make cupcakes, not war

So the other night I was up watching mindless television, and because Food Network is one of my most unhealthy obsessions, the program was Cupcake Wars. It really is a dumb show, but I couldn't stop staring at the delectable looking cupcakes, all perfectly frosted and tempting me with their sugary goodness (the two ridiculously good looking lumberjacks that came out to make cupcake stands didn't hurt the show either). That, combined with a longing for the companionship of my top Cupcake Consuming Comrade, Rachel, gave me an itch to start a-bakin. Also, knowing in a few short days I'll be headed to camp for 3 weeks where I'll be taking up the position of Head Baker makes me a little nervous, so I want to get as much practice in as I can.

Now, because I am a poor college student (I hate to think about how much money I've made this summer and how 100% of it has gone to rent every month, so I won't), the baking can only take place when I am home in Ontario, where I can take advantage of a fully stocked cupboard. Oh, the glory of Pampered Chef accessories, Kitchen-Aid mixers, and knives that actually cut. So, the plan is to bake something, once a day, everyday I'm in Ontario. I already know this isn't likely, but I'm willing to try.

Enter the banana cupcake with peanut butter frosting and cinnamon garnish.

I love peanut butter; I love banana; I LOVE cinnamon. Hello, I loved these cupcakes. The frosting had a little too much butter in them and didn't spread very well. I tried tubing it out but it just looked like a big poo on top of my beautiful banana baby cake, so I resorted to just kind of globbing it on top. BUT they tasted really good and the frosting was all rich and melt-in-your-mouth-y. (Rach, you need to make these.)
More to come soon..

Those Darn Youngsters

So in order to get my rent paid (never on time, of course) I took up 3 babysitting jobs. I'm probably risking future employment by talking about them on the world wide web, but what the heck. Working for families such as these in an area such as this includes (mostly) wonderful children and overcommitted, over-stressed parents. Why someone would pay me well above minimum wage to play with their kids just so she can take a nap upstairs is beyond me. One family actually had me just making sure the kids weren't sitting in front of the computer or TV all day. What ever happened to the vacation part of summer? What's a vacation if not being a sloth on the couch, conserving all energy except when having to change the channel (you can call it being lazy, I'll call it being green). This energy was then stored into a reserve and saved for beach/water park days. But hey, if I have to resort to taking two very pleasant, polite, well-behaved and entertaining girls to Disneyland in order to make some money, so be it.
I think these wealthy moms have a learned helplessness of thinking they need all this help in order to do their work and watch their kids. I'm not sure they realize kids are VERY good at self-entertainment. I also think it's okay for brothers to wrestle around with each other sometimes. They're not going to kill each other. And even if one gets seriously injured it only makes for a great story later in life. Also, these kids are supplied with every game, craft, and activity under the sun. Oh my goodness. My childhood summers were full of hoses and VBS, the occasional trip to the beach and some camping, not to mention playdates galore. None of this new-craft-kit-everyday-5-different-summer-camps-and-someone-to-watch-your-every-move nonsense. But I guess I am already quickly becoming one of those old grandma's who preaches "back in my day"s to every passing ear.
Now, the problems with this job are that 1) sometimes I'll get called or cancelled on very last minute, which is annoying, to say the least and 2) because this is Malibu 2/3 of my families have left to spend July in Europe, which leaves me unemployed.
And so the days of laze begin. Since being unemployed I've taken to devoted and vigorous World Cup watching, gym ratting, and Oliver Twist reading. All three activities I heartily enjoy. The downside: the Cup is now over (and the final game wasn't even very exciting. bum.), I bake and eat more calories than I am expending at the gym each day, and I probably spend too much time inside (in my defense, the weather in Malibu has been cold and disappointing most days. We have to drive through the Canyon just to find enough sunshine to bask in).
The biggest upside to being in Malibu for the summer is getting to spend time with friends I might not have otherwise. The biggest downside--missing everyone who isn't here.

The Thrift Stores Were Closed

All we wanted was to go thrift store shopping. Amanda, Kira, Kaylani, Matt and myself were planning on trading in our old unwanted clothes for other people's old unwanteds. But in America, when a national holiday is on a weekend the community is given a corresponding weekday off from work. In this particular case, the anniversary of our nation's independence happened to fall on a Sunday, meaning all our dreams of Monday thrifting were crushed. As we sat in the kitchen wondering what we could do instead someone jokingly suggested we drive to San Francisco. There was a pause as we all considered it for realskies. Someone said "I'm down" and next thing I know the 5 of us are loaded into Manda's Toyota Corolla, headed north.
We drove and drove for 6 hours. Well, okay, Matt drove all the way there. But we all got to share in sitting in traffic while playing the "I'm going shopping and I'm buying Aruba, biscuits, cheese, dog etc." game. We also had a nice laugh at the car next to us sporting an Anime convention sign from the back windshield and a driver who had a stuffed Sonic the Hedgehog on his lap whom he would talk to, stroke, and help assist him in steering the car. No joke. We spent about 3 hours in the bay area that included surprising all the wonderful and gracious Morrows (minus one Sammy who had recently left for Korea) with our presence, getting late-night breakfast (a.k.a. Fatty Matties) at Dennys, and briefly passing out on Nic's couch before heading back to Malibu. Overall, successful and fun. I think spontaneity is one of those traits every college student comes to love and welcome, especially (and ironically enough) during high-stress times, like finals or summer school.

The Lower 48

The idea summer after junior year was met with considerably more relief than any previous college summer. The last two summers were viewed mostly with reluctance at having to leave behind the best years of my life. Junior year, however, was a different story. Not that it wasn't great, because all my Pepperdine years have been amazing, each in a completely different way; but it definitely held a higher contrasting stress-to-fun ratio than freshmen and sophomore years. And so summer (and by "summer" I mean late April) began, complete with the graduation of dear friends, Heidelberg reunions, and the promise of working Bible Lectures while donning the same 2 t-shirts all week long.
That last item on the agenda changed though, when I got an offer to drive to South Carolina with Kins for her brother's graduation from Clemson. Her family made it sound like I was doing them a huge favor by making sure their darling daughter made it across the country alive and, more importantly, on time for the graduation ceremony, but having someone offer to pay my way to complete one of my life-long dreams? Duh, yes, please and thank you!
The first leg of our trip was considerably dull-- desert, cacti, more desert, rocks, the occasional tumbleweed. From eastern California all the way until Eastern Oklahoma we experienced the sheer glory of desolate wastelands. By New Mexico I was shouting in excitement at giant walls of rock, for lack of anything else to look at on the side of the road. We did happen to pass one small ghost town, which we would have loved to explore, but as we were on a time crunch, we were forced to condense our itch to discover to a 70 mph drive-by. Gallop, New Mexico provided us with all it had to offer-- a pet-friendly motel and a boxy bed to sleep in for 5 hours before getting back on the road.

The panhandle of Texas sucks.

Welcome to Tulsa, land of John Kempe and his adorable family that was so kind as to let us stay the night there. We didn't get to see much of the city (or any of it for that matter), but I did have my first experience with Blue Bell Ice Cream. I wasn't disappointed.
Next stop: Memphis, Tennessee where Caroline and her wonderful family let us stay. We made a mandatory stop at what Caroline promised us was one of the more redneck Soncics in the area and indulged in Oreo shakes with extra Oreo. We were sent off with a Ziploc full of brownies and an atlas to help us along the way (prior to this we'd gotten a little bit lost since neither one of us had gotten directions before embarking on this journey).
Driving through AR, MI, AL, and GA, were all notably similar. But by this point Kins and I were so sick of desert we were reveling in the amount of trees and greenery. Beautiful! I'll admit, AR had the prettiest looking rivers and trees. I'm only sad we had to miss out on the World Famous Wal-Mart Museum. And did you know the Mississippi River is brown?
Finally we arrived in South Carolina, where we were not just on time for the graduation, but EARLY. You're welcome, Cronins. Also, a huge thanks to all those who fed and hydrated Kins and I along the way!
Now that I have 20 states under my belt, my dream of visiting all 50 is that much closer. Anyone feel like driving up to Alaska next summer?

Six on the Beach

Well, the more exciting overseas portion of this blog is done-zo, so I'm forced to resort to blogging about my everyday life. I'll warn you, though, it's not as exciting as the blogs of my dear friends who are preparing to embark on journeys to various bits of the world (not that I creepily and constantly check on their blogs or anything). Instead I'm confined to mostly Malibu and Calabasas. Although, I did manage to drive across the grand ol' United States in about 3 days with my dear friend Kinsey (warning: don't try to knit in the car while Kinsey's driving. She'll bite your head off and try to make you read aloud to her). And a couple days ago I got to embark on an impromptu turn-around trip to San Francisco. But all these things will come in later blogs. For now I'll explain the title of this post. I'm currently living in an adorable house (we like to call it Even Moore Haus) on PCH with 5 other people. Hence, the punny name (I can't take credit though. It was Hayley's brain child. But I stole it, due to her lack of blogging.). There are actually supposed to be 7 people total here, but one never showed up, so he has become the mysterious ghost of a roommate half of us have never even seen. It's okay though because that means we get to use his bathroom. The house and location are both amazing and every morning we all wake up in disbelief that we're actually spending the summer here. I've been working multiple babysitting jobs to get my rent in (never on time. whoops.) and hanging out with Lindsay Lohan before she leaves for the pen. Okay, not really. Basically, life here at the beach is wonderful and I have nothing to complain about. Future blogs will be more exciting, I promise!

Spring Break '09, baby!

Spring break began as many of my trips have—by rising with the sun in the wee hours of the morning in order to catch a bus to get to the airport everyone loves to hate—Frankfurt-Hahn (it’s not the real Frankfurt Airport but this smaller airport made just for RyanAir that’s located out in the middle of nowhere so we have to take a special bus to get there). As soon as we land in Dublin, Ireland we take a 4 hour bus through the beautifully green countryside to get to Galway where we spend the next 2 days. Galway is a cute little coastal town with plenty of shops (all which close around 5pm, as we learned too late). The first morning we were there Mary and I got up early and went for a run out to the lighthouse. We saw the sun rise over the ocean and it was gorgeous! One of those times when you just feel God all around you. Then it started raining on us so we had to head back to the hostel. That day we all went on a bus tour that went through the countryside of Ireland, through the Burren where we saw 2000 year old tombs and Viking paintings, then ended at the Cliffs of Moher (the cliffs of insanity!!!). Only by the time we got to the cliffs it was completely pouring rain and the cliffs were so foggy you couldn’t see a thing. But it was still a great tour. We stopped for lunch at a pub where I got seafood chowder that had a nice little calamari body in it. Mmm, he was tasty (I stayed away from the mussels though). For dinner we ate at a little place and had some amazing Irish food! I got shepherd’s pie and Bailey’s cheesecake to share for dessert. So good!
We went from Galway to Dublin, which was also a great town. We took a (free!) walking tour with a great guide that looked like a hobbit. We stopped for tea in a cute little café called Queen of Tarts, where, much to my surprise and enjoyment, they were playing Buena Vista Social Club! Made me think of weekends at home. Ahh.
After 4 days we left Ireland for Scotland. We headed to the small college town of St. Andrews. It was on the coast and beautiful. Not a fast food joint in sight (the city wants to preserve the historical value of the town). We stayed on the St. Andrew’s university campus with a friend’s friend (so nice of her to let us crash in her room!) which was right across the street from what’s said to be the oldest golf course in the world, which is also located right along the beach where they filmed part of Chariots of Fire! We spent a lot of time just wandering around the cute little town and drinking tea. We drank a LOT of tea. And because Mary’s friend knew the people in a certain tea shop we got really good tomato lentil soup for free!
We continued our little journey by busing from St. Andrews to Edinburgh, which was an amazing city. Our hostel was in an old church which LOOKED really cool but was actually cold and noisy since our rooms didn’t have ceilings (luckily we were only there one night). We ate the most amazing baked potatoes at this place called The Baked Potato (go figure), saw the Edinburgh castle which sits on top of a hill, and (most importantly) drank coffee in the café where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter! Haha. That night for dinner, though, I had the most unfortunate run-in with “fishcakes” due to my pressuring waiter and the fact that they didn’t have the salmon I originally wanted. These fishcakes I ended up with tasted like, as my friend Nick so eloquently put it, ‘like pulling a shrimp out of the ocean and licking it.’ Yum. I made a quick stop in a cute store to add Skivvies in Scotland to my world-traveling underwear collection (haha), and then we were headed back to Heidelberg!
It was really nice to be able to spend time in both a smaller town and the capital of both Ireland and Scotland. It was a great spring break!

Ethpana y Camaroneth

Madrid, the NYC of Europe. The city that never ever sleeps and enjoys daily siestas. Oh Madrid, how I love thee. Needless to say, our second educational field trip was much more exciting and enjoyable than the first. We went to awesome museums where we saw Impressionist art (my favorite) and Picasso and Dali (not my favorite but still interesting to see up close). We went to a flamenco show that left us all awestruck and ready to dance (I sat in the front row and got sweat on by the long-haired man dancer. Gross.). We toured the city and shopped by day, stopping for crispy-fried churros and thick hot chocolate to dip them in, and went out on the town, dancing our feet off, by night. We went to the famous seven story club, Kapital, that had different music on every floor. There was also a floor that played movies and a floor with an awesome lounge area that had comfy overstuffed seats and a big lit up fountain-pond in the middle. We also had quiet an adventure trying to find a club that my friend’s sister had suggested we go to and we finally got there only to find that it was CLOSED. We went to an orchestra concert and all the boys in our group gave roses to all the girls for Valentine's Day. Sehr suss. We ate paella in Toledo with calamari, mussels, and shrimp that still had legs and heads, so the eyes stared at us as we tried to eat around them. We got to see master jewelry and sword makers in action and saw famous paintings by El Greco. We shopped in El Corte Ingles and ate quesadillas. We said “grathias” a lot and giggled about it. Then, after enjoying 5 glorious, beautiful days of sunshine we retuned to a foot of snow in Heidelberg. Hoorah!