June 14 Someone You Love

Someone You Love, that's easy, Hubby. Hubby mowing the lawn, well actually, the pasture.

No horse in the pasture so Hubby uses an old mower and keeps it looking good.

We're thinking about getting a calf. One of those cute white face little guys.

With the understanding that it will be hamburger and steaks someday.

That's the glitch, I like my meat anonymous and from Costco.

It's a dilemma.

Educational Time

Since we take our guys to Hawaii we feel compelled to have one educational outing. Max and Braden love this part...

This year we visited the Iolani Palace in Honolulu. I'd met someone at my museum about three years ago who winters in Honolulu. Esther is a docent at the Palace. She set up our guided tour with Willie. The Iolani Palace is beautifully restored and loved by its docents. Hawaii is rich in history.

From the Palace we walked to Chinatown. On our way we found a cupcake shop and indulged, oh my!

Quite frankly, we were very happy we had a snack prior to Chinatown. It was very pretty, interesting, but not appetizing. At all.

Hmmm, cupcakes or bullfrogs? Let me think about it, for one second.

I think we made the right choice with cupcakes. No pictures, as I was walking and eating a lot of frosting. I did purchase coconut malsadas on the street and am going to learn to bake them, we had the baked, not fried version. Yum!

Don't feel too bad for the boys, we still made it to the beach in the afternoon.

And someday they'll thank us.

Dutch Candy

Remember the little balls of evil?
YuM!

Leftovers

Saturday evening we had some friends, old and new, to our home, for leftovers. A spur of the moment party, although I assured the friends that they aren't leftovers!
Holiday leftovers, not the stuff in fridge since Christmas, (throw that out! ICK) but the leftovers in the pantry and freezer. The appetizers you didn't make over the holiday season but had bought the ingredients for... I had meatballs, pigs in a blanket, some dips, tons of crackers, some bars and cookies in the freezer. We pooled our resources and had a feast. Amazing things showed up.
We also played BINGO with leftover gifts. Bingo can be a lot of fun and competitive. Does anyone know of a local Bingo hall?
I used leftover napkins from all the holidays in 2008. Used them up!
Baked cookies with semi sweet mini morsels, butterscotch morsels and milk chocolate morsels. Used all the leftover chips from holiday baking.

Leftovers can be delicious! They have been given a bad reputation and I think we turned it around. Throw a leftovers party. It's fun.

Figs are Ripe

We have a fig tree and it is full of ripe figs. Wish someone here liked them. My hubby picks them and brings them to the Green Barn, a produce stand in our town. They are happy to get the figs and sell them to customers that love figs. It works out well because then the figs are not falling off the tree on to my van.
I bought a cookbook called, 'Fig Heaven'. I'm going to try to find a recipe that my family will eat. Maybe I'll make jam, fig jam is at Safeway in 8 ounce jars for nine bucks. Criminal!

This morning in church the pastor talked about figs. They were the sweet part of life for the Isrealites. That may be but I'd rather have a Snickers bar. They are pretty, the tree is beautiful and lush, figs are mentioned in the Bible, Martha Stewart is using them and making them popular, they are nutritious but I just don't give a fig for figs.

Little Balls of Evil

I love Dutch licorice. I happened upon these Napoleons when someone my Hubby works with bought them and tried to give them away at work. No bites. So, he brought them to me. It is a love hate relationship. They are so good and yet give me the shivers because they are so...I don't know, strong. For about 6 months I couldn't find them anywhere. But they're back, baby and they're mine. No one else likes them. I gave one to Shelly once and she spewed it out of her month and then slapped at her tongue with both hands, fast and furiously. We were in a public place. I wasn't impressed. And I had warned her, but NO she had to have one.
Reading the back of the bag is pretty much futile as it is in Dutch and I may be Dutch but only know a few bad words. This is what it says, 'Zoete kogels met een pittige salmiakkick van binnen'. Oh wait! In very small print is says, 'Hard boiled candies filled with ammoniumchloride'. I kid you not! May not be so healthy. A white sticker in English is also slapped on the back, the ingredient list is sugar, glucose syrup, licorice extract, licorice powder and artificial color. Sounds good to me.
Contact me if you want to try one. It comes with one rule-you may not spit it out, you must finish the whole candy. Dare you! Double dog dare you!