We've been Robbed!

No, not really, but we had an adventure yesterday and I wanted to share!

So, we've lived in Lebanon for almost 6 years now.  Lebanon, OH is a small country town, but we are known for a couple things.  First is the Golden Lamb - a restaurant and the oldest Inn in the state of Ohio.  It was opened in 1803 and has had 12 presidents that have visited.  We have actually never been there, but it's on the to-do list (one of these days!).

Second is the Lebanon Mason Monroe Railroad (LM&M), which is a scenic train ride that offers hour-long train rides and a bunch of different themed train rides.  For example, they have an Easter Bunny ride, Curious George, Civil War, Clifford, and their most popular, Day out with Thomas.  I've stopped a couple times with the boys just to take a look at the trains but we've never taken a ride.

Until yesterday, that is.  I received an email about discount tickets on Friday for a "Great Train Robbery" ride this weekend, and I decided that it would be a fun "last event as a family of 4".  But we surprised the boys with the ride and we also didn't tell them about the train robbery that was going to take place. :)

Ever since seeing Thomas last year (we just went to see him, but didn't actually ride), Tyler has been begging to go for a train ride.  He was THRILLED about actually being able to get on the train and go for the ride.

We started out by taking a 30 minute train ride out to the "country".

While riding, people dressed in cowboy attire kept warning us about getting into the "bad land" and that we should secure all of our gold and valuables.  Then, when we arrived to the staging area, "robbers" boarded the train and demanded all of our valuables.

Tyler (my almost 4 year old) kept telling us to be quiet so the "bad guys don't hear you."

Ryan's reaction to the robbers on the train

After they took some jewelry from other actors on the train, they unloaded us and we walked to the staging area.  There, we found the 3 robbers who couldn't find their horses.  Since they couldn't make their getaway, 3 Sheriffs confronted them and resulted in a shoot out.

Of course, the "bad guys" lost and fell down dead.  But they didn't stay dead for long...which Tyler was disappointed about.  He kept asking why the bad guys didn't die :)  We tried to get a photo of the boys with the actors, but Tyler wouldn't go close to the bad guys.  I think he was a little nervous about them!

Anyway, it was a lot of fun for the kids.  The acting was really cheesy and the train wasn't in the greatest condition (the engine had over 2.5 million miles on it!), but it was a perfect day out for 2 little boys!

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Ham and Cheese Pretzel Bites

I made these pretzels a couple of months ago and they were fabulous!!  I wasn't able to make them look very pretty (that seems to be a theme with me!), but the taste was fantastic.  They were even good warmed in the microwave, not as good as freshly out of the oven of course.  For these, I used my kitchen-aid mixer, but I couldn't find my dough hook so I used the mixer attachment for the whole recipe. 

Ingredients:
For the dough:
1½ tsp. instant yeast
2 tbsp. light brown sugar
¼ cup warm water
1 cup warm milk
2½-3 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling:
½ cup small diced ham
½ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
To finish:
6 cups water
4 tsp. baking soda
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
Kosher salt (or pretzel salt), for topping
Directions:
To make the dough, combine the yeast, brown sugar, water, milk, and 2½ cups of flour in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Mix until a dough has formed.  Switch to the dough hook and knead on low speed until a soft, elastic dough forms.  Add the remaining flour a 1-2 tablespoons at a time until the dough is tacky but not sticky.
Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, turning once to coat.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place, until the dough has doubled in size and bubbles on the surface, about 1½ to 2 hours.
Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface.  Divide into 4 equal pieces.  Stretch or roll one piece of the dough into a 12 x 4-inch rectangle.  Sprinkle some of the diced ham and the shredded cheese over one third of the dough closest to an edge, lengthwise.  Roll up tightly, filling edge first, so that the filling is tightly sealed inside.  Slice the log into 12 pieces and transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.  Repeat with the remaining 3 portions of dough, and the remaining filling.
Preheat the oven to 400˚ F.  Bring the 6 cups of water to a boil in a large pot.  Add the baking soda and reduce the heat to a gentle simmer.  Boil the pretzels in batches, cooking for about 2o seconds and turning once. They should be slightly puffed.  Use a slotted spoon or skimmer to transfer them back to the baking sheet.
Bake until puffed and golden brown, about 15 minutes.  Brush the warm pretzel bites with the melted butter and sprinkle with kosher salt

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I'm OLD!

So, this year, my husband and I will be celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary.  Despite the fact that this is LONG time, I'm relatively young still.  At least, I think so.  I met my husband just before I turned 17 and we married just after I turned 19.  Young, yes.  In love, yes.  And still going.

Anyway, my birthday is at the end of May and his was just this week.  He is several years older than me, so I typically tease him about being an "old man", but this year his friends seemed to take over that position so I'm just laying low until he turns 40 :)

But then today, I found out I've either been pranked or put on a random mailing list.  You see, I received a membership card for the AARP.  So, if you added the numbers together above, you would realize that I just turned 28.  What I would consider a LONG WAY FROM 50!  My parents are barely even old enough to be card carrying members.

And to top it off, it came to my parents address...where I haven't lived for 10 years and came in my maiden name.  The info says I have until 8/15/11 to respond by...guess I have some things to think over before then.  Meanwhile, my mom will continue to laugh and I'm sure it will make my husband feel a little better about all the old man jokes he got this past week.

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Random Products I Love

I wanted to share a few products I love!

Coconut milk-  I don't drink this plain (I don't drink any milk plain), but I love it in smoothies.  I make protein shakes for breakfast and I love coconut milk in them.  I also make the banana cherry "ice cream" I posted about earlier with it.  It's great in any smoothie or in iced coffee too!

These bars.  I like Fiber One bars too, but this particular flavor of this brand tastes like a Girl Scouts Samoa to me.

SkinCeuticals Hydrating B5 gel.  I love everything I've tried from SkinCeuticals.  I had a facial a couple of years ago and the aesthetician had worked for a dermatologist for years and was a big fan of this line.  She introduced me to this product and it is amazing.  I hadn't been using it until recently because it's pretty expensive ($55 for this size), but I see a huge difference with it.  It feels so soft and it contains hyaluronic acid, which is found in your joints and it helps bind moisture to your skin.  I use it as a moisturizer but it also can be used under your moisturizer to increase the effectiveness of the moisturizer.  It really minimizes lines for me.I buy mine through completeskincare.com

my Keurig.  Again, not cheap but I love my coffee!

 L'Oreal Lash Boosting Serum.  I've used this for about 3 weeks.  You're supposed to use it twice daily but I only remember once.  I do see a difference in the length of my eyelashes, which are super puny!! (Boys always get the best eyelashes).  For $7 I think it's a great buy.

Clif Mojo Bars:  These are with the energy bars in my grocery store.  They are about a dollar each, so I don't eat them very often.  They're great to keep in your purse.  They are about 200 calories, depending on the flavor.

And I've saved the strangest for last - chia seeds.  I read a book called Born to Run which talked about a tribe of long distance runners in Mexico.  They ate alot of chia seeds for energy, so I was very intrigued.  I feel like I am always lacking in the energy department, unlike my friend Beth!  As I researched them a little more I found out that they are a great source of omega-3 fatty acids and fiber.  They also form a gel in water, so they are great to fill you up!  If you are hard core (I am not!) you can mix them in with your water.  The taste is like a sesame seed, which I don't mind.  But the gel-like texture when mixed with the water is a little gross to me.  So I like to mix mine in with my  yogurt or protein shake and eat them before they turn into a gel!  A serving (a tablespoon) is 80 calories.  I do think they give me more energy and make me fuller.  I can't remember the price, but I got this bag at The Vitamin Shoppe and it was less than $10.

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Easy Butter Pecan Bars

Earlier this week, I hosted a playgroup for my MOMS Club at our local YMCA pool.  It was the perfect day for the pool...temperatures were in the mid 90's with high humidity, and the pool water was refreshing!  


Anyway, as part of being a "playgroup host" we provide drinks and snacks for the group.  I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to take to the pool that the adults as well as kids would like and the lifeguards wouldn't hate me for!  I decided on taking a fruit (watermelon), salty snack (goldfish) and sweet snack (Butter Pecan Bars).  I prefer to make cookie bars in the summer so I don't have to open and close the oven and stay in the oven to switch trays every 10 minutes!


The inspiration recipe is actually a Chocolate & Oat Toffee Bars, but I modified it a little, so the below version is what I actually made.

Easy Butter Pecan Bars

Ingredients 

• 3/4 c butter, room temperature
• 2 T butter per each type of chocolate you are using for the topping
• 1 package Butter Pecan box cake mix (I used Betty Crocker)
• 2 c uncooked quick-cooking oats
• 1/4 c brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 t vanilla
• 1 c butterscotch chips
• 1/2 c chopped pecans
• 1/3 c semisweet chocolate chips, 1/3 c butterscotch chips, 1/3 c white chocolate chips

Directions 

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9×13” pan.
2. Stir 3/4 c butter in a large bowl with a spatula until creamy.  If necessary, stick in the microwave to soften a little, 10 seconds at a time.
3. Add cake mix, oats, brown sugar, egg and vanilla; stir until well blended.
4. Stir in butterscotch chips and pecans.  Batter will be thick and almost dough-like.
5. Pat dough into prepared pan.
6. Bake 31-35 minutes or until golden brown.
7. Remove from oven and cool completely in pan on wire rack.
8. Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter and white chocolate chips in small saucepan over very low heat.
9. Drizzle warm glaze over bars.  Repeat with butterscotch chips and chocolate chips.
10. Let glaze set one hour at room temperature, or stick in the fridge to speed this process up a little.
11. Cut into bars with sharp knife, serve and enjoy!

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Evernote aka The Way I Organize My Recipes

I know a couple of you are now addicted to Pinterest!  Yay!  I really do love it, although now that we've moved to a small apartment and I am temporarily free from all the cleaning I'm used to doing  I spend too much time on Pinterest!  I love Pinterest as a visual way to organize things I like. As Beth said, it has saved me from bookmarking everything on my computer.   I like finding new recipes on Pinterest, but the downside is accessing them.  To access them, I need to log into my pinterest account, find the board I've posted the recipe on, click on the picture to take me to the original website, and read the recipe from there.  So although I find many recipes and pin them on pinterest, I usually go to the original post and clip them to Evernote for faster, easier access.

Evernote is similar to Pinterest in that it is a way to save any ideas you come across on the web.  The differences, in my opinion, are that Evernote enables you to save way more text along with the picture.  So you can save your entire recipe.  You can also make quick notes, record voice notes, scan pictures or receipts or other info into Evernote, etc.  You organize all your info into "notebooks" (again, similar to pinterest).  But the reason I am in love with Evernote (beyond being able to save alot of text) is that I can clip things into evernote from my computer and it automatically syncs to my ipad and iphone.  When I am cooking, I use the ipad or iphone to view the recipe and it is as easy to access as any other app.  In the grocery store, I can view my recipe and buy ingredients needed.  So that's a really wordy explanation of Evernote, and I'm sure I've made it about as clear as mud!!  For more info, go to evernote.com to read about it.  You download to your pc or mac from evernote.com and then you get the app for your smartphone or ipad from the app store (my husband has a windows based phone and he can get the app; I'm not sure which phones it's compatible with).

In the past, I had a 3-ring binder that I used to store recipes.  Some are handwritten, many are printed from the internet, and some are cut out from magazine.  I like this method so much better and I am slowly transitioning my binder of recipes over to evernote.  I am all for any thing that saves storage space, and I like being able to make menu plans (I have a notebook for that too) while waiting at the doctor's office or anywhere.  If I am not crazy about a recipe I just delete it.

Here's a picture of Evernote open on my ipad and some of my notebooks (click on photo to see larger):

 Here's my ipad with my "recipes- main dishes" notebook open and you can see the recipe for chicken salad at the bottom:

 Here's a screenshot of evernote on my computer with the icons from some of my notes on the left side and my note for Cincinnati Chili open on the right:

 Here is a screenshot of evernote.com:

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Beth's Pinterest

After Lesley posted about her Pinterest a few weeks ago, I decided to check it out for myself and start pinning ideas and things.  I love it!  I always have a ton of tabs open in my Google Chrome browser, so this is a perfect way to save some of those ideas and unclutter my browser a little!  Here are some of my favorites that I've pinned:

Check out these photos and more at MY Pinterest page :)  If you need an invite, just leave a comment here and I will send you one!

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