Catching up and a radical hiking photo op

Last week I was busy catching up from taking time off work for the Dells vacation. The hardest part of taking time off is making up for it. But in the long run, it's still worth it. I get there.

Otherwise, it was a nice week. We didn't get a ton done waround the house, mostly little things. I did get the girl's curtains hung in her room, white sheers and we got a larger shelf put up over her toy trunk. This now has her television and dvd player on it so that she can lay in bed and watch tv. We've been putting her to bed 30 min early so that she has time to watch tv or read before bed. It helps her relax. She likes the quiet time. A girl after my own heart.

The youngest boy went to band camp a couple of weeks ago and is having evening band practice. He LOVES it. :) I remember band practice myself and loved it as much. It's nice to see him enjoy something so much. Something that's totally good for him and encouraging him to work hard and learn.

The girl and I had a girl night Saturday, we rented Beastly, a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast. It was super cute. It had Vanessa Hudgens from High School Musical and Mary Kate Olsen played the witch. It was realistic, except for the curse part. And we both enjoyed it quite a bit. Course, we had to soak our feet while we watched it. :)

I made a fudge brownie pie this Sunday. It's probably half a batch of brownie's baked in a pie tin. I didn't use a crust, but you totally could. I wanted to make it Rocky Road brownie's, but wasn't sure how it would go over. So, after it baked, I covered half of it with marshmallows and peanuts and chocolate chips. Then baked again for 3 min until the marshmallows were puffy and lightly browned. I then turned the oven off and left it in there. They ended up getting crunchy at the edges, which the girl liked, but the youngest boy didn't. Also, it ended up a little denser and cakier than box mix brownies. Or so they told me, I'm still on my diet and didn't have any. I was getting tired of not baking and actually enjoyed watching them enjoy it. After I sliced the pie for each of them, I covered it in chocolate syrup, oh boy! It looked amazing.

The girl and I went on a hike on Saturday and had a lot of fun.

She loves to ham it up for the camera.

We got a little lost. I knew where the road was in general, but we were off the patch.We took off a different direction and found ourselves in this field.

It was beautiful. We walked down it and then she wanted to run back up to the very top to see what she could see.

I texted this pic to hubby at the fire station so that he could see my mad photo skills.

He texted back: Oh babe, she beat you up that hill by alot. :)

Me: Haha, Ur sooo funny. I let her go so I could take that rad pic. It was a big hill.......

The fireman: Yeah - that's the story I would stick with too. Love you Gorgeous.

Yes, he did actually write that. He's just trying to get back in my good graces after that comment...

But I did get to the top. And took some more pretty pictures.

Gorgeous view.

That's the Illinois River in the background. Beautiful.

We then made out way back DOWN the hill and tried to find a path back to where the Jeep was. I couldn't quite find a path, but we I knew where the road was and I could hear a soccer team in the park next to where the Jeep was parked. So, I pretty much knew where we were.

Then I saw something move down in a ditch a bit. I thought someone else was out hiking.

I was still and watched and saw it again, the tail end of a deer. Wow.

It was getting towards dusk and we hurried it up to get out before anything, you know, hostile like, woke up.

But not before I took another pretty picture. :)