More Panama Beach

 

First off....

look how dirty my camera lens is..wowzer.. you would think it's 5 years old and I took out in the dirt.. OH, it is and I did.

 These guys flew over one morning. Level with out 11th floor balcony. Cool.

 Then this guy flew over.

 Then the girls went to float

 Then they cleaned themselves up for dinner

 And then Greg and I. Someone help with me rotating these pictures.

Breakfast Sausage Brunch Dip

I kind of stole this recipe from The Pioneer Woman, Queso Fundido but put my own spin on it.

 I started with Mild Country Sausage. Let me say I always buy Bob Evans, but the Tennessee Pride was just as good. I browned it in a skillet and drained.

 I cut up a bit of Vidalia onion, green onions, tomato and bell peppers. I love these bag of peppers, they are so cheap, like $1.89 a bag. So easy, Cut off the top, reach in with finger and thumb and pull the seeds out. So easy.

 The I took the pizza cutter to some cilantro. The above pictures looks like it's all smushed together. Well, it is. I roll it up in paper towel and then put in a Ziploc with all air removed. I think it lasts longer when I do that. So in above pic I didn't fluff it for pic cause I don't want the oxygen to get to it. I pull out a few pieces and put it back in the back.

 I grabby whatever bags of open cheese I had. I am a cheese junky. I have 5-6 different open bags and probably 10 unopened bags. I am in a panic when I don't have cheese and sour cream. I can almost live without eggs but cheese..NO!!!!

 So then I threw the sausage back in the skillet on low heat, cracked a few eggs and added cheese.

 Now Ree would put the tomato, peppers, onion, cilantro etc in the skillet and let  it all bubble together but I knew no one in the house would eat it so I left it as meat, cheese and eggs. Everyone could put what veggies on top. Then dip with tortilla chips, roll up in a soft tortilla or however you choose. I think for me it's a keeper. Not sure if the family agreed but it's an option. The family is not picky but some things they don't think is as mouth watering as I do. Speaking of.. I smell my ribs I have cooking in the oven for dinner.. Stay tuned ..

Thanks for visiting. Do you have a variation of this recipe you like? Will you throw this together one morning? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Oh No!!! Sharknado?

Sarah was to fly in on Tuesday from Daytona. But.... her plane engine wouldn't start.. now that is pretty important so she had to spend another night and come in one Wednesday. Drake was leaving Wednesday. So he left from Panama to Atlanta to Columbus. Her plane went from Daytona to Atlanta to Panama. Confused yet? I was. I had flight numbers and gate numbers swirling through my head. The table in the condo was like a mini control  central. I had their flights up, info written down. was texting them their gates.. it was stressful time for ole' mama.  Anyways, she text me and told me they didn't have a gate to go into at Atlanta. I looked and Drake had just taken off  minutes before that. they missed each other by minutes.  .

 

So let's back up. On Tuesday Drake, Josie and I were out pretty far in the water. We teamed up with two boys from out hotel and made numbers. I am all about swimming in groups. Not really for safety but for the numbers. Anytime I went out I made sure I was heading towards the groups. groups make me feel better. So Maybe Wednesday night we saw these guys swimming around. Right where we had swam the day before. Kind of unnerving. but whatever. .. ok.

 

 

. 

 Then Thursday morning I get up and the girls are down at the beach. And finally Greg says "we saw fins" What?!!! So he shows me the pictures. OMG. I was just out there on Tuesday swimming around with just a little bit of care in the world.

 So I instantly look up shark and dolphin fins. ..ummm. this guy below has some curvature to it like a dolphin but not really enough for my likes.   Everyone said it was a dolphin. ..ok I guess I will go with that.

 I just want to say. Baxter had a complete melt down when we got home. He has always kind of been mouthy when we come back but this was crazy. As long as Greg and I were in the same room he would lay down. but if I got up he would follow me screaming with meows.. I went up stairs and he did that long deep meow like he was calling me. So now that I try to type this he is lying half on my keyboard. with his whole back against my left arm. He missed us so much. I will try to get a picture. I will try to add that to a post. He is crazy. Greg thinks he had a anxiety attack.

So this is Sharknado day, they didn't hit the water much. I went out a bit but was pretty nervous.

 

More stories to come.. Thanks for visiting.

Panama City Beach, Florida 2014

 I'm pretty good at remember what day I took what pictures but this vacation was not like that. I didn't take gobs of pics. I wanted to relax and not worry about documenting our visit. Everyone (the family) was like that who needs pics.. just do it.. so I did. See the backpack behind Josie's chair. That is all Drake brought with him. Laptop, movies, clothes, flip flops. done.. No I had to bring, the biggest suitcase I had, plus a bag for this, and bag for that. too much crap.

 The water really appeared more aqua in person. In all my pictures it looks a little green. Even that last two days when it was a little mossy it was still clear. The sand never got too hot. the water was never too cold. it was perfect.

 Drake and Josie playing ball in the water.

 The pier right next to our hotel. Drake walked down there the first morning and said they charged to go out.

 The beach goers.. during a storm.. which created a tornado in the town of Panama City.

 This may have been the tornado cloud. Not sure but probably.

Their camp the first day. We took this from the 11th floor. We stayed at the Sterling Reef Resort, room 1106. It was very clean, (not when we left) . 2 bedroom, 2 bath ..and Drake said the pullout couch was so comfy. Plenty of room. good overall. The pool wasn't that big and fancy but it worked. We went down the first night and then one other day. It was perfect.

Baxter's melt down

While trying to post on my blog Baxter had a fit. Finally he laid down on my arm and keyboard and was happy.

Race Across America 2014

 Every year the Race Across America comes through our city. "RAAM" is a 3000 mile bike race from California to Maryland. Once the clock starts for you  (solo) or your team,  it does not stop until you reach Maryland.

 

In 2010 I got involved with the time station in Blanchester, Ohio. I took photos of passing cyclists and their crews.

 

Last March I was asked if I could house a solo cyclist from Austria for his training rides. Christoph Strasser and his cousin Michael Kogler came and stayed with us for a long weekend. Then in June when the race came through his team stopped at our house to swim and took showers and ate pizza and donuts.

 

 So this year they looked forward to stopping and taking a break for a few hours. 

One of the guys sleeps outside. They said it didn't matter if it was 5 degrees he would be outside. So we found him on the back porch sound asleep.

 

They had 11 crew members in 2 vans and 1 RV. 1 van and RV came ahead of Christoph at 9 am and swam, showered, ate donuts and fruit. Then when Christoph came through around 1:15 that van went with him and his follow van came to the house.

Then that van and the RV left around 2pm. Good thing they did, the vans had 5 flat tires for the whole 3000 mile journey, Christoph only had 3 on his bike. ... new record. This team sat all kinds of records.

Last year Christoph beat the 26 year record with

7 days, 22 hours..

This year he beat his own record with

 7 days, 15 hours.

He is a machine.

I didn't get too many pictures because I was filming, yelling, ringing my cow bell and this is what I got.

This is some of the shoes at the front door. It's funny because they don't have air conditioning at home so they walk out the back door and leave it wide open. Everyone of them. So I don't say anything. I just swing it shut. They were freezing in the house. While I was burning up with no estrogen and hot flashes.

I can't figure out how to rotate this picture. It was in my file but when it comes into blogger it rotates back.

 

 They had beach towels, underwear, swim shorts, laptops, cameras everywhere. And when the left there were a few coffee cups on the table. You would have never known they were here. 

 

This was from last years visit. at 1:18 they show Josie and her friend Jamie. Then they pan around the kitchen and you can see Greg and my co-worker Robb. I am hiding around the corner in the livingroom. This year they filmed us too. They did a interview with me and we are going to be in their new show this fall that comes out in theaters in Austria.  They try to ad the English subtitles for us folks that don't speak German. 

Please hang on. I am trying to get the video back.

 

http://youtu.be/ANOiUgoaStI

 

So if you are interested in helping out, go to www.raceacrossamerica.org They are always looking for officials along the 3000 miles, photographers, and crew always need additional American crew members (cause it doesn't cost as much to fly us to California as it does from a foreign country) And if you are along the route or really close and you would like to house a crew or let them shower

Mustache?

On Thanksgiving day I made everyone a mustache with my new Silhouette Machine. I love that thing. This pic is horrible but you get the idea. My little camera could not produce enough flash to catch us. Do you have a Silhouette? What fun stuff do you do with yours?