Author Archives: Kara

Friday Food – Homemade Cupcakes

Posted in Cupcakes, Friday Food, Photos by

I am quite proud to say that with the lovely help of Melissa and her man-candy James, I made the most delicious homemade, from scratch cupcakes. Okay, maybe not more delicious than my favourite cupcake shop in town, but still very delicious!

The idea to make cupcakes actually stemmed from Melissa wanting cupcakes from said store, but they’re closed today. We were going to hang out anyway, mostly so I could meet the mystery man, so I suggested we make cupcakes of our own. I first suggested just buying a box of mix, but my mind was changed and I found a super easy recipe online here.

And so we baked! Mel and I tackled the batter while we left James in charge of the icing. Go go teamwork! The cupcakes actually turned out really well.

Now for a photo essay of our shenanigans:

Mel, mixing together the wet ingredients with the dry!

Getting it all ready to go in the oven, and being a dork as usual.

Doing my best pin-up pose while pulling the cupcakes out of the oven.

Oh lookit that! They’re not even burnt!

Mel, showing James how to actually ice a cupcake.

So there you have it! We didn’t burn the cupcakes and they actually tasted really good! So happy Friday Food and merry Weekend everyone! I’ll be taking in the UFC fights tomorrow night!

What are YOUR plans for the weekend? And which do you prefer – vanilla or chocolate cupcakes?

Honest Scrap!

Posted in Awards, Awesome, Blogging, Lists by

Honest-scrap-award

On Sunday I received the “Honest Scrap Award” from the wonderful Holly at Scattered Words. She’s currently expecting a lovely bundle o’ joy and it just makes me all bubbly inside thinking of babies!

So apparently the rules of acceptance are that I’m supposed to list 10 things you may find interesting about me and then nominate seven other bloggers to do the same.

Here are the things:

1.  I’m a sucker for guys with no hair. Not naturally bald guys, but guys who shave all their hair off. Long hair is gross. That being said, I’m in love with Georges St. Pierre, Jason Statham, etc. Kyle also shaves all his hair off, and it’s wonderful :)

2.  I am terrified of passing semi-trucks on the road. I white-knuckle grip my steering wheel and hold my breath while passing huge trucks on the road. Logging trucks freak me out the most I think. To help, I either sing loudly in my car to distract myself while passing, or Kyle will talk to me about something random, asking me silly questions.

3.  I hate wet socks. If my socks get the slightest bit wet I have to change them. It’s really hard in a house with two slobbery dogs, so I wear slippers all the time. Kyle hates them, but I don’t complain so he deals with it.

4.  I have a really loud sound system in my car. It’s not like, competition loud, but it’s got some junk in the trunk … err, hatch. It was my dream since I was like, 14, to have a subwoofer in my car so when I got my own car I soon got my own system! As a friend of mine says, I listen to jungle music.

5. I hate the word “moist”. It creeps me out and makes me shudder. Right after “moist” is “secrete”. Come to think of it, most onomatopoeia’s are not appealing to me, at least when it comes to well, moist words.

6.  I’m afraid of horses. I’m fine with them being on the opposite side of a fence as me, but I’m afraid to be near them otherwise. Once when I was little I was helping a lady feed her horses and was taking hay to their troff and they surrounded me. It was terrifying. Ever since then I haven’t liked horses.

7.  I can drink energy drinks before bed and fall asleep just fine. I downed a “NOS” energy drink which the 7-11 clerk SWORE it would keep me up all night and a couple hours later, I was ready for bed. Caffeine doesn’t wake me up, it just makes me need to pee every 10 minutes.

8.  I’m a cranky old lady on the inside. I tend to get irritated really easily and this cranky old spinster of a woman comes out every once in a while. This usually happens when customers or coworkers get on my nerves. Just call me Gertrude.

9.  I love my dog the most. As much as I try to love Kyle’s dog Molly as much as my own, I just can’t help but love Daphne more. Molly’s like the step-child that I try to love as my own but just can’t because I didn’t raise her from puppyhood.

10.  I’ve dislocated my shoulder seven times. In the summer between Grades 10 and 11 I decided to try skateboarding with my little brother (who’s much better than I, obviously). I went down this ramp when I shouldn’t have and dislocated my shoulder. It hasn’t been the same ever since. I’m on the surgery waitlist and it’s looking like it’s going to take a while to get it done. For now it’s light exercise to build its strength.

I really don’t feel like nominating seven people, so I’m just going to nominate three. Ha!

1) Melissa at I Has Good Grammar

2) Angela at Craving Cupcakes

3) Fuegita Bonita

Ta-da!

I freakin’ love this game

Posted in Kara and Kyle, Photos, Reflections, Travel by

It’s a few days late, but a weekend update is better late than never, right? RIGHT!

So on the weekend Kyle and I went down to Vancouver to watch our favourite hockey team, the Vancouver Canucks! I had got him tickets back in September as a “Congrats” for finishing his Welder B training. I was going to wait until Christmas, but I suck at keeping surprises from him and gave them to him early, using him being done school in record time as an excuse. (He finished a month ahead of everyone!)

We haven’t really had many opportunities to travel together, mostly because we’re both always busy with work and trying to save money, so I figured hockey tickets would be the perfect excuse to get away. Plus it was a weekend game, so who could argue that? We booked our hotel back in January and on Saturday, we were on our merry way!

The drive down was great and thanks to the GPS my dad let us borrow, I never got lost! I’ve only driven to Vancouver once by myself, and it was a horrible experience, so I figured if I preplanned my route via Google Maps and Google Street View (Which is AMAZINGLY helpful, IMHO) and had the help of a GPS, all would go well. And it did! We got to the hotel around 12:30 p.m. – plenty of time to do some shopping on Robson Street and such.

Anyway, I dragged Kyle a hella-long way up Robson Street so I could go to lululemon and buy fabulous comfy cloths. We got to see a bit of “left over” Olympic attractions, including the Zip-Lining and the huge screen in front of the Art Gallery. The sights may have been scaled down, but they were still cool. The streets were packed and Kyle hates big crowds and I never would’ve dragged him with me if I had known it was going to be busy. He was such a trooper, even in lululemon, and he even bought me my Gather & Crow crop pants. I’m such a lucky girl!

After we got back to the hotel we headed down to the hotel restaurant for a late lunch/dinner. We noticed that right across the road was LiveCity Vancouver, which, for those of you too lazy to click through, is where people can watch live Paralympic events and hang out:


Even more awesome was the Belini I ordered at the restaurant. Apparently “Moxie-Sized” cocktails were on special, so when I was asked if I’d like to “Moxie-Size” my Belini, I said yes. This is what I got as a result:

It was HUGE and I got the worst brain freezes, but it was so good! Kyle thought it was pretty funny since I make the most screwed up face ever when I get brain freezes. Oh well! Serves me right I suppose. After our meal we had a nap for about an hour before we got ready to go to the game. I put on my Canucks jersey, which we’ve determined is bad luck, and were on our way to the game!

We stopped by Authenix, the Canucks store attached to GM Place and browsed around. I bought a shirt while Kyle couldn’t find anything he liked. After we found our seats and took in the pre-game warm up before the game started. The whole thing was absolutely amazing, and we had the best time ever! The Canucks lost with only 0.2 seconds in Overtime, which was sad, but oh well. We at least got a point!

Here’s a few more pictures from the game/warm-up:

This was during the pre-game warm up. It was neat seeing how the warm up before the game since this part isn't televised.

The only picture I have of Kyle and I during our trip! Good thing it's a nice one :)

Members of Canada's Olympic Womens Hockey Team were there for a puck-dropping ceremony. It was really cool and they got a huge standing ovation!

Mark Donnelly sings the anthems at EVERY Canucks home game! He's an amazing opera singer and during the second verse of O' Canada he lets the audience sing it, holding up the mic. The energy in the building is AMAZING during this!

A face off during the game!

So that pretty much sums everything up, minus the freak rain storm on our way back (typical Vancouver weather) and delicious breakfast in Hope.

Ever watched a live NHL game? Or any professional sports game?