Result: Delicious!

The people have voted & say that the Praline-Apple Bread is wonderful.

As promised, here is the recipe if you don't get Southern Living yourself (which I can't imagine).

Praline-Apple Bread

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans, divided

1 (8oz) container sour cream

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups finely chopped, peeled Granny Smith apples

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Bake 1/2 cup pecans in a single layer in a shallow pan 6-8 minutes or until toasted and fragrant, stirring after 4 minutes.

Beat sour cream and next 3 ingredients at low speed with an electric mixer 2 munutes or until blended.

Stir together flour and next 3 ingredients. Add to sour cream mixture, beating just until blended. Stir in apples and 1/2 cup toasted pecans. Spoon batter into a greased & floured 9 x 5-inch loaf pan. Sprinkle with remaining 1 cup chopped pecans; lightly press into batter.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour to 1 hour & 5 minutes or until a wooden pic inserted into center comes out clean, shielding with aluminum foil after 50 minutes to prevent excessive browning. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack.

Bring butter and brown sugar to a boil in a 1-qt. heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly; boil 1 minute. Remove from heat and spoon over top of bread, let cool completely (about 1 hour).

Note: To freeze, cool bread completely; wrap in plastic wrap, then in aluminum foil. Freeze up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature.

Recipe from Debbie Grusska - Hobart, Indiana

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The only problems I ran into was that my icing mixture of brown sugar and butter didn't turn out looking like theirs did - but it was still yummy.

Hope you make it and enjoy it as we did. It's wonderful with your morning coffee.

I'll let you know.

It's a little cooler & brisker in the Upstate of SC this morning.

It's putting me in the mood for Fall.

I know it's not really here & won't be for quite a while but a girl can dream, can't she?

So, in honor of my Delusional Season Disorder, I'm thinking about making this:

It's Praline-Apple Bread and I found the recipe in my favorite magazine, Southern Living.

If it turns out as yummy as I'm hoping it will, I'll post the recipe for you.

Hope your weekend is off to a good start. I'm off to find me some apples.

Eye Candy

I woke up in a very bad mood this morning.

I won't bore you with all of the details explaining why this occurred as I'm working really hard on trying to forget that I'm in a very bad mood today.

It hasn't been working as well as I'd like, so I thought I would distract myself with some pictures of pretty things.

These are just some pics of rooms and things I've seen around the net lately and I'm very sorry that I don't remember exactly where each picture came from.

Just know that they aren't mine.

No room in my house looks like this (unfortunatley)....uh oh, I feel that mood thing coming back.

I'd better hurry with the pictures and distract myself.

Hope y'all are having a great day - I'm off to change mine into that now.

Panther's Camp 09

We're blessed to live in a great area with lots of family activities.

Last year, as we were preparing to move here, we found out that the Carolina Panther's actually train at a local college - Wofford College.

It's a free event and so one day between house hunts we decided to check it out and boy am I glad we did. If you want to see those pics, click here.

Now, I'm hooked.

It's so fun to be able to watch these professional football players, that you normally only see on TV, training and practicing right in front of you.

This year when training time came, I checked out the calendar, grabbed a friend and her son and off we went. (G was thrilled - ha!)

Not only do we get to see these great athletes in person but it's a great opportunity for me to get in some good shutter time.

Come along with us to Panther's Training Camp '09: (Beware...picture overload)

The quarterback's came down and practiced right in front of where we were standing - that was probably my favorite part.

After practice, if you're lucky, you can get a few autographs. The boys did pretty well this year and B was able to add about 7 new names to his Panther football. He was so excited.

It was a fun and very hot day. Thanks to the Panther's for putting on a great show. Good luck this season!

**All images are private property and cannot be copied or reproduced without written permission.

1st Day of School

It's that time of year again.

Summer vacation was officially over at our house yesterday.

Here's a look at the kiddos as they prepared to head out to catch the bus in the early morning hours.

What's this? They've forgotten their backpacks, lunch boxes and even their shoes.

Not really. We homeschool so there's no need for all of that .

We do believe in starting our day pretty early though - 8:15 - 8:30 and we're in the "classroom" figuring out our plan for the day.

Here are a few pictures from the first day of 6th and 3rd grades.

We even had a new student show up ready to learn.

The new girl was really friendly and fit in well with the class.

Look at all of that colorful goodness. I just love brand new crayons - it's a sickness...really.

Ah....school days, school days.

Here's hoping your children have a great school year.

What we're doing this weekend.

When you leave town on a moment's notice and stay gone for a week....this is what you come back to.

A complete mess!

We've also got an important day on Monday - the First Day of School.

Needless to say, this Saturday is going to be spent getting our house back in order and re-adjusting lesson plans.

Should be a fun and productive day.

With everything going on around here lately, I've forgotten to mention that someone in our house went from this:

To this:

Look who's got glasses now. Isn't she too cute?

Ok, I've got to get busy. Hope your weekend is off to a great start.

Things Left Behind

It was one week ago today that my mom called to tell us we should drive up to NC to see Jack because things weren't looking good.

We arrived in time to see him and spend that last night with him as he was struggling in the hospital. On Friday morning, God decided it was time and finally let his body rest.

The next few days were a flurry of activity.

Funeral arrangements to make, family and friends to see and more BBQ and fried chicken than I've ever seen to eat. (Nobody does funeral food like southerners.)

After all of the activity was done and it was just me, my mom and G at her house, I walked around just looking at all of Jack's stuff sitting there like he's going to walk in and grab it anytime.

I immediately grabbed my camera (cause that's what I do) and snapped a few pictures so I'd always have those memories of him.

(Photographs that we displayed during the visitation.)

He may have technically been just my step-dad, but he was the only father I really ever had and he will be missed dearly.

Saying Good-bye

Easter 2008

Taking a blogging break to say "good-bye" to a great man.

As some of you may know, my step-father had been having health problems for a while and it's with a heavy heart that I have to tell you he passed away this morning.

He'd been living with dialysis and heart issues for the last few months and on Wednesday morning he had another severe heart attack while at home.

After two days in ICU we said "We love you" for the last time and he went to be with our Lord and Savior.

The next few days will be filled with lots of tears, hugs and yes, laughter.

He always was making everyone laugh at any situation and we can't celebrate his life without laughing ourselves.

I hope all of you are doing well and I'll be back to visit when we get back home.

For now, I'll ask that you pray for peace for my mother who will be struggling to deal with life on her own again.

Thank you.

Where did it go?

Guess what we're doing this week.

Enjoying our last week of summer break.

Where did it go?

Didn't we just start seeing all of the "out of school" posts around blogland?

It's just another reminder that our lives are passing way too quickly.

Remember to enjoy each day because it's a day that we won't get back.

Summer memories 2009:

Don't you recognize Hannah Montana & Nick Jonas??
Already thinking Halloween costumes.

So long summer vacation - it's time to hit the books again.

We do have one last trip planned for this weekend. We'll give summer break a good send-off and come back ready to tackle 6th and 3rd grades.