OBX Part 1

Hey, all! I'm on day 4 of OBX trip 2011. I've been sucking at taking pictures. I'll have to make up for it in the next few days. I think we're going exploring tomorrow and finding a new lighthouse. Nothing much happened on Saturday since everyone was just getting here. We pretty much chilled in the hot tub and had some pizza. Sunday was the first day at the beach. It was glorious! Perfect weather, warm ocean water. Some of our people went to a concert that night, so Marcy, Vern, and I had a movie night. We watched The Descent... which was the funniest horror movie ever. Then we watched Murder by Numbers, which was actually an excellent movie. Well done, good plot, lots of twists, and Sandra Bullock. There's no bad.

Monday it was kind of storm-y and cloudy and sprinkled off and on, so we all just kind of hung out for most of the day. In the afternoon, we went exploring to Corolla and found our turtle pond from last year. (Pictures at the end.) We then continued on to the Timbuck II shopping plaza, but most of the stores were closed (even though the site said they were open till 9). There were a few souvenir shops open, though, so we perused for awhile and Brian got a pair of Crocs. lol

Today was hot and sunny and perfect beach weather... until we got to the beach. The sand was so hot, it practically melted your shoes off your feet, but the water was FREEZING. There were only two crazy-ass people in the water as far as we could see. We stood there for awhile, though, because a pod of dolphins made an appearance. They were super close to the shore, too. Like... if the water hadn't been cold enough to cause hypothermia, we probably could have ridden them. So after the dolphins got boring, we came back and hung out at the pool and I worked on my sunburn. Later tonight, we went wine tasting at Native Vine. It was complimentary with out vacation package, and it was pretty excellent. The lady who hosted the tasting was really cool, and we tasted some really excellent juice. Afterwards, we had some of Marcy's amazing mac & cheese, TJ's wings, and Vern's green bean casserole for supper.

After supper, we started to watch some of TJ's movies. Limitless was pretty good, but I only watched about half of it, off and on. I'll have to re-watch later. Then he put in Drive Angry. It. was. hilarious. We made a drinking game to it. After that came Hobo with a Shotgun. We watched about 10 minutes before we decided it's the worst movie ever made. At this point, they decided to put in The L-Word, so Marcy and I went down to the beach to look for crabs. We saw TONS. They ranged from baseball-sized to dime-sized. Once we realized we were far outnumbered, and they could probably kill us if they wanted to, we headed back. We came across a crab on the road on the way back to our house, which was rather surprising.

Now most of the group is still watching The L-Word, Marcy and I are having a computer party, and Vern has been in bed for hours, I believe. lol I think I'm headed to bed soon, but first, here are some turtle pond pics, as promised.

Beach Baked Goods!

So I'm just finishing up my beach baking and I wanted to share some pictures. Can I just say how amazing tonight was? I started baking around 6:00PM, and I'm just finishing up at 11:15PM. While baking, I listened through Evil Dead the Musical, Jekyll & Hyde, Legally Blonde the Musical, and Little Women the Musical. Over 5 hours of baking and musicals that I love. This was the perfect evening. :-)

I started out with Maple Pecan Muffins...



followed by Cinnamon-Almond Cookies with Browned Butter Glaze...



and finished up with Chocolate Chip Muffins.




I've sampled everything, and it's all AMAZING, if I do say so myself. We shall have awesome snacks for the beach, and I had a ton of fun making them. Not to mention, I got to try two new recipes, and perfect another.

Beach, Baking, and Brooks

Hi, all. As promised, I have a happy post filled with puppies and unicorns. Well, my excitement about my upcoming beach trip, anyway. I leave the 21st for a week on the Outer Banks in NC with my friends from high school! This is the third year that we've rented a house and a bunch of us just get away for a week and forget about life. I'm sure I'll have either a huge blog with lots of pictures after I'm back, or several during the week there. The only bummer is I have to wait until I'm done with work on the 21st to leave for North Carolina. I'm hoping we're done by 2:00 or 3:00 so I can still make it there by 10:00 or 11:00.

Connected with the beach trip is my beach baking. Last year I took homemade granola bars and several loaves of Amish Friendship Bread, which were a big hit (especially the chocolate chip). Well, the Amish Friendship Bread comes from a starter that you feed for a week and then bake, after taking out three more starters to pass on. Well, I can never NOT keep another starter for myself, so once I get one, I have to keep making bread every week until I get sick of it. Since I don't have a starter this year, I'm making several other goodies to take along. I've decided on Chocolate Chip Muffins, Maple Pecan Muffins, and Almond Cinnamon Cookies. These are all do-able in a night, will keep well on the trip to the beach (not to mention convenient to snack on in the car), and aren't expensive to make. I'm also making supper one night while I'm there, and I'm going to do my lasagna with garlic bread, and probably a salad. I think I'm also going to attempt real sangria. I have a recipe with, like 11 ingredients. Apparently it's not just juice and wine, people.

In other news, there's no news on the job front. I've sent out about 25 applications. I had one first-round interview with no follow-up, and two rejections. I'm staying at the Brooks Center for the rest of the summer, then if I can't line anything up, I guess I'll just move home. :-\ Summer crew at the Brooks has been pretty awesome so far. There's lots of sitting around and cleaning. I did get to run the sound board for a dance school recital last weekend. That was pretty cool, and I'm less terrified of sound world now. Our sound console is a digital board, so I'd like to learn how an analog board works before I go, and I still want to get some practice on the older light boards so I'm not all spoiled and pretentious when I get to a theatre that doesn't have all the latest and best technology. :-P

If I knew anything about running a business, I would love to just try for a business loan and open up my cafe/bakery/bookstore that I've been dreaming about. I was told again today (after someone sampled my awesome Cinnamon Banana Cookies) that I should open a bakery. Maybe I'll happen upon a business-savvy partner and they can take care of the bookkeeping and bureaucracy and I can handle the baking and book-stocking. Any takers? :-P