Oh Me, Oh My

The past five days have flown by!!! I can hardly believe it is Tuesday already!! In exactly one week I will be back in South Carolina again - woo-hoo!!! Now I just need to get my rear end in gear and get some things done before I leave...

I completely forgot to post my review of our movie on Friday night! Fail. It seems that the three-day weekend caused me to lose my short-term memory. So, a little late, but here goes!!

This week's movie: Tangled

Overall impression: LOVED it!!!

Favorite Character: Maximus. Part horse, part bloodhound, completely awesome.

You would think that at the age of 22, I would have grown out of animated movies. However, I think the opposite has happened. I love them just as much now as I did when I was a kid - maybe even more!!! What I love about watching kids movies now is that I pick up on so much more of the humor!! I find myself wondering how kids enjoy the movies when they are missing so many subtleties! :)

Rapunzel was stolen from her parents, the King and Queen, and has spent all of her 18 years locked away in a tower with Mother Gothel. Right before her 18th birthday, she becomes desperate to get out and see, in person, the paper lanterns that are released every year on her birthday. Add a thief running from the law,  a horse in wild pursuit (haha), and a chameleon, and you have an adorable Disney princess movie!

The music is FANTASTIC!!! It was written by Alan Menken, so it's no surprise that it's so great. He's the same one that wrote the music for "Beauty and the Beast," "Aladdin," and "The Little Mermaid." One of my favorite tracks (in a sick kind of way) is "Mother Knows Best." The following lyrics made me think of the mindset of some homeschoolers... :)

"Take if from your mumsy

On your own, you won't survive,

Sloppy, underdressed

Immature, clumsy

Please, they'll eat you alive..."

And in closing, my favorite quote: "Frying pans...who knew???"

Our Memorial Day was pretty low-key. AnnaGrace had a 16-mile long run to complete. She has been dying to run on a trail, so I took my bike and pedaled along behind her. It went wonderfully until the last mile when she needed a story to pass the last couple minutes. Let's just say that it was a miserable failure...I'm going to have to work on my workout stories!!

Unfortunately, I was a lamesauce blogger and forgot my camera! However, AnnaGrace found some pictures of the trail online...so, while I didn't take them, here is where we were yesterday!! It was gorgeous.

After running/biking for 16 miles, we were ready for a soak in the pool!! We spent about 3 hours out there, and I got my first sunburn of the season. :( We also got to do some fun people watching...like the group of 8 20-something girls who were drinking their beers while sitting on a ledge in the fountain that's about 4 feet above the actual pool. Yeah, that's probably one of the more brilliant ideas I've seen in a while... ;)

We topped off the day by running errands, getting fro-yo, and plopping down on the couch to watch "Cake Boss" over dinner. (We may have also watched "The Bachelorette" while channel surfing...").

Nameless (Creative Juices = Non-existent)

My favorite by-the-pool drink (which is much easier to create in a Vitamix!!):

Favorite Frappuchino

12 coffee ice cubes
1/4 cup milk (add more as necessary)
1 Tbsp. peppermint syrup
1 Tbsp. sugar (more to taste)
Chocolate syrup, to taste

Combine all ingredients in blender. Enjoy!

I've started cold brewing coffee, not only to make iced coffee drinks, but also for my coffee ice cubes. I just recently purchased a french press, which has made it tons easier!! However, you can also use an old yogurt container. Just put 1/2 cup coffee grounds in the bottom, and fill the container with water. My coffee maker has a reusable filter, so I just pour the mixture through that into my cup.

Well, that's all for Thursday - besides laying out by the pool and going on a group run, I can't remember what we did! :(

On Friday, I went to Rockwall for the day because my aunt was having surgery. I hung out at the house with Ross, before heading to the hospital in the afternoon.

 
And now for the first edition of "Saturday Sweets"!!!! I decided to send AnnaGrace's "Birthday Week" out with a bang by making another cake. Plus, she was torn between red velvet and chocolate for her actual birthday, so I decided to give her the best of both worlds by making a red velvet cake!!! I've never made one from scratch, and it is delicious!!! The recipe is from The Tolerant Vegan. Hurray for cream cheese frosting without dairy!!! (And yes, it does still taste good!)

I learned a couple tips of cake baking along the way:

1. I didn't have a wire rack on which to cool the cake, so I just turned it out onto another baking sheet. However, I failed to grease the baking sheet. Hence, the ripped top. Thank goodness I was able to cover it up with the frosting!!

2. Read instructions more carefully. I accidentally got mixed up. I didn't realize I was supposed to keep the wet and dry ingredients separate. Thus, I didn't put the red food coloring in with only the wet ingredients. I think that's why it didn't turn out quite as red as I would have liked.

3. Cakes are hard to frost - especially when the frosting is drippy!! I need some more practice...

4. The frosting was unbelievably sweet!!! I modified it to the following:

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup Earth Balance (or butter), room temperature
1/2 tsp. Vanilla
3 cups confectioners' sugar - Next time I make this, I will cut it down to 2 cups, and then add more as necessary.

I also splashed a little soymilk in to thin the frosting. If I had added the additional cream cheese first, I probably would not have had to add the milk. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix for about a minute. Super easy and SOOO delicious!

And last, but certainly not least:

Sparkler candles are the bomb-diggity!!!!!!!!! :)

Surprise!

See??

Scones, Haircuts, and People-Watching

On Tuesday, we headed downtown to walk around and browse some of the shops that are always closed when we've gone before. We spent the majority of our time in an antique shop which had all kinds of interesting treasures, including these...

After our browsing, we had hair appointments, which were desperately needed!! We are both happy to report that we feel about 10 pounds lighter.

Hooray for new 'dos!

This week's "Tasty Tuesday" recipe is a new scone recipe. This dough is slightly sweeter than the scones I made over Spring Break. The sweetness of the dough, however, worked really nicely with the tartness of the blackberries. We changed the recipe slightly to make them dairy-free. Also, we didn't have brown sugar, so we used raw turbinado sugar instead.

Blackberry Honey-Wheat Cream Scones
Adapted from Savory Sweet Life

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 Tbsp. raw turbinado sugar (or brown sugar)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. Smart Balance spread
3/4 cup Silk creamer
1 egg, slightly beaten
2 Tbsp. honey
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups frozen blackberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a food processor (or a blender), add both flours, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Pulsate the dry ingredients for a couple of seconds to mix everything. Add the butter. Pulsate again until a coarse meal forms.

Transfer everything to a large mixing bowl. Add the creamer, egg, honey, and vanilla extract and knead the dough inside the bowl until it comes together. Add the frozen blackberries and work the dough with your hands and fast as you can into a large ball. -The less you handle the blackberries, the less purplish colored scones you’ll have. Frozen blackberries also help the berries keep their shape instead of getting smoothed into the dough.

On a floured surface, flatten the dough ball into a disk one inch thick. Cut the disk into eight equal pieces.
*We just plopped the dough onto the baking sheet, instead of cutting out "perfect" scones. The dough was a little runny and very sticky, so it was easier to do this.


Place the scones on a greased baking sheet. Bake the scones for 15-18 minutes or until the bottoms are golden brown.

Yesterday was deemed "People-Watching Wednesday." After spending several hours out by the pool, we headed to Wal-Mart to do some quality people-watching. Oh, the interesting types you find there!! :) Unfortunately, we couldn't get any photos without being too obvious!

While we were there, we hit up the hula hoops. While AnnaGrace was rockin' out, I floundered miserably...

Well, that's all for now. I need to get off the couch and start my pilates routine!!