Summertime

Hello we are the Longs and it has been over 6 months since our last post. We are still attempting to continue this blog so maybe we'll do a little better at updating it in the second half of 2009.

Here are some highlights of our summer so far.

We went to Westchester County, New York for a week in June. We drove 10hrs each way, but were thankful for good health while traveling. We even got to stop in and visit Katie's brother & wonderful sister-in-law. We also stayed a night in Deleware with Drew's aunt, uncle, and cousins.

Brother grilling up a feast of veggies & steak. Oh, and his wife just got him the new apron. It says, "Have you hugged a Presbyterian today?"

The New York trip was our big adventure for the summer. I spent my time being poked with needles and hooked up to lots of computers in a lab at NY Medical College. The mad scientist doing the tests was great as were his assistants. It proved to be a useful trip to help learn more about POTS from an expert. No cures or magic pills were given, but useful knowledge that helped narrow in on why I gets dizzy most days.

This represents my experience. Waiting in the car while Drew shopped at an A&P [apparently they still exist in NY]. If you can't tell it's a photo of my leg with four band-aids on it.

Drew spent his time in NY eating pizza and exploring. He found his friend's parents organic farm where he spent time collecting eggs, eating scones & cheese, and picking rhubarb. Drew also managed to find the Readers Digest global headquarters and venture into the city for a day.

Readers Digest HQ, Holbrook farm and store, and NY, NY.

Other travels: Drew went to Iowa for work and got to set-up & tear-down a show for Shawn Johnson, of Olympic gymnastics & Dancing with the Stars fame. While there he happened to meet a young man from the tv show Hannah Montana. Drew was not impressed.

Drew created a garden in our front yard with tomatoes, basil, rosemary, green beans, and okra. He has done a great job taking care of it and has said that we may have grown the best tasting tomatoes ever. This from a man who eats his tomatoes like biting into an apple.

Okra plant getting very tall and hard to see, but there is also basil & rosemary in the left photo. Below it are some of our yummy tomatoes.

Guarding our plants is what I think is the biggest spider I've ever seen. If not the biggest, it is certainly the scariest.


We had a huge 100yr old oak limb fall across the street and into our yard. Before it hit our grass it took a chunk from our neighbors roof, totalled his car, and brought down several power lines. The 3am wake up call was not appreciated by Katie who was home alone with a very concerned little dog. The dog was in fact so concerned he found it necessary to pee out his fear in our back room, which Katie found as she stumbled through in the dark. [missed my photo-op on this big news story. Fortunately 3 local news channels picked up the story.]

We have already eaten at least 5 cartons of ice cream this summer and numerous popsicles, both bought and homemade. The ice cream quantities are a result of finishing off our $50 gift card to Harris Teeter which we exclusively used only for ice cream over the past year and a half. It also is due to HT's frequent ice cream offers for 'buy 2, get 3 free.' On the popsicles, we created watermelon popsicles and a homemade vanilla/caramel pudding pop. All very tasty.
We also baked some tasty things. Thanks to a friend from church we got a recipe for our new favorite cookies, homemade Oreos.

Really, really good cookies! I even got to use my piping bag to squirt the filling onto the cookies. We've already made two batches less than 2 weeks after getting the recipe.

We've made & eaten A LOT of pizza. We have a pizza stone & pizza peel, both of which are used at least once a week thanks to Trader Joes 99cent pizza dough. While eating a piece of pizza last night Drew commented that "yes, I can. I could eat pizza every day." Unfortunately for him, "no he can't". His wife won't let him.

We also ate some Chick-fil-a. It's possible we were dressed as cows at the time.


In dog news, Digory has managed to stay out of the emergency vet for all of 2009. We pray this continues. We also are more wise about keeping chocolate chips on the top shelf of the pantry rather than the bottom near his food bowl.

For entertainment this summer we have attempted to watch every episode of Friends' ten seasons. Thanks to a wonderful friend from church we have 40dvds to make this dream a reality. As of posting, Katie has watched all but season 10 and half of season 2. Due to Drew having a job, he is lagging behind by a few seasons.



I think that about covers the big highlights for us. We still have a little more summer to go so perhaps there will be more interesting things. After all, thanks to Drew's family we now have a big $44 bag of various fireworks sitting in our dining room. Who knows what will happen.

K