Last Day of Vacation...

Tomorrow morning, very early, I fly out with my nephew thus ending his 2011 vacation to our house.  I'm sure he is ready to go home and we are ready for some time without having to worry about how an almost 7 year old will behave, but it feels like we didn't get to do anything and these last three weeks have just flown by!

On a brighter note though, I was finally awake when my Morning Glory bloomed!  I have about 30 buds, but have only seen evidence of one other flower blooming (and that one finished the life cycle of a flower without me ever seeing it bloom)!  I was so excited to glance up at my pretty little vine and actually see color this morning!  And what a pretty color it is!  I have grown Morning Glories a grand total of once before...that plant was only 4 inches tall when it started blooming and had a very pale, soft pink color.  I love how the white seems to actually glow against the blue of the flower!  Of course, after I planted this and had (at one point) two very full hanging planters of the stuff, I found out it is a noxious weed in my area...oops!  Well, there went my plan of using it to create a natural screen for the chicken coop!  Which is okay in the end...only the one vine survived out of both planters...I suppose I should have just kept them in the house where they were doing so well!  I may just try these again (inside) in much smaller planters, it might be a good mid-winter pick me up, lol.

The side view isn't nearly as impressive, but I still like the way it turned out...it was a good morning to take a few greenery photos!  As you can see, there were vines on all three strings that the plant hangs from, there were also ones trailing down from the open spaces.  Sadly, I think it's my fault they all died, they started dying right after I put them outside.

This morning was a bad morning for us to be out of Heavy Cream too, I did get a yumy Starbucks coffee out of it though!  This time (since my other half was bringing them home) I got a Venti Latte and requested it be made with mostly half and half (not so good, but fairly legal on Atkins) and just a splash of Heavy Cream added to it to "thicken it up" a bit.  The barista told my other half they "always" make the lattes with half and half and just tell people they added cream (his word for half and half I suppose).  So lesson learned there...watch your barista! 
Once home, I added my own flavoring, today was feeling like a "Toasted Marshmallow" kinda day!  So yummy, thick, and sweet!  And totally (mostly) legal to drink!  Also, with using mostly half and half, it isn't giving me the sick feeling in my stomach that all Heavy cream has given me in the past.

Still left to do today...a little grocery shopping (can't be out of cream for two mornings in a row!), pack (oh what fun...not!), probably clean a few dishes (I believe the nephew will be eating his cereal with a fork this morning!), and figure out a couple more "kid friendly" meals.  Of course, since he has gotten older, that has become easier...he loves Shrimp!  I have cooked Shrimp twice for dinner recently, the first was the Fiery Skewered Shrimp I made last week (he loved those but for him they were a little too fiery) and then on the 4th of July, I made Chicken kabob pieces and barbequed them as well as what was left of the Shrimp bag.  Our nephew chose to eat only Shrimp that night too!  Other meals he has enjoyed this trip have been more "normal" kid foods.  We tend to eat out more than we should, especially when there is company around (who wants to stop having fun to cook or clean?), so he has had many a "happy face pancake" at Denny's (what a let down here) and Shari's.  Last night I ordered ala carte...I got 2 eggs, 4 pieces of Bacon, and a side of Cottage cheese, not exactly low-carb "perfect", but the cottage cheese just sounded so good and my portion of the bill was $8.58, which is about $1.50 less than ordering a meal and asking them to sub in stuff for the carbs!  Oh, and we have to get dressed and go to the Library today too.

General consensus on the chickens yesterday was, um, un-consensus-ed, lol.  One person said that one f the SLWs (Henri and Clyde) had to be a roo because the coloring was so different (I've heard that multiple times, but that is generally going off assuming these are birds from breeders...mine are hatchery birds).  Another said all three look to be roos (another thing I have heard before), and two posters said they all look like pullets (woot, lol).  This is about the same results I've been getting since I brought them home at 2-3 days old, so I wasn't surprised by the varied results, lol.  I did mention their breeds when I asked the question, but I don't think anyone paid it much attention...I got a lot of "some breeds don't start crowing until 5 moths" posts too...but I have been told in other posts that my breeds, should any of them turn out to be roos, should have been crowing by 10 weeks.  Well, I guess we wait and see!  Only a few weeks left before I start getting worried that I haven't seen any eggs yet, lol!