Temple Day/Caramel Cashews

Washington DC Temple















Last Saturday, our ward had a temple day where we pulled weeds around the temple grounds, we ate dinner together and then did sessions in the temple.















Treagan and Diana pulling weeds on the grounds. Treagan is a friend from college that is out here visiting his brother. I love when Aggies reunite!















Caramel Cashew Fancies...
My favorite ice cream as a student at Utah State University was Caramel Cashew Aggie Ice Cream. I found a recipe for Caramel Cashew Cookies and for old times sake, I decided to give it a whirl. In a previous post I explained that I make one kind of cookie only (Chocolate, PB, Oatmeal cookies..yum) and so making something new was quite a stretch. Anyway, they were delicious and I highly recommend you try these at home!!

Caramel Cashew Cookies
salted cashews-both ground into a butter and chopped- give these cookies deep flavor. Soft caramel candies are melted and drizzled over the tops of the baked cookies for an embellishment.














Yields about 3 dozen cookies

1 2/3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups roasted salted cashews
2 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon canola oil
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
3/4 cup packed lt. brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
24 soft caramel candy cubes (7 oz.)
1/4 cup heavy cream

1. Preheat oven to 350*F. Sift flour and salt. Chop 1 cup cashews; set aside. Process remaining 1 1/2 cups cashews in a food processor until finely chopped. Pour in oil; process until creamy, about 2 minutes.
2. Put cashew mixture, butter, and sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture and reserved chopped cashews.
3. Drop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake 6 minutes; gently flatten cookies. Bake until bottoms are golden, 6-7 minutes more. Let cool on wire racks.
4. Melt caramels with cream in a saucepan over low heat, stirring. Let cool. Using a spoon, drizzle caramel over cookies; let set. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature in single layers up to 3 days.

July 4th in Washington D.C.

Hiking by Great Falls, VA.












Getting soaked on the mall waiting for the fireworks.

Some pics from NYC

Our 0.025 star shady, SHADY hotel!














Waltzing through Central Park











Doesn't the Empire State Bldg. look like an Astro Pop?



















The view of Manhattan as we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.














Brooklyn Bridge














The famous Magnolia Bakery on Bleeker Street.



















Eating our Magnolia treats.














I started taking pictures of doors for no good reason. Which one do you like?




















































Some other random shots:

Independence Weekend!

Turns out that the July 4th Fireworks in D.C. are just like any others. It was pouring rain all day long but we huddled together under umbrellas to stay dry(as we sat on soaking wet blankets and had water fights). Oh, what a night!











After the fireworks I hopped on a bus with Kami, Shule and Wayne to NYC. Wayne and I went to 2 Broadways (Hairspry and Jersey Boys) while Kami and Shule were at the Yankee/Red Sox game. DON'T buy Broadway tickets online because it's a rip off, most box offices have discounts/raffles the day of.
In Hairspray, George Wendt (from Cheers) plays the role of Edna Turnblad and what a comedian. This show was basically the same as the movie and my favorite Broadway so far!














I didn't know who the Four Seasons were until I went to Jersey Boys but I recognized most of their songs. There was some adult language in the show, but overall it was superb. Here's some great youtube video links if you care to watch.. My favorite song was probably 'Walk Like A Man'. I left wishing I had a gangster Jersey boy of my own..

Jersey Boys Youtube #1
Jersey Boys Youtube #2













After Hairspray, we went to dinner at the Stardust Diner. The waiters/waitresses are all performers on Broadway that wait tables while they are auditioning for shows, etc. My favorite waiter reminded me of ace ventura because he had a ginormous mouth and hopped around on the tables and was the biggest goof. This is the greatest place, I strongly recommend that you eat here if you're in the neighborhood.











I love frozen yogurt and I heard that Pinkberry is the bomb. Pinkberry's menu consists of Original, Green Tea and Coffee flavored frozen yogurt desserts. This is a wonderfully tangy, not-too-sweet, creamy white cloud of perfect frozen yogurt deliciousness.

Sunday morning we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and this offered a great view of Manhattan and Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Bridge, one of the oldest suspension bridges in the U.S., stretches 5,989 feet (1825 m) over the East River connecting the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. On completion, it was the largest suspension bridge in the world and the first steel-wire suspension bridge.















We also stopped along Bleeker Street for some famous Magnolia Banana Pudding and Cupcakes (which were beautiful but I didn't like them at all). The magnolia bakery in NYC is known for its famous dessert treats, including its cupcakes and old-fashioned Depression era icebox cakes. It stays open unusually late for a bakery, and typically there is a line to get in as late as 11:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.










I don't like doing all the touristy stuff in NYC (times square makes me want to crawl into a dark cave), but I really like Greenwich Village and the other neighborhoods downtown.

Mamma Mia

This weekend I went to Mamma Mia, the musical, in Washington D.C with some friends. It was fabulous and I loved the scene with all the bachelors in wet suits and all of the brightly colored spandex (picture attached). It's been a few years since I've heard that much Abba and it was mighty refreshing!

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

This weekend I went to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware with some roommates and friends. I realized my camera was dead when we got to the beach, so I'm adding pics from the internet. Is that legal? It was a bit cloudy and chilly, but we parked out on the beach with thousands of other sun bathers. Seriously, it had to be against fire code (maybe IF we weren't so close to a water source) to have that many people laying side by side on the beach, we barely made room for all of us to lay down next to each other. I have never seen so many rainbow umbrellas on one beach!


Rehoboth is about 3 hours from my house in Virginia and we had to cross over the Chesapeak Bay Bridge in Maryland. I drove on this bridge before when I lived in Virginia about 4 years ago and I'm obsessed (yet very afraid because of the Minnesota Bridge collapse last year) with it. It's over 4 miles long and it feels like you're driving into the sky because of the arch of the bridge.

Bucket List

One of the clients at my job does airplane chartering. I received some marketing for a company that charters a trip around the world by private jet. Too bad it's 60K a person. When I have some money, these are on my bucket list...

Lima, Peru
Easter Island, Chile (Moai)
Apia, Samoa (beach)
Cairns(port douglas and the great barrier reef), Australia
Siem Reap (angkor), Cambodia (angkor wat, preah khan, aspara dancers)
Chengdu, China
Agra, India (taj mahal)
Kilimanjaro, Tanzania ( serengeti national park-animals)
Luxor, Egypt (Sphinz, pyraminds of giza)
Cairo, Egypt
Fez, Morocco(coppersmith, gate of nehass at the royal palace, bab bou jeloud gate)

Simple Summer Goals

My Simple Summer GOALS:
(Maybe on my next post I'll give an update of how I've done with my New Year's Goals..yikes)

-Learn to eat with chopsticks.
Recently I've been using a chopstick helper and although they feel like training wheels, I'm getting the hang of eating pad thai with sticks!






-Go Sailing on the Potomac!
My roommate and I run on the George Washington Parkway Trail which runs along the Potomac River and the Marina- where I watch all of the boats dock and I daydream that I'm sailing.


-Run outside 3x a week (instead of on a treadmill/elliptical).
I want to run a marathon in the next year, so I'm slowing getting motivated. Also, I just bought a Nike Plus for my ipod and I'm excited to trace my progress. I need some new running tunes that get my heart pumping, any suggestions?


-Read everyday on my commute from work.
Currently, I'm reading Kite Runner but I need some suggestions. Any recommendations? My blog comment link is broken and I can't figure it out, but if you click on the link on the bottom and then click again on comment it should work. Good luck with that!





-Take weekend road trips.
Someday soon, I hope to visit Boston, Philadelphia, NYC (again and again), Hershey, Palmyra, Charlotte, Niagara Falls, Richmond and Virginia Beach.

Weathering the Storms..

This week, we had tornado warnings, flash floods and then widespread heat warnings in the D.C. area. It has been nearly 100 degrees with the heat index the last few days. We didn't let the crappy weather stop us. Chareese's mom was in town this weekend so we went to dinner at 2Amy's, our favorite Italian pizza shop. Trivia question for the picture below: Which one of these is not like the others? (hint: I've never felt so outnumbered before).
















Saturday was a scorcher so Cassie, Tom and I went tubing on the Shenandoah River in West Virginia. It was a lot of fun. There were a lot of people floating down the river and I even made some new friends; ask me sometime about Dick and Tommy.















We stopped to have a picnic before our final run down the river.






























Cassie is leaving us for Arizona this week so we had a farewell party for her at our house.















Our house was so bloody hot during the party, that I went around checking all of our vents. (Thanks Chareese for catching this awkward moment on film!)















Chareese made Fruit Pizza for the party. I think one of the ingredients is sin, because it's so tempting and I could eat it all day long.















After the party, we sat around and listened to the wisdom of Grandmother Willow AKA Shelley. Chareese's mom is so wise and charming. Chareese, thanks for sharing your mom with us this weekend.