Tag: Vacation

Adventures · Wordless Wednesdays

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday- Vacation Ice Cream

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I forgot to write down where we had our ice cream from on our out East trip in September, so you’ll just get the pictures and if I can remember, the flavors and places. We had a couple more too that I didn’t get pictures of. Not quite every day, but close to it at least!

Pizzi Farm was a really cute local place close to our motel by Boston. They had a Cowch, as well as good ice cream. They were super busy, but had lots of room and a really fun variety of people for people watching. I had a flavor with Bailey’s and Kaluha and the Husband had a caramel brownie one, I think? https://www.pizzifarm.com/

It was a miserable dribble for our first night in Bar Harbor and this ice cream was not as good and didn’t have much variety, so I have blissfully forgotten the name of the place. It was a touristy place on the main street though. Sadly, they didn’t even have waffle cones! The Husband got a cookies and cream flavor and I had a kalua flavor.

This was the second night in Bar Harbor and the ice cream parlor we chose that day was a much better choice! I have forgotten the name, but it might have been Mt Desert Ice Cream because I think I remember the name of the street being Firefly Lane. I had a black raspberry that was delicious and The Husband had a double chocolate. https://www.mdiic.com/

The Husband had a salted caramel and a chocolate combined, I believe. I had a blueberry crumble and coconut combined one. This one was from Gelato Fiasco, which yes, we went to because of the name. It did turn out to be excellent gelato though. https://www.gelatofiasco.com/

We did have ice cream a few more times, but I didn’t get a picture. Hope these pictures made you hungry at least!

Sewcation!
Life Posts · Sewing

Sewcation!

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We were excited to visit friends a few weeks ago for a weekend. I shared some of the pictures on a Wednesday, but forgot to include these last few. I’m always amazed at just how cool our friends are. They can simultaneously keep both children and animals alive and thriving! Also, they are excellent hosts. I didn’t get pictures of the food we ate because I was too busy enjoying it. One of the highlights was homemade zeppoli for breakfast the day we left, but we also had delicious BLTs and a lovely chicken and pasta dish.

Here are some of the other pictures.

I got to snuggle a baby and it was fun to see their older boy, who we haven’t seen in a year or so. He was talking up a storm, including telling the Husband a long and involved story about “coconuts poofing” away while he was attempt to nap. He was also fascinated by both the superhero stories we brought the boys and the Husband’s grown up book that had only words, no pictures. Fancy stayed with a dog sitter, as we weren’t sure how she would handle a toddler and a 7 month old, but the older boy might have remembered her a little, after I showed him pictures of him and Fancy at our last visit. We have a picture of Fancy and S from last time up on our mantle display at the moment. 🙂

Besides seeing adorable children and our friends, we had an ulterior motive. Well, I did at least. My friend K (technically K 1, since we met in college) has not has not had much experience sewing with knits and wanted to learn, so I brought both my serger and my sewing machine up, as well as fabric, and some of my free patterns. She has a vintage Viking machine that purrs like a kitten. I was expecting a little trouble honestly, since my modern one has issues sometimes, but it loved sewing knits!

We used this really cute elephant fabric to make matching leggings.

Here’s a legging closeup:

We’re both wearing Lago tanks in the picture too. I made both of those, but K(1) made herself a black Lago after making the leggings. We also have matching leggings in this fabric:

Mine are shorts and hers are full length leggings. K(1) was nice enough to share fabrics. There may also be another pair of matching leggings coming when I can figure out how to cut things without hurting my thumb again.

This was the weekend I decided I really did need to get my hand looked at after I woke the Husband up by rolling over on my right hand and whisper screaming when I couldn’t move my thumb. I now know I have sewing related tendinitis and am not allowed to use scissors for a bit. I think I can still use a rotary cutter though, but have been resting it as much as possible.

Regardless of hand condition now, I did manage to make a pj set for K(1) which turned out so cute that it almost didn’t make it. 🙂

I had already made myself a pair of jogger pants with the neon sign material and was able to get a tank out of the mint fabric, so she did get it in the end. It was close though!

I also finished these two Lago tanks, one out of heathered blue tri blend- a mix of cotton, rayon, and spandex, and the dino one out of swim material.

Both are jus t serged on the hem because they are workout or sleep tanks. They are both super comfy. I cannot stop making this tank pattern. I think it’s almost my perfect pattern.

I let K(1) use my serger to finish these beautiful linen napkins that she had started. She sent me this picture after we had gotten home and it made me all smiley and giggly.

Look how pretty they are! I did one as an example and then she did the rest.

She also made myself and my other sewing friend, also a K, these adorable pin cushions and sent me hime with some super cool vintage patterns.

I was a bit jealous of this super cool vintage pattern box that includes everything you need to make this dress.

How cool is that? I’m excited to see it made up in the future.

We had a very lovely time and it was so much fun to introduce her to a couple of my favorite patterns. I’m hoping we can see each other again soon and to be able to finish some of the things I have for her and the boys. Send some healing vibes for my thumb and I’ll try to rest up as well. Otherwise, I’ll have to find someone I can bribe to cut out my patterns and fabric for me!

For now, I’m off to dream of more sewcations!

Simple Sunday
Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday

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“Now this relaxation of the mind from work consists on playful words or deeds. Therefore it becomes a wise and virtuous man to have recourse to such things at times.” – Thomas Aquinas

“You know what I’m sick of? Using my brain. All day long it’s people and words and stress and meetings and books that you don’t remember you’re not really into until you open them on the train home and compromise and sometimes I just want to look at a picture of a dress. Followed by a picture of some cupcakes. And then a kitten.”- Robyn Wilder

“It does good also to take walks out of doors, that our spirits may be raised and refreshed by the open air and fresh breeze: sometimes we gain strength by driving in a carriage, by travel, by change of air, or by social meals and a more generous allowance of wine.” – Seneca

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” – Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

Life Posts

Reasons Why Fancy Loves The Lake.

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Hello! My monthly review is due, but my notebook book is at home and I am relaxing at the lake with the Husband, Fancy, and the in-laws.

I thought I would share some of Fancy’s favorite lake things today. We’re discovering that she is definitely a water dog. She loves to dig in the mud, collects rocks, tries to eat waves, and leapt off the boat all on her own today. So here are some pictures of her other lake joys.

Sand! She loves to dig the very largest holes.

Water! She likes the reflections and movements too.

Boat rides! She likes the wind and all the new smells.

Big sticks! She likes to help break up kindling. Believe it or not, she broke through that branch after chewing on it for a while.

And her very favorite thing is naps in the sun.

We’re just about to eat, but I hope these pictures make your weekend a little brighter. Look for my review in the next couple of days.

A Bount-tea-ful Trip
Life Posts

A Bount-tea-ful Trip

LSieh2 Comments

Thank you to the Husband for coming up with that pun. My grandpa Ollie would be so proud. 🙂

I bought an Alice in Wonderland themed tea at the Food and Wine Fest. It’s an “Indian black tea with hints of ginger, peach, and apricot.” I haven’t tried it yet, but it smells nice.

It says that it works for real birthdays too. 🙂

My father in law took us to Vital Tea Leaf in Chinatown while we were taking a rainy tour of San Francisco and it was so cool. https://vitaltealeaf.net/index.php/

I wish I hadn’t been shy and had asked to take pictures. There were so many different kinds of tea! I’m still new to this blogging thing and feel weird sometimes about asking to do that.

The tea was in big glass and metal containers along the back wall. They had black/red, green, white, and oolong teas. They had plain ones and mixes. The front of the store had a long counter with tea stations where you could pour out your sample if you didn’t like it disguised with pretty screens. One of the staff people was giving out tea samples and providing all sorts of information about the teas.

One thing that I learned is that you are supposed to rinse the cup, teapot, and the tea leaves themselves with hot water before drinking. Chinese tea isn’t supposed to be served with boiling water either as it takes away the healthy properties. I tried that tonight while making my tea. Yes, that is a flamingo tea infuser. 🙂

You are also only supposed to brew the tea for 30 seconds and reuse the tea leaves 3-4 times for most of the teas. One of the green tea blends we sampled could be reused up to 8 times! You were supposed to drink at least 5-6 cups per day to get the full benefits. I believe it was the Blue People tea.

Black tea is referred to as “red” tea in China because it brews up with a red tinge. Here’s the water from rinsing the leaves, which you then throw away. It does have a little red in it and this was just the rinse water!

Green tea is more bitter and the white tea has the least amount of caffeine. I had wanted to try the green ginger tea, but the tea lady suggested I try the red ginger instead. The red ginger has a smoother taste and more ginger flavor and the green is more bitter.

More about this tea from the website- Ginger Red:

“Yingde “Hong Cha” is a black tea from the area Yingde in Guangdong province. These tea leaves have natural cocoa like aromas. Blended with ginger flavoring, resulting in a smooth spicy beverage. Reputed to alleviate migraine, motion sickness, reduce heartburn and inflammation.”

I like it and have a huge bag, as my father in law convinced me to get a whole 1/4 pound. I need to drink more tea!

My father in law knew what he wanted and I tried a couple of his choices too. I normally don’t like jasmine tea, but this Jasmine Silver Needle was much less perfumy than regular jasmine tea. It’s the tea on the left. The right is regular Earl Grey.

The silver needle is the “most highly prized” of China’s white teas, as they only use the tops of the buds. This version has jasmine petals with it. It has a low caffeine content and is high in antioxidants. It can be drunk all day for a refreshing drink.

I liked the name of this one and I think it’s this one on the website, but am not completely sure. I have no idea if it is actually picked by monkeys. 🙂

https://vitaltealeaf.net/index.php/monkey-pick-4-oz.html

Also, purchased were a cake of 10 year pu-erh tea, jasmine pearls, and a mystery set of tea balls. I’ll have to find out what they are from my father in law.

Pu-erh has been aged and has undergone a micro-fermentation process after the leaves were dried. It is good for heart problems, digestion, acid reflux, and constipation. Some of this type of tea is actually aged underground. It is a very dark, smooth, earthy tea, with no bitter taste.

Jasmine pearls are made from white tea leaves from the Fujian province blended with sweet jasmine petals from the Guangxi province. Each pearl is hand rolled. Can you imagine your job being to roll these tiny pearls? I might go crazy!

It was neat to learn about all the different types of tea and the many uses. I had no idea there were so many! I definitely need to drink more of it.

The Vital Tea website is a wealth of information and is where I got all the info for this post. I’d encourage you go poke around on it, if you are at all interested in teas.

Now, I need to go finish my second cup of ginger tea and put the sleepy puppers to bed. She won’t go to sleep in the bedroom unless one of us is already there and is currently snoring on my foot.

Have a good night!

Travel Food
Life Posts · Recipe Roundup

Travel Food

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I am a newer social media convert and still think it’s still silly to take pictures of restaurant food, but the desserts I’ve had have been so delicious and adorable, that I tried to get over it. 🙂

On our Disneyland day, we were lucky enough to attend the California Adventure Food and Wine Festival and it was so much fun.

We fell on the food like starving beasts though, so I didn’t get pictures. We also had some friends of my sister-in-law with us too and I didn’t want to be weird. I should probably work on that…

We tried to have something from every booth, but missed a couple. My inlaws had wine, but I was too thirsty for that.

Here’s a list:

– Korean BBQ beef short rib tacos from LA Style, which were delicious! I think they had pickled cabbage on top.  The meat was so tender!

– White Cheddar Lager Soup in a Sourdough Boule from California Craft Brews. I didn’t eat this, but apparently it was good. The Husband didn’t enjoy it, too much beer flavor.

–  Jalapeño Popper Mac and Cheese, Sustainable Salmon Peruvian Poke with Cucumbers and Salsa, Lime Margarita with Jalapeño Garnish from Peppers Cali-Ente.

The drink was not the greatest and not worth the price. 🙁 The poke was delicious, according to the inlaws, and the mac and cheese was lovely and creamy. It had bacon!

– Sparkling Wine Tropical float from California Uncorked. This was interesting, but also kind of weird. My sister in law thought it was too sugary. My MIL got the wine flight too.

– Strawberry Pineapple Float with Strawberry Popping Pearls from Strawberry Patch. This was very refreshing drink. It didn’t taste heavy at all. I was surprised that I liked the pearls, but they had a little extra strawberry juice in them. My SIL and the Husband also liked it too.

– Crispy Orange Chicken & Rice with a Garlic Cracker and the world’s biggest Meyer Lemon Macaron from Citrus Grove. Seriously, this cookie was about 4-5 inches across and had raspberry jam in the middle as an extra surprise!

– Grilled and Chilled Artichoke Hearts with Romesco, and Fried Artichoke Carbonara from I ❤️Artichokes.  These were both good. The carbonara gave me heartburn. I think it might be time to admit that bacon and I are not friends… I had it tonight again and it gave me some trouble.

– Salt and Beer Vinegar Parmesan Chicken Wings from Cluck-a-doodle-moo. I didn’t eat these, but was told they were very good.

– Shrimp Boil Tacos with Andouille and Caramel Corn Crispy Treat from Off the Cob. The crispy treat was not satisfying. It was a little too bland for me. I didn’t think and ate the tacos, so the andouille may have contributed to the heartburn. They were good though.

– Creamy Mac and Cheese with Garlic Bread Crumble and a Black Garlic Soy Braised Pork Belly Banh Mi. I liked the jalapeño popper mac and cheese better. This one wasn’t as creamy. I looked on sadly while other people got to devour the banh mi. It smelled amazing and was delicious according to everyone else.

I also got these cute macarons from Kayla’s Cakes. 

I picked six flavors to try. The unicorn was vanilla, the grey starry one was salted caramel.

I also got an oreo cheesecake one, raspberry, peach Bellini, and of course, Belgian chocolate. So far they have all been delicious. I’ve been eating them for breakfast. 🙂 We also had ice cream, but I don’t have that picture yet. 🙂

Today it was raining and gross while we explored San Francisco, so we stopped for an ice cream break at Ghirardelli Square.

I had the small one in front- Muir Woods Black Cherry sundae, the Husband and MIL had the Ocean Salted Caramel sundaes, and my FIL had a Salted Caramel Shake.

My goal is to eat ice cream as often as possible. We have a gelato place picked out tomorrow already. 🙂

Our dogsitter told us Fancy is being very good and is a fantastic snuggler, so although we are missing her, she is well taken care of. We also have a dog place picked out and will probably being home treats. 🙂

Tomorrow is a big day, so I should probably head to bed. Have a great weekend!

A Happy Family Time!
Crafty · Simple Sundays

A Happy Family Time!

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We’re back! I have a few posts to catch up on. I had my recipe information with me, but was having way too much fun and it slipped my mind. I’ll do the recipe review tomorrow and talk about our vacation today.

We went up north to see my parents over the weekend and got to bring Fancy to the big lake. She loved it! We had to keep her on a long leash, as she doesn’t always listen to us when we call her. She got to spend time with her secret dog friend, Moose, too. They pretend to ignore each other, but we think that deep down they like each other. When Fancy saw Moose’s Mom, but not Moose, she got very confused and kept looking out the door. There were tails wagging on both sides too, so we know they like each other.

Fancy went right in the lake and discovered that there were rocks in there that she could pick up and bring to shore. She didn’t want to chew on them, but she was particular about where she dropped them. She had trouble with depth perception too and it was funny to watch. She would dig at the rock she wanted until she could pull it up to the shore without putting her whole head in the water. She would also chase rocks when we skipped them.

The Husband got a great video of her jumping off the big rock. It wasn’t a far jump, but she kept going back to it after to do it again. Once I can figure out how to make it play on the blog, I will post it.

There were also chipmunks for her to chase. She was extremely interested in them, which is weird, because she won’t chase the stupid squirrel in our yard when we want her too. This tiny little chipmunk eats my Mom’s strawberries in front of her and chortles while he does it, so she was in favor of it getting scared off.

She loved the whole trip, I think. She slept almost the entire way home and wouldn’t get out of the car when we got home. She was determined to go on another car trip. I had to bribe her out with chicken. She’s currently curled in her new favorite chair recovering.

The Husband and I had fun too. My Mom is an excellent cook, so we ate so well! Breakfast one of the days was pannukaku (Finnish pancake,) with Thimbleberry jam, bacon, eggs with cheese, and cranberry scones. Mmmmmm…. Pannukaku is amazing and I have the recipe in one of my family cookbooks to post.

Dinner was steak, mashed potatoes, grilled veggies, corn on the cob, and salad. The zucchini was from our garden. We brought some fresh herbs too.  Mom made an amazing vinegarette with Meyer Lemon infused olive oil and late harvest Riesling vinegar. I have a Sicilian lemon vinegar and a blood orange olive oil that I am going to add together to see if it is as good.

Fancy very much wanted to join us for dinner. She decided she would rather eat the steak, not her own dinner. It had coffee chipotle rub on it though, so she wasn’t able to eat it.

We went to the gravel pit one of the days to shoot .22s and shotguns. It ended up being a short trip, as it started raining on us. The Husband is a much better shot than I am, even though I have been shooting since I was little. Not that I’m bitter about it or anything…;)

Here are some of our targets. We made them roll up the hill. We got both of these for Dad for Christmas for a couple of years, but hadn’t had a chance to shoot them ourselves. For the shotguns, we used empty coffee cans.

We also went to a lot of rummage sales with my Mom. I may have gone overboard with the books…

According to the Husband at least. I firmly believe you can never have too many books. I’m not aversive to giving away them away when I’m done with them though. I mostly buy my four favorite authors when I see them. They are expensive new! They are all historical fiction, or semi-trashy romance. 🙂 Stephanie Lauren’s, Julia Quinn, Lisa Kleypas, and Eloisa James are the ones I typically keep after I’m done. The others I will read and give away.

The Husband got a few books for himself too and got a fantastic deal on two older drills. We went to a downsizing contractor’s rummage sale and ended up walking out with two of the, for $20. One of them has a tendency to stop working, but it doesn’t do it all the time, so the guy threw it in when we bought the other one. They came with two batteries each and a bunch of drill bits! Now we can stop borrowing my father in law’s drill all the time and maybe get some projects done here. The top book is another quilt book. It had some new patterns that I hadn’t seen. I know, I know… I just couldn’t resist.

There were also cookbooks that looked like they would be very fun. The Husband is in favor of more cookbooks, as it gets him more delicious meals. The “Fried and True,” was one I had previously looked at buying, as it’s all fried chicken and sides. It should be fun.

The Peking Table Top cooking has all sorts of info and recipes for grilling, hot pots, and a “Mandarin Pancake Party.” We’re excited to try the recipes and tips. Soufflés and cast iron recipes will be fun to try too.

There was also a plate, with what we think is my name flower, the Linnea flower on it. It’s a tiny bit different, but similar enough that at 25 cents, we bought it.

I can never resist craft items at a sale. Zippers for 10 cents each? Yes please! Considering they are over $3.00 new, I snap them up. I do need to make some more zippered bags though, to use them up. There was also quilt fabric that was all washed and pressed. I only got a little bit of it though and it’s all smaller pieces. I talked the church ladies running the sale down in price because it was a bit expensive at first. They were quite amazed and happy that I sew and quilt.

For the record, in case my decluttering friends are reading, I have a large box of giveaway items waiting to be taken to the store, so I am ending up giving away more than we brought home. 🙂

It was a long car ride both ways. We had a car scare on the way there. Apparently if the Husband’s car gets over filled, it shuts down until the gas evaporates. We spent about an hour and a half in a dealership with Fancy while they figured that out. Then on the way back, it was pouring rain pretty much the entire time.

We are home now though and sort of looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. Here’s hoping the next few days are gentle to us, as we ease back into the normal routine.

Stay tuned for last week’s Recipe Roundup tomorrow!