Nice melons...

Ok, so they're technically pumpkins. I grew them myself, for pies. I can hardly wait, this is my favorite time of year. Food, food, presents, food, trick or treating, food. I made a birthday cake for Stacey, she's a huge Jack Skellington fan.
It's a red velvet cake with chocolate chip ice cream, delicious.
Daisy and Izzy just can't leave Shannon alone. They get jealous of each other.

What we've been up too...

We've been going to the local farmers market every Saturday morning. We just get coffee, strawberries, scones, whatever and relax with our friends.Steve is kicking my butt at chess (Taylor calls it chest). Morgan and Kane are walking around looking "cool".
They really do have delicious scones here.

Shannon and I have been trying to walk...
We've also been trying to walk to Peet's Coffee once a week. It's just over 2 miles there and back, but any good we're doing for ourselves is canceled out by the Mocha Freddo's we get for the walk back.
These 2 pictures are of our high school track and football field. They were ripped out at the end of summer because they were old and in bad shape. They will be replaced with a "state of the art" sports facility....someday.
The end.

Crabs and boils.

This post has lots of pictures of crabs and one big boil. Steve's b-day is on Monday and we weren't sure what to do. He's been saying for a while that he wanted to do a big crab boil, so we said let's do it for your birthday.
We each bought some live seafood (3 dungeness crabs, 4 rock crabs, 1 lobster, 4 pounds of crayfish, 2 pounds of shrimp, and not enough clams) and threw it in my big kettle.
When all was done we drained the water, and dumped the whole thing on the table. There were potatoes cooking with the crabs and corn on the side. Then we sat our asses down and dug in. Very messy but really good.
(Note that Peter is playing with his crab.) I had to rip the heads off of Shannons and Taylors food, we all ate to our fill.
Here is the carnage of our meal. Just a few shrimp and a bunch of crayfish (it's hard to get much meat out of those little F-ers).
I'll post some other fun pictures of live food later.

It's official...

Shannon's Mom and Stepdad brought the kids home today, and they brought some horse manure for my compost. One might say I'm now full of shit. Others would say I always have been.

that's all.

The Guinness Spoon

This is my new pouring spoon (another gadget). I've seen them in bars for years and didn't know where to get one. Recently, I was online at www.guinness.com
and found out that I could purchase one there. Now, for those that have never seen such a gadget, this is how it works.

You start with a Guinness and another "beer" (actually you can use cider or champagne as well but I'll get to that later).

Pour the "lighter" beer between 2 glasses, and place the spoon (note the bend in said spoon) on the edge of a glass.

Pour the Guinness over the back of the spoon, so the Guinness "fans" out over the other beer and causes the Guinness to stay separate.

That is called a Black and Tan. These aren't the best I've made but I just got this spoon and it's a little different.

Guinness and Harp = Half and Half

Guinness and champagne = Black Velvet

Guinness and cider = Snakebite

This last part is for Apl, the Margarita's ingredients are Tequila, Corona, limeade concentrate, and Triple Sec (and ice) use a Coronita (small Corona) and equal parts limeade and Tequila and just a shot of Triple Sec.

Ebelskiver

These are Ebelskivers...


This is an Ebelskiver pan...

Now I remember this pan hanging around my parents kitchen, but I don't think my parents ever used it. So I told my mom I was taking it. Cleaned it up, and reseasoned it (it's cast iron), And I tried it out on the 4th of July (breakfast).

So I had to go online for a recipe, and directions.

It's kind of a messy process.

They tasted real good with Powdered Sugar and Jelly.

I think these are Danish, so they made a perfect 4th of July treat. Remember, we are a nation of immigrants (cue the Led Zep music).

That's all until the next dink-out.

Coffee...

I love coffee. Shannon likes to complain about my obsession with kitchen gadgets, and here is the coffee example. First, I'm the only coffee drinker in the house. So on a regular day I'll use the Automatic Drip. We bought this coffee maker because I can brew directly into 1 or 2 travel mugs, or if we have company I can make a carafe.
Sometimes I'll use the French Press which makes the best tasting coffee. Lots of people don't like press coffee because it's a little grainy, But the taste is excellent. I just bought the Stovetop Espresso maker yesterday. I've wanted one for a long time and I have to say it works very well. A nice inexpensive gadget.
This Cappucino maker doesn't see nearly enough use. I really like it , and at one time I could make the best Mocha (incidentally if you're in or around Oakland, the best Mocha is at Gaylord's on Piedmont...They make it with melted chocolate ice cream). There is just to much clean up time after I make a couple Cappucino's.
Now I think I used this twice, and I think it used to be Shannons Grandmothers. Percolators don't make the best coffee, but I just think it's kind of cool.
On the weekends I brew coffee directly into the Batman (I put the Mickey mug there for a size reference) mug. I like it with a shot of Bailey's, it's a nice way to start a Saturday.
There's a couple of other coffee makers I'd like, but they are like $600 and $800 so I don't think I'll be getting them any time soon.

What I was trying to say...

What I was trying to print last night, was that part of the reason I haven't been blogging was because we were having problems with our computer. It was very witty and it answered the inevitable question "why hasn't Shannon had any trouble?". Well she did have trouble but I don't want to go into it now. So screw it here are some pictures of cakes I did, enjoy

WOW

I know, I know, where the hell have I been. Well we've been having a few issues with our craptastic computer and hopefully it's working okay now. But wait, you say. Shannon's been updating her blog. What the hell are you talking about Will? You're just a fat lazy slob, we know that. Well screw you, I'm not fat (just a little overweight and out of shape, I won't disagree about the lazy part) Shannon's been able to update her blog from work.

Eyeball cakes, and more

Last year (sometime in April I think) Morgan came to me and said, "I know what kind of cake I want for my birthday". I think I said "you're kind of early, but what kind do you want?" his response was "I don't care what kind of cake it is, but I want it to look like an eyeball, and have stuff come out when you cut into it." I said okay, but then I had to figure out how to do it.

I started with a Red Velvet cake, I have a cake pan that is round and has a large space in the middle for mousse or ice cream. I put a thin layer of buttercream inside so the filling (cherry with gummy worms) wouldn't ooze out. I frosted it with a cream cheese icing and made it look like this....

I see you.

My eyes are burning, does anyone have any Visine?

My friend Steve told me that there's no blood inside an eyeball, but when he saw the cherries he liked it because he said it looked like more eyeballs inside.

After Midnight we let Morgan open presents. That pink one on the table is actually a gift card wrapped in layers of wrapping paper, duct tape, and paper bags. It took forever for him to open it.

When the boys finally fell asleep, I stamped their foreheads with a date stamp, you should have heard them the next morning blaming each other.

Pictures

Here are some random photos of Christmas decorations. They didn't come out real great (some were very blurry) and you can't see all the Star Wars, Star Trek, and superhero ornaments but I thought I'd post them just the same.


This is the famous Matt poster. It's his High School photo surrounded by lots of candid shots (some with his brother "Muck", some with Steve, Shannon is in one.

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a guy who started a web-log with good intentions of updating, and posting on a pretty regular basis. Never minding the fact that he couldn't update a regular journal once ever in his life. That is why I don't post on a regular basis, I'm just not programmed too.

Last night we hosted a Christmas party for our friends, It was a blast. Some of our guests had never been here before and were very impressed with the house. We finished decorating earlier that afternoon (downstairs) and hung a bunch of Star Wars and Star Trek ornaments (geeks). The bar looked very cool.

The picture is of my good friend Matt, I had to take it so we could add to our white elephant gift for next year. I'll try to take some photos of our loot and post it, but you already know how fast those will show up. Matt is a really good musician, he plays in a punk band called the Fleshies. You can get their CD's on Amazon, he's famous hence the home-made poster.

Painting again

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've been busy. If you've seen Shannon's blog you will know that we
painted the dining room a few weeks ago. This weekend we painted the kitchen. Why all the painting? Well there was nothing wrong with the old color but it was just a little on the pink side. Something that neither of us noticed until we were moving in (it's very subtle). We are also planning on having Thanksgiving dinner here so we wanted it to look nice.

On Friday we all had the day off, so we started by painting the ceiling and trim. Daisy was helping. Later Friday evening we got rid of the kids and went to a play with a friend. I'd been wanting to see this play (10 little Indians) for a while because I think it was the first play I saw (I was like 8 or 9). Unfortunately this production was not (I'm searching for the correct term...Oh yes) good. They weren't bad, well really bad, but they just had no sense of timing. They turned what I consider to be a suspenseful murder mystery into a farce. Still it was nice to get out.
Saturday we woke up, made waffles and painted the walls in the kitchen. Not much wall space so this went pretty quickly. We didn't tape the ceiling or trim, so that took a little longer freehand. I think it looks good, but our house is starting to look like we really like yellow.

Later that night we went to Shannons Mom's house for dinner and dessert.
Well that was our weekend, how was yours?...What's that?...What picture of Morgan?...I don't know what you are talking about?