Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Date Day & Taking Birthdays on the Chin

With a busy weekend behind us, yesterday was our 'weekend'. Branden and I slept in and then made one of my favorite breakfasts, cornbread pancakes. My mom has sent me Jiffy cornbread mix (which I love and miss!) and we made the pancake recipe that's right on the side of the box...with the exception that I always add about 2 big table spoons of honey to the batter! Then we headed to the cinema and saw Frankenweenie, which was cute, funny and my kind of 'scary' movie!

After enjoying the film, we headed to a nearby pub that brews it's own beer and had just hosted a beerfest over the weekend. They didn't have any beers from the festival left but we still enjoyed a pint of their regular stuff, which was a bit of a big deal as my tastebuds are only just warming up to the taste of beer. We ran into some friends of ours when we headed back into town and had a bit of a walk and chat with them. Then we headed to another pub that was supposed to have a live band playing. The Jazz Festival was in town this weekend so we were hoping to listen to a bit of music on the last day of the festival. When we arrived at the pub, it was packed and the band wasn't so great, so we left and noticed a new store across the street. It was an 'outlet' outdoor store but their prices seemed pretty dang expensive. Branden did need a new winter coat and we did find one that was priced alright, but we headed to the nearby TK Max (UK and Irish version of TJ Max) and actually found a nicer coat for over 20 Euros cheaper!

It started to get dark and we started to get hungry, so we headed home to make dinner, stopping briefly to pick up a cheap white wine to use in the fish pie I was going to make. After using some of the wine for the white sauce I put in my fish pie, we drank the rest while we nibbled on crackers and cheese with dates and capers (we didn't mix the dates and capers!). Dinner was the best fish pie I've made yet and I suppose I'll have to post a recipe sometime as it's super easy to make.

Branden and I had a great time together and enjoyed every bit of our relaxing meanderings together. It looks like we have another busy week ahead so yesterday was a perfect way to prepare.

Now to tickle your funny bones! This is the last in our recent series of birthday videos, although Hunter will have a birthday in a couple of days so we'll be making a new one soon. The video below is the video we made for my Mom's birthday. It was a bit tricky to make as trying to get both of us to fit into the video was really tough and I do sort of move out of the shot a bit at the end.



For those of you who don't know, Sasquatch is also "Big Foot" or "Yeti", and more sightings of Big Foot are reported in Washington State (where we are from) than any other State in America...but I don't think Branden's chin contributed to any of the sightings   ;)

Friday, October 26, 2012

You found me from what???

As promised earlier this week, I have a new list of Search Engine Hits to share with you! Thankfully they aren't as creepy as some past lists, but I still think I have a "healthy" dose of questionable characters running through my cell...how appropriate I suppose.

short arms men
Odd fetish?? Attempted self diagnosis?? How the heck did you end up here? If you are trying to diagnose yourself as a short armed man then I'm pretty sure that if you can look in a mirror and still don't know so you have to look it up online, you are normal.

sexy woman smiling eating breakfast
Flatterer! And the reason I'm smiling is because Branden still brings me breakfast in bed almost every day. *cue "Awwww!" now



watercolor paintings of unicorns
Ummmm, my watercolor painting looked nothing like a unicorn and heaven forbid you'd find it what I panted as a unicorn horn!



coconut milk farts
Unofficially the worst kind ever (besides dog farts) and if your canned coconut smells like a fart, don't eat it!

padded cell straight jacket quiz
Are you hinting that I should start having crazy quizzes? What type of questions would I ask? Maybe something like, "How many concussions have I had?" or "What irrational fear do I have while swimming in pools and lakes?"
(Answers: 3 & sharks)

homemade sexy girls
The store bought ones always look cheap and usually fall apart easily  ;)

bavarian decor
I'm glad you came to me for guidance. As far as I know, having "Hamsters Cry" on a banner above your bed is very Bavarian.



hairs like lady gaga how to make
I had no idea Yoda was a Lady GaGa fan and had enough hair to style in a bow!

Thursday, October 25, 2012

You may not want to ride this bus...

Our youngest nephew turned two at the end of last month so in typical, crazy Auntie Moo and Uncle B fashion, we made him a silly birthday video! Now, I am being extremely nice to all of you to let you even see this as I look like more than worse for wear. I had been out on the streets with my volunteer group until 4am, so only had a few hours of sleep and had on no makeup whatsoever.

I hope you liked it as much as he did (which he apparently cried when my sis had to tell him that he couldn't watch it over, and over, and over again!).

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Not your average pancake

Since I have to meet Branden in town when he gets off work and go grocery shopping, I've got food on the brain. I know some of you don't cook, but for those of you who do, I'm sharing a recipe that is a favorite of ours for lazy morning breakfasts. Branden's mom likes to make this and was the one who introduced me to it, a German Pancake. If you have kids, this is a fun one to make as it is oven baked and puffs up to a monstrous size before your eyes. So on with the recipe!

German Pancake

6 eggs

1 cup of flour

1 cup of milk

1 cap full of vanilla extract (so 1/2 teaspoon?)

good pinch of salt

a few good sized knobs of butter (to be melted in your dish)


For this quantity I make mine in 9" x 13" pyrex dish.




Preheat your oven to 400 F or 200 C and put your dish in to warm up with the oven. (don't add the butter yet)

In a mixing bowl, whisk up your eggs, flour, milk, vanilla, and salt.


Mix it until the flour lumps are gone and the mix is bubbly. I find the more I whisk it up, the bigger it grows in the oven.


When your oven reaches temperature, take your dish out and add your knobs of butter. They should sizzle and melt quickly.


Make sure you melted butter is all over the bottom of your dish and then pour in your mix.


Pop it into the hot oven for 20-25 mins and watch it grow!


...and grow...


...and grow!


Since my oven cooks very unevenly, I have to flip my pancake over halfway into the baking. If you have to do this, do it fast so the pancake doesn't fall flat on you.


Then watch it grow some more!


When it's lovely and golden, take it out. You can put a butter knife in the middle and see if it comes out clean.


The pancake will fall pretty quickly and then you can put whatever you want on it! The traditional way is to dust it with powdered sugar then squeeze lemon over the top (it's my favorite way to eat it) but you can also eat it with maple syrup, jam, yogurt, nutella (one of Branden's favorites), and pretty much anything you can think of!


We made this for lazy breakfast yesterday and I actually put about 2 cups of frozen berries into the mix before I baked it, then made a berry syrup with the rest of the frozen berries I had. Fresh berries would be better but since they are insanely expensive, frozen seemed to work fairly well.


If you don't want to make such a massive quantity, then it would be simple to just half this recipe and cook it up in a smaller round dish or the traditional cast iron skillet. Leftovers actually keep well also. I find German Pancakes incredibly tasty and super easy to make. Plus I love watching it balloon up in the oven!

Monday, October 22, 2012

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   ;)

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

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.

Monday, October 15, 2012

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!

Thursday, October 4, 2012

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*

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

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).