Outdoor Wednesday...Dolphins!

Welcome to Outdoor Wednesday. Please visit our gracious hostess, Susan at A Southern Daydreamer, for lots of beautiful outdoor shots.

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For my first Outdoor Wednesday, I'm so excited to show you some scenes from our boat. We were lucky enough to see some dolphins! That doesn't happen every time, but when it does, it makes the boat payment and marina fee worth every penny! You have to be fast to catch them, and I was able to get a few pretty good shots.

Passing by the backside of a state park...

A couple of Canadian geese and goslings...so cute!

An osprey getting ready to take flight...

Osprey in flight...so beautiful!

An osprey nest as we're headed in for the evening...

Foodie Friday...Easy Ice Cream Cake

Welcome to Foodie Friday! Please visit our hostess, Michael at Designs by Gollum, for lots of yummy food!

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Since the theme this week is cakes, I thought I would make an easy ice cream cake. My mom got the recipe from her neighbor, Michelle.

Please excuse the grody pan I made this in! It's my meatloaf pan, and it doesn't look all that great, but since there's only three of us to eat this right now, I wanted to make it in a small pan.

Michelle's Ice Cream Cake

Ice cream sandwiches

bananas

strawberries

jar of fudge ice cream topping

jar of caramel ice cream topping

Cool Whip

maraschino cherries

Put a layer of ice cream sandwiches in your cake pan, then slice bananas and strawberries and put them in a layer on top of the ice cream sandwiches. Pour fudge topping over the bananas and strawberries and then pour the caramel topping over the chocolate. Place another layer of ice cream sandwiches on that and then top with Cool Whip and maraschino cherries.

Tablescape Tuesday...My Herend Plates

Welcome to Tablescape Thursday! Please visit our hostess, Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for lots more tablescapes!

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For today's tablescape, I'm using the Herend Rothschild plates I've begun to collect. Our hostess Susan posted about these dishes a while back, and I was immediately hooked. I've since bought some small pieces pieces on eBay, and then bought four plates new. There are twelve motiffs in all, but I've only got four for now.

Sorry about the weird lighting on this next one.

I used my bee flatware from Nieman Marcus.

And my footed bee glasses.

Three or More Tuesday...Lampe Bergers

Welcome to Three or More Tuesdays, hosted by Tam at The Gypsy's Corner. Please visit her blog to see more collections.

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For this week's Three or More Tuesday, I am sharing my Lampe Berger collection. Um...do you think I like red just a little?

This next lampe is called "The Four Seasons." Each side depicts one of the four seasons, hence the name!

Spring:

Summer:

Fall:

Winter:

I *Heart* These Towels!

I've been needing new towels for a while, and finally got out this past weekend to look for some. I found these towels at Penney's by Chris Madden, and I love them! To me, they've got a spa look and feel to them. Silly, I know, but I'm excited about my new towels!

Metamorphosis Monday...A Double Met

Welcome to Metamorphosis Monday! Please visit our gracious hostess, Susan at Between Naps on the Porch, for lots of amazing changes.

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I'm posting a double metamorphosis this week. When we bought our current house seven years ago, it was literally one of the ugliest houses I'd ever seen. It had sat empty for at least nine months, as I guess no brave people until us saw what it could become. It was large, and in our target neighborhood/school district, so we decided to go for it.

I wasn't blogging at the time, so we didn't really take a lot of before and after shots of our various remodeling jobs, but I did find this picture of the kitchen partway through the renovation. We have a pretty large house, but the kitchen is very small. We ripped out the old cabinets and drywall down to the wall studs. We had new wiring and plumbing put in while everything was open. We have a fairly large house, but the kitchen is tiny, so we put in 40-inch cabinets and an island to maximize storage space.

This picture shows where the new drywall is in, and we had set the kitchen sink back in against the wall to use as a temporary sink until our cabs and granite came in....this picture is also where the second metamorphosis comes in...

My kids were 11 and eight at the time...

And here they are at 18 and 15...

And finally, some pics of our kitchen as it is today. I'm not happy with our floor tile and want to replace it with wood. The only problem is we're on a slab, so we can't do the traditional, nail-down hardwood. We'll either have to go with an engineered glued-down wood, or a floating floor. We actually put engineered wood in here during the remodel, but it was in such terrible shape so quickly that we replaced it with ceramic tile.

Chef Nickolai Henri presides over the kitchen from his perch atop the refrigerator...

Pink Saturday

Welcome to Pink Saturday! Please visit our hostess, Beverly at How Sweet The Sound, for lots more pink!

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For this week's Pink Saturday I'm posting my azaleas. Their beauty is so fleeting, I figured I'd better snap some pictures before the blossoms are gone. These azaleas are only about five years old, and were tiny when we planted them, so they're still not very big. Our first house had huge azaleas all across the front of the house, and I still miss them.