Dragon Eyes, Snazzy Fries, Safari Ties, and Apple Pies

 

Our beautiful "honeymoon dragons." In our sights each morning, reminding us of our honeymoon and marriage. We love these dragons. The meaning is deeply embedded in our hearts and minds. 

Today is Saturday, two weeks after the wedding. I find that not only are we both still incredibly happy, but we are sharing that happiness with each other in our nightly chats. Evenings are warm lately and that calls for sitting outside with my sweet man as he smokes his cigars. Time spent together means sharing our feelings toward each other, crafting a closeness that is unbeatable. We are loving married life and yes, we are still that sickening couple who shares kisses, hugs, butt pinches, and love no matter where we are. You know, those people. The ones you think to yourself, "Get a room," each time you see them. But we are still on the honeymoon high and can't help ourselves. 

But I digress into deep thought of my sweet man once again. The weekend started out great. Relaxing through Thursday and Friday, followed by a trip to Arby's to see if Terry could share my dinner with another woman. Just a joke, of course. To see where that story stems from, you can read We Have the Meats and learn more. We chose to eat at Arby's tonight because it was 93 degrees outside, and our electricity shut off. There was nothing. The fan, the AC units, lights, washer and dryer. Everything. 

Terry reported the outage to the electric company, and they jumped on it. We soon learned we weren't the only ones. People were coming out of their apartments and chatting about the outage. One woman reported she thought she heard it was for all of Douglas County, which later we found out wasn't the case. Arby's had their AC running, lights were on, and they could cook food. It seemed to be around our home and including our home. 

Anyway, the AC in Arby's felt so good. We sat at a table and waited for Terry's name to be called as is the typical protocol. She called his name; he grabbed the bags, and we dug in. Terry ordered his usual. He had a French dip, which is so good there, a diet soda and a mocha shake to go. I tried something different. I ordered the loaded fries' option and wow; was I glad I did!

Fries lay on the bottom of the dish, with a cheese sauce oozing out of the crinkled, fried spuds. Then there were tiny pieces of crispy coated chicken, like popcorn chicken. This was topped with queso and the fried onion you can buy in the can that will typically top off a green bean casserole. But that's not all. The creme de la creme was the covering of fried bacon sprawled out all over the goodies beneath. I was shocked at the amount of ingredients in this fast-food fry dish. It was actually quite yummy. 

Freaking good! Not healthy in any sense of the word, but OMG, so good. 

We ate and returned home to a cooled off house. The electric company shot Terry a text informing him our electricity was back on. Not sure what happened to knock out the juice to our house but was so happy it was back on! 

After spending some time outside, we decided to come in and watch a movie. Watching movies has become our "thing" lately. Tonight, we chose Defending Your Life, starring Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks. It's a romantic comedy involving a story of two people falling in love while they are in the afterlife. Good film. 

This is a film I've seen before, but Terry had not watched it in the past. He liked it after viewing it tonight, as did I. Following our film, we opened a large box Terry had collected from his storage unit that contained a red dragon. I had not seen it yet, obviously, but he was excited to show me. He fought with the box and Styrofoam surrounding the statue, but finally broke it free, revealing the cool looking dragon to me for the first time. 

Crystal towers shoot up from the resin rocks, giving the fierce looking dragon a great accompaniment to the feeling of fantasy lands far away. I thought it was a nice piece to add to the collection. 

Saturday morning rolled around far too quickly. Here I am, writing this post, trying to catch you up on the weekend. We have returned from the Wildlife Safari again, which we love to go to. If you follow the blog, you know we do drive through the park at least once per month. I captured some photos and will display them below, with very little comment. 

We typically spot the Watusi cattle in the beginning of the drive, which we did today as well. The horns on these beautiful creatures are so amazing. This is a female. You can tell because the horns are pointed upward, where a male has them pointed downward. 

We followed several of them, walking up the road to a feeding spot. 

The male in this grouping shows how males have their horns downward. 

Black elk.

Black elk, male of course.

Both hippos were enjoying the warm day submerged in the water. 

Little fallow deer. 

Blackbuck.

Now that we are back from safari (insert smart ass smile here). We returned home, ready to bake, clean, and spend some more valuable time together. I am baking a caramel apple walnut upside-down cake for tomorrow's movie marathon of the last two Indiana Jones films. Cannot wait to smell the heavenly aroma of apples and cinnamon baking together! 

I have gone to heaven! My new favorite dessert is caramel apple walnut upside-down cake. Now typically I make a cake mix and throw it on top of some apple or pineapple slices, then bake it. Flip it upside down and it's an awesome palate pleasing cake. This time, I mixed a cake from scratch. Caramel sauce is so good, and I cooked some up for this dessert. Of course, apples are lined up on top of that caramel sauce and I topped it all off with the cake batter. 

Placed that in the oven for 45 long minutes we had to suffer through. The heavenly scent of apples, cinnamon, and cake wafted through the house as we watched our movie, Four Weddings and a Funeral. Finally, it finished baking and wow! It didn't look all that great as a cake, but the taste of warm caramel, apples, cinnamon, and cake was amazing! I told Terry I would be making more of this! Love the whipped cream over the entire piece, even though it melted immediately. 

Only 45 minutes to eat a slice of heaven.

Beautiful caramel sauce fills the bottom of the pan. Apples and walnuts go into the creamy brown sauce, then it is all topped with cake batter. Into the oven it goes. 

Yes, it is supposed to be for Sunday's movie marathon, but once we smelled it during the baking process, it was begging us to take a piece and top it off with Cool Whip. 

One bite and I was in love all over again. That caramel and apple combo is amazing. Cinnamon baked into the cake and the whipped cream left nothing to be desired. It was so good! 

Eating dinner and enjoying The Mentalist again. All the movies were taking over, so we chose to watch one of our favorite, yet forgotten shows during dinner. Our car desperately needs a bath, and the dog may get his bath tonight too. First bath for the car since we purchased it.

Tomorrow is another day we get to look forward to. Mallory is coming over and we will be hosting the movie marathon. Pretty boring weekend, but we love them! Pizza and that beautiful caramel apple upside-down cake for dessert, that is of course if there is any left. 👅

Movies, TV, hamburgers and potato salad for dinner, and the finale of cake. But best of all, our precious time together as a couple. I love my sweet man more and more each day. Married life is great in the Macrae house!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Saturday!