Indy

This past weekend Dan and I got to spend some time with a few of our friends. On Friday night we spent the night at Jason and Angie's house enjoying good food, fellowship, and a good movie. On Saturday we got up and went down to Indy for a meeting Dan had. While he was at his meeting I wandered around Circle Center Mall for a few hours before we headed out to meet up with Jen and Stacey. On our way out of downtown we got in an accident because a lady wasn't paying attention and re-ended us. Thankfully we were fine and had very minimal damage to our car.

The rest of the evening we had a great time hanging out, eating dinner at P.F. Chang's, and watching a movie at Jen's house. We got to introduce Stacey to Pitch Perfect which we knew she would love. It was a great way to spend the weekend.

At dinner

Pictures

 I recently put together a few pictures from trips that we took last year and was really excited how it turned out. We got the picture frame for our wedding and I had fun looking through pictures and seeing which ones Dan liked :)

It hasn't been put up on the wall yet but it will be a two person job to make sure it is centered where we want it. I will put more before and after pictures up once we get it hung. I also got a nice compliment from the ladies at the Photo place, they said the pictures could be post cards. It made my day, I love taking pictures but wouldn't consider myself a photographer.

The picture on the left is of the Mackinaw Bridge from last September and the one on the right is from Mackinaw Island from the same trip. The picture in the middle is from Bisbee Arizona when we went out West last May to visit friends.

Creative Outlet

I have been working on another quilt lately. I have had all these amazing extra pieces of fabric and things at work have been slow this month so I have some extra time on my hands. Plus I started this quilt before I moved to Cambodia three years ago...so I think it is time I start finishing it up :) It started with the extra fabric from the quilt I made for my niece when she was a baby (she is now almost 6) and another quilt I made for a friend. I had bought a few new piece as I need to make 75 squares and I don't think I have enough extra fabric for that many :) But I am having fun mixing and matching!

Extra Fabric

New Fabric

Finished Squares

I have 11 squares done, 64 to go :) It is nice not having a dead-line and I can simply enjoy sewing and putting all the colors together. Not sure what I will do with the quilt when I am done but my goal is to do everything with this quilt. This would include putting all the layers together and quilting it, adding the binding, and putting on a label. I have done the label before and understand how to do the quilting and binding but haven't really done it before.

I also need to get the quilt done because I have three more I know I want to make and have the fabric already for two of the quilts. I brought back fabric from Cambodia and am excited about getting started on that one! Plus I have a friend who is having a baby and will be making another baby quilt for her :) Good thing I enjoy sewing!

Pie Day 3.14

I saw a recipe on-line for a Girls Scout Cookie pie that was suppose to taste like Samoas or Carmel Delights depending on where you live. The other interesting part was that everything was healthy and there is no sugar added, they use honey instead. I also got to toast coconut flakes for the first time. And there was an interesting special ingredient too...

avocado's

the crust: roasted coconut, coconut oil, honey, and flour

All together

I need to work on drizzling chocolate :)

 I wasn't sure how it was going to taste...it had to be in the freezer for 4 hours before preparing it to be served (which is when the chocolate was added to the top). It tasted a lot better than what I thought it would and the toasted coconut was amazing. Plus by switching the flour out for a wheat free kind and not adding the chocolate on top this desert is gluten, dairy,  egg, and nut free. I can't say it tasted like the Girl Scout Cookies but it was still really good and easy to make. The link for the web-sight is:

Samoas girl scout cookie pie

Bread

Last week I decided to make bread as part of my New Years Resolution to "make before buying". I had looked up recipes months ago and was excited to try this Amish Bread Recipe.

Kneading the dough

Before it rises

After it rises

Punching it down

Split in half

All done :)

If only you could smell them!!

They turned out really well and were very easy to make! I am excited to see how long they last in the house :)

Draft Day

This year I am jumping into the world of Fantasy Baseball. We had our draft last Saturday and I took a picture of almost all of us together for the draft.

I will be the only girl in the league and am hoping to not be last at the end of the season.

Catan

Dan and I played a game of Catan on Monday day night. We had a bad experience a while ago where nothing was rolling and we couldn't get the cards we needed to play and it left a bad taste in our mouth. We decided it was time to return to the game :) This time the game was a lot more fun and Dan was the victor. His color is blue and mine was red...it was kind of close but he had some numbers that kept rolling and even though I had pretty good cards the whole game, it is hard to beat someone who gets to pick up 4 cards of their choice every few rounds.

On a side note....we started the sound track to Wicked when we began the game and it finished up just as we were ending :)

Komets Game

On Friday night Dan and I had friends come up to go to a Komets game. We had seats closer then the box Dan and I were in last time. We really enjoyed being closer to the ice and getting to see the action up close. There weren't any fights this time but it was still fun.

Goalie

Angie and Jason

Kara and Dan

Snow

This is the most snow I have seen in Indiana in March...it started snowing on Tuesday morning and by the next morning we had about 7 inches on the ground. The roads didn't get too bad until the evening and Dan and I ended up getting stuck in our own driveway when we got home...which was a good place to get stuck and very funny. Thankfully a guy with a truck and plow stopped to help. He plowed our driveway and pulled our car out.

The beginning of the snow

Hopefully the snow won't last long...Dan and I are making plans for planting flowers in our yard :)

Laundry Detergent

One of my new years resolutions is to try making things before buying them. I know I can't do this with everything but it has been fun making pizza sauce, bread, and rolls. I have also tried making homemade cleaning supplies and decided to try laundry detergent. I have a friend who gave me a recipe and this week I decided to make it. There are several benefits to making the detergent, less chemicals and a lot cheaper! I made this batch for less than $5...and it would fill 3+ regular sized laundry containers. It works in the high efficiency machines and you use only 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup per load. How is this not a great idea?

It starts with grating Fels-Naptha soap into water and let it dissolve.

Used a cheese grater for the soap

Allow soap to dissolve

 The rest of the recipe calls for borax and washing soda:

 After everything is dissolved you pour it into almost 3 gallons of water and mix it together.

Just water in the pail

Mixture added to water

Once everything is mixed together you let it sit for 24 hours. After letting it sit you stir it up and can add essential oils, I chose Lavender, for a fresher smell. Once the essential oils are mixed in it is ready to use.

I think I need more empty laundry detergent containers

I think we will be set on detergent for a while :) And I used the juice container as a funnel to help transfer the detergent from the bucket to my containers.

Hanging Pictures 2

Here are more before and after pictures of things we have hung on our walls. I love the way it helps the house feel more like home... wish we had done this earlier!

Before:

 After:

 Before:

 After:

 Before:

 After:

Roast

On Saturday Dan and I made roast for lunch, which meant waking up to the smell filling the house. We turned it into a true feast with stuffing and homemade rolls :) It all tasted amazing!

Bowling

Last night Dan and I went bowling...this is note worthy because we have never been bowling together. This seems strange because both us like bowling and my family does it at least once a year, yet last night was our first time going. We found a smaller bowling ally with only 12 lanes and took them up on their promotion for the night. We bowled 3 games for 5 bucks each :) Here are a few pictures:

Our shoes :)

Dan 

The first round of scores

 Our first game ended up decent and Dan had the highest score of the night with 137...I was able to improve my score by our third game to a 116. Our first couple frames were very sad and a lot of gutter balls but then things started to turn around. We had a lot of fun and were really glad we went.