Guilty!

I got to do jury duty for the first time last week! I realize that most people dread doing it, and I'm sure I will next time, but I was excited for my first time. I've been summoned for jury duty a couple of times in Michigan, but I'm always out of the state or country. Out of all the jurors called in, only 6 got to sit for the jury, I was one of them (not for any reason, they just took the front two rows). The trial only lasted the one day, and they guy was obviously guilty...he had the WORST defense lawyer ever! So we found him guilty of a DUI and got it over with quickly. It was an interesting experience.

Last week I discovered the wonder of galettes. They're so easy and versatile to make, so I made a dinner one with lentils, spinach, mushrooms, and feta cooked in red wine. Then for dessert I made a fruit one with strawberries, blackberries, and peaches. Yummm...and leftovers for the next few days.

This past weekend, Aimee, one of Ryan's team mates from Rural Studio came to visit us from London! We're so special :) We did some touristy things, watched some awesome Auburn football, visited some architecture projects, and had some good local foods and brews. Sunday we went outside of the city to do a little hiking. Our main destination was to Snoqualmie Falls. It's the most famous water falls in Washington. It's also the most touristy as we found out. The boardwalk for viewing the falls was under construction, so it ended up being a little anticlimactic. They were nice falls though, but too easy to see. So then we looked up another good hike in the area that took us to Twin Falls. It was a nice easy hike, only about 3 miles, but that was enough to deter a lot of the tourists from swarming the site. It was also nice that it was tucked back into the woods more than the first ones we went to. It was a nice hike with some beautiful falls at the end!

As I'm trying to kill time in Oak Harbor, I baked a few more things this week.

[peanut butter banana muffins]

[my fave m&m cookies]

Holy Deliciousness

Inglorious Basterds was pretty great. We went Friday night and I was a little iffy as to whether or not I would actually be able to stay awake through it, but it definitely kept my attention! I spent a good bit of the movie with my hand in front of my face preparing to avoid the gruesome footage, but I also spend a good part of the movie laughing and the ridiculous lines. Brad (we're on a first name basis) is a phenomenal actor no matter what, but I've become a big fan of these goofy roles that he's been doing lately. Anyway...props to the movie.

We spent a lot of time this weekend looking at new places to live in Seattle. We went to several different apartment buildings to scope them out in search for a slightly larger place without paying much more and also allowing the pup in. We also checked out some other apartments in the same building we're currently in. There's actually a really great studio apartment that is a good bit bigger than the current one and 3 floors up from where we are now but in the same building that we really liked. It has a pretty good sized walk in closet too, which is awesome! So Ryan might be moving apartments in just a couple of weeks! Turns out we could also knock $100 off of our parking fee, which would make the new place about the same price that we had been paying for the old place. Plus the 5th floor is still really new, the new apartment has never been lived in, and the 5th floor isn't very occupied yet so it is amazingly quiet...for now. The only problem being that technically dogs over 25lbs aren't allowed in the building, so we kind of have to hide Tara. Although she doesn't technically live there anyway, so I guess we can't get into too much trouble. So we'll see how it all turns out. We also did a good bit of football watching...War Eagle!

I busted out my crock pot a few weeks ago when I was staying at Ryan's and going to training across the sound. I am often amazed at how easy and successful it is to throw some ingredients into the pot at the beginning of the day, go to work all day, and come home to a cooked meal! A couple of weeks ago I made a great BBQ shredded chicken (it was soooooo moist after cooking all day that it just fell apart with goodness). This weekend I thought I'd try the crock pot again making a great jambalaya with all kind of fresh goodness from the pike place market. Again it was great to throw everything together, then be able to run errands and look and apartments and such and come home to an awesome meal!

Even better then the ease of the lovely crock pot was the deliciousness of crème brulee. I think the last time I tried to make that was several years ago at a RHLO post thanksgiving potluck. It's always been one of my faves so I thought I'd give it another go with some new little crème brulee ramekins that I got a while back. I didn't have any fresh fruit to top it with, but I must say that chocolate shaving will do the trick! Hello delectable!

Climb Every Mountain...

Soooo...we watched The Sound of Music this week...hence the post title (imagine it being sung to the music). Still as fabulous as ever. But the title is also relevant because we climbed a mountain this weekend too! Since it was labor day weekend and we got Monday off as well, Ryan took me on my very first backpacking trip! It was also helpful that REI was having a sale so I could actually get all the appropriate gear for this sort of trip. Now I am fully stocked up and ready to go on many more trips! This weekend was a good starter trip though. We drove up to Oak Harbor Friday night since it was a little closer to our destination in the North Cascades. Saturday morning we finished getting food and such for the trip, got all packed up and headed east into the mountains. We got to the trail head at about 4pm and hiked into the woods a couple of miles to our first campsite. There ended up being a few other backpackers that got there later in the night, but we hardly saw them at all since it was so spread out and wooded. That was also a good thing since I was definitely hugging a tree to relieve myself, so luckily I didn't have any spectators! After a little supper and securing our food from the bears, we bundled up into our little tent to keep warm and played a few games with my awesome Care Bears playing cards. They just make me smile :) It was a little tough sleeping, but we managed. At some point in the wee hours of the morning, it started to rain a little, so we had to close up our little tent flap and wait it out for a little while. It was never really hard rain, but we waited for it to stop so we could make some breakfast and get ready for our next hike. Apparently I wasn't very good at securing my food because I forgot a pack of pitas that was in my front pocket of my pack. Some little mice had a hearty little dinner and chewed up a little bit of the mesh pocket on my brand new pack! At least it wasn't a bear, and I've learned my lesson to double check for any food left in my pack! The plan for the second day was to hike to the top of Stiletto Peak and go along the ridge for a while to get to Stiletto Lake, so that's what we started doing. We hiked up the steep mountain through the woods for a couple hours, taking several breaks to catch our breath and refuel. It felt like it would take forever to get to the top! After a while we got out of the woods into a more grassy area above the tree line. Then we finally made it to the rocky area which lead us to the peak of the mountain! It was really kind of scary at the top since it was a huge drop off on every side! There was a little stone fort with a metal post to indicate the top of the mountain. It felt like a pretty big accomplishment to make it to the top! The view was amazing, although much of it was covered with clouds. At this point it had gotten cold enough to be snowing and the wind was starting to pick up. The plan had been to hike for a while longer along the ridge to the lake, but we got a little nervous about getting back if the snow kept up and covered up our trail! It was also literally freezing at that point, so we decided our best bet was to head back down the mountain where it was a little warmer and a more visible trail. The trip down was MUCH faster and easier! We made it down so fast that we figured we could even make it out of the woods and back to the car before it got completely dark. Since it was pretty wet and rainy and there weren't really any good places to set up a tent, we figured that was our best bet at that point, so we booked it back to the car. We were both soaked and frozen when we got there, so it felt good to get out of wet clothes and pump up the heat! We still had about a 4 hour drive to get back to Seattle, so the day wasn't over quite yet.
Once we finally got back, we made a huge mess laying out all the gear to dry and clean off. Luckily we still had Monday off, which ended up being a good thing so we had time to relax and clean up after the weekend. It was a really great first backpacking trip for me though, even if it was cold and rainy. I got to climb a mountain! I know there are a ton of other awesome trails to explore around here too, so I'm excited that I am well equipped now, and can't wait to try it all out again!!

Hostess with the Mostest!

We got to do a little puppy/house sitting this weekend at one of the houses that the firm that Ryan works for designed. It is a really nice house that we wouldn't be able to afford for a looooong time, so it was fun pretending we lived there for the weekend! The puppy that lives there is only a golden retriever that's only a few months old. She tried really hard to get Tara to like her, but Tara wasn't very amused. At least they got along well enough to ignore each other.

Since we had such a nice space for the weekend, we decided to take advantage of it and have a few people over for dinner Sunday night. Plus the kitchen is fabulous so it was a great excuse to try it out! As a special bonus Kristen (Jordan's girlfriend) was in town for her 21st birthday visiting her sister who also lives in Seattle, so we had them all over for dinner along with our fellow Auburn graduates. 

I decided to try out a few fun new recipes while I had a good reason to cook fun food, so I made some honey-lime chicken on jasmine rice and mozzarella potato cakes with some tiramisu cuppycakes for dessert. Luckily everything turned out well, so we didn't have to go to plan B and order pizza. Since it was such a nice night, we were able to have dinner up on the roof deck and enjoy the sunset. I could definitely get used to having a good space for entertaining!

More Cuppycakes :)

I made the spice cake this time as cupcakes. They turned out really well! I was a little nervous about the caramel frosting thinking that I would have to pour it on like the chocolate frosting, but turns out if you add enough powdered sugar it's a perfect consistency to spread on. I still had to try to do it really quickly though to get them all frosted before the frosting hardened. Now I just need to make everyone eat them all at the picnic tomorrow!

Seabee Olympics, Hiking, and 'THE Cupcake'

This weekend started out with a trip to Bangor for the Seabee Olympics. It was basically just a game day and picnic for all the civil engineer corps members in the pacific NW. They had a sawhorse building race, a sledge hammer throwing contest, a wheelbarrow race, a gun assemble/disassemble relay, and a truck pull. Obviously my brut strength helped out a lot. After the activities, we had a little picnic and just hung out for a while. There are a few new people to the bases, so it was good to meet them all, and there's even a new girl at one of the other bases!

Friday night, Ryan and I drove back up to Oak Harbor to spend the weekend there. I had to be there on Sunday to work again. On Saturday, after sleeping in (yay!) we went out to explore the Island and check out one of the nearby national parks (Fort Ebey's Landing). We did a hike up the bluff and circled around to walk back on the beach. It ended up being a really great day, not too hot or cold. 

Sunday, while I was 'working', I took some time to make some more cupcakes! We have a company picnic on Wednesday, so I was planning on taking them to that. I might try to make some more cupcakes later this week too to bring. This time I made the all time greatest cake (chocolate cherry) into cupcakes! This was kind of a trial endeavor as a cupcake. I wasn't sure how well the frosting would work on cupcakes since it's typically just poured over the whole cake. I made them in my silicon cupcake molds, so I left the cupcakes in the mold and poured the frosting in them too. I had to wait for the frosting to cool until I could take them out of the molds. I think next time I would just use a normal muffin tin with wrappers to make the cupcakes. Also, I was slightly disappointed because I fully intended to put some fresh cherries on the top of each cupcake. When I went to the store to get the ingredients, I discovered that cherries are apparently out of season now and there weren't any! I could have sworn I just saw them in the store like a week ago! Anyway, I think they could have been way cute with a little extra decor, and perhaps a snazzy wrapper. Either way, they are a little taste of bite size heaven, and I'm glad I tried them as cupcakes so the next time I make them I'll be sure to make them even better!!

Yummerz

I can't say I've ever been too crazy over key lime (since there's no chocolate involved) but I made some key lime tarts a while back because Ryan said he liked key lime, so when I found a recipe for key lime cupcakes, I thought I'd try my hand at it again. Soooooooo good, and waaaaaaay super cute! I think I may have gone on a little bit of a sugar high 'tasting' the frosting while I was making them, but I was pleasantly please at how much I enjoyed them. I brought the leftovers (since I didn't think it wise for Ryan and I to eat all of the cupcakes) into work to get devoured! Everyone thought they were super cute!

I also tried my hand at a little bread baking again this weekend. This time it was challah bread. I didn't think it was going to turn out at first since it wasn't rising nearly as much as the recipe said it was supposed to, but it ended up being really good. It might have been a little more dense than it was intended to be, but we enjoyed in none the less. This weekend was hempfest in Seattle, which made it a little difficult to get around without being swarmed by large crowds of hippies. We still tried to get out a little and walk around the city...here's one of the Seattle sites to see. It's is actually incredibly gross, but it's a whole wall in an alley covered with gum. It looks kind of pretty from a ways away with all the colors splashed over it, and some people even tried to make patterns in it, but once you get a little closer and realize how much saliva was involved in its creation, it's a little more of a turn off. It is still a site to see!