Our ghetto dog park…

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Reb

We don’t have a dog park on our base. There is one off base but my Spanish isn’t good enough if there were some kind of incident with my dog.

So while we have tried to get the powers that be to built a dog park (never gonna happen) we just have decided to randomly take over a softball field that isn’t being used. (what are we going to do when softball season starts!?!)

We always follow the rules

Bowser was in heaven!

M had fun loving on all the puppies!

I love this dog!

All the dogs got along great except for one little scuffle between two boys that ended up with a cut lip. There were 4 boxers there which was a lot of fun!

My love letter to my daughter’s lunchbox.

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Reb

So. I am an Environmental Management major with a minor in Natural Science. I have really been inspired to try and eliminate as much trash as possible in our household. As of right now we throw away one bag of trash about every 7-10 days for our family of four. It’s not bad (at least compared to the average American) but I know we can do better.

This year when I was shopping for lunchboxes for my daughter I wanted to try to have her have as little trash as possible at school. After searching for ages I finally found THE ONE.

The Goodbyn.

I love this lunchbox so very much. It has 5 different compartments separated from each other and there is no need to have anything packed in plastic bags.

Here are some of her recent lunches:

Hawaii rolls and meat and cheese... and a dang granola bar, gotta get on making some of those!

This one is not the best example, I have a granola bar and a piece of leftover valentine candy in there. Homemade granola bars are on my to do list! Fruit leather too, fruit snacks are the other thing killing me! Those plastic film packages aren’t recyclable!

Better… I did wrap the sandwich in a piece of parchment this day.

The square compartment fits a regular sandwich cut into halves perfectly. My daughter just prefers the hard Spanish bread for her sandwich. It’s also nice that she packs a LOT more fruit and vegetables.

The middle spot holds a drink container but she prefers to just drink water at lunch.

Her favorite part is the stickers that it comes with to customize your lunch box….

The only downside is the fact that the original size (which this one is) is pretty big and does take up a lot of space in her backpack. Also its up to me to remember to wash it or at least wipe it out every day!

So while it isn’t necessary for you to go out and buy THIS lunchbox, try NOT using plastic bags for your lunch! There are SO many cute reusable products out there, get to it!

It’s the little things {lilies & long weekends}

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Reb

My beautiful Valentine’s Day flowers are opening up and look (and smell) FANTASTIC. Seriously our WHOLE house smells like flowers. Why is it that every time I have fresh flowers in the house I always vow to make more of an effort to buy them more often and I never do!

We are also looking forward to this nice long three day weekend.

Monday we are scheduled to have a power outage for almost the entire day. They need to do some repair work on a utility pole and it will leaving the housing section of the base with no power. Seriously what the heck would I do all day? Clean? Yuck! So I am taking the kids on a field trip to Vejer de la Frontera. Should be a fun quick trip!

Linking up with Lindsey from Hello Hue!

Valentine’s Day Recap

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Reb

Totally phoned it in this Valentine’s Day.

I was planning on getting up early and making the kids a cutesy breakfast of pink heart pancakes… well, I overslept a bit. Rushing around getting everyone and everything ready for the day and M asks me if I am making a special breakfast. Sorry honey, no! So she makes a couple of poptarts and right before she eats them I pop over and use a heart cookie cutter on them.

There, there is your super special Valentine’s breakfast.

Then my husband calls me at work to ask me to run home and let the dog out on my lunch break because he wasn’t able to… I run home and see the dog sitting outside the patio door. I call my husband and ask what the heck is he talking about, the dog is already outside. He asks where I am and I say right by the door looking at the dog.

Let the dog inside then a few minutes later walk back outside with him with his lunch and see a huge bouquet of flowers laying on the table. Duh. So I called my husband and said oh yeah, saw the flowers. Sorry I am oblivious! He also gave me a new watch which was greatly appreciated because I just busted the crystal out of my watch the day before. Yay!

Was going to make a nice steak dinner for the family but didn’t feel like stopping at the commissary to pick up steak after work. So somehow we had a very polish Valentine dinner. Kielbasa, sauteed cabbage and pierogis. I don’t even know. But it was yummy. We’re planning on going out this weekend for dinner, weekdays are too crazy.

Hope everyone had a lovely day with plenty of chocolate involved!

It’s the little things {spicy & sweet}

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Reb

Wrapping up a fun week and just wanted to recap some of the little things that made my week!

First off I did a little Valentine’s decorating, I found this cute printable online. I love all of the holiday subway art that is free online… I have a frame by my front door and I am planning on just replacing the image according to the holiday/season!

Also found a cute ceramic white heart bowl and filled it with peanut butter m&m’s (terrible, terrible idea, I can’t leave them alone)

I also picked up these super adorable votive holders… I have some red candles in there for the holiday (Yankee Mackintosh) but I think they may find their way into my bathroom when I’m done with them on the entryway table.

Next up a little hot sauce making! My husband has a habanero habit that was supplied for quite awhile by pepper plant that was growing peppers constantly. We stuck them in the freezer for a rainy day (or a cold winter’s day). He generally will eat them straight up (I’ll stick them whole into a pot of rice so they cook without making everything else spicy) but also loves hot sauce. He had ordered some but half of the bottles broke en route so we wanted to try a homemade recipe.

Out comes a bag of frozen peppers: Chopped of the stem and added them to some cooked carrots, onions, garlic and lime juice.

*For the love of God, make sure you do NOT get any of the juice on your fingers. It does NOT wash off and you will regret it when you rub your eye an hour later… I learned my lesson the hard way a few years ago*

Everything gets tossed in the blender. I left the seeds in for heat, but if I had a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth I would have strained this to get any remaining chunks out.

The finished product! It’s very orange and apparently VERY spicy!

My daughter did also decide to start puking right before her basketball skills assessment this morning… And daddy had taken her. This happened in the gym. On the bleacher. And on the basketball court. Honey, I am so sorry you were on parenting duty this morning and had to deal with it on your own!

Linking up with Lindsey from Hello Hue!

Plaza de Espana, Sevilla, Spain

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Reb

When my mom came for a visit in September one of our day trips was to Seville or Sevilla (seh-vee-ya). Sevilla is only about an hour or so from Rota and makes for a great day trip. I had been wanted to go to the Plaza de Espana for ages and we finally got the chance to go! I tell you, nothing gets you out and about like having people visit you!

Oh this is one of my favorite places… I had no idea how beautiful this building was going to be or how HUGE it was!

Here is some background information on the plaza in case you were interested.

We're here!

We happened to go at a perfect time, there weren’t many people there and we had the chance to take one million pictures!

Even the light posts are beautiful!

There is a little moat/river/waterway between the plaza and the building and you can rent a rowboat for a few Euro… I highly recommend this, it is a LOT of fun…

We're on a boat!

Oh this girl... she kills me.

Photobomb! He did this about 20 times... I forgive him because he is adorable.

I liked hanging out in the shade under the bridges. It was REALLY hot...

The bridges all had different tile work. So pretty!

Not pictured on our boat ride… constant fighting about WHO got to hold the oars and help row… also complaining about how hot it was and were we done yet…

Time to cool off with some ice cream...

One of the things I love about Spain and Europe in general is how they assume you are not an idiot. See the railing above? A child could easily fall into the water. But guess what, they assume you will be watching your children!

(See also: German Zoo missing fences with only plastic strung from post to post, hotel in the Canaries with open window on the fourth floor with no screen or bars, alligator farm with minimal safety measures. Gotta love it)