Christmas 2012, Part 2

Sorry it took us a while to post this. For whatever reason, we only took photos on our camera on one day while we were with Ed's family, and not everyone is in them. It may have had to do with the fact that other people were taking photos/videos most of the time, so we were waiting to get some of those before posting this.

Anyway, after we left my parents' house, we went to Ed's parents' house, and his grandmother and uncle were there. His brother lives nearby, so we got to see him, too. We went and got some photos taken together while we were there.

We got some more Clemson loot as gifts (we each got a travel cup and Ed got a Clemson Santa hat), which we always appreciate, because we can't get Clemson stuff in these parts.

One day, the guys and I went shooting on their friend's land out in the country. We shot mostly rifles, but we also shot some pistols and shotguns. Classic Southern entertainment.

See the shell flying out? Good shot (pun intended)!

Ed and I also had dinner with his college roommate, Doug, and his wife. We hadn't seen Doug in probably seven years, and we hadn't met his wife, so it was nice to finally catch up with him and meet her. (Sorry, didn't take photos.)

We headed back home after a few days and got some nice photos of the Smoky Mountains crossing from NC into Tennessee.

Ed said we HAD to eat lunch at Bojangles, so we stopped at the last one heading northwest through Tennessee.

We continued through Tennessee into Kentucky, where we started to see snow again. It was fluffy and looked pretty sitting on all of the trees.

And, of course, we saw lots of horses.

I thought the snow on top of the hay bales looked like frosted shredded wheat. I think I was getting hungry again.

We stopped in Louisville, KY for the night and left early the next morning to avoid getting stuck in bad weather. The sky looked neat in Indiana just before sunrise. I tried to get photos of it, but they all came out really blurry, so I'll leave it small. I guess I wasn't awake yet.

 It was a good Christmas, and it was nice to see family and to get a break from our usual routine (and from the cold!).

Christmas 2012, Part 1

Happy New Year! We're still catching up and getting back into our normal weekly routine after the holidays, but we do have several things to share on here over the next few weeks or so. I hope to post a bit more regularly this year, but I'm not going to call it a "resolution" just yet.

For Christmas, we drove down to South Carolina to see family. We spent a few days with my parents and grandmother (which this post covers), and then we spent a few days with Ed's family (will cover in our next post).

We had a nice trip. There wasn't much traffic, and we saw lots of farmland and mountains. We broke the trip up into two days, stopping for the night in Franklin, IN, since we didn't leave Rockford until mid-afternoon on the Friday before Christmas and it's about a 14- or 15-hour drive.

Somewhere in Indiana

Somewhere obviously not in Indiana (can't remember if it was KY, TN, or NC)

Once we arrived in SC, we watched a few movies, went to church, did a little shopping, and even did a few quick and easy craft projects. And thanks to a $10 gift card, my mom and I both ate lunch at Chick-fil-A for 44 cents total one day while we were out shopping!

Speaking of Chick-fil-A, the Clemson Tigers (our alma mater, in case you couldn't tell) played the LSU Tigers in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on New Year's Eve, and Clemson won in the last few seconds of the game, in true Clemson form. You could say it was a real cat fight!

And speaking of Clemson, the Clemson Christmas tree ornament was cute this year. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

And speaking of Christmas trees, my parents totally got one for free this year. Sweet!

And speaking of sweet...just kidding. Is that getting funny or annoying? I'm kind of enjoying it. It's pretty much how my mind works all of the time. I'll stop for now.

Anyway, onto some photos from Christmas day. We made some jams, jellies, and a marmalade to give as gifts. We also made some lip balms. I'll post more details and photos of all of that later.

Bernadette holding up some blackberry jam we made

When Bernadette (my mom) opened the lip balms, she tried one on and asked Daniel (my dad) to see if he could smell it, so he kissed her to find out. It was cute. Ed managed to snap a photo, but it came out too blurry. Oh well. They probably didn't want a photo like that on the internet anyway. ;)

We were glad we got to see Joyce (my grandmother), since we hadn't seen her since before we moved to Illinois.

Joyce sitting with Buster (left) and Buddy

The pugs were adorable, as usual. Buddy enjoys opening Christmas presents, but evidently it's not Buster's thing. Buster pretty much just sat there and didn't want to be bothered with it until someone mostly unwrapped it for him. This from the dog who until recently chewed on everything. Obviously, Buddy just has more Christmas spirit and experience than Buster.

Buddy opening his Christmas present

Buster not opening his

We sort of developed this expectation while opening gifts that everyone needed to look really surprised, maybe even shocked, as they opened each gift. We think my dad gets the prize for that.

That second one makes me laugh so hard every time I look at it! Not sure what happened with the lighting, but I think the reddish tint kind of adds to the intensity. He really does like nuts that much, though (which is why he got them), so he may not have been trying too hard to act pleasantly surprised.

Well, we set out the next day for Ed's parents' house, but before we left town, Ed wanted to stop by Death Valley (the Clemson football stadium, aka Memorial Stadium) for a few photos. It was starting to rain and it was windy (the wind was puffing up his shirt in the first photo below--not extra pounds!).

We played in the marching band while we were there, so we spent a lot of time in this stadium.

And yes, the grass was green the day after Christmas. We won't even get to see grass again where we live until maybe March-ish.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Every Thanksgiving, I bake pumpkin cheesecake. I've been doing so since I was in grad school (How did I have the time back then?! How has it been so long that it now qualifies as "back then"?!).

I use this recipe for the most part, but I use ginger snaps for the crust (about two cups of finely ground ginger snap cookies and half a stick of butter), I don't use brandy, and I don't measure the spices (cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg)--I just put however much looks right.

The recipe says to use a 9-inch springform pan, but the pieces are just too big. Instead, I like to use two 6-inch springform pans and one mini springform pan (it's the perfect size for tasting, and it's cute). This recipe makes a lot of batter (not every cheesecake recipe that calls for a 9-inch pan will yield the same amount of batter as this one).

We took some over to Michigan this Thanksgiving. Of course, the problem was that by the time dessert rolled around, everyone was too full, so not much of it was eaten. But at least a couple of people thought it was good. Oh well. I'll be making more for Christmas, since our moms haven't had it yet this year and they requested it. And I don't plan on bringing any back!

Holiday Cruise, Days 7-8: At Sea

We had a couple more days at sea to relax before getting back to the real world.

Of course, the next day the weather was great, so we had to go down the water slide a few more thousand times:

Cindy on the water slide

Daniel on the water slide

We had a nice view over the water later in the afternoon:

That night was our second (and final) elegant night. We got someone to take a photo of us and our servers:

It's kind of hard to tell in that photo, but I totally rocked the victory rolls that night. I wish we had more photos that show them better that I could legally put on here, but I think I would get into dangerous copyright territory if I put the professional photos on here.

On New Year's Eve, we took a galley (kitchen) tour, and Bernadette got really excited when she saw a whole bunch of Warm Chocolate Melting Cakes for that evening's dessert at dinner. It was her favorite. I think she ordered it every night.

After that, Ed Jr., Daniel, and I went to the Chocolate Extravaganza they had (it was the only one for the cruise week). 'Cause we needed more food.

And Bernadette's final Warm Chocolate Melting Cake (with an extra serving of ice cream!) that night at dinner:

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that we had a cute little towel animal on our bed each night of the cruise:

Those are just a couple. I thought it might be a little overkill to put a photo of each one on here, but you get the idea.

They couldn't put off fireworks, so at midnight, they blew the horn three times to mark the new year. The next morning, we came into the Miami port.

Miami

The next day, Ed and I flew back to Rockford from Orlando.

Sunset above the clouds

Well, that wraps up this series of posts for this cruise! Hope you enjoyed it!

Holiday Cruise, Day 6: St. Kitts

Our final stop on our cruise was the Leeward island of St. Kitts. We docked at Port Zante in Basseterre, the capital. The places circled in the map below are the places we visited while there.

Map of St. Kitts (source of original map image)

View of St. Kitts from the ship as we approached the island:

We took a tour of the island, stopping at a few historic and scenic sites along the way. Our first stop on our tour was Caribelle Batik at Romney Manor. Batik is the wax-resist technique of hand-dyeing designs on fabric ("batik" also refers to the decorated fabric itself). The design appears on both sides of the fabric. They had several stages of a design on display as well.


A completed batik

Wax on an unfinished batik

The gardens at Romney Manor span about 10 acres. There was a wide variety of plants, and the gardens were maintained very nicely. We easily could have spent more time there if we weren't limited to the tour time.

Brimstone Hill Fortress, also known as "The Gibraltar of the West Indies", is more than 300 years old and sits on a 40-acre hilltop 780 feet above sea level. This was the main attraction of our tour.

Looking up at Brimstone Hill Fortress from the parking area

Stairs leading up to the fortress (note the clever reuse of old cannons)

Entrance to the fortress

Fortress courtyard

There were some beautiful views from the fortress area. You can can see a neighboring island, Saba, which is to the northwest of St. Kitts, from there as well.

Facing northwest; Saba is visible in the distance

Facing southwest

Facing east, toward Mt. Liamuiga, which is the island's tallest peak at 3,793 ft

Our last stop on our tour of the island was at Timothy Hill, near Frigate Bay (slightly southeast of Basseterre). There is an isthmus connecting the island mainland to a small peninsula.

View of North Frigate Bay from Timothy Hill

View of Atlantic side of isthmus from Timothy Hill

 



Well, that's about all for St. Kitts!