Cooking Fun!

Connie and Rylie concentrating

Connie and Ellie having a good laugh!

Recently we put our cooking talents together with Connie (one of our western friends) and we were able to make authentic Chinese Wonton soup.  With my handy ability to make dough (I was assigned the process of making the wonton wraps), and Connie’s authentic spices and recipe for the rest of the meal, we were able to enjoy an amazing dinner with friends!  We made around 120 little wonton wraps by hand and Connie brought over the hand chopped pork and veggies and spices.  We had 3 hours of fun kneading, rolling, and filling wraps with Ellie, Rylie, Connie, and myself.  We all ate too much and the girls want to have the meal every week!  Unfortunately it is a labor of love meal since we cannot buy the wraps already made.  Maybe for someone’s birthday, like mine!  Thank you Connie and James for the great company, can’t wait for our next cooking adventure!

working towards 100 or more!

The finished product, delicious!

Another One Bites the Dust

I think this is her 7th tooth

Oops! Ry had a tooth she really wanted out last night. It was too little for either of us to grab so we tied floss around the tooth. After two tries she says, "just pull with all your might mom!" So, I did! Pop, it came out and disappeared.....down her throat! It went too far for her to even cough and spit it out, bummer. She immediately wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy explaining the problem with a small plea hoping she would still get something. We will find out tonight, we all agree the Tooth Fairy is very understanding.

Yes, the Tooth Fairy did stop by and leave stuff, just like we thought she would!  Phew!

Ellie's never ending 10th Birthday!

Loves to help bake her own cake!

Opening gifts over skype

The year of the never ending birthday!  Ellie has celebrated her last two birthdays while we are on vacation, but she has figured out that it is a bonus for her.  She celebrates in some exotic location with family, having amazing food and a grand time.  Then we get home and pull together an at home birthday with her food choices for the day and cake of her choice.  She also gets to spend time playing games with friends and of course opening more presents!  Ellie has grown quite accustomed to celebrating her birthday for two or more weeks.  Her expectations for her future birthdays might be a little skewed.  At any rate, Ellie had a wonderful and I believe memorable 10^th birthday.  In fact, her actual birthday was spent entirely on the beach in Spain (not much different climate and look from a spring day at the Oregon Coast), and she was the happiest 10 year old that day!  She still enjoys the simple things!

Can't go wrong with 4 layers of chocolate and peanut butter cake and filling!

Feliz Año Nuevo!

Spanish Tradition – eat twelve grapes at midnight to secure twelve happy months in the New Year.  We did just that, in the quiet confines of our hotel room….well quiet is relative.  We played games and laughed a lot; we made enough noise had it been a normal night, I’m sure the hotel staff would have told us to calm down.  Earlier in the day we stopped off at the grocery store and picked up snacks and drinks for our celebration and spent part of the day in Rota exploring the small but fascinating city.  The girls struggled a little at the eleven-o’clock hour but not too bad.  It was certainly different from London last year, but still a fantastic way to ring in the New Year!  Happy New Year!

Ellie Turns Ten in Spain!

Where does the time go?!  Our darling little baby that we just brought home from the hospital has hit double digits!  We asked what she wanted to do for her birthday while in Spain and her answer… “I want to be at the beach.”  So we headed south to a small resort village called Bella Costa (near Rota) where we spent the next six days.  Ellie was so excited, she couldn’t stop talking about how she was turning ten and all the plans she had for being at the beach.  The hotel was super, they baked her a special heart shaped cake (even put her name on it) and delivered it to our room candle and all.  We brought with us a few presents for her (a lamb Pillow Pet that was later named Pepe El Torro James and some other small manageable gifts).  It was a great day, full of sunshine, happiness and laughter; she is such a blessing!  Ellie still has her Birthday Party in Slavutich to come....I'm sure there will be another blog about that. 

Christmas 2012:

Merry Christmas!  The girls must have been especially good this year, I think between grandparents, friends, family and Santa they got almost everything on their wish list.  On Christmas Eve, we had the honor to deliver toys and gifts to the local orphanage, and school for the disabled (thanks to many hands and donations - we were just the delivery) - about forty some children.  That evening we had fun having dinner and watching a Christmas movie with another western family; we sang Christmas carols on our walk home, in a winter wonderland and light falling snow...you couldn't have asked for a better start of Christmas!  

I made the mistake of bragging to my parents that we've never had to wake up early Christmas morning (the girls have miraculously slept in till at least 7am); not this year Rylie and Ellie come bouncing into our room announcing Santa has come and it's Christmas time!!....the time 3:55am.....after another couple of interruptions, we made it till 6:30...At least Nichole and I got a Christmas nap in.

Madrid:

Hola!  For our winter break we decided to hit Spain – our first of three stops, Madrid. Madrid is a metropolis home of roughly three-million people.  In our typical fashion, we hit the ground running, so as soon as we checked in we turned around and headed out for exploring.  In the day and half that we had in Madrid, we managed to hit one art museum (the Prado) with art from many artists like Goya, Velazquez, Raphael Sanzio and El Greco (just to name a few).  We went row-boating in Buen Retiro Park in front of the Alfonso XII monument.   We also saw the Royal Palace and plazas like Mayor Plaza.  Of course, we couldn’t pass on stopping for local tapas and churos with chocolate (at the Chocolateria) – mmmm!

Seville:

Our favorite city in Spain that we visited, we only had a day and half in Seville (the main purpose of our winter break was R&R at the beach) – but we had to take advantage of sights when we had the moment.  Like Madrid, we were full speed ahead; we managed to see most of the major landmarks.  We toured, the Seville Cathedral (Columbus is buried there), The Real Alcazar, bull-fighting arena/museum, Giralda, Plaza de Espana and the Metropol Parasol.  Of course more tapas and rich chocolate hot cocoa that you drink with a spoon (yes, it’s that thick and rich!!!)

On a side note; we found that the Spanish people are very social and friendly and we thoroughly enjoyed visiting with the people and being around this culture.  They certainly are late owls though, the day doesn’t start until 9:30am almost literally – the sun didn’t rise until after 8am and it doesn’t set until almost 7pm, but that’s just when the day seems to start.  Children are out playing at the parks at 10:30pm running around like it’s the middle of the day.  We adjusted our clocks a little and started eating around 8:30pm – because 6:30pm was just “too early”, but we were still the first customers of the day.  After our Flamenco show, we stopped off for some tapas at 11:00pm and the restaurant was in full swing with children and all (ours were about passed out)!  We typically pulled the plug by midnight and the streets were still bustling and full of people.