Trip to P-Town

It has been a long 3 months and I am so ready for my husband to come back from deployment. It is almost that day and I am falling off my seat excited to welcome him home! It will mark the official first time that I can actually say I deserve the title of Navy Wife. I didn't know how much I was capable of until I was on my own with a new baby and a overly demanding dog who is in all essence, a second baby.
I started the deployment with the mindset of staying at home and taking it all in stride by myself. I felt I would be a failure as a wife, a mom and a person in general if I were to go back home to our parents. I can't tell you how much I needed their help though and I am glad that I did go back to Portland for 2 weeks. It was the perfect amount of time. Not so long that I would totally be out of my regular routine but long enough so that I could get some much needed relaxation and shopping done!

The great thing about Portland is the amazing food they have there. You could not run out of tongue enticing deliciousness if you tried! One of my familys all time favorites is Vertiable Quandary for a relaxing weekend brunch! Ah heaven! It doesn't hurt that the coffee in Portland is irresistably perfect and Vertiable Quandary has the most amazing window looking out onto their outside seating. It is pure bliss and to enjoy it with my parents was amazing.

Having a baby gives me little time to go out and enjoy a quality cup of coffee and relax and just take in the beauty that God created. I usually slurp my mediocre homemade coffee as fast as I can in anticipation of Bentons next moment of need. Don't get me wrong, I love to enjoy home brewed coffee while I watch Regis and Kelly in the morning but sometimes it is not possible to fully enjoy the aroma, the flavor and the warmth of coffee without an arm around the baby. I love him though and wouldn't trade him in for a million cups of quality coffee! :-)

My mom and my stepdad

My mom took me to Uwajimaya, a japanese/asian grocery store and got me a red bean mochi. YUM! This is definitely something I wish I could make! But be aware, each one of these little babies has 270 calories! WHOOH! Good thing I split it with my mom!

Emmm...delicious!

I heart Texas

Wow, I am such a food blogging bum. It's been what over a month or more. It's hard to blog when you are using your neighbors wireless connection. (Shhh, I didn't say that). I don't understand why it takes the internet guy 2 weeks to come out and flip a switch. That would be a good job for someone with OCD. You'd get your internet in no time flat!

Anyways, our move to Corpus Christi TX from Milton, FL went really smoothly. It was a 13 hour trip which is good timing for a fully loaded 30 foot truck. So we got to our new house at 11:30pm. Needless to say we werent thinking right and thinking our driveway was long enough, persuaded Brandon that it would fit and we wouldn't have to park half way on the curb. Well...let's just say I'm keeping my trap shut from now on. We had to back out of the driveway obviously and alas the trailer with our car could not turn that sharply backwards and we had to unhook the trailer with the car then drive the trailer with the trailer back on on the truck. We had to take the highway because it's a loop of somesort and would bring us back to our house without having to do a bunch of turns on our street and wake up our beloved brand new neighbors. Yeah, so on the highway, the trailer locked up. The cop came to help. We got home at 2am. No power in the house. Cold, dark shower. That's all of that I want to live through again.

On the lighter side of things we got to go on a three day weekend trip to San Antonio! I LOVED IT! Here's Brandon and I at one of the many missions for tourists like us to look at.
Here's a much nicer mission. I think the nicest mission out of all the ones that we went to. Well, we only went to 2 others besides the Alamo. It got a little repetitive and boring and it was hot! OH! P.S I scored those shorts for $12 at Pacsun. Sweet!

And then here is our self photography skills.

Our luck for finding willing photographers was running out on our last day in San Antonio but we managed to get a lady and her family to take this one for us.

We also thought we'd waste some money and go to Ripleys believe it or not museum and the wax museum. Believe it or not - it was a total waste of money. Can you spot the ghost in the above ivory sculpture? (It's me trapped in the glass but not really)
At least I got to meet David Lettermen. I starred in his late night show. He didn't talk to me much. Infact he didn't even move. What kind of a host is that?
Brandon visited Oprah. She had downgraded her huge set to this two seater set. I thought she was doing well for herself.
Ah, here's the riverwalk in San Antonio, just where our hotel is. It was convient and pretty but since we aren't much of the drinking type, we didn't really rock it out on the riverwalk. Plus, never eat along the riverwalk - not good food.
Just another picture to bore you guys some more of us at the mission.

Brandon surprised me with a beautiful hotel 'Hotel Valencia' but had insisted all week long that we were staying at La Quinta. I am a total bathroom snob and have been since I was like 3 years old, so this was definitely a plus.
The room itself was fantastic! The blinds were made of broad wood. So nice and the King size bed was so comfy. The added fur draped over the bed was a rather nice touch too.
Here's Brandon next to the tallest man in the world. Looks like he needs to grow a little more.
This is what I will become if I keep food bloggin and not not exercising. Only this is a man and I don't think food blogging will turn me into a man - right?

The first week we arrived in Corpus, Brandon volunteered himself to help with the annual Navy Regatta and hence I was volunteered. So on Saturday and Sunday we got to race on sailboats! We got hooked up with a Captain and his catamaran which goes superfast. Well the saturday trip was a 3 hour long sail course. At the end of the race we were bookin it. We went like 18 mph. It was sweet.
We totally won on Saturday and here is our trophy and we won on Sundays race also!
Here's Brandon. He had to be in charge of the steering (I think it meant he was the skipper) on Sundays race. That is the rules.
Then theres me above trying to help.
I started work on Wednesday at a French Bakery in town and I am LOVIN it! It doesn't get much better than creating things I love to do at home. It's hardly like a job but it is cause I feel so inadequate right now. I gotta step up on my pate a choux piping skills. I get up at 4am to be at work by 6:30am and then I leave at 3pm. It's nice to be home before it gets dark. Now I can hang out with people in the evenings instead of being a tired hermit like I was when I worked in the restaurant industry back in FL. Never again - I hope.

I will post more as I bake more. School starts up on the 28th and hopefully it won't be too stressful. I miss you guys and I miss blogging about food so I will try hard to get back into it. Till next time - eat what you bake, I know I will. ;-)

Whale of a time

It definitely has been long enough since I did a post. So sorry! Last week at school we made both a chocolate chip pie and a peanut butter pie - both of which I thought were horrible recipes, and taste wise horrible too. So I didn't bother to even post it. Was not impressed at all.

This week I learned something new. I never knew muffins were considered "quickbreads" for some reason or another, I had always associated quickbreads with loaf recipes (pumpkin loaf etc). So I felt rather dumb, but hey now I know right? We made a huge variety of muffins this week at school:

sour cream topping chocolate chocolate-chip muffin

(the group that made this decided to fill it with raspberry jam - I thought that was too busy because the recipe itself is loaded with so many ingredients)

Next was a plain coffee cake, I wasn't too impressed with the look of the final product, not sure if the recipe just wasn't good or if they didn't make it correctly.


These came out pretty good and everyone seemed to like it alot - chocolate chocolate chip muffins
Another group made an oil based plain blueberry muffin with turbinado sugar on the top.

This was the only one I tried since it was the only one made with oil and not butter. It lacked any flavor at all. I couldn't even taste the orange flavoring added into it and there was definitely no hint of blueberry flavor at all. It was rather disappointing.
My group made these sour cream blueberry muffins and not to toot my own horn but I think ours came out the best. I love a crunch top on a muffin, this was from the streusal we put on the top, and I love a big muffin top and we definitely got that because we filled out muffins to the top! Everyone loved it too.

Last weekend we headed down to Orlando for a trip to Seaworld. It was a long 6 hour drive but we made it safely. Here are some dolphins people were feeding. They are so cute and clever enough that they know who has food and who doesn't. They would splash you if they let your pet them and then you gave them nothing.
Here's another one playing around after they got fed.
Here I am after the horrific 1st ride on floridas fastest and longest rollercoaster. Boy was I freaked out. I HATE rollercoasters - aih the things you do for the man.
This is not a good picture of me, but the seal definitely makes up for it. ;-)
SHAMU!!! SHAMU!!!!! So so cute! I wish I could have touched Shamu.

The killer whale show. They splased us so much!! The whole entire 5 rows in the front were soaked. Thankfully we missed it by 1 row!
Here is Brandon and I at Timpanos restaurant. If you ever get to Orlando, this is the place to have amazing italian food. They make their pastas from scratch and you get extra refills on pasta for free!!! Another fantastic restaurant just down the road is Seasons 52, everything on their menu is 475 calories or less.