Where I've Been ~ Part 2

Hi Everyone!

I hope everybody had a nice Labor Day Weekend!

Now, for "Part 2:"

On the last night my aunt, uncle, and cousin were here, my 2 other cousins and my great aunt arrived.  We call our cousins "aunt" and "uncle" because they are adults.  We had a very nice time, and it was nice that everyone could be together for one night.

The next day, we went to the beach, and we had lots of fun!  We kayaked on the lake, and Lindsay and my "aunt" had an "intense" game of badminton!  

My "aunt," "uncle," and great aunt had to leave the following day, but my great aunt and cousin ("uncle") would be coming back in a few days.

The day my great aunt and cousin ("uncle") came back, they attended an annual Japanese festival that morning, and got sushi!  They came up in the afternoon, and that night we had a really yummy sushi dinner.  My favorite things were the "footballs" and the spicy tuna roll!

Whenever my "uncle" comes, we always cook together.  In the beginning of the trip, we made cupcakes.  They were Funfetti cupcakes with green frosting and rainbow sprinkles.  Lindsay "designed" them.  Later in the week, we made Peanut Butter Bars.  They tasted EXACTLY like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups!  We found the recipe on this amazing blog called Let's Dish Recipes.  Click here to view the recipe.  If you love Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (like I do :), then you should make these!  Plus, they are really quick and easy to make.

We have a local Farmer's Market in town, and my mom and I spontaneously decided to go to it after my dance class.  All of the produce was BEAUTIFUL, and we got a lot of food!  It was sooo yummy! I wish I had pictures of the market, but since it was spontaneous, I didn't have a camera with me.

We recently got Stand Up Paddle Boards (SUP's), and we have really been enjoying them!  If you don't know what an SUP is, it is basically a surfboard that you stand up on, and you have a single bladed paddle that you paddle with.  It has been pretty windy lately since fall is coming, and the wind makes it more challenging to paddle!

Some of our friends were camping up here, so we got together at the beach.  It was a nice day, and we had lots of fun!  Some of the boys were diving for crawdads, and they found little teeny tiny baby crawdads.  It's amazing they were able to catch them!  We paddle boarded a lot that day, and one of our friends really enjoyed it!  We had a lot of fun!

Just this last weekend, we had some other friends up.  We went fishing, on a bike ride, and we also went on a hike.  After our hike, we went paddle boarding.  While we were at the beach, they were telling us about this thing they like to do at home called "Chopped."  Have you ever heard of the show on Food Network called "Chopped?"  Basically, there are 4 chefs that compete, and they are given a basket of 4 mystery ingredients for each round.  They have to make something using all the required ingredients from the mystery basket, plus they can incorporate other items from the pantry or refrigerator, but the concept is that they must include the mystery ingredients.  At least one or two of the items are always something unusual that don't seem to easily go with the other items.  The rounds are timed; they are appetizer, entree, and dessert.  One person gets eliminated on each round, until there are only 2 left for the desert round, when they reveal the winner.  

My friends' version of "Chopped" is a little bit different.  There is only one round, and it is usually desert. :o)  We did breakfast.  We were given 45 minutes to make something out of our basket ingredients.  The basket ingredients were eggs, oranges, and leftover roasted zucchini from dinner the night before.  Lindsay and the younger one were teamed up, and the older one and I were teamed up.  

My team made an egg scramble with chopped zucchini, chopped bacon, a fruit salad with oranges, apples, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries with a blueberry yogurt "dressing," and pancakes with strawberry sauce.  Everything turned out great, and it was really yummy!

Lindsay's team made a frittata with zucchini chunks, mushrooms, and pancetta with a leaf of basil for "presentation," a slice of bacon, fresh fruit with chocolate syrup drizzled on top, and fresh lemonade with a raspberry in it.  Their food was very yummy also!

Lindsay is now kind of obsessed with making this lemonade.  She squeezes half of a lemon into a glass, adds water and sugar, and stirs.  She then can make strawberry or raspberry, and to make it extra fancy, she even puts a little lime juice in there!  It actually tastes REALLY good!  She likes to make the strawberry lemonade for me, and it is pretty tasty!

We recently went and visited our friends that were staying at a local resort.  We got to hang out at their beach, swim in the pool, and sit in the hot tub.  Their beach is really, really nice, because it's very sandy, and the sand is really soft.  Where we live, we have rocks instead of sand, which is kind of a bummer, because the rocks really hurt your feet.  We got to go on a paddle-boat, and that was really fun, but the paddle-boat didn't have very good steering!  When we were on the paddle-boat, I saw the sand that was underneath us (it was only 4 feet deep), and it had ripples from the waves on it, so I got in, and it felt like a foot massage!  The water is a lot warmer on that side of the lake, so it felt really nice.  We also got to swim in the pool, and hang out in the hot tub.  While we were sitting in the hot tub, two little squirrels ran out of a bush, and one landed on a slippery spot, and fell in the hot tub!  It was scrambling on Lindsay's shoulder to get out, and when it got out, it ran away very quickly!  Poor little guy!  He looked pretty terrified.  Lindsay was definitely startled, but she didn't realize what was happening until it was over; the whole thing was pretty funny! 

Here are some pictures:

Kayaking on the Lake with my dad.

Lindsay and my "aunt" with their rackets and birdies.

Lindsay playing.

Kooper looking super cute!

As you can see, this bed is way too small for him!  This was his puppy bed, and we had it out the other day, so he decided to take a nap.

Our super yummy sushi dinner!

Our spoils from the Farmer's Market.

From the Farmer's Market:  Lots of yummy fruit...

...and veggies!

Beautiful colors!

Gorgeous tomatoes!  Unfortunately, I don't have a good picture of them before they were sliced.

Lindsay with the crazy straw my "uncle" brought us!  Pretty funny, right?

A crawdad the boys caught.

These are the miniature baby crawdads.  Aren't they tiny?

Lindsay paddle boarding.

A beautiful sunset!  This is rare where we live (the sun sets behind the mountain range so we don't have a daily sunset in our area unless we have the right combination of clouds, lighting, and timing); it was a special treat!  It was right after a rain storm.

Looking at the basket ingredients for "Chopped."

 Lindsay's team's meal.

My team's meal.

We saw a little bunny when we were visiting our friends at the resort.  Isn't it adorable?

That's all for the "Where I've Been" series!  Now you know many of my summer highlights!

~Grace