& That's The End.

With the end of the year fast approaching.. less than 12 hours to go as I write this! I can't help but wonder where on earth the year went. It hasn't been a great year so it can't be that it just flew from the fun! I guess time also flies when you're having not so much fun. We had a few rough spots over the year in a few areas in our life but we have come out on top, as we do. The loss of Nemo hit us hard, me extremely hard as he was my rock who kept me a little bit more sane while in my home walls. I still miss him a lot and I think I always will, he was my beautiful baby boy. I tried to make things easier for Emma by wagging my entire ass and jumping at her when she walked in the door after a hard days work.. but apparently it is just not the same. Go figure.

The year wasn't all bad, we took off to Boston in May and I learnt all about the greatness of double tacos! I got a little extra ink.. which I thought would stop me craving more for a while. It did not and I am itching to get more all the damn time. We discovered the most awesome beer bar in Copenhagen, which means I get to try new and exciting beers each and every time we make our way over there.. which happens more now that we know about said bar! Even Emma breaks out her beer palette! We booked an Easter trip to Berlin, which I am wicked excited about. Flat whites, sausages, beer and kiwi birds! Yes, that is right! I am going to see a kiwi bird at the zoo in Berlin! Bring on Easter.

Christmas was a very happy festive month for me, I totally busted out all the Christmas spirit I had and then some! So much so that even up until last night I had glitter on my face that was cracking Emma up every time it caught her eye.. either that or she just thinks I'm funny looking.. which I am.. I mean.. this face..

I think Christmas is even better when I bust shit out! That reminds me, I need to buy a new Christmas sweater for Emma to wear next Christmas! And for old memories sake, here she is busting out the elf jumper and dancing with a pumpkin for a head! [YouTube clip]

 

Now while there has been no snow so far this winter.. oh wait.. yes there was a slight falling of the white stuff for a few hours and then poof! with some rain is disappeared! If you compare last December to now, it is madness! At the beginning of December we were able to have some snow fun.. [Fun in the Snow entry] whereas, today is a lovely, sun shining, blue skied last day of the year, here are a couple of photos that Emma took while out for a walk.. [instagram photo] & [instagram photo]

With this post I bid farewell to a roller coaster year, and hope for a more steady train ride of the year ahead.

8 Shades of Popcorn!

A way to my heart is through my stomach and Hank in Boston knows that all too well when she supplied me with popcorn seasoning to try! Much better than bugs, as fun as the bugs were.. popcorn is betterer and Emma can join in the tasting fun. She is a little more select about what goes into that gob of hers.

There were 8 flavours, some good, some bad, some great!

Dell Cove Spice Company - etsy

Sour Cream & Onion - a very typical flavour, you can't really say much one way or another.
It was eatable.

Ketchup - now this flavour I expected to be.. how does one say.. yuck.
I am not a huge fan of ketchup at the best of times but I was quite excited to give this a whirl.
It was yum! So yum in fact, that it was up at the top of my list!

Beer - another one I was excited for. I had trouble imagining just what it would taste like..
especially with all the different types of beer out there in the world.
A basic beer, quite nice. I wonder how it would go while drinking a beer.. 

Cool Ranch - I had trouble imaging this..
wondering how they managed to create a flavour of hipster cowboys!
haha, ok.. I didn't wonder that but I don't think I have ever had ranch dressing but it was nice,
I may even have it on a salad.. you have ranch dressing on a salad, right?

Key Lime Pie - this one! oh yes, this one. I looked forward to this one.
Lime and me just go together. This was my top pick. The tangy sweetness was just perfect.

Pumpkin Pie - now you just know that this screams Jo! It was delicious!
Jo = lover of pumpkin!
Actually, Jo = lover of most things.. not worms tho.

Kettle Corn - I was introduced to this flavour by Hank, several years ago when she took me to a ball game. That stuff was deliciousness! So much so that Emma and I found out how to make it at home and so we made it. Often. As you can imagine, I was excited to try this seasoning as a much easier way to replicate making it. Sadly, this shit was a bust. It was by far the worst. Far too salty, maybe it was just too hard to get the right balance when you aren't dumping the whole lot into a big bowl of popped corn. I don't know. I am not willing to try it again.
Such a shame, luckily I make it myself good enough.

Rich Chocolate Caramel - I can't say that I have ever tried chocolate and popcorn but this makes me want to keep it around, however I couldn't imagine just eating a big bowl of this one. It is like the little break in-between eating other flavours for a little rich sweet hit.

My list from favourite to not..

1. Key lime pie
2. Ketchup
3. Pumpkin pie
4. Cool ranch
5. Beer
6. Chocolate
7. Sour cream and onion
8. Kettle corn

Goodies.. Complete!

Em and I had the mammoth task of getting the rest of the Christmas goodies completed. After a very late start on the Saturday, we managed to get it all done by today. We rule.

Saturday evening we hit the mandelmusslor, soft gingerbread and the mozart balls. We don't actually like the mozart balls, we make them purely for the others.. We are nice like that. We also threw in some fruit and nut dark chocolate goodness.

Mandelmusslor!

Fruit and Nut!
What type of fruit and nut you ask?
Sultanas and almonds!

Soft gingerbread!

Mozart balls!

Sunday, we were up.. not at the crack of dawn but in a timely fashion and checked off a huge portion of the list...

Lussekatter!

Lemon truffles.. errr nuggets!

Knäck!

Brandy snaps!
(bring on the cream!)

Cinnamon pecans!

Peanut butter balls!

Monday rolled around and we only had gingerbread cookies to do so we smashed.. err I mean rolled them out! Actually, a few did get a little smashed when Em decided that it was a good idea to stack them high and THEN say.. "knowing my luck I will knock them over" about 3 seconds later, what happened? Yep, she knocked some over. A few casualties out of more than 100 cookies isn't too bad going.

Gingerbread cookies!

Afterwards, I 'rewarded' myself with the consumption of edible bugs.. of the Christmas themed variety.

A Buggy Christmas.

So, a friend of mine in Sydney, Australia, decided that she would send me some Christmas themed eatable bugs.. coz well, I am up for anything. 

What was sent...

So here you have it, if you want to watch me eat a couple of gross bugs and a couple of.. well.. quite meh bugs.. just hit the play button and you will be directed to a very unflattering video of yours truly doing the eating of bugs.

Now the question is..

Was that worth what you paid for them, Rhiannon?

Goodies!

Yesterday, I donned one of our new Christmas aprons [instagram photo] and got stuck in to the make-age of goodies for Christmas! On the schedule we had pumpkin truffles, they were such a hit for Emma's birthday that we have decided to do them again for Christmas.. both at home and for Emma to hand out to the worker bees. Also for the worker bees, we made some fudge goodness! The pumpkin truffles and fudge were packaged up like so..

I would like to point out that Emma cut and glued.
Then taped every single last one of those trees.
Like. A. Boss.

..inside the trees we had the pumpkin truffle packaged like so...

Yes, we rule!

Emma was bundled off to work with her plant shop bag full of trees [instagram photo] and tiny presents to make a forest at work! As you can see here, they look pretty awesome as a forest!

While I had my apron on and the mountain of chocolate out, I also got some of the very delicious Dooleys chocolates done and threw in some chocolate coated coffee beans for good measure! Those suckers are deliciousness magnified!

Top: dark chocolate coated coffee bean and also white chocolate coffee bean..
I think I made about 120 of them all up!
Bottom: zee fudge! Then the Dooleys mocha tops! 19 made..
I often wonder why the form has an odd number. One for the chocolatier perhaps?
Last but not least, in the circle: zee pumpkin truffle! 50 made, yes FIFTY.

So there we have it, the beginning of the Christmas goodies.. stay tuned for more Christmas foodporn in the coming days!

Date...Day!

Emma and I decided to head into the total madness that is Copenhagen, before Christmas, on a Saturday. That very well could have been our first mistake but all in all it was a good day out.

The first sign that all was not going to be smooth for the day was when we got told to get off the first section of the train as it wasn't able to connect to the already packed train. There was barely any standing room, so we decided to just catch the next one instead of having to stand for the 90mins train ride into Copenhagen. The next train that came.. not even close to being better. It too, was packed and we had to stand the entire way. We got there, in one piece so that is the main thing. We were greeted with the starting of blue skies! Which meant things were looking up!

Just across from the train station we witnessed the mass of people trying to get into Tivoli. If you come all the way to Copenhagen or even Skåne in winter (or well anytime really, but winter has a Christmas market), you just have to take a day and actually check the place out. Only idiots don't, or people who live in the area who can go any time they want. I have apparently been once, which I have blocked from my memory as a traumatic experience perhaps? lol I don't know, anyways.. the plan was if we were feeling up to it we would tackle it later in the day. When said later in the day arrived, we decided to not tackle it. It looked just as slow moving and packed as it did when we arrived in the morning so we simply headed home.. actually simply is not the word that should be described there.. but more on that later.

We headed down the main street, where this old crank totally got in my shot! I prefer when Hank photobombs my photos.

We checked out a few stores, which were totally packed. Some it was so hard to even more. I am looking at you Lego store! That was just pathetic. There would be no way that I would even want to attempt to actually do Christmas shopping in any of the weeks of December if this is the madness that it brings. I am glad that Emma and I get ours sorted early, and mainly online. It wasn't long until we hit our first Christmas market! [instagram photo] They even had Currywurst!  I was tempted to have some, but wasn't in the mood for some sausage goodness.

They were definitely trying to get in on the Berlin Christmas spirit, but in all honesty, they failed. The Christmas market just wasn't... Christmassy enough! We stopped for some aebleskiver.. 

Cinnamon sugar on one, which had sugar that was too coarse combined with a bad cinnamon to sugar ratio for it to be a fantastic experience. The other was the classic, with powdered sugar and raspberry jam. They were however, eatable and hit the spot. We stood at a bar to wash it down with some mulled apple juice, but no one came to serve us so we just left and headed over to a coffee house and purchased a Christmas latte. That hit the spot.. and had a choice sign advertising it.

Now while the Christmas market was a little bit of a fail, this is defintely not a fail in the building decoration stakes.. [instagram photo]

Emma totally got into the Christmassy spirit with the purchase of some so ugly they are cute Christmas statues. One for her mum.. [link] and this one for us..

Next begun the hunt to find some of the delicious chocolates that we discovered at the Food Festival earlier in the year. We walked the entire shopping centre. Every level. Spoke to a very lovely girl who went to check out the back for us and our worst nightmare came true, they had sold out. Sad. It wasn't a huge deal, just would have been nice to have something new to share at Christmas, there will be plenty of chocolates and goodies but there's always that added excitement of something new. And plus, these chocolates were REALLY good. Shit happens. As a consolation prize, we picked up this..

It was starting to get late in the day, as well as colder and we felt the need for some foodage so we started making our way to GRØD. A place Emma has wanted to try for a while, and we also sampled at the Food Festival. A restaurant devoted to all things porridge! Definitely a winner! After a little detour, getting on the wrong bus will do that to you. We finally arrived at the restaurant, which was more a pokey little place. Enough seats for maybe 12 people inside and who wants to eat outside in the cold. It was a very cute place, the menu was a little hard to read for someone who doesn't like clutter and well, it was in Danish. Emma of course went with a vegetarian option, which was really good. I nabbed a couple of mouthfuls! Noms!

I went with a meat option! Emma tried a mouthful of mine, just minus the actual pork side of things. Both were extremely delicious and totally warming. Just what the doctor ordered. I would definitely go back there again, perhaps if we were staying the night and had a hotel close where we could have it to take away. Or on a nice summer day where we don't mind eating outside.

With our bellehs full, we headed just down the road to our most favourite of bars, Mikkeller and Friends. How handy is it that a great place to eat and a great place to drink are just minutes from each other! It is like it was meant to be! We placed our order of Ris á la Male beer for Emma, Hoppy Lovin' Xmas for me, a beer sausage with cornichons and some salt 'n' vinegar crisps! [instagram photo]

As we sat there, nibbling and drinking and chatting away, totally enjoying the drinking by candlelight, I snapped this very awesome flame photo.. [instagram photo]. We took comfort in the warmth of the place and the warmth that the beer was giving us. Our second round, which was a 15% boozy beer called Jule Mælk, which was really damn good I must say. Even Emma really liked that one, she kept drinking it! It was slightly amusing when I went to order it, the barman was like.. "you do realise it's strong?" and I just said, Nope, but I still wanna try it! He chuckled and got me my beery goodness. The other we got for that round was Santa's Little Helper 2013. As you can tell, we stuck with a Christmassy theme for our Christmas beer drinking evening. As we finished up, we headed into the bottle store side of the bar for some take home goodness, we were planning on buying the Ris one for Emma's dad. Sadly, we were thwarted again and they too were sold out of that lovely lovely beer. So as a consolation prize, we picked a tequila beer to give a whirl. The tequila apparently gives the beer a freshness, so we will see on Friday.. when we take it around to consume with the parentals. There is just something more enjoyable about sharing a new experience with someone else.

It was time to head home, with a quick look at Tivoli we decided to skip the masses and headed for the train, we missed a train by a minute. Bummer! The next train we got on was PURE madness. Once again, standing room only. People pushing and shoving. These situations really bring out the stupid in people. It was just plain horrible. Emma got yelled at by a SAS flight attendant, coz the flight attendant couldn't open her eyes and pay attention to her own surroundings to see that Emma was actually the one who got off the damn train to make it easier for her to be able to get off the damn train. It was a very strained and horrible ride home, which thankfully was over quickly when we got off at Malmö, headed into Starbucks for a gingerbread latte for me, and caramel hot chocolate for Emma before jumping on a much less packed train taking us the rest of the journey in calmness. As we reached home, we were ready to just kick up and relax and say to ourselves that maybe next year if we feel the need to go into Copenhagen before Christmas, to maybe do it on a weekday rather than a weekend when every Tom, Dick, Harriet, Bernadette, their donkey and their dog decides to go in. To be honest tho, it was still quite the enjoyable day. Emma and I are pretty good at having good days out.. we are definitely looking forward to the next visit with Billy-Goat & Hank... even if it is just for a day at the bar! Can someone say.. Drink the menu?! Although, with the selection there I don't think that is very wise. 

Oh and hey look! It's Lego Santa! HoHoHo

Julbord!

Sunday was the 2nd of advent! [photo] Our morning started off all pretty like with this view from the kitchen window.. [photo] and this in our bellehs.. [photo]. So, it was only fitting that we headed off to IKEA for a little Christmassy goodness.. [photo]. I got to experience my first julbord away from the family home. I much prefer the homemade goodness that Emma's mum puts on, but then I am a sucker for home cooking. The IKEA julbord was pretty good tho, I can't complain and I got to try some meaty ball thing coated in a potato type shell, it was kinda dumpling like. We all know how I like to try new things and now I am wondering why they aren't on the home julbord! In reality,  they don't need to be as there is plenty of other things to over indulge in!

What is julbord? Jul = Christmas. Bord = table. Christmas table! Where you place all the foody goodness that you will dine on for Christmas. Cold and warm dishes. Much deliciousness!

We partook in our first bottle of julmust too.. the first of the Christmas season and the first fizzy drink in 2 months! It was pure sweet heavenly goodness! I do loves me some julmust! We have a crate of it for the Christmas period, that has been sitting there taunting me for the last few weeks!

We tried a really delicious sauce, which was a apple and lingonberry glögg made into a sauce that was so damn good that we just had to buy a bottle of the drink to turn into the sauce for Ris à la Malta. Yums!

We had worked up an appetite by walking around the store for a few hours and then we did a little more shopping after the feastage. We picked up things we needed, things we didn't and got to enjoy Emma's mum and her friend be all loony! We could just imaging what they were like as youngens! It was a long but rather fun day. We even picked up a couple more Christmassy things, serviettes and a couple of glasses for drinking cold drinks! All we need is some Christmassy cutlery and we will be all set! Hahaha

Before we left, Emma helped me to decide to not wear my winter boots. As we were driving off, it started to snow lightly. As we arrived, it started to get heavier. As we looked out the windows while shopping, it had gotten much heavier. As we left the main store, it was pure whiteness. As I stood there in the snow with my sneakers on, I heard Emma say in my head.. "you don't need your winter boots." 

Clearly, the weather gods wanted to teach me a lesson.

After the IKEA, we headed over to an outlet store where Em purchased some cookie cutters [photo], Moomin & Lilla My. So it looks like we wont cheat the gingerbread by buying it all done but will actually bake some up. More than likely, with some purchased dough.. still cheating but not fully! We make so much over Christmas that a little cheating is totally allowed.

With all our goodies packed away, we bundled into the car as the snow turned to little hard balls and then hardcore rain! It made for a very slow drive home. Rather slow than unsafe! It was getting quite dark as we arrived home, yep.. winter is here. Darkness after 3pm is all the rage, says winter.

Fright!

Just a quick little story about a little funny that happened today, never a dull moment when Emma is home on a work day! Emma was on the computer doing her work duties. There I was, minding my own business.. being a good housewife and doing my housework. I was in the process of moving about with the vacuum, out of the bedroom and into the hallway I went. Running the vacuum head up and down and all around, moving towards to the front door.. when something caught the corner of my eye to the side of me, so of course you have to do a double take and turned my head and saw... in the darkness with only the glow of the Christmas lights to illuminate the way.. a figure in the bathroom! I jumped! I screamed! No pissy little I got a tiny fright yelp, it was more of something you might see in a horror flick. I lost an easy 10 years off of my life. Somehow, I had managed to miss the fact that Emma had moved from the computer to the bathroom.

The fun didn't stop there of course, coz you see with a big fright and then loads of laughter.. there is always water. From the eyes, people! Through the tears I could barely focus as I had to make my way to the loo before I did actually water from elsewhere! No pee made it onto my pants.. all in the loo! I am not that old.. yet! No nanna nappies required just yet!

Definitely a hilarious moment before 8am! That I only wished had been caught on film! Seriously, that shit was gold. Pure. Gold.

Little Additions!

Last night I met up with Em after work to help her carry home some little additions to the Christmas cheer in the household. We had ordered these things a while ago and they only just came in so score! 

We can now eat and drink off of Christmas dishes for the month of Christmas! I know, I know, right now you are so very jealous! But it's ok, if you are really lucky I will post photos of said dishes being eaten off of! That will make everything all betterer, right?! hahaha

Now I know what you are thinking.. how did that stuff require help in carrying? Well, it was because Em was coming from physio and wasn't allowed to over do it and she had already gone and picked up 5 bottles of beer for yours truly! 

Disclaimer: They all aren't exactly Christmas/winter beers,
however they were all too awesome to pass up.
I mean, a beer named Holy Cow! Who could pass that up?!
"You'll be drinking this until the cows come home!"

It looks like with the addition of these beers to my already stocked Christmas beers.. it will be a very beery Christmas.. with some glögg thrown in for good measure. We already have this years bottle of glögg, hopefully it tastes as good as the bottle looks!