Iron chef blueberries!

Missy and Dave were here this weekend for a visit so we had to battle. This fierce battle was iron chef blueberry! The iron chefs were Dave and Missy with Erik and I as the sous chefs. The battle was intense but we made it through unscathed!

Erik and Dave

 Dave and Erik made:

1. Blueberry salad - This salad was filled with diced peppers, onions, pecans, lemon zest with raspberry vinaigrette sauce.
2. Grilled chicken with blueberry cheese sauce - Dave grilled chicken and made a smoky blueberry cheese sauce to go on top. Say what? A smoky blueberry cheese sauce? This was surprisingly good. I didn't think smoked gouda and blueberry would go together. 
3. Bacon and blueberry pancakes with blueberry reduction - These pancakes were so delicious! Dave put bacon and blueberries in pancakes and put a yummy blueberry sauce on top. Yum!

Me and Missy

 Missy and I made:

1. Blueberry basil pasta with blueberry wine sauce - This pasta was delectable. Who would think blueberry and basil would go well together but it did. 
2. Blueberry pork skewers with 3 bean salad - Pork marinated in blueberry jam (that I canned a few weeks ago) was then put on skewers with peppers and blueberries. It was tasty and fun. Missy also made a 3 bean salad to compliment the dish.
3. Fruit salsa - This was a basic fruit salsa with lots of chopped fruits in lime juice with some fresh cilantro. Even though it is a simple dish - it was refreshing and yummy.
4. Blueberry hill parfait - This parfait had layers of graham crackers, lemony cream cheese, blueberries and toasted coconut. We all loved it!
5. Red, white, and blueberry shortcake - This was a twist on the standard strawberry shortcake. With a sour cream blueberry pound cake as the base and a vanilla cream sauce. This was another delicious dessert. 

The race was very close. Dave won with a score of 60.0 and Missy's score was 59.6875 (I love decimals!).

Overall everyone had a great time!

I also had to snap a picture of the girls with their dolls. This was after VBS one day. The kids have been in 3 Vacation Bible Schools this summer! Anyway I took this picture when it was 94 degrees outside. Sarah is wearing a long sleeve shirt underneath a short sleeve shirt, pants, a skirt and two pairs of socks. When I asked her if she would be hot, her answer was no. 

Okay.

The kids and all their dolls

Love me some July

Since Erik's parents have moved here, we are always out of room at the kitchen table. To provide more room, Erik bought a bench at Unfinished Wood and stained it to match our table. Now we can shove all 3 kids on one side of the table and still have enough room for 4 adults. They love it too (yes they are still wearing swimsuits while eating lunch). 

Our new bench!

 Last weekend we went camping to the Lazy River campground in Granville. We went here a few years ago and loved it. This was the best camping trip all year. The weather was amazing so we were able to play games at night and we made some fantastic food (more below). Behind our campground was a little river (creek/crick?) filled with rocks. It was picturesque. The kids liked the pool, but they really wanted to play in the river - and they did!

View from our campsite

I guess Matthew needs a change of clothes

 There is also a zipline at this campground that I really want to try sometime. I mentioned the food was good. On our last camping trip, Duane and Joy filled pie irons with taco seasonings and used corn tortillas to hold all the ingredients. We did the same thing except we used flour tortillas and stuffed the ingredients in a little pocket (see below). This was so delicious. Possibly the best camp food experience (not counting reeses smores). No we didn't put grapes or yoohoo in the tacos they just happened to be in the picture.

In other news:

1. I really enjoy playing a game called Set. Unfortunately I haven't been able to play this game for almost 10 years since I am the only person who likes it. On my birthday last week, Erik, Tim and Jen relented and played set with me. Yipee!
2. Our coo* book club is almost finished with American Gods. It's well written. I'm enjoying the book. But I still haven't decided if I like it.
3. I finished the Unincorporated Man and I know that I liked that book.
4. My friend Jon has published a book about True Dungeon. I'm excited to read this and am hoping he and Joel can publish more books!
5. I'm facing some big decisions about my job. Just waiting right now to see what happens. 
6. 72 points on Quiddler today

Our new neighbors!

4th of July is my favorite holiday. Red, white and blue is an ideal color scheme, America is celebrating Independence (Jenna, what are we celebrating with Independence day? Ummm.... I don't know - the civil war?), Fireworks are exploding constantly at all hours of the day and night, and most importantly - my birthday! 

Erik's parents moved into their new house on Monday. We are now neighbors! To celebrate, we had some friends from church over for a cookout and to decorate cupcakes with BRIGHT blue and BRIGHT red frosting. 9 kids were at our house all under the age of 8 with free reign on the blue #5 frosting. Yum - artificial food coloring. 

It was chaos with so many kids running around. Maybe the in-laws are rethinking their move.

Flag Cookie

Decorating cupcakes

 Amanda stayed with us for a couple of days this week so obviously I made her do a chopped basket. Erik bought two sets of the chopped ingredients. They were: pork chops, vidalia onions, parmesan cheese, and fruit snacks.

Chopped basket

 We each made two dishes incorporating all of these ingredients. Amanda made cheese and fruit snacks stuffed pork chops, with an eggplant, zucchini, and carmelized onion salad. I made candied bacon wrapped parmesan crusted pork chops with carmelized onion risotto and a fruit snack wine reduction.  Both dishes were delicious! In the end I was chopped. Erik's Mom, Jenna, and Sarah voted for Amanda's dish while Erik voted for my dish. It was a grueling competition (no, Amanda did not get $10,000). Then to celebrate Amanda and I went to see the Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp. I had a great day until I came home and saw my email and almost had a heart attack. I've been assigned another new class! This means two new classes this session and three online courses. I've never had three online courses before. I hope I survive this semester.

Our chopped dishes

As well as the Fourth of July, this was also my niece Charlotte's first birthday. We were able to skype with David and sing Happy Birthday. Much cheaper than flying 5 people out to California.

Erik made me a birthday cake as well. It was a dark chocolate cake with a nutella frosting. The frosting had nutella, cream cheese, and lime juice in it. The cake was filled with chocolate chips, peanuts, reeses cups, cocoa powder, etc (basically everything I like). It was interesting!

59 points on Quiddler today.