Tuesday Tales: Cypress Gardens

 

                I still have a few more vacation adventures to share with you! Today I want to tell you about our trip to Cypress Gardens. I read about it on a Pinterest article and thought we should definitely add it to our agenda. It ended up being one of our favorite days.

                Cypress Gardens is a beautiful place, but its claim to fame is being the location of the famous rowboat scene in The Notebook. Allie and Noah were out in this gorgeous swamp, rowing through swan-filled waters, and then a downpour found them – and that kiss! Well, it turns out the swans were just there for the movie, because alligators live in the swamp full time, but you actually can row through those very waters!

                So we went and were pleasantly surprised to find that other than a field trip, it wasn't very busy that day! 

                I found these boards with quotes from the movie…

                …I liked those better than this sign.

                As soon as we arrived, we put our name in for a boat ride and got on the waiting list. (Note: there are no extra charges for the boat ride, but there are only so many per day, so if you wait too long, you might not get to ride.) While we waited, we hiked around some of the trails and appreciated the absolute breathtaking beauty.

                They had a butterfly garden, but it was hotttttttttttt in there, and there weren’t too many butterflies flitting about. Maybe they were hot too! We didn’t stay long in there.

                Ryan’s requested photo shoot…

                At last, it was our turn. My one solid hope was that we would not see an alligator near our boat. And I did not. If Ryan did, he did not mention it, and I thank him for it.

                This was probably my favorite thing we did the entire time we were gone.

                After our boat ride, we ate salads we brought with us. They had little picnic tables in a courtyard, and you could bring food to eat. (There was a gift shop with chips and candy bars, but they didn’t serve meals.)

                After lunch, we went back out on the trails, which are numerous and go deep into woods. On our way, we passed this couple in the boat…and if you look closely, you’ll see an alligator at the base of the tree next to them. She was NOT sure about it. He was taking pictures. Basically they were Ryan and me.

                The hiking was fun…but I admit my hypervigilance for the copperheads they kept mentioning prevented me from fully enjoying it.

                When we finished the trails, we headed out in search of the Angel Oak tree. It’s the largest, oldest living oak tree, and it was (unfortunately) about an hour’s drive from where we were. When we arrived, there were quite a few people visiting it – more than I expected, honestly.

                The tree is in a park, and it’s surrounded by fencing, so there are only certain hours of the day you can get close to it. The tree is fascinating. I’ve never seen one with branches that grow quite like this!

                We were SO HUNGRY after a full (HOT!) day out, hiking and adventuring, and Ryan craved Culvers. I am pretty sure it took us another hour to get there, but we found a really nice one! The manager was holding interviews with teenagers for summer help, so we had a grand time listening to those while we ate. She was so good with them. One girl, when asked why she applied, said, “I have never been to Culver’s before.” I don’t think the manager knew what to do with that. She asked the girl what her favorite restaurant was, and the girl said Zaxby’s. Ha!

                We even sprang for mixers as a treat. SO delicious. Don’t even remember my last Mixer!

                We were hot and tired, but what a wonderful wonderful day it was. We were thankful for such fun.

Menu Monday: Nourishment for Body and Soul

 

                We enjoyed our cooking this week!! Tried some new things, enjoyed most of them, and also ate a couple of emergency Subway meals! Here’s what we had:

Monday: Asian Chicken Salad

What We Loved: Healthy recipes for Asian food always make me nervous, because I’ve learned (at least for my taste buds) Asian food needs to be full fat/fried/not that great for you to taste good. But this pleasantly surprised me. I did skip the wonton wrappers because I didn’t want to buy a whole package for just a few. I air fried our chicken, and it was tender and juicy!

Tuesday: Stuffed Pepper Casserole

What We Loved: I needed a recipe that made more than four servings, so this one won for this night. It was easy to throw together in the skillet on the stove and made six servings. I knew I wouldn’t have time to cook Wednesday night and would still need leftovers for Thursday, so this was the winner. I used riced cauliflower instead of quinoa, so I didn’t need the chicken broth. There were plenty of juices from the tomatoes to make it work!

Wednesday: Leftover Stuffed Pepper Casserole

What We Loved: We had to leave almost as soon as Ryan came home from work so we could get to the T-ball game in Greentown, so leftovers saved the day!

Thursday: Subway Sandwiches

What We Chose: This was not the planned meal for this evening, but when our water went out of commission, I called Ryan and told him to bring home Subway. He got us each a footlong turkey sandwich (on flatbread for me) so we would also have lunch for Friday. So very thankful for emergency food options!

Friday: Steak Kabobs with GrilledZucchini and Leftover Rice

What We Changed: Everything?? First of all, both these recipes were supposed to be grilled, but it was hot, so I just did them in the oven. Also, I always think I will enjoy constructing a kabob, and then I remember how much they irritate me to assemble. So for the steak kabobs, I put stew meat and mushrooms and red onion on parchment paper and baked at 350 for about 25 minutes. Then I added the tomatoes, because Ryan doesn’t like his tomatoes cooked. I didn’t make the chimchurri sauce. So the recipe is mostly unrecognizable. The grilled zucchini was a bit more of a recipe-follow except I also baked them at 350 for the same time instead of grilling. Still tasted great!

Saturday: Leftover Steak Kabobs with GrilledZucchini and Leftover Rice

What We Loved: We didn’t have a lot of time to cook, because we were prepping for hosting our small group for an ice cream bar. Leftovers for the win!

Sunday: Subway Sandwiches. Again!

What Happened: We had a different plan for dinner and it ended up getting switched at the last minute, so we stopped at Subway to get sandwiches. May I say once again how glad I am they brought back flatbread??

Sunday Scrapbook: Moments from the Week

 

                This week was a wild leap right back into life, post-vacation. Both of us had a lot of catching up to do. (Why is it that coming back from vacation requires twice as much work??) Anyway, in between all the home and work chores, we had a few fun moments! Want to see??

I jumped right back into work last Sunday – teaching Sunday School and sharing the message. And then we began our round of graduation open house visits for 2026! Ryan was super excited that the first one had a dirty soda bar. He couldn’t choose between flavors, so he got both. HA!

Monday was Ryan’s reentry to work day, and he had a super busy day! I had several meetings, and most involved coffee, so I counted that a good day. We were exhausted by bedtime, but we had a fine start to the week/month!

Tuesday was our 162^nd monthiversary! We had to work, but after work, we went for an extra long walk and then tried out a new ice cream shop in Berne. They had sold out of almost everything, but Ryan tried their homemade strawberry, and I stuck with tried and true milk chocolate. So delicious!

We trekked back to Greentown on Wednesday evening to watch our nephew play t-ball. Oh my goodness. I have never been to a t-ball game, and it is THE most precious thing. His sister told us it was more hilarious than anything, and she was right. Kids sprawled out in the outfield, bouncing on bases because they had to potty, helping out the other team by NOT throwing the ball to base…it was the best. What a fun way to spend the evening!

I worked from home on Thursday and got so much accomplished. I also discovered partway through the afternoon that we had no water. Normally if water goes out of commission because of a water main break or hydrant work, the town sends a message via email and text, but I didn’t have anything. And of course, the offices were closed early that day. Sigh. It really rattled me that something big might be wrong, so I ended up on the patio with Lexi, trying to calm my heart, enjoy the lake, read my books (work and pleasure), and trust the Lord for resolution.

We tried something new on Friday: making homemade ice cream! We purchased an ice cream freezer a couple of years ago (thrifted it!) and tried making healthy ice cream. It was awful. We never got back to trying that or any other kind of ice cream, but we were down to host an ice cream sundae bar for our small group, so we decided to give it a shot. (Also trying not to think about the ice cream shop that just went up for sale…)

Well…the thrifted freezer quit halfway through the freezing. We were able to borrow a freezer from some friends and finished freezing the mix we made. We had friends over Saturday night and presented our ice cream offering. They brought fun toppings and we supplied the ice cream. It was like we had our own mini ice cream shop for the night, and it was so much fun!

Saturday Suggestions: Inspirations for Your Weekend

              Good morning, friends! We have a full weekend ahead of us, so I don’t know how much time I’m going to have to sit and enjoy any kind of reading. I sure hope you have some down time, though! I’ll get you started, okay?

I share a lot of recipes on this blog each week, but I don’t often share breakfast recipes. Most of my breakfasts are scrambled eggs (with veggies and feta) and a slice of homemade bread – or yogurt with homemade granola and fruit. But sometimes I do like to make a breakfast dish that can last several days. This post has ten protein-rich breakfasts, and I thought I’d share it with you in case you’re looking for something for your own breakfast routine!

Jennifer lives in New England and wrote this beautiful story about her present-day gardening and how it relates to the gardening homeowners would have done in 1776, when America was just getting started. It’s fascinating to me to see how everything cycles around again. There’s some history, some agriculture, and some plain good story wrapped up in this!

Have you ever heard of or thought about a bucket list for your home? I love this summer-themed list that Yvonne shared for bringing out the best of summer throughout the house. From plants to colors to scents, she covers it all, and I think it’s brilliant!

This past spring, I did a Bible study with some ladies from church, and we studied Darlene Schacht’s book on Nehemiah. It was absolutely thrilling to learn together about the rich things God has tucked away in a book most overlook. But one of the challenging things about the book was the occasional long lists of hard-to-pronounce names. We went through everyone and heard the names out loud, because I’m convinced each one matters. I’ve never seen anyone write on that topic before, but Yvonne did, and I loved what she had to say. If long lists of names in the Bible frustrate you, try looking at them from her perspective!

Buying jeans frustrates me. I am (across the fashion board) not a trend-lover. I would rather find clothing that is going to be on the timeless side so I don’t have to replace it all the time simply because it’s gone out of style. But jeans, I feel like, change up every year. And I don’t love all the options. So yes, I’m aware that my choices in jeans aren’t up with the times. But I did find this post helpful, because while it nods to style, it focuses more on body shape and what cuts look better on you based on your shape. THIS is better than studying trends, at least in my opinion.

Emily Freeman wrote this piece about a sudoku method of packing…and I found it intriguing. She went on vacation to Aruba and tried this method of packing clothes to wear so she didn’t overpack, could mix and match what she took, and could use everything she selected. It’s okay if you would pick different pieces than she chose (swimsuit top probably wouldn’t work for most as an actual top), but take a look at the method. Could you do it?