Last night, we had an amazing dinner prepared by Eli, my brother’s lovely lady, assisted by none other than my brother himself (egads!).  Tomorrow is my night and my partner-in-crime is my uncle, so I’m excited about the meal (& the blog) already!

One of the things I have really enjoyed about the new lady in my brother’s life is that she’s a very strong, independent sort of person, and holds her own quite well in the family.  Since she’s been around, our family has been exposed to new and different foods and traditions, because Eli doesn’t fade into the background.  And when you date someone like my brother, that’s a very important characteristic.  She’s a keeper.

For din din last night, she did a surf & turf with beef tips, grilled asparagus, Snow Crab legs and mashed sweet potatoes (yes please, I’ll have some more of that!).  It was yum yum delish.  Also, check out her blog ~ it’s not food related at all, but she’s quite the writer and I like her inner monologue, which is on display at www.shortforelizabeth.com.

She's gonna hate me for this, but isn't she the cutest?

This morning, I dragged my hiney out of bed, and went for a quick jog (I would say I probably did two miles, but it felt like 100 because you can cut the humidity with a knife down here!).  Then, I did some work.  Yes, you read that correctly, work.  I’m a good employee! 😉

Then it was off for the family’s “starter” round of golf ~ my first since last year, and my brother’s first in almost two.  It was quite a day.  Apparently, my dad picked the course that was “Beginner Friendly.”  I’ll keep my opinion to myself, but I will say that the course was very long.  In more ways than one.  The yardage was a little ridic on some holes.

First, we teed off at 11am, so we played through the hottest time of the day (can you say sweaty? … because we were!).

The supplies

My brother wears Pink Shorts. It's all good.

Second, when a person hasn’t played in awhile, it tends to take one more shots to get to the green … which means more time, and more swinging … and usually, more walking.  In the sun.

If you were wondering, the answer is yes.  I’m sunburnt.

Hot. Sweaty. Somewhere on the back nine.

We saw some alligators ~ I didn’t get a pic of the one that pulled itself out of the lagoon and slunk across the third fairway, but I did get a snap of his friend gliding through the water on the fifteenth.

I know it looks like a log. It wasn't. Trust me.

In general, I played fairly solid golf for not having swung a club in awhile.  And of course, my brother beat me, because he’s just that annoyingly good at everything.  It was a great afternoon with my mom, doing something that she is very good at (she used to compete in and win tournaments, so you can understand why my brother and I play and strive to be good … don’t even get me started on my dad’s obsession with the game!).  And golf always makes good memories!

We came home and plopped in the pool, and extricated ourselves just before the thunderstorm came (Hurricane Irene is one her way!).  Now we’re off to dinner at Il Carpaccio ~ which is a good thing, because this girl is hungry!

Downpour!

Is there anything you and your family like to do together?  Let me know about it in a comment!  I’d love to know that other families have traditions like ours to go out and play golf in absurdly hot weather and call it ‘vacation.’  🙂