Happy Fourths

I. We spent the Fourth of July in Houston with my parents, my oldest sister, Henry's brother, our sister-in-law, and our sweet and very calm baby nephew.

Oh, almost forgot. In our way into town, we also stopped for my two year old second cousin's birthday party. It was fun seeing my aunt and cousins.

J with the helicopter toy we bought for her.

 On Monday we stuffed ourselves silly with all kinds of grilled goodness (Meatless Monday was an afterthought that day...). That night we watched a free concert they have every year in my hometown.

Johnny Dee and the Rocket 88s

My dad loves this band. They do covers of music from the 1950s and 60s. Once their show was over, it was time for fireworks. Henry took about 50 pictures of fireworks, and for the first time ever, they actually look pretty good. It makes it hard to choose a favorite, so here's a few.

II. Yesterday was our fourth wedding anniversary. I can't believe it's been four years already, but those first two years that we spent finishing school were kind of crazy. It's been a great four years though. Henry truly is my best friend, and every day of my life is blessed with him in it. Marriage is everything I hoped it could be and more.

So last night after Henry got home from work, we set up our tripod and tried to get some nice anniversary photos. Technically speaking, they aren't the greatest, but I still like them.

 We went to dinner last night at Jasper's. It was a good restaurant for an anniversary because it wasn't too crowded, the food was really good, and it had that fancy, special occasion feel without being stuffy.

We ordered Thai chicken wantons with sweet mango chile sauce.

And baked potato salad. Really good, but rich.

 And we split the Texas Peach Barbecued Pork Tenderloin entree. Also very good.

For dessert we attempted this huge trio: rocky road ice cream sandwich, vanilla dessert toast, and dark chocolate molten cake with dulce de leche. Oh my goodness. We almost finished all of it. Almost.

Good dinner. Now it's time for me to pack up once again for another trip to Houston and New Orleans this weekend. Ah, summer. I still like you and the adventure you bring.

Sweet Summer

At this time last week, I was packing up my last few boxes of therapy materials and turning in the keys to my office, which means I have officially completed my first week of summer vacation. It's been a good week. I survived 9 1/2 hours outside in the Texas heat (98-103 degrees were the estimates) as a volunteer at Cub Scouts Day Camp. (Surprisingly, I enjoyed myself--mostly--and didn't get irritated the whole day, but when it was over I felt exhausted. That was on Monday. On Tuesday I was a complete bum.) We finally pulled off the Pinewood Derby on Wednesday night. I went to the gym twice this week and ran errands by myself. I've also read more than usual and started a few personal projects.

Summer feels like a time of rejuvenation for me. Since I have two and a half months off from work, it's a time for me to refocus on my personal pursuits. Throughout the school year, I stay busy, busy. Now is my time to take a new look at my goals, make new plans, and as Dave Ramsey would say, attack them with gazelle-like intensity, allowing for afternoon naps of course.

These are my summer plans:

• Medicaid billing. This is one that I want to quickly mark off my list as it is not fun in the slightest. I have two weeks left to do from December '10 and the whole month of January '11 to do. Ugh.
• Participate in The June Challenge to Draw Closer to God. I'm finally making more progress on my Old Testament reading!
• Write in my gratitude journal every day this summer (or at least 85% of days if we're being honest)
• Exercise three times per week for the month of June, at least twice a week for the month of July
• Read some classic books, plus I need to finish the two other books I've started (Two-Invention and The Help)
• Organize my closet--this is one I've started this week
• Participate in the Ultimate Austin Scavenger Hunt. Henry and I marked three things off our list last night. Hopefully tonight we'll hit one more.
• Learn more about nutrition and healthy cooking. After contemplating on several separate occasions, I bought Michael Pollan's Food Rules last night. I've also started reading through the blog Word of Wisdom Living. This summer I hope to drastically increase my veggie & fruit intake/cut back on meat. I think these are both great resources.
• Research/expand our food storage. Hopefully this will go right along with the point above. Sadly, I have about 15 cans of expired food sitting on my kitchen counter right now that I need to throw out...I want to create a system to avoid that in the future. A friend recently recommended a few blogs to check out for getting started, but I haven't looked through them yet.
• Plan fun things to do for my New Orleans and Cabo trips! Please leave recommendations if you have any...
• Learn more about photography--read book, practice
• Learn about Illustrator--I bought a small text book from Nicole's Classes, so now I need to actually read it and play around with it. A new header/background could be in this blog's future.
• Turn my college blog into a book--has anyone out there done this before? What service do you recommend?

I have a few smaller things I want to work on too, but I'll keep those to myself lest you think I'm crazy. I don't think I'm crazy, but I am an overachiever. But anyway, those are the main ones...and I'm excited about getting things done!

a reminder

via cardigan empire

I've been MIA lately. I plan to change that in two weeks when the school year is OVER, but in the meantime, this is something good to ponder. We are eternal.

Crofter's Organic Superfruit Crepes

I didn't have to work on Good Friday, and I wanted to make something special for breakfast to celebrate. So off I went to my kitchen to make crepes for the very first time.

There were two reasons I chose to make crepes:
1. A while ago I received a coupon to try Crofter's Superfruit Spread, and I wanted to do something more with it than put it on toast (though that's a perfectly fine option).
2. I've been wanting to eat at an expensive little crepe trailer in South Austin for several months. Making them at home took care of that craving.

I started with my jar of the North America Superfruit Spread and went to work making the crepes. I made 2 servings, which ended up yielding four crepes. What you see below are basically the ingredients you'll need: an egg, all-purpose flour, milk, water, and (not pictured) butter. I added a touch of vanilla because I already had it out, and who doesn't love vanilla? I mixed those together in my bowl and then stuck it back in the fridge. I read in another recipe that if you let the batter settle in the fridge for an hour, it will make the crepes less bumpy and lumpy.

But I didn't let it sit for that long. I kept it in there for as long as it took me to make some whipped cream (or as we say in my family, "whip cream." Maybe it's a Southern thing.)

If you've never made your own, you really should. It's easy and tastes so good. I probably should've cut this recipe in half, but I didn't. I piled lots of whip cream inside and on top of my crepes and had plenty left over for an impromptu fruit salad.

Once the whip cream was ready, I went back to making the crepes. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I switched up things with the butter. I was supposed to mix melted butter into the batter, but I think I used it all to oil my frying pan. No wonder it seemed like SO MUCH butter. Ha! The crepes tasted just fine though...

I was worried that it'd be tricky to flip the crepes, but that was actually pretty easy because they curled up at the edges. The tricky part was spreading the batter quickly (quickly!) and evenly in the pan before it could really start cooking.

Assembling the crepes was fast. I spread a line of Superfruit down the center, layered some whip cream on top and folded it over burrito style.

Of course I loaded more whip cream on top too. Yumm.

They were rich and filling, so I only ate half of my three. I saved the leftovers for Henry, and when he got home, he said, "These are good. Where'd you get the berries?"

I will definitely make these again. The mix of blueberries, cranberries, red grapes, and morello cherries is on the tart side, so the whipped cream balanced it out with a little (or if you're like me, a lot of) sweet. I liked using the Crofter's Superfruit Spread because I didn't have to prep anything for the filling, yet it packed an antioxidant-filled, flavorful punch. I wish I could have some right now.