Best breakfast ever.

It's amazing how much you can get done when you get up at 6:30 am and dive right into your 'to do' list for the day.  By noon today Steve and I had mowed the yard (front and back), trimmed and hauled 6 cart loads of vines, bushes, and pine cones to the curb, made an awesome breakfast (more on that later), scrubbed the tub, ran to Costco, and cleaned the kitchen (dishes included).  Whew!  I hate house work and cleaning, but I LOVE having a clean house and tidy yard.  And I'm too cheap to pay someone else to do it for me.  :)

Now, about this breakfast.  I while back I made some really awesome cheddar jalapeno bread.  At the time, I was thinking it would be a good base recipe for other ingredients because the dough was wet enough to incorporate lots of 'stuff' but still came out like good baked bread.  I toyed around with the idea of dried fruit or olive and rosemary variations.  Yesterday I altered the recipe and made cinnamon raisin bread (with some dried cherries in there for extra goodness), and it turned out great.  The whole house smelled fantastic while it was baking.  This morning, I used the bread to make french toast with a caramelized crust on one side.  It was spectacular.  Crunchy sweet shell, soft fruit-studded interior, a little drizzle of real maple syrup, a couple slices of bacon on the side...perfect.  So the real question is, when are you coming over for breakfast?

This is the unadulterated 'naked' photo... before I covered it in butter and syrup and added a slice of bacon to the side.  After all, I'd hate to distract you from the real focus.

Red hot chili peppers

Let's talk for a moment about what you should not do with two dozen molten lava chili peppers from your garden.  You should not grind up the evil peppers IN YOUR HOUSE without a full respirator.  You will sneeze fire.  Your eyes will water.  You will have created the same noxious compound that they bottle and label "Bear Repellent" in outdoor stores.  Yes, I have successfully dried the chili peppers, and made homemade cayenne pepper.  It's so hot I can't think of a rational use for it.  It's not worth it.  Leave this to the professionals at Penzey's or McCormick.

Harry Potter 3

We just finished watching Harry Potter - The Prisoner of Azkaban and it's by far my favorite so far.  I'm looking forward to the next two, which are waiting at the library for me to pick up tomorrow!

Forty acres of rock

 Today we went with a local Meetup group to Forty Acre Rock Heritage Park, which is about 3 hours from Charleston.  The giant rock in the park is actually only 14 acres, not 40, but it's still an impressive slab of granite with great views and a couple of hours worth of good hiking.  For once, it wasn't too hot or humid today, and the breeze at the top was really nice.  The park features pools of water that collect on top of the rock and harbor rare plant species.  Most aren't blooming this time of year, but we definitely want to go back in the spring.  Check out the link above for more information about the cool plants that live there. 

Here are some more photos from the trip.  A giant millipede on the trail - it was about 2 inches long and fast.

 Steve being goofy on top of the rock.

 Steve being normal, and handsome as usual.  :)

 Some really pretty and tiny (penny-sized) flowers.

 A click beetle.  It's about 2 inches long too.

 A five-lined skink (which is a different species than the broadhead skink I posted from Charles Towne Landing).

 This one is a bit blurry, but it's a swift (look at that camouflage).

A pepper problem

We've been picking those crazy hot peppers for a couple of weeks now, and they are way too hot to eat.  We have about two dozen right now.  So what do we do with them?  We've talked about trying to make some chili oil.  Or maybe trying to pickle them like you would jalapenos.  Or just composting them.  A couple of days ago I had a great idea when I used up the last of the crushed red pepper flakes - I'll dry them!  I have a food dehydrator...I've never dried whole peppers though.  If it works, maybe I'll be able to make my own crushed red pepper flakes. 

Here's a 'before' photo.  I put them in the dryer just a few minutes ago.  I don't know how long it will take, so I'll check them every couple of hours.

Harry Potter

Last night before dinner Steve suggested we should watch all of the Harry Potter movies in order, then go see the newest one.  We own the first three, although I've only ever seen (or read) the first one.  So last night after dinner we started movie number one: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  It was as good as I remember, and really long.  It'll take us several days to get through them all (and to find the ones we don't own at the library or video store).  Not a bad way to weather the upcoming heat wave, I guess.

Tubing and Charles Town Landing

I decided I didn't want to go tubing today because I didn't think it would be much fun if I can't talk, but Steve still really wanted to go.  So he went on the tubing trip (and reports back that he had fun!) and I went to Charles Town Landing.  We both left the house at about the same, for me it was a futile attempt to get out to the park and back before it got too hot for the day.  It didn't work.  It wasn't so warm, temperature-wise, today but it was really humid.  I was totally sweaty and gross by the time I got home.

Charles Town Landing is one of my favorite places, even though we've only been there once before.  It's only about a mile from our house and its cheap - $7.50 - to get in.  Once inside though, it's big, with great views across the march to downtown, a small zoo of local animals, an old-ish plantation house, a replica colonial tallship that you can explore, lots of walking trails, ponds (with alligators) and a nice museum about local history.  Even with the cute little zoo, I had more fun looking for animals that were native and not part of the zoo - like these birds, this skink, and these really cool garden spiders:

Movies!

We've come up with a few more ideas about what to do when it's hot and humid outside - watch movies indoors and play at the beach!

Steve went to the beach on his day off this week and discovered the swimming and body surfing is a great way to cool off and pass the time.  So Saturday morning we headed out to the beach early to beat the crowds (they can be huge in the summer and the back-up to get to Folly Beach can stretch miles) and had some fun.  The waves were pretty good sized; most were crashing over my head.  Steve is far better at bodysurfing and much braver that I am.  I can swim just fine, but I couldn't help thinking about sharks the whole time. 

Staying indoors in an obvious choice for staying cool too.  Since Friday night, we've watched four movies...Hot tub time machine (not exactly cinematic splendor, but it was better than I was expecting), the Green Zone (in all fairness, I took a nap while Steve watched this one), Weird Science (classic!), and Mission Impossible. 

Today, we're trying to decide what to do.  There's another tubing trip down the Edisto River planned, but I've almost completely lost my voice so perhaps hanging out in a situation where I need to talk is a bad idea.  I have a webinar to run at work on Tuesday and I need to be able to talk to run it.  I'd like to go back to Charles Town Landing at some point, might be fun today.  But today is also the second Sunday in July, and that means that there are special things happening downtown.  King Street gets closed to vehicle traffic and restaurants and stores move into the street and stay open later.  We'd like to check that out too.  I'm not sure what we'll do, but if it's fun, we'll tell you about it!

More family weekend photos

It's nice to be back home in hot and steamy Charleston after a fun and busy weekend in MN. Happy Birthday to Grandma, Lance, and Wesley!  Here's a few more pictures of the weekend.

The 'dread pirate Wesley', helping with yard work...

 Brian and Keegan playing with bubbles in the pool.

 Aunt (/grandma/great auntie) Bonnie poses with Keegan.

 Connor practicing his balance on a floating noodle.

 Keegan looking cute with his sunglasses on.

 Cousin Lance playing monster for Wesley!

 Alexander hanging out near the drop off.

  Grandma, looking awesome at 86!

There's a running joke between Steve and I when I travel (which happens a lot for work)...While I'm gone he seems to make it his personal mission to eat everything in the fridge.  Our wicked-hot pepper plant produced a bunch of peppers while I was gone, but they're so hot we can't eat them.  I laughed really hard when I went to open the fridge and saw this: 

They're so artfully arranged!

Cooling off in the pool

Wesley and Keegan playing in the pool this afternoon.

Wesley was 'fishing' using the foam noodle as a fishing pole.

Keegan, enjoying the warm water.

Zoo with my nephew

I'm in MN this weekend visiting family and my mom and I took my nephew Wesley to the Como Zoo.  It's his third birthday today, and he was dressed like a pirate.  I'm told he would prefer to dress like a pirate EVERY day, not just on his birthday, but I'm not sure that flies in his house.  :)  He got several compliments on his outfit.

Weslesy wanted to ride the carousel, so we saved it for the end of the trip.  By the time we got there, he was tired and it was loud, so we got off before it started.