International Feast and a Bizarre Birthday Video

My cold is technically gone but it has left me with some nasty left overs that just seem to cling around and refuse to go away. Yesterday our church has its annual International Feast, which is a massive highlight and this year it was huge! There were over 70 dishes from over 20 countries. I made the same thing that I made last year, chocolate peanut butter balls.

It may sound normal, but peanut butter isn't a huge thing over here and all of the Spanish housemates we've ever had have thought the smell and idea of peanut butter was just nasty beyond belief. One of our pastors (who's Irish) even mentioned that the idea of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was just weird to him. I used to eat them every day after kindergarden and Branden still likes them. We estimated that I made over 80 peanut butter balls and they were all gone before the feast was over, so maybe I converted some people. There were some other amazing dishes as well. As I stayed at the American table with my dish, Branden loaded a plate with little bits of stuff and then brought it back for both of us to try. He did this 3 times and we still probably only tasted 1/3 of the dishes!

Our wonderful and tasty event even landed us in the paper which you can see HERE

Branden and I have a busy week ahead of us but I will be posting more weird and wonderful search engine hits, sharing our bizarre birthday videos we send to family, and a favorite recipe we like to make for lazy breakfasts.

To kick off the bizarre birthday videos, here is the recent video we made for my sis's birthday earlier this month. The inspiration for this craziness is from my sis's recognition from the Facebook group Muscle Mom. She's not a body builder or anything like that, but she has ran more half marathons than I can count, and keeps herself toned and fit...which should be helpful when chasing around my two nephews! So here's the video; we didn't practice or write out a script (which should be pretty obvious) and this is our only take.

If you are totally jealous of my 'sock hard' six pack abs, I'm not telling you my secret   ;)

Guy on a Buffalo

I'm still sick but the spinning has stopped which is alright. A friend posted this on Facebook and had Branden and me laughing hysterically...and then I started coughing a lot. This is episode 2, but out of the 4 episodes, this is bar far the funniest in my opinion.

My head thinks its on a carousel

I have to make this quick as reading makes my head feel like it will explode and currently my equilibrium is off and focusing on the screen is really tough. No, I haven't spent the last week in a pub, I have been sick with a nasty cold. Technically I am in the 'recovery' stages but try telling that to my cough, continuous running nose, and my plugged ears (which have been causing room spins since 6am). Thankfully I like room spins and always thought one of those round, spinning beds would be a great way to lull myself to sleep, however Branden finds it nauseating which would just spoil everything really. I'm also happy that I'm no longer coughing until I throw up which allows me the luxury of leaving my room since I don't have to be close to my bathroom at all times. I hope things have been well with all of you. Hopefully the spinning and sinus pressure will stop soon so I can get back to blogging and catching up with all of you. Wishing you all good health!

Childish Cartoon Issues

Scene: The end of a long, lazy day and Branden and I are trying to get sleepy enough to go to bed. We decide to go with our tried and true method of watching cartoons which usually puts us out like lights. So we start scrolling through our Irish Netflix (don't even bother suggesting things for us to watch if you have the US version as the Irish version will most likely not have it and won't get it for another 5 years) and this is our conversation:

Branden: We could watch X Men again  (note: this is the cartoon that started in the early 90's)

Me: But it keeps giving you weird nightmares every time we watch it so we should find something else,  maybe something more 'little kid-ish' that's not scary.  *I scroll past Thomas the Tank Engine* Except for that! That would give me nightmares!  (note: I have an unexplainable fear of the faces of Thomas the Tank Engine characters)

Branden: There is Sonic the Hedgehog...

Me: Oh yeah, haven't you been wanting to watch that for a while?

Branden: Well, I'm not so sure now...

Me: Ok, well we can watch Berenstain Bears, or there's Blazing Dragons...I think I remember that one...

Branden: I wish they had Dexter's Laboratory!

Me: Me too! I loved that show! Sadly, they just don't have the cool stuff on here yet. *More scrolling and looking*

Branden: It's not that I don't want to watch Sonic...but I'm just nervous that since I loved it when I was 6, it might not be that great to me now. I don't want to ruin it.

Me: Well...do you remember much of it from when you were 6???

Branden: Not really but I just knew that I loved it. I guess we can watch it; now I'm kind of curious.

Me: You realize that we potentially just had the most immature conversation of our adult lives. You can't watch X Men because you get nightmares, I can't watch Thomas because it scares the crap out of me, we both want Dexter's Laboratory, and you're hesitant to watch Sonic because it's legendary in your mind!

*End scene with huge amounts of laughter followed by watching Sonic the Hedgehog...which was ok*

The benefits of frozen chicken and cheese

For those of you who don't remember or are new, Branden works part time for an organic food store in town. This last Thursday when he was at work, he whacked his shin pretty hard into a refrigerator and it started to swell up. His boss's mother, who works with him, had some frozen chicken in a freezer that she was planning on taking home to give to her cat and suggested that he use that to ice his poor leg. Using a big rubber band, Branden managed to secure the frozen chicken bag to his shin and carry on working.

On his lunch break, he called me and told me what had happened. He also informed me that he still had the frozen chicken hidden under his pant leg.

"WHAT!?!" You are so weird! What if you are in ordering your sandwich from the store and the chicken falls out of your pants??" I shrieked.

Branden, laughing hysterically at the thought, "I hadn't even thought about that! That could be bad!"

"COULD be bad?? What kind of creeper keeps frozen chicken in his pants? How awkward for someone to have to say, 'ummm, excuse me sir, but this bag of frozen meat fell out of your trouser leg...' that would be so weird!" I exclaimed and also secretly rejoiced in the fact that I hadn't met in him town for his lunch break so that I wouldn't get wrapped up in his chicken creeperness."

Somehow, he managed to go his whole hour long lunch without and incident, but he almost walked home after work with it still on his shin!

And now for your viewing pleasure (and my absolute delight!) I leave you with these photos from yesterday:

A few things to note, these kittens do belong to people, I am standing on a chair, and the last shot is the two little beggars looking into our bedroom window (the same window that Branden took the photos of me out of).