Tasty goodness

Warning: If you are hungry or trying to eat more healthily, I don't suggest reading this post. Seeing sweets when hungry always makes me crave desserts rather that real food. Like when I go to the grocery store when hungry, never a good idea. I inevitably end up coming home with a bag of Oreo cookies or worse.

So lately, I have been wanting my family's homemade cran-raspberry ice cream. I have never made it before and I thought it would be a tasty treat. I have since realized it's essentially frozen whip cream with added sugar and flavoring. I mean who wouldn't like that?! Andrew and I don't actually have an ice cream maker and when I mentioned to Andrew that I was going to buy one, the idea was quickly vetoed. Evidently you don't need an ice cream maker when you have a mass supply of liquid nitrogen. So after a very long day on Saturday, we thought it might be fun to try it out. Andrew brought some liquid nitrogen home and it was definitely faster and more fun than a traditional ice cream maker. The resulting ice cream was creamy, really creamy. So much so, that the next time I make it, I will definitely not be using the full portion of whipping cream. Yeah it was tasty, I just feel really guilty eating it. I happily ate it all weekend long and I just had a bowl of it for lunch.

And that definitely is a parking citation pictured right above Andrew's head...we were at a service project at Fairyland and I was only a couple minutes late getting out to the meter. So, while we were painting it up in Fairyland we got a ticket! Yeah, I'm still grumpy about it. Such a bummer, it's like we got charged for doing the city of Oakland a favor.

Just being silly...it really was a long Saturday.

The tasty masterpiece! I'm telling you it's good! Here's the recipe if interested;
2 1/4 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups heavy whipping cream
1 can of cran-raspberry frozen concentrate juice
1 bag of frozen raspberries (smash them)
2 eggs (we didn't add this...kinda grossed us out)
1 1/4 cups milk

If the ice cream wasn't bad enough, I spent the preceding days making a bunch of tarts. Really, a lot of tarts. My parents hosted an open house for a fellow who just got married in the ward and somehow I ended up signing myself up to make dessert. It actually wasn't too bad and ended up being pretty fun...it was just a two day process.

Here are all the tarts filled and ready to be decorated. The kitchen was a nightmare, maybe I should have taken a picture of that?

And the tarts after completion! There were 14 of them. I just wish I had the photography skills to make a really pretty picture out of them. One ended up breaking...ok, I 'accidently' broke it while trying to stack them back in the fridge again. I quickly just claimed that one for Andrew and I...so it worked out well. Click HERE it you are interested in the recipi. All I can say is we are really looking forward to this weekend for some rest!

I want those ribbons!

Little Bug attended her first birthday party this weekend! I thought maybe such a moment should be documented. Her favorite part was the ribbons on all the presents. In fact, she got into a fight with the birthday boy trying to play with them.

Not to worry, she was closely monitored while playing with all those ribbons!

hmmm...it is hard to tell from this picture, but Little Bug has cupcake all over her face. The little stinker rejected the cake and would only eat the frosting. Then when driving in the car the day after the party, I discovered Andrew's cupcake stump. Evidently he also just ate the top part with the frosting and left the cake part untouched! Andrew has sabotaged Bug's taste buds and he could not be more proud.

Happy Birthday!

It was Andrew's 29th birthday last week. And as he likes to say, he is now only 12 months away from being 30. Happy birthday love, Little Bug and I are so grateful for you!

Alleluia, blessed day...or whatever other praising word you can think of

We finally took on the task of redoing our kitchen...in case you didn't remember, our kitchen was umm . . .just bad. Of course we thought it would take a day to get most of it done (we prepped the whole week beforehand), but as home repairs usually go, we ran into some snags along the way. Snags like, the new counter tops not being the same width as the old ones, the sink not fitting against the counter, the old plumbing crumbling apart, and lots of fun leaks. But it's now done! So, here we go on a pic by pic step of our process.

The first step was getting out this built in bookshelf/pantry thing. I really want to emphasize 'thing' here cause really, what was it!?! I'm still sitting here wondering who in their right mind would have stuck it in. Luckily, it came out easy, just needed some pushing, which I was happy to render.

Here's the pic without the pantry. It really did wonders to not have it there.

Yep, here would be a close up of the kitchen. Excuse the fact I was cooking dinner at the time.

You really didn't get it wrong, this was all the counter space we had. Are you noticing the exposed wood? There was also a 12 by 12 inch patch of the laminate that simply lifted off. Lovely.

Here are the new counter tops! We were also able to extend them two feet, which really doubled our counter space. Ok, not quite doubled, but it certainly helped. Taking the sink off the angle also really helped open up some counter space.

Putting in a new back splash! I was very surprised how fun this was.

Then we added some paint...Andrew was quite thrilled he only had to cut the top corner of the wall. And quite frankly, I don't blame him. We are really all painted out over here. You'll notice that Andrew is under the sink. I have to give him major props for spending hmmm, probably a few good long hours under there.

Here's the final masterpiece! After we were all done, we were sitting on the couch just staring at the kitchen...yes it still has some quirks, but we concluded that at least now its got some redeeming qualities. And I'm pretty sure I could go give that dishwasher a kiss right now.

Zoo and kiddy pool fun

Earlier this week Little Bug and I headed off to the zoo with my sister-in-law, Katy, and cousin Z! Little Bug was pretty excited, well, maybe I was just excited to take her, but still, there was excitement in the air! Little Bug was pretty enthralled with the bunnies. In fact we probably could have stood there watching them for hours. Cousin Z was quite intrigued by the otters, who knew the Oakland Zoo had otters!?!

These next pictures tell quite the story - Little Bug, Cousin Z, and the Oakland Zoo flier. Just in case the pictures don't portray it all, I added the internal dialog;

Little Bug: Hmmm...I want that little flier.

I know, I'll just reach across and take it!

Cousin Z: Wait a minute. Wasn't I just holding the flier? I want it back.

Little Bug: Ah hah! I don't know what happened but somehow the flier is in two pieces. I'm happy with my half, how about you?

You know, I don't know why those pictures amuse me so. In fact, Andrew got a few chuckles out of them himself. It's probable only a parent who could find such pictures so amusing...but there you go, we shared it with you all.

After the zoo, we headed back to Cousin Z's house and took a little swim in their kiddy pool. Well, Cousin Z and Little Bug did. Here they are quite lovingly playing with the bubble machine while in the pool.

Such a fun afternoon and I know if Little Bug could talk, she'd be asking to go back!

A's game

I realize we go to a lot of A's games around here and...well quite frankly it just can't be that interesting seeing yet another pictures of us at a game. However, with all that said...here's another A's game picture! This one did happen to be enjoyed in the warm afternoon sun with my mother.

Wish we were still on vacation...

Well, we just got back from our visit to Utah...and Andrew and I just agreed this morning, we wish we were still on vacation. It started off with Little Bug's first swim. Any nervousness we had about her swimming ended really quickly. As soon as she got in the water this is the smile we got. The only problem we had was trying to hold onto her. She was thoroughly convinced that she did not need to be held while swimming.


We were there for Pioneer Day! Ok, so pretty sure I was the only one excited about this, but I had fun. I'd never been in Utah on Pioneer Day and that certainly seems the place to celebrate such a day. We went to a parade and the highlight of course was the mounds of candy being thrown at us. However, Andrew made me wait for the little kids to get their fill of candy before I was allowed to collect some. In the evening, we lit a few fireworks ourselves before heading out to a fireworks show! Here is Little Bug and Grandma D enjoying our home lit fireworks.

Here Little Bug couldn't figure out what the heck that noise was coming from Papa D while he slept!

No trip to Utah would be complete without boating. So, I admit, I do not come from a boating background. I always believed boating was done on nice relaxing sunny days where people would go to cool off in the water and soak up some warm sun on the boat. Then I joined the Duffin family and found out otherwise. For my first boating trip with them, we woke up at 5:30/6 AM to make sure we got good water to ski on. The goal was to get water that "looked like glass." I wasn't sure what that meant, but I went with it. The water looked great, but IT WAS FREEZING! Fortunately, Andrew has come to his senses about the hours to go water skiing. Finally boating is what I expected it to be...at a normal hour when it is warm outside. This time it was enjoyable to hop into the water and take a ski. Of course water skiing was always fun, but it sure is better not having to wrap yourself in a blanket after you ski to avoid hypothermia. And of course the fun doubled by being able to take Little Bug on the boat.




Thank heavens for this window on our flight home. Little Bug was beyond tired, but she thoroughly enjoyed peering out this window throughout our flight.

And now it's back to real life for us...sigh.

June smatterings...

We started off the month with Little Bug learning all about gravity! Her love of gravity is now a full blown game of, 'lets drop something and watch someone labor to pick it up and hand it to me.'
Andrew and I aren't quite as enthusiastic as Little Bug about this one. She's also figured out how to say 'Da da', eat Cheerios by herself, and stand up! Is it normal to feel sad that your baby is growing up? I called my mom to lament my sadness and she said, 'Yeah and pretty soon she'll be graduating from high school and moving out.' I can't think of anything to respond back to that with but, wow.

Andrew getting Little Bug all jazzed up for another A's game. Let's go A's! Unfotinately, we lost this one.

We finally made it to California Academy of Sciences while Andrew's parents were in town!

Little Bug is quite taken with Andrew. In fact every time he leaves in the morning for work or simply, a room, she lets him know how she feels about it. I'm trying not to be insulted, but let's face it...it's slightly insulting.

Little Bug loving Papa D:)

Anyone noticing the itsy bitsy hair clip in Little Bug's hair? Cause it's there! Ok, so it's hard to spot, but Little Bug has enough of a tuff to put a clip in! I'm pretty sure this excitement is coming from me only, but I think it's a pretty significant June smattering!

A really long update...

Well it has been a busy few weeks for us and we figured it was time for a real update. In fact, I really don't know where to start with it all. Maybe because we still have so much to do...

We started the month with many a late/early nights, depending on how you look at it, cleaning and painting our new apartment. It was tiring and Little Bug didn't do us many favors by waking up at her usual 6:30 AM. I'll be honest, our new apartment was disgusting. It was so bad that I just barely used the kitchen for the first time and that was only because it was Father's Day. We're pretty sure we were cleaning at least 15 years of old yucky college dirt. After we cleaned, we literally painted every surface in our apartment to ensure that it was "clean." This was Andrew's first time painting an apartment and I think he was a little surprised at what a long hard process it can be. When we finally painted our last wall he made some comment on how we were never going to paint again. Which is actually quite sad for me 'cause at some point , as in the next place we move, I'm sure I'll want to do some painting.

We then packed up all our stuff, drove probably about 3 miles away and then unpacked all our stuff. Are you catching onto some painful repetition here? Is that not the lamest move ever?! All that work for a measly 3 miles.

Then almost immediately Andrew started Beam time, which translates into long days at work starting at the beautiful hour of 3:30AM. He finally finished last Saturday and oh what a blessed day it was! Too bad I didn't let him rest too much cause we had the most awful built-in bookshelf in our kitchen (what were they thinking?!) and Andrew woke up from his nap to the noise of me cutting and pushing it off the wall. I am happy to say it is no longer with us.

This leads me back to the subject of our kitchen...it's a big subject. I'll paint just a slight picture for you all; imagine two and a half microwaves, yeah that's the size of our counter space. The cabinets are right above the counter top, so what little counter space we have is depressingly cramped. There is no dishwasher and to make things worse, they put the sink back in the corner where you have to bend over to reach it. Washing dishes here is backbreaking. But things are looking up because while driving to Costco on Saturday (it was the first time grocery shopping since April) we spotted a dishwasher on the side of the road. We talked to the people who were giving it away and sure enough it is in good working order. Score, free dishwasher. So, we've got plans to extend our counter top when we put in our dishwasher and then we'll have some more space! And then all we have left to do is patch the floor and wall where we ripped out that monstrosity of a bookcase. Then I think I'll paint an accent wall...shh don't tell Andrew yet.

After the kitchen we need to direct our attention to our bathroom...cause the door hits the sink and only opens about 75% of the way. Plus the light switch is behind the door. Thoughts anyone?:)

You might be asking at this point, why did you ever move into such a place? Well, it is in walking distance of Andrew's work and it isn't any farther for me to get to school. It is quite fun having him home for two extra hours a day...and the best part, a second bedroom for Little Bug! Which still happens to have a bunch of boxes in it, but it's fun knowing after we're all settled I get to decorate. Andrew is thrilled;) Oh yeah, and we're on the top floor in the corner. There happen to be some trees by our windows and apparently Little Bug has never seen such things because she's enthralled with them.

Then we've got managing stuff to do. A LOT of managing stuff. I realize this is a long post, but I just can't resist adding a bit more about the subject of managing. Andrew just found a maintenance request form from one of our tenants. It reads as follows,

1) Our fire alarm has no more batteries
2) Please install the curtain rods for the 2 bedroom windows
3) Our sink is clogged
4) Our shower drain is clogged
5) Please drill in 2 nails at the top of our shoe rack (by front rack)
Thank you!
Apt. #12
PS: Where do we put our toxic waste?

There are too many things wrong with these requests, but toxic waste pick up is on Thursday. I'll just leave it with the simple statement that we are truly grateful to have the opportunity to manage and can't wait until the day we don't have too:)

And here's a pic for making it through this post!

Happy Father's Day love!

We think you're the best!