Fruit Tartlets

 I made mini fruit tarts for dessert tonight. Yum.



Dancing to the Beat

 It's that time of year again, finals and the COS dance show! I was in tap this semester and our dance was Austin Powers themed. I was not excited about that, but overall it turned out fun. Here are some pictures, I'm wearing a black dress with white polka dots.

Backstage opening night with my dance partner; we choreographed a small part of the dance that four of us performed together.

And here's the video:

The Post I'm Glad to be Posting

 Saturday morning I decided to drive up to camp to meet my friend, Jaime at a women's conference there. I arrived during free time and joined a hike led by my former roommate, Rachel. It was wonderful to be at camp again. There was a lot of water over the fall.

 After our first hike, Jaime, Rachel, and I went on a second hike, the Shadow of the Giants. The Dogwood trees were just opening up.

It was cloudy and cold in the evening, but I braved the cold to take pictures of the moon.

The morning brought a beautiful surprise: Snow!! Be prepared for a lot of pictures.

Tulips on the tables in the dining room. They had things decorated and fancy for the ladies. It was a good retreat; Jaime and I sat at a table with my former Calvin Crest kitchen supervisor's wife and her sister as well as some other fun ladies. The speaker was talking about balance and had good things to say. But mostly it was wonderful to be at camp again and be refreshed.

Yearning

It's been 5 years since I last worked on staff at Calvin Crest; but inevitably, this time of year my heart turns toward the mountain. There were plenty of ups and downs during my two summers on staff and the others weeks I've spent at camp, but the community I experienced there was like no other. Plus, I love the mountains. The beauty, the smells, the water; I feel closer to God when I'm surrounded by His awesome creation. It's time...

League Week Again

 For spring break this year, I was one of "those" people who work extra hours because they aren't in school. It turned out to be a good thing since what was supposed to be a one league week turned into a two league week when we found out Monday that one of the sales people hadn't written a 20 team league that was due Friday on the calender. Needless to say, that increased the pressure quite a bit. I tried to get a picture of all the shirts at once, but there were just too many. Thankfully, we ended up finishing the two leagues with their 52 teams, over 800 shirts, 2500+ prints, not to mention the few smaller jobs we did this week. We have a good crew and support from Dad and the rest of the employees.

Baking Saturday

We had a relaxing baking party Saturday with Gretchen, Marty, Heidi, and Michelle. I made rosemary bread that we enjoyed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil for dipping. 

Heidi made rye bread.

And Marty made chocolate cupcakes with cookie dough centers and buttercream frosting.

                       Here's the aftermath

Baked with Love

Mise en place for chocolate cake

 Our church had its annual Baked with Love auction this morning, so yesterday was baking day. I started things off in the morning by baking chocolate cake rounds with a recipe from Trisha, one of our relatives back east who is an excellent baker.

Later in the afternoon, I made the chocolate ganache icing and peppermint filling.

I used Jr. Mints to make my filling.

Michelle joined the baking party and made red velvet cupcakes with white chocolate macadamia nut cookie inside.

Here's my finished cake: A rich chocolate cake with chocolate ganache icing and layers of smooth peppermint filling.

After dinner, Dad baked peanut butter cookies.

Michelle's finished cupcakes topped with buttercream frosting and red sprinkles.

And Dad's finished peanut butter cookies with a chocolate glaze drizzle.

Bribery Works

We were bribed today at work by someone who went somewhere else to get their league shirts made. Five of the teams were messed up by the other business, so they came back to us to save the day. As part bribe, part thank you, they brought pizza and soda for the screeners today. It was great to have a free lunch and we enjoyed hanging out while we ate.

My First Trip to Selma

 I made an almost spontaneous trip to Selma yesterday to meet up with two of my London flatmates, Juan and Ashley. We had an early dinner at Sal's followed by chocolate dipped ice cream cones that were exceptionally messy. It was wonderful to see Juan and Ashley again and spend lots of time catching up and reminiscing.

Celtic Crossroads

Friday night Jonah, Michelle, Heidi, and I had the opportunity to see Celtic Crossroads perform at the Fox Theater. It was an amazing show, the musicians and dancers were so talented, and of course the Fox is a cool place to see a show. Taking pictures wasn't an option, so instead of having a post without pictures I'm including a collage from the weekend I spent in Ireland for you to enjoy while reading about the show. I'll try not to talk your head off since hearing about a show is never as exciting as being there, but it really was great.

They played mostly Irish music, but mixed in some Gypsy compositions, American blue grass, and other variety. All of them were incredible and could play so fast, I sat there staring in shock most of the time. There were two dancers too, who mostly did Irish hard shoe but also did a couple other traditional Irish dances, and they were very talented too. One of the songs was a solo by the percussionist with an Irish drum, during which one of the dancers came out and they did a duet of sorts that was amazing. There was also a harp player; I mean really, who plays the harp? It was so cool. The fiddle player and the banjo player were also insane. But I think I'm going on too much. I'll wrap up by saying we had a great evening of music and dance in a wonderful environment with great company. Oh, and one more picture from outside as we were leaving.