I want someone to give me this kind of day!

Savannah made it up before I did!  Started the morning out at 7am.  For some reason, I was exhausted (can't figure out why??!!!) and slept in until 8am.  We decided to leave the house at 9:30 and headed out for a fun Aunt/Niece day!  I asked Savannah what she wanted to do first.  (Evidently it was a silly question)  Pedicure, please!  So off to Tipsy Toes we went.

Could she have found a brighter pink????

Savannah loved it!  She even wanted to know what kind of lotion they used, when they gave her the mini leg massage.  She kept feeling her legs and telling me how smooth they were!  "Feel my legs, Auntie!"  So easily pleased.
Now it was time to do some serious shopping and damage to my debit card.  Off to TJMax and Old Navy.  We found a lot of cute things and Savannah managed to make out with a total of 6 shirts, a pair of bermuda shorts and linen shorts.  Now I want a shopping spree!  Any volunteers out there??  Here's what we came home with...

After all of that shopping, I had one starving, starting to get grumpy kid on my hands.  Where in the world was Sonic?  It seemed like we drove forever before I managed to find one and get some food into my poor little niece.

It's amazing what a little food can do.  Savannah was happy within minutes of chowing down on a very large cheeseburger, fries and cherry-limeade.  All is right with the world now.
Savannah really wanted to bake, so she picked out a cake that she wanted to make and got all the ingredients.  I'm a sucker for anything Lemon, so I was excited when she picked out a Lemon Poppyseed cake with Lemon cream cheese frosting.  We slaved in the kitchen (okay, I did most of the work and Savannah measured out the ingedients, then got bored and went to watch TV.....I thought I had an attention problem.)

She then came back to stir for a minute, but complained that the stove was too hot.  WHAT???  Funny, I thought that was the purpose of the whole stove concept......HOT!  Lol!

Cakes got put into the oven and I made the frosting and cleaned the kitchen.  I tried to explain to Savannah that cleaning was a part of baking too, but she complained that her legs were tired (we spent a total of 30 minutes cooking) and that she did wipe the counter down at the beginning of our baking process.  It's very difficult reasoning with an 11 year old.  She makes me laugh.  She really is a good kid and I couldn't ask for a better child to have come stay with us.
Tonight's dinner was Carne Asada tacos with all the fixings.  Savannah had two giant tacos and a big bowl of spanish rice.

I made the comment that she hadn't eaten as much today, as she did yesterday.  She politely informed me that yesterday, she'd spent all afternoon swimming and that was cardio exercise.  She ALWAYS ate more when she was doing cardio.  Well!  That put me in my place, didn't it?  :-)
The cake was finally cooled enough for us to fill it.  We had planned on decorating it, but it was just too soft of cake and was really crumbly.  It was the first time I'd made this particular cake.  Oh!  The crumbs I tasted  were amazing and I don't even eat cake.

3 layers of lemon cream cheese filling and 5 layers of lemon poppyseed cake!  Good stuff, but definitely not a decorating cake.

Now it was movie time.  I was informed that Savannah could watch a PG-13 movie, as long as an adult watched it with her.  I told her that I would not be watching the movie, Grownups, but Uncle Chris would be more than happy to watch it with her.  And that's exactly what happened.

Another fun filled day with an amazing girl.  I know my time with her is short and one of these years, sometime soon, she won't want to come to Arizona to visit me.  She'll be too busy with her friends.  I know to enjoy every minute of it while I can.

Savannah's Adventures - Day 2

I believe someone is worn out!  Whoo-Hoo!  I made it up before my niece!  First, I guess I should preface this with the fact that whenever Savannah is in town, she's ALWAYS up before I am.  This little barrel of energy thinks that 6:30am is when everyone should be up.  Luckily for me, she's quite independent and manages to get her own cereal and juice and can find all of the Disney channels on her own.  Today, she didn't wake up until shortly after this picture.....She claimed it had something to do with my camera making too much noise.  Yeah, we'll go with that!  Lol
Then off to the store to do a little shopping.  Did she find enough to try on??

In 45 minutes of shopping, Savannah found 2 shirts to buy and by now, she'd worked up quite an appetite.  (As it had been nearly 2 hours since her last meal)
We picked up my friends daughter, Elaine, and off to lunch at Quizno's we go.

Then it's home for an afternoon of swimming.  It was really nice to have someone close to Savannah's age around.  It took some of the pressure off me.  :-)  They became fast friends.

I'm worn out just loading all of these pictures.  We all had a great time though.  Glad the girls got to get together.  Apparently, Savannah had worked up quite an appetite....About an hour before dinner, she asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  For dinner she had 2 large bowls of Chicken, Sausage and Broccoli pasta and 3 pieces of garlic bread.

Evidently, this wasn't enough, because an hour later, she ate a bowl of watermelon AND 10 minutes after that, ate a Cinnamon Dulche le Leche cupcake.  Savannah still wasn't done!  She asked for a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich!  WHAT????  This little 11 year old girl is going to eat us out of house and home!  Where does she put it all and where can I sign up for her metabolism???  We've still got a couple hours til bed....what more will she eat?  LOL!

My Niece Arrived!

What a fun day today!  My 11 year old niece, Savannah, flew out from Sacramento to visit for a few days.  This is the 3rd year that she's got to fly on the plane by herself and see us.  It's always exciting to have her in town.  While I'm near exhaustion/death, by the time she has to head home, we always have a blast together.  After picking her up at the airport, we went and did a couple of errands and then I took her to http://www.sweetiescandyaz.com/  This is kids version of Heaven! (A KIDS version!  For adults with kids....more like a little nightmare!)  5000+ square feet of candy!  Candy for as far as the eye can see.  I get a sugar high, just walking in the store.  We got out of there only spending $11.  Not sure how that happened, but not bad for the lot of sweets that we got.  Once we got home, it was time to hit the pool.  Java, our middle Beagle, thought he should show Savannah how to get wet.........

He hates having wet paws, so when he got out, he went to town, licking and cleaning, making sure a hair wasn't out of place.

Funny, funny Beagles!  While Java was busy cleaning himself, Savannah enjoyed the pool and the 108 degree weather.  She's definitely not camera shy!

After the candy high had worn off, it was almost time for dinner.  Couldn't wait to get tonight's meal on the grill.  Greek food!  Just the smell of it reminds me of the streets of Oia.  It's been two long years since we've been to Santorini and I miss it dearly.  Sadly, I have to make do with Greek food.  Pork Souvlaki with Tzatziki.  If you haven't had Souvlaki, you're really missing out.  You can make it with either Pork or Chicken.  Either one makes for some fantastic eats! (I'll post the recipe for Souvlaki later)

Wonder, our youngest Beagle, thought Savannah might be good for a little Greek food under the table.....

Time for a little relaxation for this Aunt.........or so I thought.  A nice Haboob (dust storm) decided to roll thru.

Nothing like standing outside during one of these and eating a bunch of sand/dust.
Finally it was time to watch America's Got Talent and eat frozen yogurt.  Thanks to my Hubby for braving the weather and driving to get us all a treat.

I think that pretty much does it for the first day.  Not bad.  Not bad at all!  Tomorrow we start all over.

It's a start.

It's July 4, 2011 and I'm finally getting around to doing a blog.  I've wanted to do this for a long time, but where does one start?  Do you just pick up in the middle of the day and start typing?  Evidently, that's the only way it gets done.  What does one talk about on their blog?  Is this like "Dear, Diary?"  Personally, I don't want anyone snooping in my diary.  I mean, I don't even like to read what I wrote, so why would I want some perfect stranger to look at it?  Well, I guess I'll just talk about what's going on in my life, starting now.  
After a long day swimming in the pool (I know, rough life!) and a little bit (I do mean very little) of house cleaning, it was time to try out the new recipe I'd found.  If you love recipes and trying new foods, then I'm sure that you've already found www.foodgawker.com  I'm a little late to the party, because I just discovered it about a month or two ago.  Now, this might get me in trouble for saying this, but what the heck...........Foodgawker is really  food porn.  That's right, porno for foodies of all types.  It's crazy!  Every single recipe has a picture.  If your mouth isn't watering after the first page, it will definitely be by the second one.  When I first found the website, I stayed on it for 2 days straight!  Thousands of thousands of recipes later, I was armed with new and interesting culinary delights.  And, so many of these photographic wonders are perfect for the biggest bb-q day of the year....the 4th of July!  My Husband and I had chopped and marinated and roasted peppers, all in anticipation of my newest find.  We loaded up the bb-q

 and waited......and waited......and waited, for what seemed like an eternity (it was really like 20 minutes from kitchen to completed grilling, but who was really watching the clock that closely?) and the masterpiece was done.  Behold  Chili Lime Chicken Skewers with a Roasted Spicy Green Pepper Sauce:

This was AMAZING!  (Aside from the sauce being a little too salty)  And here I thought this internet thing wouldn't last.  When you find a recipe like this, you begin to start to believe that it's not all bad stuff on the world wide web. 
Then to top off the night, our wonderful neighbors brought us homemade Chocolate Chip Ice Cream.  

Now this is the kind of neighborhood everyone wants to live in. Thanks, L & E!!  (Oh, and the dogs said "Thanks for the fireworks")  Hope everyone had a very Happy Independence Day!!