Saturday, November 1, 2008

Halloween in Bastrop, TX

As many of you know Jason had a class to teach/take in Bastrop for his IMET certification. (Fire Weather forecasting and such.) Well, we were here over Halloween and here is how I spent Halloween. Jason has the car to get to/from Camp Swift, so I get to hang out at the hotel. I thought I would be terribly bored, but it has actually just been nice to rest. (I got sick right before we left on the trip, so forced rest has really helped me feel better.)

The other day I walked next door to Blockbuster and rented a game for Jason's Nintendo DS. A little known game of Guitar Hero. Jason loves to play it on PlayStation, so I figured he'd enjoy it in the evenings for some down time after class. Amazingly, I do pretty well at it too!! Last night I actually got a 100% on one of the songs, meaning I got ALL of the notes played correctly! I know that doesn't seem like much to some people, but for me it's huge!






I also have been spending the time knitting for our niece. The newest addition to the family, Clara Noel Straub, was born on Oct. 29th (almost 30th if she waited about another 49 minutes). I have been working hard on finishing her gift from us. At this point I am about halfway done.


Jason and I had yummy Mexican food at Guadalajara. I found another restaurant that serves fried stuffed avocados!!! Mmmm! Jason had the fajita buffet and ate lots of yummy beef fajitas. We walked next door to WallyWorld to pick up a "treat" for the evening. Key lime pie for him, pumpkin cheesecake for me. On our way back to the hotel I had to stop and get a couple of photos of the sunset. It was too perfect for Halloween at dusk.


That's pretty much it for now. We leave Monday afternoon sometime after Jason is done with his class and the test on that day. We'll stop back in Austin for a couple of things before continuing home.

I hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween!!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

There's a First Time for Everything

I am happy to say I tried cooking something that I had been a little afraid to before, I baked salmon! I know that isn't that scary to some people, but for me, fish has been the one thing I have never cooked before. I was afraid I either would over or under cook it and it wouldn't be good.

Saturday evening we went to HEB and I told Jason to pick out something from the beef section for me to make for him before we go out of town and are stuck eating out for a week. He didn't really see anything he liked, so I asked him about the fish/seafood counter. He liked the salmon, and it was pretty inexpensive, at least I think so. Just under $6 for almost one pound, which was more than enough for us. (Think of adding 2 more pieces about the size of the one in the pictures and that is how big it was!)

I looked online for a marinade to use for it and found a very yummy one. I also made 2 other new veggie side dishes to go with it, carrots in a brown sugar/pineapple glaze and zucchini ripieni. The hardest thing to cook was the zucchini!

This is where you can find the recipes in case you want to try them.

Salmon: Here
I used fresh ginger rather than the spice.
Carrots: Here
It doesn't say how much sugar, so add however much you want.
Zucchini: Here