The Perfect Summer Cocktail

Lavender Vodka Lemonade. Need I say more?

Billy's been craving lemonade like crazy when he gets home from work on hot days so I finally got around to making some. Then I found lavender syrup at the farmer's market. And the rest is history... :)

Start out with some lemonade (or lemonade concentrate in my case). Start by squeezing a couple pounds of lemons to make around a cup of juice. Then make the simple syrup by dissolving about 1/2-3/4 cup of sugar into a cup of water. Add the two together and you have a concentrate, or you can also add in 3-4 cups of water and make a pitcher.

To make the cocktail just add 1/4 cup of concentrate with an ounce or two of vodka, a couple tablespoons of lavender syrup and fill the glass up with ice and water (or sparkling water)!

If you don't have lavender syrup, I'm sure you could steep some lavender in your simple syrup and it would work just as well :)

Olive's been doing the funniest thing lately...

Every time she here's the water running in the bathroom she runs in and jumps on the counter and just stares at it... I think she must be trying to figure out where it's going.

Window Shades

It is HOT here. I thought Red Bluff was hot in the Summer. No. That kind of heat is nothing, and I mean nothing compared to what goes down out here. It's been in the triple digits all week with over 70% humidity, which is what really makes the temperature unbearable. And it doesn't cool down below 80 until around 5 in the morning when you get a few short hours of cooler air. Basically just enough to taunt you. That's one thing to deal with when you're in a house, with insulation. But it's something totally different in a trailer, with practically no insulation. We've been running our air conditioner 24/7 and bought a fancy fan but it still gets over 90 in our trailer during the day, so I was forced to take things up a notch.
I've seen other trailers with foil in the window, but I always thought it was just a little trashy... Well it turns out I can totally do trashy if it cools down my house. So I bought some poster board, covered it with foil and taped it on the window and it actually worked pretty well... until someone turned me on to sun screen fabric! This stuff is pretty amazing. It really helps block out the sun, and of course I installed it using the least amount of work possible (because who wants to be outside in this heat?!) by just using some heavy duty suction cups and hooks!

It's supposed to storm all next week and I couldn't be more excited!

On another note, there are some massive and absolutely disgusting bugs out here. These grasshoppers are everywhere, one even jumped in my hair yesterday when I was watering my plants!

Playing Catch Up

Oh wow, it's been just over a month since my last post! I have been up to a lot so I thought I'd get you up to date!
I went back to CA last month for a little more than two weeks and I had an absolute blast. I flew into Sacramento and hung out with my mom and friends in Red Bluff and then drove down to see a friend in Southern California. There was a lot of talking, shopping and cocktails involved. It's probably safe to say it was a very girly vacation :)

After living it up for a couple weeks I actually drove my car back to Texas! It was a very long drive, but I made it in two days, and stayed the night in Albuquerque which was kind of exciting because I'd never been to New Mexico before. I got into Sherman around 5 and had just enough time to have dinner with my very missed husband before we drove up to Lawton, OK, where Billy's new job is. It ended up taking much longer than expected to break down the trailer and then we had a 3 hour drive, it was so late by the time that we got to Lawton that we didn't get bed that night until 3 am. And my champ of a husband still managed to go to work in 90+ degree heat the next day. He never ceases to amaze me.
So here we are in Oklahoma! I get the feeling that the town we're in is very nice for Oklahoma, but there's not a Trader Joe's or Anthropologie for miles so I'm trying to make due ;)
We've also been going to a really great PCA church here that we've been totally blessed by so it's definitely safe to say things could be much worse.

I'm currently on the job hunt and am hoping to start subbing when school starts again, but everything seems pretty up in the air on that front. Billy called the Cal/Nevada JATC a few days ago and found out he's #14 on their list. #14!!! That's huge! I'm so proud of him! He could actually get called out by them any day, and at this point he's thinking he'd accept, but they have more interviews scheduled at the end of this month so there's also a really good chance he'll get bumped back down again... so we'll see. We're completely content with where we're at now which makes it easy not to be anxious about what we're really hoping happens.

Last weekend Billy took me to the top of this mountain that had the most beautiful view of the area we're living in. We're in an area rich with Native American history and there's a lot to see and learn about here. The biggest downfall is it's ridiculously hot. And HUMID. And Oklahoma's experiencing a drought. Have I mentioned how amazing my husband is for working 10 hour days outside? I can't imagine.

Here are some pictures from our lovely date :)