Crazy week

I am still in shock that it is a full week into August.  Seriously, where is summer going?

Last week was busy, but satisfying.

We have been trying to exercise walk at least 3 days a week in addition to walking to the stores whenever possible.  The summer traffic has been absolutely wretched here in town so we try and walk.  Luckily, the grocery store, outlet mall, and BiMart are all within a mile of us.
We pass by this gorgeous hydrangea every day on our way to the beach:

Skott's latest creation:

driftwood, beach rocks, and sea glass

the picture angle is somewhat funky but he has been making various window mobiles using driftwood, beach stones, and sea glass.  He makes all the copper rings as well.  I will have to get photos of the others, they are beautiful.

We tried our hand at re-creating a recipe from our favorite pub in Newport.  Skott made the spicy buffalo-style chicken and I made the fresh "blue cheese" dressing.  I am NOT a fan of blue cheese dressing (the thought of eating moldy cheese just kills me) so I modified the recipe.  It turned out amazing and it was very low cal and healthy.  Here is the original recipe, with my modifications in red in parantheses):

Low Fat Creamy Blue Cheese Dressing:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese (I used the very last hunk of goat cheese we had  from Dad and Sherry's farm.  Any strong/sharp cheese should work well)
6oz fat free Greek yogurt (I used just regular low fat yogurt)
1 Tbsp light mayo (I used fat free sour cream instead)
1 Tbsp lemon juice (I was out, so I used lime juice but I think it would have been better with lemon)
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1/8 tsp garlic powder (I used a lot more than that!)
salt and pepper to taste

In a small bowl, mash the blue cheese and yogurt together with a fork.  Stir in mayo, lemon, vinegar, and garlic until well blended.  Salt and pepper to taste.  I also added fresh chives from the garden because it needed some "color".
This recipe makes about 1 cup.  It was so yummy to dip our chicken bites in!  My only complaint was the next day it seperated and by the third day, it was pretty "runny".  So I would suggest only making as much as you can eat in one or two meals.

We also made homemade tortillas for the first time using corn flour, water, and salt.  I loved how they tasted and enjoyed the fact that they didn't have ANY lard in them at all.  It was a little hard to press them out evenly so we just ordered a tortilla press on amazon, I'll have to blog next time we make them with the press.

Last night I made cookie dough flavored hummus.  It was SO GOOD!  I want to play with the recipe a little more before I share it.... who knew garbanzo beans + apple sauce + splenda + vanilla + quick oats + a few other minor ingredients = the healthiest cookie dough you will ever eat !?!?!

I got to (briefly) see my sister Amy, Tim, Ellie, and Dereck on Friday.  They were headed to Tim's family reunion about an hour from here.  They stopped in Newport for groceries so I went down and hung out with them at Walmart :) haha  I wanted to go see them again the next day but we ended up working mass overtime all weekend :(

Izzy's been having it rough lately.  Her meds aren't working and I haven't decided if I want to try and switch over to another one (it's a pretty complicated process, not to mention extrememly expensive with lots of testing and monitoring).  She is losing hair again and most of the skin on her body is calcified.  Poor little girl.  When she's not panting or sleeping, she still bounds around the house and terrorizes the backyard.  We took the dogs to the beach yesterday.  They lasted about 20 minutes, which is about 15 minutes longer than I thought they would :)

I tell Izzy she is a "hot mess".  T-shirt to protect open wounds and
booties to keep her from bloodying her feet in the sand.

Fucie was pooped after his "walk"

We also went crabbing yesterday.  We got there at 7am, about 3 1/2 hours before low tide.  Everyone says crabbing is best at low tide but the last two times we have had phenomenal luck crabbing as the tide is going out.  We each put out a trap and on the first pull, Skott got 3 keepers.  My first three pulls came back empty so I switched over to the other side of Skott.  We ended up with 9 crabs by 10:45!  We decided to call it an early day since we had plenty of crab. Here is a photo of the biggest one:  If you look, you can see the marking for Oregon.  The crabs have to be atleast 5 3/4" wide right below their horns.  I think this one was plenty big enough:)