Adventure Time!

Midway through the semester we started getting cabin fever. Snow was starting to melt in Prince George, so my friends and I piled into my vehicle and we drove north to Crooked River Provincial Park with grand plans of have a campfire and hot dog roast.

Unfortunately we forgot that the northern location meant more snow.

A lot of waist deep snow.

Eventually we turned around before we even got to the campsite because Kristi and Alanna didn't put on proper footwear and they had cold feet.

Later during the week I went to lunch at Wasabi Sushi with M and D before they blasted off for their (very) belated honeymoon in Cuba. This was a struggle for me because chop sticks are definitely not my forte. 

Dad and I have a hard time taking good pictures together...

And the happy couple before they left me behind, making me the only member of the family still left in Canada, let alone the continent of North America. Not the best way to lead into exams!

Memorial Hockey

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die" ~ Thomas Campbell

Gingerbread Boys

After the big Christmas party Friday night, a few people stuck around Saturday to decorate a passel of cookies that Kyla and I had whipped up.  I used my great - great - grandma Henkel's recipe (it's top secret, so I'm keeping it under wraps for now..shhh).  

But I'll give you a few hints as to what (not) to do when making the best gingerbread boys in the world.

First of all, make sure to SLOWLY bring all your sugar, lard, molasses and corn syrup to a boil. I had a couple chunky bits that hardened weird when it heated up really fast at the beginning.

When you add the eggs, make sure they're well beaten and then beat reallyreallyreally fast because you're pouring into a boiling syrupy mess that will cook the eggs almost as soon as you add them.

When it gets to hard to stir anymore flour in, roll up your sleeves and go to town with the kneading.

I made my dough the night before to save time when we actually wanted to decorate and left it in the fridge overnight. Unfortunately I forgot to take it out and let it come to room temperature so I was stuck with a very hard ball of dough when I wanted to start cooking.

The cardinal rule of baking: When one is lacking a proper rolling pin, one must make use of the nearest wine bottle *wink wink*.

Jare and Dave really got into the spirit of decorating.

The sugar cookie ladies.

Courtney whipped up a bunch of icing while Kyla did the heavy labour with the cookie creation.

Finally it was time to get down to business!

A few icing bag explosions later, and countless sprinkles ground into the carpet, we decorated probably close to 100 cookies in two hours! Quite the undertaking!

Notice the tacky Christmas sweater on Mr. Moose. He's very stylish.  

I'm back at the lake for a few days before my exams start, so I'll have some lovely pictures from around here for you all soon!