NYC Part I - The Sights

We're back from New York City. It was an awesome time! We saw so much and did so much. I was thoroughly exhausted when I got home. We had a great time with our friends Bethany & Ben. We have to go on another trip with them soon.

Below is a slide show with some of the many pictures we took. I'm new to the whole slide show thing and can't get the captions to work right, so if you want to know what's going on in the picture just click on it and the description will come up. Also, if you want to speed up the slide show, click on a picture and in the top right hand corner there will be a speed adjuster. Enjoy! Tomorrow I hope to post a slide show of all the tasty, and huge, food we ate so check back in.

spring break relaxin' - day 2

Today was day two of my Spring Break. Again I enjoyed another morning of not being awaken by a screeching alarm. I did have to get up by 7:45 am so I could get ready for my dentist appointment. Luckily it was just a 6-month check up and not drilling. I was in and out of there in about 30 minutes.

I had a few minutes to kill before I headed over for my bread making lesson so I swung by the local Methodist church's Bargain Box. I hadn't been in a while and hoped to find something great, but I didn't. Oh well! Off to bread making I go!

I went over to my coworker Becky's house for my lesson. Her sister Sammie is in town from Houston, TX. Sammie is the yeast roll/cinnamon roll queen and I was hoping to glean some bread making wisdom from her...and some freshly baked rolls :) My other coworker, Carla, joined the bunch.

Bread making is quite a process - more than I originally thought. You have to "proof" the yeast and then add the rest of the ingredients. Then you mix that together and then turn it out onto the counter to knead the dough. Then you have to let it rise for an hour and a half. Now comes the fun part...making the rolls. Here is a picture of me, Carla, and Sammie forming the rolls.

Voila! Here is our finished pan of rolls. Now they have to rise again for another hour before they can be baked.

We saved half of the yeast roll dough to make cinnamon rolls. We mixed in some cinnamon, sugar, and butter chunks and kneaded it into the dough. We then took golf ball-sized pieces of dough and pulled it into a 4-5 inch log and rolled in melted butter, cinnamon, and sugar. Here is Carla and I getting our hands dirty in the tasty mixture.

Here is our finished pan of cinnamon rolls. Again, they had to rise an hour before they could be baked (and devoured). That hour was torture...the smell of melted butter and cinnamon sugar was filling the air and driving us nuts! And yes, I thought about licking my fingers when I was done rolling the dough. I didn't though, Sammie said that would be gross.

So after the hour of rising and then 20 minutes baking time, I got to savor the sweet taste of success!


I ate 3 yeast rolls and 2 cinnamon rolls! What can I say, they were good! I had a great time with Becky, Sammie, and Carla. It was fun to spend time with my coworkers outside of work. Thanks to Becky for opening up her home to us and thanks to Sammie for sharing her bread making wisdom :)

Another blog entry...two days in a row!? I'm on a roll! Wow, free time is a glorious thing. Can you tell I'm really glad to not have to go to work this week?

spring break relaxin'

Woohoo - I'm on Spring Break! The college I work at was closed all week for students, but staff had to work Monday and Tuesday and then got the rest of the week off. So today I enjoyed a day of relaxing. Let me tell you, it was SO nice not having to get up and go to work this morning!!

Today I got my very first facial. Chip bought me a gift certificate for one for Christmas (yes, I'm just now using it in April). It was pretty good, though I don't think it is something I would do on a continual basis since it costs a lot and it was just "ok". It's not that I didn't enjoy it - I would just rather use the money on a massage. I enjoy those more. Plus my skin isn't so bad that I need it deep-cleansed frequently.

Facials are relaxing. You lay on a table in a dimly lit room with soothing music playing. Then they use like 7 different sprays, cleansers, scrubs, and masks on your face. My favorite part had to be the warm, damp towels they put on your face. That was very soothing. Each product had a different scent - cucumber, fruit, and cinnamon. So you also get a little aromatherapy, too. The whole facial lasts about 40 minutes. It seemed kind of fast, but it was still nice - especially since I could have been sitting at work!

Later on this afternoon I went to Sonic for "Happy Hour" with my neighbor Stephanie and her baby Addison. Sonic has half-priced drinks and slushes everyday from 2-4 p.m. We sat outside at one of the tables on the patio and talked. It was a good time. Plus we scored free refills on our cherry-limeades. We just asked one of the carhops if they did free refills and she said they didn't, but that she'd bring us one anyways. Nice! We did a double-take and had a good laugh when we saw the nametag of the girl who brought us our refills. Let's just say it was a part of the female anatomy. Since this is a "G" rated blog I won't say what it was. I'm sure that wasn't actually her name - which begs the question why anyone would put that name on there in the first place.

Anyways, I have thoroughly enjoyed my first day of Spring Break. Tomorrow I get to have my teeth cleaned - woohoo! After that I am getting a lesson in making yeast rolls and cinamon rolls from my coworker's sister. I've had them before and they are really good, so I'm looking forward to that. Plus I am getting ready for our trip to New York City. I'm kind of busy, but at least it is with fun things to do so I don't mind.

Oh, as promised, here is a picture of me from my church's Passover Easter production. No, I'm not angry, this is just a scence I'm in. You can find the rest by clicking here -> http://gallery.mac.com/thepianostudio#100083

short and sweet

I have a free minute - literally - so I thought I'd update my blog (per Bethany's request). I have been very busy lately preparing for my church's Easter musical production "The Passover". I sing in the choir and am also acting in a few scenes. I have been at rehearsals just about every night the past 2 weeks. I'm exhausted! Hence no update to my blog in about a month. We have our first performance at 7 pm tonight and two performances tomorrow (at 2 pm & 7 pm). If anyone reading this is local, please come. It is at Rocky Bayou Baptist Church in Niceville.

I'll try to post some pictures from the show next week.

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter!

d-day

This past Sunday Chip and I went to Bonifay to help his parents get their new donkey. A friend of theirs bought a female donkey for his farm and unbeknownst to him it was pregnant. One day he went out to feed the donkey and there were two baby donkeys (I don't know the official "baby" donkey name - maybe colt?) in the pen. One was a female and one was a male. Because he didn't intend to go into the donkey breeding business he offered the male donkey to my in-laws. They have a lonely horse that they thought the donkey would keep company. So anyways, Chip and I were asked to come to Bonifay to help them load it in the trailer and bring it back to their house.

It was pretty funny trying to get the donkey out of its pen and into the trailer. Donkeys are stubborn and the poor little guy was scared as well. Eventually he went in and we brought him back to the house. He ran out of the trailer and into the fenced in corral they plan on keeping him in until he gets used to his new surroundings. My in-laws have named him Donkey, pronounced "Dun-key" like the way Shrek says it in the movie. He is pretty cute! The horse was kind of unsure of what this new animal was and what he was doing there. Every once in a while the donkey would bray fairly loud. Everyone would just laugh. I think he will make a great addition to their animal family. Here are some pictures of the donkey.


Here is the donkey with his mother and sister. He is the littlest one on the far left.


Here is Rose checking out the donkey.

Chip in the stall with the donkey.

He's pretty cute. I'm usually scared of large animals, but once I realized he wasn't going to kick me I had a little fun with him.

Welcome home Donkey!

valentine's day and other exciting stuff

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Thank you to my sweet husband for these beautiful flowers and the half dozen treats from Au Peche Mignon :)

I've been quite busy lately reading up on all of the places and things to do in New York City. Chip and I will be going in April with Ben and Bethany. I'm really excited to go and also to see the sites with such great friends. I think that will make the trip even more fun. We've already bought our planes tickets and reserved our hotel. Now I'm working on our itinerary. We plan on going to the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Plaza, Times Square, take in a Broadway show, see the Statue of Liberty, and even stand in the crowd during the taping of the Today Show. We are also going to try to get tickets to Conan or Letterman. If any of you reading this have ever been and have any suggestions of places to go or things to eat let me know.

Last night I went to a class at the college I work at about European travel. The teacher is the travel writer from the local newspaper and an avid european traveler. I am currently trying to persuade Chip to go to Paris and maybe London this fall. We'll see. Neither one of us have been overseas before and he is leary about going somewhere by ourselves where they don't speak english. I think we'd be ok. This class has already taught me quite a bit about how to plan and pack for such a trip. By the end of the class I should be ready to go. I can't wait! I have always wanted to go to Europe, especially Paris - as I'm sure more of you know :)

Recently I found out that I won an Gold Addy! Addys are awards for creativity in advertising. These were the local Addy's for the Emerald Coast region. From here the winning pieces go on to the district competition and then nationals. Addys are well-recognized awards in the advertising industry.The college/performing arts center I work for entered 9 different projects we did this year and 8 won awards! The one I am most proud of is the Art Center's season brochure. It is the only one of our pieces that won the gold, the rest won silver - which is great too. The season brochure was my project. I designed the front cover and worked with our graphic designer on the layout/design of the rest of the brochure. I'm very proud to have our marketing department win these awards.

Well, that's all I've got for now. I'll write more later.

a blog for my birthday dog

Today is Frank's first birthday! My little peanut wiener dog is already one! This is the first picture of Frank I saw when I found our breeder's website. What a sad little puppy!

And here is what he looks like now...

Don't worry, I'm not one of "those" people that have parties for their pets. I know some of you are saying, "Now wait just a minute! Aren't you the girl who's family had brithday parties for your guinea pigs?!" Well, yes, we did...in a way. We would have cake, but who wouldn't want a reason to eat cake? Usually we did have a small birthday cone hat for the guinea pig to wear. Stop laughing! It's not like we sent out invitations and had guests over! In present day, people do a lot worse and more to celebrate their pet's birthday.

We, however, are not doing anything to "celebrate" Frank's birthday...other than this blog. I didn't bake him a cake (though I do have some left over from our Super Bowl party we could eat), he will not be wearing a party hat, and we didn't buy him any presents. Frank is a simple dog. Besides, it's not like he realizes it is the anniversary of his birth.

But I did want to mark the occasion with a post. I have really enjoyed having Frank around and he brings a lot of fun and laughter to our lives...frustration too. Like when he peed on me this morning! Oops! I still love him.