Parmesan cheese, and a recipe I found on Pinterest for a knock off Olive Garden dressing recipe.  Which was very good!  I found this cute dressing kit at Target with a mini carafe thru Good Seasonings.  I was surprised how cheap it was!  It was under $5 and included 2 dressing packets and additional recipes were on the box.  Perfect!  I even chilled the bowl with the lettuce in it ahead time, imitating Olive Garden.

Then onto the Pimento Cheese Potatoes.  YUMMY!  If you want unique potato side dish, this is the one.  The cream based sauce that gets poured over top just melts in your mouth. 

And the main… Chicken Marsala.  This particular recipe ranks up there with all the restaurant professional versions I’ve had.  As I like to say, yummers in my tummers!

And for dessert, I didn’t take a picture but after all that hard work I was not going to make homemade dessert so we had Market Pantry Turtle Cheesecake from the frozen section at Target and Haagan- Dazs Butter Pecan Ice Cream to go along.  Dessert isn’t complete without a nice brewed cup of coffee. 

Did we eat good at the Hyde Household on Sunday!  This calls for hitting it extra hard at the gym this week.

My Friend, The Wobbler

It’s called the Wobbler. It’s a life saver. It has saved us from going completely insane on some days…

 To explain… when I get home from a long day, I like to have roughly a 20 minute transition period to do a few things and get settled in. What I don’t like is feeding Charley, who loves to eat so she woofs it down in 2 flat seconds and then attacks me because she wants to play right away. It interferes with that 20 minutes I desperately need. So we found a solution that has been a true life saver! The Wobbler!

The Wobbler (made by Kong) basically is a feeding toy that she must hit with her paws to get her kernels of food out. The hole is big enough to allow one to several pieces to come out at one time. Sweet Guacamole do I want to kiss whoever came up with this idea! I ran out and bought it as soon I stumbled across it online. $23 at Petsmart, worth every penny.

The first time we gave Charley the Wobbler she knew there was her food in it but was slightly confused. I knocked it over once with my foot and that’s all it took for her to catch on. The first feeding took 45 minutes and afterwards she was so tired she laid down and slept all night. I was like HOLY COWABUNGA this is amazing! Over the next weeks, she got it down to 20 minutes and today it takes her between 15-20 minutes. Just the time I need to myself after work! Instead of attacking me, she attacks the Wobbler.

The only disadvantage is I do have to Swifter mop the kitchen floor weekly now but that only takes a few short minutes. And her food is dry so it really doesn’t make the floors that more messy but I still like to clean it weekly now. As much as I do hate mopping… the trade off is very much worth it!  Happy Dog, Happy Dog Mom!

Super Bowl Food

For Super Bowl Sunday, I tried a few new recipes. Starting off the day was a recipe I found on Pinterest that caught my eye for Blueberry Breakfast Cake. It caught my eye because it uses buttermilk. I fully agree with this websites opinion in regards to buttermilk making everything more delish! I have a banana bread recipe that is out of this world good because the key ingredient is buttermilk. Another big plus to this recipe is that I made it up the night before so all I had to do was roll out of bed and preheat the oven.

Here is the link to the recipe:
http://www.alexandracooks.com/2011/06/29/buttermilk-blueberry-breakfast-cake/

Loads of blueberries

Everything is better with coffee!

For kickoff, I made BBQ Chicken Pizza Roll Up that I discovered in my Taste of Home magazine. It was easier to make than I thought it would be… the refrigerated pizza crust I used was specific for thin pizzas which I recommend, it was enough bread but not too much so it wasn’t too dry tasting. I always forget that I don’t really like cilantro. Since I’m lazy and don’t measure, I went a little crazy with the cilantro so I think next time I will lay off the cilantro and pile on the Italian seasoning instead. Here’s the link to this one:

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/BBQ-Chicken-Pizza-Roll-Up
For me… Super Bowl is all about having good food!

The Countdown Is On!

Being that winter finally arrived outside today, time to day dream about vacation! Caribbean here we come!  We decided to give a cruise a try for this year, just something about waking up in a new place every day on vacation sounds intriguing. 

Cruisin' in the Caribbean!

We are set to arrive in Miami early afternoon and we will head down to South Beach. We have a hotel within a few blocks of the beach.  I found a nice Italian restaurant for that evening, looks like a great date night place!  
 

I can hear that Will Smith song... Welcome to Miami!

Our hotel lobby, south beach ambiance

The following day we don’t need to board the ship until later in the day so we have some more time in South Beach. We will board the ship at a decent time though, I want to get settled in and explore the ship. Plus it sounds like the embarkment party is pretty fun so we won't want to miss that!

Hello South Beach!

The ship

We arrive the next day to the island of Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. I have so badly wanted to visit the grounds of the Atlantis Resort and my dream is going to come true! We are going to have a Beach Day at the Atlantis Resort and get to explore the property and exhibits.  I cannot wait to see this place in person!

Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island

That evening we are going on a sunset champagne catamaran cruise, the description says we will be dancing the night away under the stars... I’m a sucker for cheesy descriptions!

champagne cruise

whoa... movin and a shakin!

The following day we arrive on the cruise line's private island, CocoCay. We aren't going to do anything this day but rent floating beach mats in the crystal clear water with drinks in hand, now that’s what I call vacation!

Can't wait to do a whole lot of nothing!

The next day we wake up in Key West, I’ve always wanted to go to the Florida Keys!  This day we are going on a glass bottom boat tour to the only living coral reef in the US and 3^rd largest in the world. We were torn between that and the Pub Crawl but since the timing conflicted with each other, it was a pretty easy decision to choose the glass bottom boat over the pub crawl. Who can ever get sick of the water and the beach?!?!

Glass Bottom Boat

The next morning we come back to Miami in which I'm trying to get us on an everglades safari before our afternoon departure back home. Still working on arranging that... not sure if it will work out or not...

Alligators anyone?!?!

I daydream about vacation EVERY SINGLE DAY.  I’m staying preoccupied right now shopping for summer clothes.  I need some more swimsuits, cover ups, and shoes and of course I’m already coming across some other great finds for this vacation. 

 We also need to get into shape!  I tried my swim suit on yesterday and YIKES!  I’ve ramped up my work outs and have a goal in mind. No more jello arms, muffin tops, and tucking my butt into my jeans!  Time for me to get down to business folks, I got vacation on my mind!