The Waterstraut Waterspout: Closing Out May 2022

Last day of May, we know what that means! Time to catch up on the blog. When I last left you, Hayden had just finished up his uklele class at the libary, luckily a few days later we finally got off the wait list for the ukelele to check out of the library! So, he's had this one for a couple weeks. Side note, how cool is it that the library allows you to check out a ukelele? I can't wait until ours reopens- we've heard they're still on track for August. We're crossing our fingers! We miss our library so much!

We also had to field trip to Hudson, because the three of us who don't have passports may or may not be needing them in November to go to Toronto. (My mom is getting an award, and we're hoping to go, but we'll see how things go with covid, and flying and all that). Anyway, apparently everyone in Land O Lakes is ready to travel, because there weren't any open appointments for months. So, to Hudson we went. But, it's all done now, so in 8 to 11 weeks, we can leave the country!

The Blood mobile bank was in our neighborhood a couple of weekends ago too, and Hayden gave blood for the first time.

Next weekend, my family will be in Orlando for a trip to Universal. I've promised matching vacationing shirts, which I'm sure Clint and Jess will just love (that's sarcasm), but Cort will be totally all about it, at least. Anyway, I'd made everyone's excpet for ours, so I got out all my stuff to make some shirts.

We're obviously the Slytherin family.

I also made Asa a Brentford Bees shirt.

And, I got Asa on board to wear a couple of matching shirts for our anniversary at Disney.

Plus, I made my very first shirt that I designed in Gravit. Most of the other ones are just an image that I cleaned up, or a file I bought.

My mom also sent me some fabric/old shirts to make some stuffed animals for a close family friend who's husband passed away. I was super impressed how good of a job I did, because I had to line up the lines along a seam. But, I did pretty good. And, along with the fabric, my mom sent me a tshirt she got at the Hayes Presidential Center.

In other crafting news, we did work some more on our fence mural. This thing has taken us years. You have to save up enough lids, and then use a whole thing of adhesive when you know it'll have time to dry and not be rained on. Basically, we've used up all the blue lids we have- and we won't reliably be able to confirm a day without rain until the fall. But, even in three months I don't think we'll get all the blue lids we need. I've enlisted the help of some others, so we'll see if we can finish it up in the fall.

Speaking of summer and rain, I'm already so over the heat. And it's not even that humid yet. I just want to jump in the pool without having my feet burn, go for a walk without getting sunburnt despite having on sunscreen, and buy ice cream without needing an insulated bag to bring it home. But, that'll have to wait... till October. *Sigh* I know, it's the trade off I make for living here.

Speaking of trade offs, covid sucks here again. So, couple the heat with masks and it's super gross for this mustache sweat-er. I'm super annoyed this happens like every June when we near our anniversay, but you take the good with the bad. Hopefully we'll make it through the Universal weekend with my family without getting any covid-y germs, and it won't impact our (absolutely awesome) anniversary we have planned. But hey, at least I have 8 more free covid tests to test when we get back.

Speaking of getting back, Peyton is most likely coming back on June 15th, so hopefully he also doesn't pick up any covid germs on his flight home. He was messaging the other day about "footbal" aka soccer, but I'm not sure he knows we've also been watching it here. The last Brentford game was a week and a half ago now, so we had one last breakfast taco bar.

In related food news, I try and make some meals that are on the cheaper end. And I've been sure to use up lots of leftovers. Because holy geez food is expensive these days. Solution? Trash fries (aka Poutine-ish like topped fries) with all kinds of random leftovers as toppings.

Of course, most lunches these days look like this (eggs still aren't too pricey here, so we've had a lot of frittatas lately)>

Even when we get take out, we tend to go with family meals to make it a little cheaper. This week we got Cheddars, and had all of this for under $30. Not too shabby.

Now, mostly Asa cooks. But, sometimes (Monday's and Tuesday's) I have to cook, and I usually mess something up. This week it was garlic bread. But, I will note, even when I mess stuff up everyone eats it and pretends its fine. Even if I completely burn the garlic bread. They tried to tell me it was good, but the progression of these pictures implies otherwise.

I redeemed myself a few days later with stuffed french toast in the air fryer a few days later.

And, a nice chicken dinner.

Of course, there was the finale of Survivor season 42 on Wednesday. And we can't not have Sur-FRY-vor on finale night.

I was excited Maryanne won (sorry, spoilers, I know!)

This past week we also celebrated Phenom's birthday. This old mop of a dog is FIFTEEN! I made him some pupcakes to celebrate.

Except, fun fact, I had to make it twice- because only after I made the first batch did I realize our peanut butter was part of the recall. So, I had to toss it and use what I had left of an aldi's jar. Costco to their credit was really cool about it. Asa just walked up to ask for a refund and the guy just asked if we had crunchy or creamy and gave us a gift card. Easy peasy.

And, I still had nice safe pupcakes for Phenoms birthday!

I also enjoy this progression of pictures. Phenom had no time for photos. He just wanted his pupcakes.

Giving them birthday pupcakes is always such an ordeal because some of them eat them faster than others, but they did pretty well this time. (It is a three person MINIMUM job though, to contain the choas).

Sunday Asa and I headed into Ybor for the Cuban Sandwich festival. Walking through Ybor we spotted a chicken, some beer bottles, and a Go Bolts sign. Totally on brand for Ybor.

The festival was pretty busy, even though we tried to get there right when they opened. But, everything looked awesome it was hard to pick what to get.

We did a lap and then decided on a stuffed chicken arepa, a lobster and shrimp empanada, and a dulche de leche mini cake. (We did also get a mini cuban and some lemonade to wash it all down, not pictured).

The arepa was killer. Especially with that green sauce on top.

The cake reminded me of the one's they have at Giddeons. I really liked this one!

But man, that empanada. It's changed my mind about empanadas, because I was not previously a big fan. But this had like a lobster bisque type soup on the middle and I could have just eaten a couple of these and been happy.

Since we were already in Tampa, we decided to pick up Calib's birthday cupcakes from Gigi's cupcakes. We're planning on going to Armature Works tomorrow night, but we'll probably get dessert there so we won't need cupcakes. But, he has to have his Red Velvet Gigi's Cupcake fix for his birthday. It's tradition at this point. (I always get him two, but with Peyton missing we only got a five pack).

On Memorial Day we played our usual True American. I won, but Calib wasn't far behind.

I sent this picture to Peyton so he'd know what he was missing. He didn't seem too broken up about it, though.

And, that's it. We're all kind of getting caught up on stuff today. Hayden has to get all his school work done early this week, since we will be gone at Universal this weekend. Asa's got to get all his students ready for the first of the month. And I'm catching up on the blog. Calib, meanwhile, is furiously watching Netflix because we told him we're unsubscribing at the end of this billing cycle (here's hoping everyone can fit in the rest of Stranger Things by June 11). Oh, and in related news, we cut the cable cord last week. Spectrum was about to be way too expensive, so we're going with a Frontier/Youtube TV combo. So far it's worked out well, except when it stormed last night and the internet went out- and then we couldn't do anything. Lame. Hopefully that doesn't happen every time it storms. Because, you know. Florida in the summer. Still, when we had to take the DVR's back to the Spectrum store, it was a good excuse to hit up Krate and see what new stuff had opened. We got an Apple Cider Donut from the Fryroom and a Burger from Bacon Boss HQ. All of it was pretty good (though Bacon Boss was a little on the salty side for me).

I'm excited for Krate to finally open next weekend. It's felling less construction zone and more foodie, but it's still not quite fully functioning yet.