7 Quick Takes (Vol 9)

1. Remember the Craving Fab Pastries Challenge that Fab Brunette and I started up? This month, we were supposed to make Choux Pastry, but I couldn’t get my act together. It’s not supposed to be made on a humid day, so that knocked out half of July anyway. We’re going to extend the challenge, so you’ll have until the end of August to bake it. It would seriously make my month if at least one or two of you participated!

2. I took my Friday Kids to the zoo on Tuesday. We were only there for 4 hours, but those kids wore me out. They’re little firecrackers that don’t ever slow down. I did get some fantastic pictures while were there, but since most of them include my Friday Kids, I’ll just leave you with my favorite shot of a butterfly:

3. I’ve been working long hours and getting home late at night. I need a vacation.

4. My nanny friend and I went window shopping yesterday and I treated her to her first ever Crave cupcake. She had Lemon-Lime Twist, and I had the flavor of the month: S’mores. Yes, they do look exactly like this in real life.

{Lemon-Lime Twist, image found here.}

5. I just realized that it’s a long weekend, and I have absolutely nothing planned. I need to try and fix that soon.

6. I need movie suggestions. I mentioned a little while back that we signed up for Zip.ca (Canada’s version of Netflix). I want to build up our Zip List, so please suggest away!

7. Are we friends on Twitter? Find me here.

(I’m sorry that this post wasn’t all that exciting, I’m a little burned out from the long week that I’ve had. I’ll rest up this weekend though and get back to my happy self once again!)

Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Cookies

It has just been too dang hot to bake lately. Sure, you think it’s hot outside, but once you step into my apartment, you won’t even need the oven to bake your cookies. I don’t even want to turn on my dishwasher, because steam blows out and heats up the apartment. Did I ever tell you how we don’t even have to turn on the heat in the winter time, unless it dips below –15C? That’s how ridiculous my apartment is.

While browsing food blogs, I came across what is now my new favorite one: Ezra Pound Cake. Rebecca makes beautiful food and takes dreamy pictures of it. When I came across her recipe for No-Bake Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Oatmeal cookies, I knew I had a gem in my hands. The best part about them? Her description of why she loves these cookies so much. Hint: It has to do with what she likes to call the Raging Pink Hulk. Her description of what it’s like when the Raging Pink Hulk visits is exactly how I would describe my life.

These cookies are almost an exact copy of the Chocolate Macaroons that I guest posted about on Hayley’s blog. I always bake at least a double batch of those, but I think from now on I’ll be baking a triple batch of these ones. I have a weakness for peanut butter/chocolate combos.

No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies
Seen on Ezra Pound Cake

(Printable Recipe)

1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
4 tbsp cocoa
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups quick oats
2 tsp vanilla

1. Combine butter, sugar, milk and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Continue boiling for one minute.

2. Remove from heat. Combine peanut butter, oats and vanilla. Add in cocoa mixture.

3. Drop by tablespoonful onto waxed paper and let cool until set.

Store in refrigerator. (Tastes great straight out of the freezer too!)

Kids Say The Darndest Things (Part 4)

To see the previous posts, click here.

J: It takes 66 seconds to get to Regina.
Me: It takes a little bit longer than that bud.
J: Oh. It takes 4 hours.
(J has no concept of time right now, so we have many conversations similar to this)
**********

J: Ang, do you think there are birthdays in Heaven?
Me: I bet there are lots of birthdays. Every day even!
J: There can’t be. You can’t be ten hundred one day and then have a birthday and be eleven hundred and then twelve hundred the next day.
**********

(Looking at a container of popcorn kernels, which says that it weighs 3.6 kg)
J: Ang, there’s more than 36 in here.
Me: Yes, but it weighs 3.6 kg
J: How many do you thinks in here?
Me: Probably more than a thousand.
J: No, there’s ten hundred.
**********

J: Ang, who do you love more, Bailey (their dog), or Stephen?
Me: Stephen.
J: Who’s cuter, Bailey or Stephen?
Me: Stephen.
J: (Grabs the dog) But look at this face! She’s so cute!
**********

J: Where did Isaac move again? (Isaac is his best friend from preschool)
Me: Malaysia.
J: That would take a really long time to drive there.
Me: You can’t drive there, you have to fly. There’s an ocean in the way, and you can’t drive over the ocean!
J: Well, you’d have to park your car and swim.
Me: It’s too far to swim, you can’t do it.
J: Someone might steal your car and then it would be really hard to get home.
Me: You’re funny.
J: No! You’re funny!
**********

J: In some other cities, it’s night time right now. Like in Regina.
Me: Actually, it’s night time in cities farther away than that, like where Isaac moved.
J: Do you think his plane ride is over yet?
Me: Yes. (He moved to Malaysia last year.)
J: Maybe not. You said it would take a long time.
**********

(The first ever appearance of my Friday kids! They were talking about how to scare away bees.)

D: I’ll turn into a dinosaur and Rawr them away.
T: But how will you turn into a dinosaur?
D. It takes some minutes.
T: (Waits patiently for about a minute) I don’t see anything!
D: It takes five minutes!!

Ten on Tuesday

#40

1. How do you take your coffee on an average day? How do you like your coffee if you’re splurging?
On a regular day, I put in coffee whitener and sugar. If I’m splurging, I’ll want a white chocolate mocha.

2. What is your genre of books to read?
I don’t think I have a particular genre that I favor over others, I just read what sounds good.

3. Where do you want to retire, if you could go anywhere?
France, obviously.

4. The 17-year-old you is told to write a 10-minute speech. What topic would you have picked?
I'm thinking that I would have written about either Music Therapy (I wanted to be a Music Therapist when I was around that age), or volunteering.

5. What word describes you best?
I asked Stephen for his input, and his first offering was Fool. After I told him to try again, he said Punk. When I told him to be serious, he said Erratic.
I’m going to go with neurotic.

6. What is the next “event” that you are looking forward to? (ex.: vacation, moving, date, job change, etc)
Camping/meeting my new nephew! Coming up next month.

7. Do you like to discuss controversial topics or do you prefer to avoid those types of conversations?
If everyone participating in the discussion can be mature and level headed, then I don’t mind. If everyone starts getting hot headed, then I’d rather steer clear of the controversial topics.

8. Would you rather add 4 free hours to each day, or add 1 extra day to the week?
4 free hours to each day.

9. If you created a sports team; what would your colors and mascot be?
Can I be cheesy and say pink and gray? The mascot would be a giant cupcake.
Don’t ever leave me in charge of things like this.

10. If you had to be a teacher, what subject would you teach?
I would teach kindergarten. I love little kids!

The Summer List (An Update)

Remember my Summer List? I made a post about it here. In case you don’t want to go back and read it, the basic idea is that every summer, I make a list of things I want to do during the summer. Since I first posted about my list, I’ve added a couple of things to the list, written it out and put it on the fridge and have even accomplished a few things. Shall we take a look?

Things that have been added to the list:
18. Have a summer adventure with Tina
19. Get frozen yogurt at Spoon Me
20. Buy flowers
21. Celebrate Tracy’s birthday
22. Celebrate Jessica’s birthday
23. Go to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary
24. Go to Shakespeare in the Park
25. Natasha and Kenny’s wedding

I’ve been making fairly decent progress:

1. Make a trip to Vulcan with Stephen: This was supposed to be our summer trip together, but it looks we’ll be going camping instead. I made a trip to Vulcan last weekend, so I’m still going ahead and calling it a success.
2. Have a BBQ at our apartment: I invited a few friends over to have hamburgers, hotdogs and pie!
3. See fireworks: During the Stampede, I could see the fireworks every night from my bedroom window.
4. Go on a picnic: I convinced Stephen to have a picnic with my down by the river.

8. Walk down to the river (check out Elbow Island Park): Stephen and I accomplished this one together.

14. Host a game night: My BBQ turned into a game night. We played Apples to Apples and the Game of Things.
17. Get midnight slurpees at 7-11: I did this one on Saturday night, at 2am! It’s been decided that the next time we do a late night slurpee run, we’ll stick the Mac’s, where we won’t run into the bar crowd.
19. Get frozen yogurt at Spoon Me: The froyo there is amazing. So light and summery fresh. I love piling on the toppings, and need to get back there soon.
21. Celebrate Tracy’s birthday: We road tripped to Vulcan, checked out the demolition derby and had a bonfire with friends.

25. Natasha and Kenny’s Wedding: Stephen and I took the day off, dressed up and had fun!

So far, this summer has been pretty awesome. I’ve still got a few plans for August that I’m really excited for!

7 Quick Takes (Vol 8)

1. Work has been tiring me out this week, but in the completely satisfying I love my job kind of way. I’ve been working with my Friday Family all week (next week as well), so it’s been all play, all the time. I love it.

2. To try make a long story short, my Friday kids are here from Australia for only a short amount of time, so they don’t have their normal amount of toys that they do at home in Australia. Trying to entertain them has been tricky and I’m having to be a lot more creative than normal. Any suggestions for keeping kids entertained are always welcome.

3. I just took a break from writing this post to have a sing along to Adam Lambert. Oh yes, I’m that awesome!

4. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve met another nanny who works close by me. She has kids close in age to mine, so we’ve been hanging out this week. I love having someone to talk to! My job can get incredibly at times because I have no one to talk to. I need to meet more nannies.

5. I had planned on going strawberry picking this summer and have been waiting so very patiently for the end of July to come along (which is supposedly when you pick ‘em type farm open here). I checked a farm’s website recently to find out that they may not even open to the public this year. The weather has been colder than normal and a ridiculous hail storm a week or two ago has damaged a lot of crops. I can’t even tell you how disappointed I am. I need to move somewhere warmer.

6. Stephen cooked me a fabulous breakfast for dinner last night, which lead me to tell him that he needs to become a stay at home Dad so that our lives could become a lot yummier. He told me that if I can get a job that would support us, he wouldn’t be opposed to it. I’m definitely with the right guy.

7. I feel like I haven’t been baking lately. I normally bake and give away most of it to stop myself from eating it all, but haven’t had anyone to give it to recently. In order to stop myself (and Stephen) from eating it all, I just haven’t been baking. It’s a strange feeling.

Root Beer Bundt Cake

The only downside to reading so many baking blogs is that occasionally, I’ll come across a recipe that I’d love to try that includes ingredients that I can’t find here in Calgary. A while back, I had started seeing a few recipes for root beer flavored desserts, which was helped along by the use of root beer concentrate. I started looking for root beer concentrate in stores around me, but wasn’t having any luck.

Thankfully, the internet is pretty amazing, and you can find somewhere online that sells root beer concentrate. Or, you can find yourself a blog friend so amazing that she’ll send you a care package that includes your very own bottle of root beer concentrate. (Thanks, Andi!)

You can definitely taste root beer in the cake; I kept waiting for the feeling of the bubbles, but of course they never came. I remedied that with a glass of leftover root beer. I took the advice of Brittany Elise and served my cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, to make it like a root beer float!

Root Beer Bundt Cake
Adapted from If You Give A Girl A Cookie (Who adapted it from Baked)

(Printable Recipe)

Cake:
2 cups root beer (don’t use diet root beer)
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 packed brown sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp root beer concentrate
1. Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a bundt pan.
2. In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat root beer, cocoa powder and butter until butter is melted. Add sugars and whisk until dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool.
3. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.
4. Whisk eggs until lightly beaten, and then whisk them into the cocoa mixture. Gently fold cocoa mixture into the flour mixture.
5. Pour into bundt pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Frosting:
2 ounces of semi sweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup root beer
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups icing sugar
1. Beat butter until smooth. Mix in chocolate, salt and cocoa powder.
2. Slowly beat in icing sugar until incorporated. Mix in root beer.
3. Spread on cooled bundt cake.

Vulcan…Yet Again

Over the weekend, my sister Jessica, a friend (Kylee) and I took a little road trip to Vulcan to visit the other sister and celebrate her 20th birthday. Some highlights (good and bad) of the trip:

-We almost got really lost because it was Kylee’s first time using her GPS.
+Views like this on the drive out are incredibly stunning (My camera can’t even capture just how vividly green, yellow and blue everything was)

+I went to my first ever Demolition Derby. How very redneck of me. (I kid! Please don’t hate on me for saying that)

-Practically everything closes by 6pm on a Saturday, so our dinner options were very limited.
+A few people came over for a fire, BFL (Beer Football League) and some Pictionary
+I got to snuggle with these cute faces:
-We didn’t stay nearly as long as I would have liked. I wish my sister lived so much closer so that we could do this more often!

Ten on Tuesday

#39

I like the questions this week, they’re quite different!

For each of the following 10 categories, tell us which brand/product you use and why.
1. Cell Phone
HTC Touch Dual- Stephen had the HTC Touch and I liked it, but hated the fact that it didn’t have a keyboard for when I didn’t want to use the touch screen. When I went to buy a new cell phone (Christmas gift from Stephen), they had a new version out that came with a keyboard! This is right before the iPhone blew up in popularity.

2. Email
Gmail. Everything about it is better than hotmail.

3. Toothpaste
I don’t have a set brand; I just buy whatever sounds the best to me at the time.

4. Car
We don’t have a car. I don’t even have a preference right now as to a type of car.

5. Writing Utensil
Pens, which I am super picky about. I hate regular ball point pens, and lately I’ve been favoring gel ink pens (Not the gel pens you’re probably thinking about) and fineliner pens. I’m always a fan of Sharpie and love their pens.

6. Lotion
I’ve recently tried to stop using products with parabens in them, so my requirements for lotion were that they have to feel good (I’m picky about the way a lotion feels), be paraben free and be relatively cheap. Vaseline’s Aloe Fresh Hydrating Body Lotion fits that bill perfectly at the moment.

7. Interior Paint
Since I’ve never been able to paint anything (My parents are renters and I’m currently a renter with a good paint job), I have no preference.

8. Soda/Drink
When it comes to pop, I’ve really been favoring Dr. Pepper and Coke lately.
I love juice of all sorts, and will almost always have it in the house.
My drinking water goes through the Brita Filter.

9. Laundry Detergent
Honestly, whatever’s affordable when we go shopping. Lately, it’s been Purex.

10. Medicine
I’m not quite sure what kind of medicine we’re talking about here, but we’ve got Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Nyquil, Gravol and Nytol in our cupboard.

Popsicles Two Ways

We’re well into July now, which means my nanny kids are out of school. I’m finding that I have to be more creative than ever to keep these guys entertained during the day. But then again, that’s every Parent’s/caregiver’s story at the moment! I’ve been reading a few Mommy blogs to help with inspiration and came across a recipe for Rainbow Pudding Pops. So easy, colorful and fun! Honestly, I had just as much as the kids making these.

A few tips when making these: Use Jello brand vanilla pudding. I found it tasted much better than the store bran version (which happened to be more yellow and affected the coloring). If you don’t have a popsicle mold, just use a plastic cup and a popsicle stick. I didn’t even have popsicle sticks, so I stuck a plastic spoon in there! Make sure to cover the cup when freezing, otherwise the top layer will taste gross. (I know from experience. If you fill the cups up to the top, it will be way too much to eat. Try and make smaller pudding pops, or at least make them in the cups so that you can easily put back in the freezer to save for later!

Rainbow Pudding Pops

1 or 2 boxes of instant vanilla pudding
Milk
Food coloring

1. Mix up pudding according to package directions.
2. Divide into smaller bowls and color with several drops of food coloring.
3. Layer into cups, insert spoon and freeze!

{My version made at home}

{The pudding pops I made with my Friday Kids}

{We took them out of the freezer before completely solid}

I bought some fresh strawberries last week and I just knew that I had to make them into popsicles. These were super amazing, and I think Stephen I and both preferred them over the pudding pops. (Although, they’re not as fun as the pudding pops!)

Strawberry Popsicles

2 cups strawberries
1 cup vanilla ice cream (I used strawberry ripple)
4 cups orange juice
2 tbsp sugar (since I used frozen OJ that I already find sweet, I omitted the sugar)

1. Put all ingredients into blender, blend until smooth. Strain seeds if desired. (I didn’t)
2. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze!

Tip: To get the spoons to stand up (mostly straight), place a piece of saran wrap over the top of the cup, cut a hole in the top and insert the spoon!

I forgot to get a picture of the final product, but you can use your imagination!
I plan on buying a popsicle mold sometime soon, because I’ve bookmarked so many yummy sounding recipes! You can bet that I’ll be sharing them once I try them out!

My Saturday Smiles

10 things that made me smile this week:

1. I’m going to Vulcan to visit Tracy (my middle sister) today. It’s her birthday on Monday, so we’re going to help her celebrate tonight.

2. The kindness of strangers. We had a pretty bad hail storm on Monday, and I just happened to be outside with my nanny kids. A lady offered to let us wait it out in her garage.

3. Salted Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats. (My list will probably always include at least one food. I can’t help it.)

4. Meeting new people.

5. An extra day off.

6. I became an Aunt this week! Well, sort of. Stephen’s brother’s girlfriend had her baby on Monday. We’re technically not family, but I’m calling myself an Aunt anyway. She had a baby boy and named him Kolton!

7. Sunshine, after a few rainy days.

8. Retail therapy.

9. Homemade popsicles. (Rainbow pudding pops and Strawberry popsicles)

10. Seeing fireworks from my bedroom window. (Sunday will be the last day that I’ll be able to see them, since the Stampede ends on Sunday!)

8 Questions

Earlier this week, I was tagged by Mel (Tweeded.com) to do a fun little meme!

Rules: Answer 8 questions given by the one who tagged you | Create 8 new questions | Pass the tag to others who must answer your questions

1. If you could spend the rest of your life doing only one thing, what would it be?
Baking, obviously. In my own bakery of course.

2. What's the best thing you can bake/cook?
When it comes to baking, I’m not sure what my specialty is; it depends on who you ask. Top contenders are: Espresso banana chocolate chip muffins, Banana bread, Chocolate Macaroons, Chocolate chip cookies and Bobby Flay’s German Chocolate Cake.
When it comes to cooking, I make an awesome slow cooker beef chilli. I think I may need to post the recipe whenever I make it next!

3.What household chore is your LEAST favorite?
Lately, I’ve really hated cleaning out the Guinea Pig cage. The cage is so big that it’s difficult for me to clean alone without making a mess.

4.If you could bring three things to a deserted island, what would they be?
An oven, baking utensils and ingredients.

5.What's the next big thing that you are thinking about splurging on?
Right now, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head that we’ll be getting any time soon. The last big (ish) purchase was my camera. A big purchase for us is usually anything over $100. It might sound silly, but that’s how life is when you don’t have a lot of extra cash!

6.What would you do if you won the lottery and you only had one day to spend your winnings?
Assuming I could start early in the day, I’d do stuff like pay off debt, go on a shopping spree and then take all of my friends and family out for a fabulous meal. This would include flying in relatives (who are all close enough to make it here in a few short hours).

7.Post a current photo. If you wish to remain elusive, an abstract or close up will do just fine.
This isn’t the best, but it’s the most recent (besides one I’ve already posted here). I don’t have many pictures of myself that were taken recently. I was bored and decided to take pictures while waiting for the train.

8.If you could have ANY pet EVER, what/who would it be?
This is going to be boring, but I want an English Bulldog SO BAD. Any time I see one anywhere, I squeal and say “Look Stephen! It’s my puppy!”

I tag: Andi @Fuegita Bonita, Hayley @Blue Eyed Blonde, Kim @Blair’s Girls, Matt and Ashley @Double Shot of Texas, Brandi @Brandilicious, Kim @Perfectly Cursed Life, Sarah @SoJo & Co, and Sue @Simon’s Sista Saw.

Here are my 8 questions:

1. What’s your must-have summer item?
2. What’s your favorite summer TV show?
3. You just found out that you have guests coming over for dinner in 2 hours. What do you feed them? (Dinner and dessert)
4. Do you still watch cartoons?
5. Do you know your neighbors? (If so, are you friends with them?)
6. How long is your commute to work? (Or school, if you don’t work)
7. How many times have you moved in your life?
8. What’s your favorite coffee shop type drink?

Salted Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats

I’ve been having an off baking week; the peanut butter cookies that turned out into flat discs, the ginger cookies with the dough that turned out too dry and then the giant red velvet cupcake that didn’t bake evenly and the icing that I didn’t let thicken enough. The cupcake was supposed to be in honor of my blog’s first birthday. Oh yeah, I’m the type of person who would have baked her blog a cake (any excuse to bake, really), but it just didn’t work out in my favor.

How did I solve my baking dilemma? It’s easy. I needed something easy to restore my confidence. I opened up my bookmarked recipes and found Smitten Kitchen’s Salted Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats and knew I had a winner. Not exactly baked, but I needed to create a dessert to make me happy. I immediately changed into my pajamas and got to work. In no time, I had amazing brown butter that was intoxicating me with its nutty flavor. All it takes is some brown butter to make this girl happy!

Since it’s my blog’s birthday, I added a candle. It was the right thing to do. I had stuck some scrapbook paper below my Rice Krispie Treat in an effort to change up my pictures and couldn’t resist throwing this paper in as well. It’s the little things that make me happy.

Salted Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats
As seen on Smitten Kitchen

Notes: I put the treats in a baking dish that was a bit on the large size (I don’t have an in between size), so my treats a little thinner than usual. I’m definitely making this my go to recipe for Rice Krispie Treats.

(Printable Recipe)

1/2 cup butter
40 large marshmallows
1/4 tsp coarse sea salt (I used Kosher)
6 cups Rice Krispies Cereal

1.Grease a glass baking dish.

2.In a large pot, over medium heat, brown butter. (Stages: it will melt, foam, turn a clear golden and then turn brown). Keep a close eye on the butter, it will burn quickly.

3. Once butter is browned, stir in marshmallows until melted. Remove pot from heat.

4. Stir in Rice Krispies and salt. Quickly spread into prepared baking dish. Let cool and cut into squares.

For a self proclaimed cupcake lover, I’m actually quite surprised to realize that I’ve never posted a cupcake recipe on my blog. I need to remedy that soon; I promise that I’ve still been baking cupcakes though.

Unplugging & The Calgary Stampede

For most of yesterday, I unplugged myself from social media. It wasn’t intentional, but I realized just how much I needed it. I had a pretty lousy day, thanks to a number of reasons, which continued right up until I met Stephen at the mall to do some shopping. My phone had spazzed somewhere along the way and went from full battery to completely dead, so my lifeline to Twitter/Facebook/Email was cut off. I’ll usually browse one of the three while standing around waiting, but I didn’t get to do that. Once the mall closed and we finally got home, we checked the mail to find that two of our Zip.ca rentals were in. We decided to watch Sunshine Cleaning (good movie), but first, we needed snacks. Since we were both in our pajamas, I broke my “no pj’s out of the house rule and we walked over to Mac’s to pick something up. On our way back in the building, one of our neighbors was paying for a pizza they had ordered, which made Stephen decide that we had to order our own late night pizza. Dinner was a bust, after all. Note to self: Taco Time is crap, don’t eat there anymore. After the movie? I went straight to bed. I didn’t even write today’s blog post, like I normally do. Turns out, all I needed to lift my mood was a night with my best friend that included a whole lot of ridiculous humor, and a night away from the internet. Sure, my Google Reader is full. And yeah, I didn’t go back and fully catch up on Twitter, but I’m ok with that. Perhaps that’s my clue to unplug more often.

To make this post even longer, I’m going to share what I was originally going to write about today: my trip to the Calgary Stampede! I’ll keep it short and list the best parts.

+Stampeding in the rain= less of a crowd. No lines for anything!
+My friend tried corndogs for the first time and she looked like she was in Heaven!

  +Stumbling onto a skating performance, only to find out that Elvis Stojko, Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir and other Olympians were skating to the tune of 80s music.
+Deciding last minute that we would catch Ok Go on the Coke Stage.
+Being pleasantly surprised when a group of 4 behind us completely re-enacts the treadmill dance scene, the band sees this and pulls them up on stage.

Ten on Tuesday

#38

1. What is the worst movie you have ever seen?
I’ve seen my fair share of bad movies in my life, but the most recent one was Jennifer’s Body. I still have no idea what possessed me to watch that.

2. Do you have a favorite Disney/Pixar film?
Here’s the thing: I think that pretty much any movie that Disney/Pixar makes are gold. I’ve loved every single one that I’ve seen. This is like asking a mother to choose her favorite kid; you just don’t do that!

3. Do you have a favorite movie from the 80′s?
Adventures in Babysitting.

4. Are there any movies you saw more than once in the theatre?
The only movie I think I’ve ever seen more than once in theatre in The Nanny Diaries. It wasn’t even because it was a movie that I loved so much I had to see it twice; it was because I promised to separate people that I would see it with both of them. Neither of them liked the other, so my only solution was to go twice.

5. What is one city/area of the US (or country you live if you do not live in the US) that you have not seen but would like to see?
I live in Canada, and I’ve never been to every province. Montreal, Quebec is at the top of my list, with The Maritimes in at a close second.

6. What are your favorite toppings on an Ice Cream Sundae?
I go through strange moods with my ice cream. I just finished a long stretch where I wanted absolutely nothing on my ice cream, but Stephen has gotten me back into wanting toppings. We’ve currently got chocolate sauce, strawberry sauce, caramel sauce and Reece’s shell topping, but these are more so out of convenience (at least, that’s how I feel). I normally prefer a fresh homemade fruit sauce and some homemade whipped cream.

7. How many proms did you go to? What color was your prom dress? If you went to muliple proms, what color was your favorite prom dress?
We don’t really have proms here (at least, not at the high school I attended). Grad was our equivalent of prom, so I only attended once. My grad dress was a navy blue.
Guess what? I found this picture for you guys on a friend’s facebook account. This is one of my favorite pictures from Grad, simply because it shows just how crazy we all were. (Nope, we weren’t drunk. Not even a sip of alcohol at this point.)

8. Is there a sport or extra-curricular activity that you didn’t get to try as a child that you wish you would have? (e.g. gymnastics, piano lessons, ballet, etc.)
I’ve never been an athletic person, but I did wish that I had been put in music lessons, apart from what I took in school.

9. How many silblings do you have? Are you the oldest, middle, or youngest?
I’m the oldest child; I have two younger sisters (Tracy, 20 this weekend and Jessica, 19 next month).

10. Do you feel like you fit in with your age group? Or do you feel younger/older than your age group?
About 90% of the time, I feel older than most girls my age (more like an old lady, in terms of my hobbies). When I look at pictures of other girls my age and compare myself to them, I feel like I look so much younger.

Stampede Parade!

From July 9-18, Calgary is host to The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth; The Calgary Stampede. Every year, the Stampede is officially kicked off with a parade on the first Friday morning. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but my Friday Family is here from Australia, and this would be the kids’ first time at the parade. The parents couldn’t take the time off work, so I was asked to take the kids. Of course I couldn’t say no to that!

Last Friday, the kids were dropped off bright and early at my apartment (I live within walking distance of the parade route). All three of them were dressed up in western shirts, jeans and cowboy hat and were looking so darn cute! (I only wish I could post pictures for you to see!) Since they were a bit late, we had to walk as fast as possible to make sure that we could snag a good spot. The parade starts around 9am, but people start showing up as early as 7:30am. We found a relatively good spot, and settled in for the parade. We were about halfway down the route, so the parade didn’t start passing us until close to 10am. By then, the kids were restless, but settled down immediately, dozens of horses of all sizes can do this to a group of kids!

There are entrants from all over the world, and the kids were so excited to see that the Australian Youth Band was in the parade. We cheered extra loud for them!

The only downside to a parade is the silly people that I had to deal with; the group of adults that wouldn’t let my kiddos sit in front of them and the lady who kept pushing her stroller into me were only a small taste of the joys that are sure to come when in a large crowd. Despite the fact that I stood in 25C+ weather for 2 hours, I had fun, and the kids enjoyed it even more than I did! Who knows, maybe I’ll brave the heat and crowds next year as well!