Adventures with Tar Tar.

(The Picture Post)

I couldn't decide if this should be a facebook album or a blog post but I really do prefer to document my life here on the blog whenever possible. I plan to print it all out into books one day :)

After Tara finished traveling the world at the beginning of the summer (one big trip to Germany and one long trip to Big Timber, Montana) I got to spent lots time with her. She helped quite a bit with the move and getting the new house looking pretty and she kept me company while Steven was out fighting wildfires.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from our summer together.

Enjoying the blue trees at Westlake park before her dance performance.

 

 

I don't know what the deal is with the blue trees but I actually think they look really cool. I'm not as into the weird "people" statues all over the place though. It's funny how many people were taking pictures with them! This one guy kept sitting down next to the statues that are on benches (like the one over to the right in that photo) and smiling real big and taking self portraits with them. We were trying really hard not to laugh.

 

The dance performance was almost cancelled on account of a minor flood... the fountain in the park there just all of the sudden malfunctioned and there was water everywhere within a few minutes. They got the water turned off but the left side and back half of the "dance floor" were all squishy and slippery from the water underneath.

 

 

This isn't as big of an issue when there are only 2 people in your dance :)

Enjoying the new kitchen! We made a Victoria sponge cake. I was worried it wasn't going to turn out because the recipe called for 8 inch cake pans and mine were 9 inch pans, so the cakes were a bit thin but I think it was actually perfect. We had the brilliant idea of using a loose leaf tea thing to shake the powdered sugar out of. Pretty clever!

 

Tea and cake and Anonymous, which was a very strange movie -- don't tell Victoria we watched it. It wasn't actually about Shakespeare at all (are we the only ones who thought it was going to be?) and has the most bizarre love triangle (square? pentagon? hexagon?) I've ever heard of. Steven was home earlier on this day. We all played Castle Panic together and he was with us when we made the cake (and he enjoyed a bit of it himself) and then was deployed to Cle Elum about 20 minutes into the movie. So we pressed pause and all frantically ran around packing snacks and finding a sleeping bag and so on and so forth. I was pretty sad slash anxious about him leaving and even more so after the movie when Tara left and I had a skype interview for a nanny job (the interview went very well, obviously I decided not to take the job) and then I was just all alone and thinking about Steven running around in a wildfire all night... needless to say, I didn't get much sleep. 

Tara and I also found time to get really creative with her hair. I tried to make the braid different every time and it was kind of really fun. This one started as two side braids and morphed into one. I like the idea but the execution the first time around was a bit lacking in, um, perfection.

Outdoor movie at the Bellevue Park! We saw Big Miracle. It was a HOT day so it made for a perfect night for an outdoor movie because it didn't get too cold after sunset. We got there super early, maybe a little too early, and staked our spot. We spent a little over two hours playing cards games, eating our picnic dinner, and people watching before the movie started. We thought the picnic dinner was an excellent idea until everyone around us was eating pizza and fried chicken from the restaurants near by... Our sandwiches were slightly less satisfying after all those yummy smells. Good thing we bought a raspberry lemonade cupcake to split for dessert.

Blackberries!!!! I wish we picked more of them. I miss them already. This is the start of blackberry ice cream. We were carefully following each step of the Pioneer Woman's recipe and trying to make sure everything looked the same in my kitchen as it did in her pictures.

 

Straining the juice out of the cooked berries.

And adding it to this wonderfully smooth custard.

Voila! Isn't it gorgeous??

 

And now we wait for it to turn into ice cream.

 



Still waiting. In fact, we were waiting for a long time before we finally decided that the ice cream mixture wasn't chilled thoroughly enough before we poured it into the ice cream maker, which caused the ice cream maker to warm up before it could freeze the ice cream. So, we poured it back into the bowl, put it in the fridge, washed the ice cream maker, put it back in the freezer, and decided to wait until a couple of days later.

Isn't this just the happiest flower you've ever seen? I was somewhat enamoured by this sweet little bouquet my mom picked up at the market.

 

 Another marvelous creation! Tara is so patient with me :)

 

We really did make ice cream this time. Check it out!

I was more than a little impressed with this. I mean, seriously, how gourmet is that? Homemade blackberry ice cream. What an amazing color. 

Mom and Tara came over one day to help put together our new dresser and hang some pictures, and they brought lunch. I didn't know I liked fried chicken until I had Ezell's. So good.

And we made a little blackberry peach crisp for dessert -- fabulous flavor combo and the colors look so great together!

 

While Mom and Tara were over I received the phonecall from the headmaster at the school offering me my current teaching job -- yay! Tara stayed the night and we celebrated with sparkling cider and tacos. And probably more ice cream.

 

Working hard to shorten all of the curtains I purchased from Cost Plus. It was quite the task. I think I spent somewhere between 10 and 12 hours that day working on it. Fortunately, we had gummy bears and chocolated covered pretzels left over from our Galaxy Quest movie night sleepover the previous evening. Tara was very focused and incredibly helpful. She even learned how to use a sewing machine :)

My turn! (Did you notice the sisters switched places? It's easy to miss...)

 

And Tara taught me how to poach an egg! I even tried a bite, which wasn't nearly as disgusting as I had imagined it would be. I still wouldn't choose to eat it though.

We even got out all of my bottles of nail polish and lined them up all pretty so we could choose our colors... and then never got around to actually painting our nails. It's two weeks later now and I still haven't gotten around to painting my nails. Maybe later today...

 

So that pretty much wraps it up. The last month of "summer" (the August part anyway) flew by and I can't believe we've already completed the first week of school. This late September summer has been so wonderful though and I'm off to enjoy what may be our last hot day for a while.

Can't even believe that Tara is turning 18 on Monday!!!

 

Happy weekend!