Fabric Help!

Last Fall I bought this little set at a garage sale. I have been meaning to recover the seats ever since. This isn't the best picture, but the fabric right now is blue and white checked. And yes there are 2 cushions. I'm not sure why the other one didn't make this picture. I already had this pic on my computer and didn't have the energy to take a new one.

I am being really indecisive about which fabric to order. None of the stores here carry anything I like. This is where you all come in: Help me pick a fabric!!! I am also going to make two pillows for a bench that we have sitting on the front porch out of whatever fabric I buy to recover those seats.

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

Ty wants a little bit of color hence option C, but I don't think it will look good on the bench near our red front door. Alright, help this indecisive blogger out! :)

Home Sweet Home

This is the last segment of Week O' Fun. After we got home from Branson we immediately packed back up and headed to our hometown. I hadn't been home since Christmas. I had seen my family several times, but just not at home. We had dinner and celebrated Father's Day and two birthdays at my parents' house. The next morning I was forced to go running with my parents. :) My dad recently got a wrist garmin and it tells him if he is running on pace. We started out at what felt like a sprint to me. That man is in much better shape than me! Then in usual style my parents took care of things for me. I took my car in last week to have some brake work done and of course the place wanted to do a million other things. Luckily, I knew we were going home soon so I waited. My dad (and Ty helped) fixed several things for me. Saved me a pretty penny!

We also got to spend time with Ty's family. I got caught up on all of his younger sister's wedding plans. I just love weddings and can't wait for theirs in a few weeks. We also got to watch his nephew for an afternoon along with Ty's mom. It was so much fun to spend time with that little guy.

I just love to watch Ty with little ones. He is so good with them and you can tell that they just want to play forever with him. It melts my heart!

Nathan is 7 months old and is at such a fun stage.

He loves pulling hair and apparently noses!

He is a very ticklish baby and loves to laugh.

I hope our kids are this easy. I stood up and walked/rocked him for maybe 3 minutes and he was asleep. Then he woke up smiling from both of the naps that he took. I'm sure he has his moments, but he was perfect for us.

That ends our week o' fun. We had such a good time together. I am so thankful that I have a job with great benefits and that I have the luxury to take a week off of work.

Happy Monday!

Week O' Fun, part 2

My week o' fun is over. I am back at work today. Although, it's only for one day, so I can't complain too much. Then we have an out of town wedding to attend. So the fun will continue.

Here is a recap of the last week:

I took Ty for his first Summer's 5th Night (concert in the park).

All the girls and Nuts. It was a billion degrees outside.

Last Friday we headed to Branson, MO. Ty's parents have a time share there and offered us a weekend. It was very generous of them. I was excited because it isn't a long road trip. Ty loves road trips, me not so much. The resort where we stayed was very nice. We had a fantastic suite with a kitchen, living room, bedroom and jacuzzi.

Because blogger is not cooperating with me the pictures are backwards, starting with the last day first and there is some weird spacing--just ignore it. :)

Ty loves miniature golf. There are probably 8 courses in Branson. People that go there must love putt-putt.

We tied! This is a miracle! He is pretty good and I am pretty bad, but it must have been my lucky day or something. And I got a hole in one!! I don't think I can stress to ya'll enough how big of a deal this is for me. I am not very coordinated or athletic. I will never let Ty forget that score!

Maybe it was my mini golf attire that helped me.

Nuts travelled with us and stayed at a place called Camp Little Paws. I loved the name of it. We checked him out for a couple of hours one day and took him to the lake with us.

I love tree lined roads.

View from our balcony. I was in heaven with all those trees.

Water show at Branson's Landing.

About to order food on the lake.

Ty feeding fish at the fish hatchery.

Yummy Japanese Steakhouse.

Spent a couple of hours at a winery. I had never been to one before. We had so much fun.

We also spent an afternoon shopping at the outlet malls and got some great deals. It was a very relaxing vacation. I loved spending so much time with Ty! He starts his rotations July 1. I'm anxious to see how it is going to all work out and what his schedule will be like. Whatever it is, it has to be better than him studying an avg. of 10 hours a day!

Week O' Fun part 1

I am going to try to document all the fun that we are trying to squeeze into this week. Monday night we watched the first couple of episodes of True Blood, season 1. I was a little disappointed, because it wasn't quite as good as the books. That being said it is a good show.

Last night we headed to Dave and Busters. My parents gave Ty a gift card there for his birthday. He was very excited. The man loves arcade games. There was a mini arcade at our hotel on our honeymoon. He had to play a game or two everytime we left the hotel. It was our first trip to Dave and Busters. We had such a good time together.

I loved this Rambo game! Maybe I need to break out the b.b. gun when we go home next week. You know, get some target practice in before I play again. :)

Check out my ring pop! I bought that with all my tickets!

June is my blog-o-versary! I missed the actual day which was earlier this month. In honor of my blog-o-versary I decided to get a dot com website. So now my blog address is sweetsimplicityblog.com. Don't worrry you don't have to change anything blogger automatically redirects you there and everything else stays the same. It's much better than the one I made up through blogger in the early days. I had no idea what I was doing or how much I would love this outlet for my thoughts or how many friends I would make because of my little blog. Thank you all for reading and for all the comments. They always make my day!

**update** **If you are interested in your own dotcom address please see the comment I left below in response to a lot of questions. Feel free to e-mail me with any other questions: sweetsimplicityblog@gmail.com**

Weekend Adventures

I feel so special when I don't blog for a few days and then I get asked why I haven't been blogging! The blogging will be sparse the next couple of weeks. Ty is on a little break before rotations start in July!!!! I'm so excited. He took his big board test on Saturday and we have been hanging out non-stop ever since. We are having so much fun and will be taking advantage of all this free time together. I am taking off work for a week. yay!

Time for a weekend recap:

I had to work an event Saturday morning and Ty was exhausted after his test, but we made ourselves leave the house that evening. We went to the movies and saw The Hangover. It was so funny!

Sunday was such a nice, relaxing day. It had been far too long since we have had one of those together. (I always have a relaxing Sunday, but Ty is usually studying all day.) We went to church, had lunch from Quik Trip, visited my cousin and his family, and went to Wal-Mart. {Taking Ty to Wal-Mart is probably what my mom experienced when us 3 kids went with her. We ended up with all kinds of strange things in the cart. He picked out hamburger helper chili macaroni. I will not be fixing that anytime soon! ew!}

We had Chesley over for dinner and grilled steaks. At the last minute we decided to go to the drive-in movie theater and see Up. It was a cute movie. I hadn't been to a drive-in theater since middle school (I saw Men in Black, just to take you back).

You pay for a double feature. The 2nd movie didn't start until 10:50--way too late for this working lady, so we opted out.

We had so much fun!

{my night setting creates an even brighter than usual flash, which is why Ty's eyes look crazy!}

Tomorrow is my last working day for a while. Ty and I have lots of plans for this week and this weekend we are headed on a mini vacay. Lots and lots of fun in store!

Grilled Salmon Recipe

I'm not a big salmon person, but Ty likes to order it at restaurants and requested that I buy some at the grocery store. I started searching for a good recipe and came across this one from the Food Network.

Grilled Salmon with Ponzu Sauce

{obvs, this is not my picture, but the one from their website.}

Ingredients:
Cooking spray
6 (5-ounce) salmon steaks
Salt and ground black pepper
2 cups fresh green beans
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon chopped shallot
2 teaspoons finely grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons minced chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
1 clove garlic
Cellophane noodles, as an accompaniment

Directions:
Coat an outdoor grill or stovetop grill pan with cooking spray and preheat to medium-high.
Season both sides of salmon with salt and black pepper. Grill salmon steaks 5 minutes per side for medium-rare. Arrange green beans on grill alongside salmon. Grill 10 minutes, until crisp-tender, turning frequently.
Meanwhile, in a blender, combine remaining ingredients and puree until smooth. Serve 4 of the salmon steaks with green beans on the side and ponzu sauce drizzled over top. Reserve remaining salmon steaks for another recipe. Serve with cellophane noodles.

I halfed everything in the recipe and did not serve the salmon with the noodles. It was pretty tasty! I have a lot of sauce leftover and think I will try it on some chicken.

Nuts helped me work from home yesterday.

It would be so nice to work from home a couple of days a week, but unfortunately this was just a one time thing. It's back to work today!

It's a Great Work Day

It's a great work day because I am working from home today. This basically consists of answering a few e-mails. The a/c at work is being worked on today and according to Ty was shut off last night while he was up there studying. Bad news for Ty because he has to find somewhere else to study, but good news for me!

I went to a new restaurant for lunch on Monday. It's called the Dilly Deli. It was such a unique, eclectic, fun place. They had lots of vintage things lining the shelves along the back wall. I had a fried egg sandwich with bacon, white cheddar and tomato. It was delish!!!

This place is downtown and for those of you are in my area, you should definitely eat there!

Yesterday after work I headed to Whitney's to deliver some food and see that sweet baby boy. I think he is the longest week and half old baby I have ever seen. Seriously, the kid will probably be in the NBA.

He had just eaten when I got there so he was very content and made all kinds of cute faces for me to admire. I went through every outfit in his closet. Levi is one stylin' kid. I can't wait to see him in his cute little shoes. Ah, baby stuff; who doesn't love it?!

He loves to be in his mommy's arms!

Time to work out, answer some e-mails, check out TJ Maxx, answer some e-mails, play with Nuts, check my e-mail, etc. I love working from home!!

Did someone say free? I'm there!

We always have my city's magazine delivered at the school. I love reading through it and discovering new things about my city. I grew up in a really small town. No stoplights, small. The place we are in now is a smaller city (but big for my state). I love discovering new places to see and eat and things to do. It is such a fun experience!

Saturday our teaching gardens were hosting an event and the first 500 people got a new hybrid of the endless summer hydrangea plant.

Chesley and I were so excited! We got there 45 minutes before the gates opened.

We were the youngest people there. It was hilarious! We wanted our free plant!

There were a few vendors set up at the gardens. One of them had this amazing lime patio furniture. Of course we had to take pictures on it!

That bench was $800!! We saw the price tag and thought, surely that is for the bench and the table set (a table and 4 chairs). Nope, the table set was $1300! Crazy!

The Rose Garden

After the excitement of getting a free plant we headed to Calico Corners to scope out some fabric. But we got distracted by a lot of garage sale signs.

I got these cute little easter eggs for a $1. I think they will be so cute sitting out somewhere next Easter.

It was a great Saturday and we were home and worn out by 10 am!

I can't wait for Ty (not me!) to plant my new hydrangea bush. I can't dig a hole if my life depended on it and he told me no planting until after his test. Hopefully it will produce some beautiful blue blooms soon!