The incredibly (un)grand adventures of the Entsmingers during the (un)fabulous months of Janurary and February, 2011

Warning: events may or not be in chronological order.

We forgot to keep our "gear" on, so, in
actuality, this picture could have been taken
whenever, but it was on New Years
morning, I promise.

 
I hate the cold. It is awful. And once the new year is over, what is the point of winter? Other than to be dreary and cold and miserable. There was one bout of snow (or maybe two, I'm sure I didn't keep track).

There are, however, two good things about winter.
1) Valentine's Day.
2) It ends, albeit, not as soon as one (I) would like.

Brandon and I trade off years for Valentine's Day (as opposed to our Anniversary, which is always the hubby's job) and it was my year this year. So, I put two of the things that we love the most in life (sushi and movies) together and we had a lovely night in, not just eating sushi, but MAKING sushi! I ate my first ever sushi roll with Brandon (2007), and I made my first ever sushi roll with Brandon (2011). Everyone ready to witness the amazingness??

Thank you, thank you, no applaud necessary.

Oh yeah. And it was better than it looks. Which, seeing the magnified picture, doesn't actually compare with Sushi Matsumoto, buuuuutttttt, it's still pretty cool, seeing as how I'm a country bumpkin from North Cakalaki, not a sushi master from Japan. :)
To the right, you will see the entire spread of sushi.  And no, not all of it was consumed in one night - and no, sushi is not as good the next day.
Missing from the photo are: pickled ginger (a brand which we will never again purchase), hoisin sauce (homemade by Brandon L. Entsminger), soy sauce (Kikkoman), and chop sticks (the only way to eat sushi).


Hmmm....other events that occurred during winter:

Our friend Shana's Birthday.

The Super Bowl. XLV - what is that...45? Which if it is, I don't understand why it's not VL. isn't that 45?? L is 50, XL is 40, so why isn't it VL? 45? I don't get it, I guess. I'm a simpleton.

Ah ha, thank you wikipedia:
"Proper form is to subtract only a value with the next lower power of 10. Thus, 900 is written CM, but 990 would not be XM - properly, it is CM for the 900 portion and XC for the 90 portion, or CMXC. Similarly, 999 would not be IM but rather CMXCIX - CM for the 900 portion, XC for the 90 portion, and IX for the 9 portion. Only values with 1's are ever used to subtract; 45 is properly XLV, not VL."
I really am grateful for the internet. It's such a beautiful thing.

Oh, here's a big event. I made my first apple pie! I've "made" plenty of frozen pies in my life, in-fact, I love them. Mrs. Smith is a genius. But there was one day when I just felt like baking, so I did. I baked an apple pie (pictured below), a chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookies (not pictured, because they're not new for me). And man oh man...it was good.

Note to fellow bakers:
Please don't skip (or ignore, or accidentally omit) the step that says to PEEL your apples...
It doesn't change the flavor, but it makes a big difference.

I would go into the story behind the awesomeness that I made my first apple pie, but it's a long, drawn out story, so if you really want to know, you may ask. I just really don't feel like writing the back story. Which probably could have been done in the time it took me to say that I didn't want to do it.
Which reminds me, I was playing a video game recently, and I was following parts of the walkthrough online to get all of the treasures (Tomb Raider, anyone?) and there was an in-particular treasure where the guy said:

******************************************
   *      Treasure: Silver Coatimundi         *
  *                                            *
  * This treasure you can get now but since    *
  * you pass it in a later chapter anyways I   *
  * will list it in that chapter instead. You  *
  * can locate it on your own now if you       *
  * want. I'll point you in the direction of   *
  * where to find it. If you face away from    *
  * the ramp you entered this area from        *
  * search the small area through the tunnel   *
  * at the far left corner of this area.       *
  **********************************************

I'm not even sure why I am saying anything about this here - other than to say it was dumb. Why say you're

not going to tell me where it is, if you're going to tell me where it is? 

p.s. it wasn't actually Tomb Raider, it was Uncharted - which is pretty much Tomb Raider with a boy 

instead of Lara Croft. 

Annnyyyywaaaayyyy......

That's all for today.

Next up is our trip to Missouri to see my parents. :) That'll be a long post. But not as long as the drive!

CAN'T FORGET THE PICTURES!!!
Shutterfly - Winter 2011 

Christmas time in Entsminger-land 2010

December is awesome. I love it. The twinkle lights, and Christmas trees and the smell of cinnamon everywhere are just so...calming. I love spring and summer more, but the majesticness of December is pretty great.
I don't have much to say about Christmas, though. It was there, it happened, we got presents, went down and saw Beau, Mandy and Isabella, ate dinner at Brandon's parents' house. Pretty much the same that happened last year - except some of the backdrops of those events were different.
I'll post some pictures for you:

Putting up Christmas Lights and the first snow of the season:

 

 And the Tree:

"What's this white stuff?"

My Christmas Cactus is starting to bloom!

Music at the Palms:

SVU at Christmas:

Christmas Eve:

Christmas Day:

Snow on Christmas!!

 

The snow was nice on Christmas day, but we had to drive down to NC - and the roads looked like this at first:

Not too bad.

And then they looked like this:

And they just got worse as it got darker...awesome. Ah well. I'm just glad we made it down to Wilmington alive!

And of course, the snow followed us...

"nap time" No...of COURSE it's not staged. :-/ We have a picture like this for every Christmas. I couldn't NOT get one for her 5th Christmas. Probably the last picture like this I get, but that's okay.

My favorite picture EVER! I love it.

Anyway, that's pretty much Christmas in a nut shell! It was pretty good. :)

Next up:

Winter 2011. New Years and beyond. (And then maybe, just maybe, I'll be caught up!)

There are more pictures on our Shutterfly account for Christmas time in Entsminger-land.