Catching Up with Life Lately

Now that I've finally returned from vacation, gotten back into the swing of things and recapped all the vacation happenings.. I suppose it's about time to catch up on the day to day life happenings. It's nothing quite so thrilling as time spent on the West coast and riding things at Disneyland...but it's the calm and comfort of every day life and there is something nice about routine.

  

  

One of the things I love to collect are pins from Disney - I have pins from the past four Disney vacations and I try to choose them based on things I've done/experiences that I've had while on that particular trip. I put the pins from our last Disneyland visit in a shadow box with pictures from the trip - and I need to do that with some of my other pins but I haven't quite gotten around to it.

I decided this time around to buy a Loki pin since we had the chance to meet Loki (my personal favorite from the Marvel universe) - he told me I was forward, but listen - I just wanted a picture, ha-ha! I also got a pin with Qi'ra from Solo on it; this one was purely because as a huge Game of Thrones fan, I loved seeing Emilia on a Disney pin and so I needed it! I grabbed a Disneyland Hotel pin since that's where we stayed, a Coco pin because we stayed during Pixar Fest and that is hands down my favorite Pixar movie and lastly - a Guardians of the Galaxy pin because I was chosen (by Star Lord) to participate in the dance off.

  

Another marvel from my vacation that I brought back - Snap Chat! I remember downloading it years ago and pretty quickly deciding that I had absolutely no clue how in the heck to work it. Well my little sister loaded it on to my phone shortly before my cousin's wedding started and she spent the entire week teaching me how to use it. I'm sort of obsessed with the filters but I can' quite decide if the big eyes are pretty or creepy...

Last week passed pretty quickly - to me, at least. Work was fairly relaxed and the weather ended up being quite beautiful... I got to leave work early on Friday which meant that I got to spend time with my precious pup; I mentioned that he'd not felt his best while I was gone. The vet seems to think he slipped a disc or pulled a muscle - he took pain medication for about ten days but has seemed just like his old self since late last week. He took some time on Friday evening to stop and smell the roses...

Last weekend was a completely lazy weekend - nothing ever wrong with that, especially since the weekend before was filled with Las Vegas activities and travel. I slept in on Saturday and then lounged on my couch with a cup of coffee and my sweet puppy. I basically loafed around all morning doing a whole lot of nothing and after lunch I finally convinced myself to exercise and do a little picking up and putting away around my little home before getting ready for some friends to come over for a cook out.

My contribution to the cook out was dessert - it is one of those that I've seen floating around Pintrest forever and a day - it's actually called Weight Watcher's Oreo Fluff and it's not filled with calories but it tastes absolutely divine! It's also incredibly easy to make and so I'll fill you in on that below!

Oreo Fluff

• 1 small package white chocolate or chocolate pudding mix
• 2 cups milk
• 1 small package whipped topping
• 15-20 Oreo cookies; crumbled

Prepare the pudding with the milk (according to package); once well mixed, fold in the whipped topping. Add in crumbled Oreo's about an hour before serving.

It's just that easy and it's just that good. You could add the Oreo's in earlier if you don't mind that they get a bit soft.. I don't know about you, but Oreo's are good no matter what! The rest of the meal was also delicious, grilled burgers and hot dogs, baked beans, chips, watermelon and cantaloupe and for dessert - Oreo Fluff and rice krispie treats in original, lemon and cookies and cream. We also had some really delicious homemade strawberry limeade - the whole meal was so good and my sweet pup cuddling up to Jimmy after dinner was pretty sweet too.

It started to rain almost as soon as the grilling was finished on Saturday night and it rained...and rained...and rained...through Saturday night and into Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon. After church, we grabbed lunch at the newly opened Macadoo's on the walking mall in Winchester - I'll be going back because it was yummy - definitely the best place to grab a sandwich! I went to see Infinity War one more time before it leaves theaters - especially since it rained all afternoon - there wasn't much else to do.

And this week has been quite relaxed too - which has been nice! I've left work early twice this week and been able to relax on the deck in the gorgeous summer sunshine with my pup! Tuesday night my Mom and I joined some of the ladies from our neighborhood Bible study to get dinner and we had a wonderful time. I can't believe it's already Thursday afternoon - this week seems like it has flown by.

One other thing I've been doing since we came home - watching Capitals hockey - something I can honestly say I haven't ever done before. The Capitals are playing the Stanley Cup and I've wanted to go to a game for years but just haven't quite gotten there yet...but I have been watching the games on TV and now I really want to go to a hockey game. Talk about intense! The entire city of DC and all of Northern Virginia, even into the Baltimore area...everyone is just electrified and it is so exciting to watch!

  

Tonight is the fifth game in the Stanley Cup finals - the Capitals lead the series 3-1, which means that if they win this game, the Stanley Cup is coming to DC! I can't wait to watch the game and I sure am hoping that tomorrow's post will include a little championship celebration! As FP Santangelo (Nationals commentator) has been saying "It's OK to Believe".