01.04.09
Posted in Uncategorized, family, fun at 8:56 pm by kelly
Yesterday the ladies of the Roy and Eileen Eskesen family gathered, well those of us who live in the area, for brunch at The Secret Garden Tea Room in Sumner. It was great fun! I had the Morning Glory brunch tea, which started with scones, then was served the chef’s breakfast (salmon egg bake) and followed with a tower of treats-baby cinnamon rolls, fruit, almond pastry and cranberry bran muffin. My tea selection was Afternoon Garden Party. It was all delightful and oh so wonderful to hang out with my aunts and cousins and just spend time with the girls for a little while.
Here’s a photo of all of us (left to right-Kelly, Staci, aunt Judy, mom, Rachel, Aunt Janice, Megan and in the front Aunt Linda and Brandi):
and this one is a bit blurry, but it’s the best I had of mom, Rache and myself:
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11.05.08
Posted in birthday, family, fun, photo at 9:44 am by kelly
Today is my dad’s birthday. Happy Birthday! I hope you get to do something fun, like consume a pile of steak! I’m sure glad you’re my father and not some lame-o loser.
And for those of you who haven’t spent much time with my Dad, here are some photos for your enjoyment (and mine):
Pretending to be cacti at Volunteer Park
Chillin’ with the sibs at Pike Place Market on Father’s day
Crazy fun times at the family reunion
Who doesn’t love this one of my parents in autumn?
At the farm, heading to the back 40, which is really an entirely different farm.
Happy Birthday! Love you!
~Kel
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10.28.08
Posted in Cooking, OCC, family, fun, home, marriage, travel at 9:29 pm by kelly
I wrote a few months ago about a trip to South Africa that we are going on with a group from our church. We have more details and many of you have received our “McPherson South Africa” email lately, but I thought I’d blog about it as well…. Basically, we will be in the town of Durban, South Africa for two weeks. There is a group of seven of us going and we’ll be helping out with two camps and with two transition homes (orphanages) during our time there. This means we’ll be doing anything from leading songs to playing soccer to giving messages and sharing in small group discussion with middle schoolers to spending time caring for babies and generally helping out where we can be of use. Why am I blogging about this right now, oh because we leave soon! The first week of December we’ll be on a plane and on our way! We are thankful for our friends and family who have supported us financially and with your prayers and kind words of encouragement. We’re hoping to blog a couple of times while we’re away, but we’ll for sure blog about our trip upon our return!
Also, I made a delicious dinner for Jonathan’s birthday on Sunday. I’ll post more about that soon. And I’m working on a root vegetable tagine for the crock pot tomorrow. This could open a whole new door of slow cooking possibilities for us or leave us with a pile of left overs and a sincere desire for more ketchup or cheese. I’ll keep you posted.
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10.22.08
Posted in Cooking, family, fun, honeymoon, marriage at 7:25 am by kelly
I thought about making these brownies again and taking a photo because they really didn’t last long at our house, but I think you all just need to try them in your own home.
Here you go, from Martha Stewart:
Chocolate Ginger Brownies
Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter, plus more for the baking dish
3 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup sugar (I used less-maybe 3/4 cup-I’d like to keep all my teeth)
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (I used Hershey’s because we had it and HOLY SMOKES Dutch cocoa powder is expensive!)
2 eggs
1 tsp grated peeled fresh ginger
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. coarse salt
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Butter an 8-inch square baking dish. Line bottom with parchment paper, allowing 2 inches to hang over 2 sides. Butter parchment; set aside.
Melt butter and chocolate together in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring until smooth.
Remove from heat and stir in remaining ingredients.
Pour batter into prepared dish and smooth top with a rubber spatula.
Bake until a cake tester inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs, 30 to 35 minutes.
Let cool in pan on a wire rack 15 minutes. Lift out, and let cool completely on rack. Cut into sixteen 2-inch squares. Brownies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 4 days.
These were moist and chewy, just like a brownie should taste and the spices gave them a nice flavor-not too chocolaty. I did use the parchment paper this go round, but I think next time I’ll just skip it. I stored the brownies in the pyrex because it has it’s own cover and why waste good parchment paper? Oh, this does not make 16 brownies. Well, it does, but some people then have to eat two!
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10.17.08
Posted in fun, photo at 4:43 pm by kelly
I have been tagged by our friend Lisa and we’re to share 7 random facts…I feel that you all know so many random things about me it’s hard to know where to begin.
1. I really love candy canes. It doesn’t matter what time of year, I’ll eat one, but only the straight part. The hook gets crushed up later for cocoa or brownies or something because I just can’t eat it. Okay, if I’m desperate, I’ll eat the hook part, but only if it’s March and I’m really hungry.
2. I’m terribly indecisive, but once I’ve made up my mind, it’s really really hard to get me to change it.
3. I’d probably give you anything you needed if I had it and it wouldn’t actually kill me. Really. Just ask or mention something and I’ll try to find a way to give it to you, get it for you, find a discount on said item, help you raise funds, whatever. It’s my awkward spiritual gift. I think I have others that are less awkward.
4. I LOVE being married. Love it. Love pretty much everything about it (I won’t say everything because I’m sure there’s something…but I can’t think of anything right now that I would change). Jonathan’s the best husband and it’s so wonderfully wonderful that we get to see each other everyday. I love, love, love being married!
5. Jonathan has an uncanny ability to take photos of me making faces. Oddly enough, they are the same faces I made as a child. Please see below:
In the more recent photo I’m trying to be a pirate (see the hook on my finger), but more and more I am realizing I make this face often.
6. We scanned a ton of photos for a photo slideshow at our wedding that we never got around to creating, which is why you see photos of my childhood on the blog. Gotta use ‘em somehow.
7. I would rather be cold than hot. Cold=delicious warm beverages, cuddling, fires in the woodstove at my parents’ house. Hot=stinky, yucky, sweaty.
Hm. I don’t really have anyone to tag, so you’ll just have to sit around and be thankful for that!
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10.15.08
Posted in Cooking, fun, marriage, work at 7:42 am by kelly
October 15th is a BIG deadline here in the wonderful world of accounting. All June 30th fiscal year end organizations, people who extended their tax filing and employee benefit plans have to file their tax info. For those of you who know enough about my job to know I don’t work with the tax department, you may be wondering, “what does this have to do with you?!?!” well, to fill out those tax forms, they often need their financial statements. That’s where I come in. I’ve been pushing paper like a crazy person, a new paper cut everyday it seems. And now, the deadline is here and my office is sort of cleanish and will be cleaner by the end of the day! Oh boy! More importantly, I found out this morning that Jonathan got me an October 15th present! Yes, I will soon be the happy recipient of a new rack for the oven! (Right now we only have one oven rack.) Hooray for Jonathan! Thank you for thinking of a most delightful treat! I’ll post photos when it arrives, but right now all I can think about is baking two trays of cookies at one time!
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10.08.08
Posted in friends, fun at 8:02 pm by kelly
I have two very best friends that I met at camp. I love them. April was my personal attendant at my wedding because she’s one of the few people I know (aside from myself) that would prep a special “PA Bag” just for the occassion. And let’s face it, sometimes you want to know your best friend is there to help you go to the bathroom in that giant dress. Carrie is one of those people in my life for whom I have a distinct first impression and I admired her right away. She helped me pick the best bunk my first night at camp during staff training when I was the old first year counselor and she was my boss. She’s willing to do things like skip around with me in public, bears with me when I’m a jerk and forces me to talk things out when I am stubborn. April and Carrie area also hilarious. There is almost always hijinx when we’re together! I can’t figure out how to put this in the blog, so you’ll have to watch the little video here from the pre-wedding festivities a couple weeks ago to see what I mean. My favorite part is at the end when April says, “Oh, you’re precious” and Carrie says to the camera “I’m going to be Carrie Potter!?!?” to which April responds “Big time.” Love you, friends! Thanks for yelling “To Jonathan!” and singing with me at my wedding and for being such great encouragement all the time regardless of the situation!
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10.04.08
Posted in family, fun, marriage at 9:07 pm by kelly
Jonathan is officially a member of the family. He joined us today for Oysterfest 2008 at the Mason County Fairgrounds. Now, please keep in mind that this is not a fair. It is a FEST. There are no rides, no clowns, no face painting. There is an oyster shucking competition, there are various vendors offering things like bacon-wrapped oysters, grilled oysters, crabwiches, fried clams, oyster linguini, oysters on the half shell, barbequed oysters and of course there are the free raw oysters one is able to enjoy following the competition. Another item of note is that this event is clearly primarily for those native Washingtonians out there-today was rainy and windy and chilly, but people were not in their fashionable wellies and cute jackets. No. We mocked those with umbrellas and wore our fleece proudly. There were also people wearing something like this:
It’s a great day to be in Washington. The weather was a perfect salute to autumn. A day that said, “Hey, brew the whole pot of coffee, you’ll want another cup around 2:00 this afternoon.” Oh how I love it here. And now I’m off to dish out the apple crisp.
~Kelly
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10.02.08
Posted in fun at 8:13 pm by kelly
Jonathan and I were able to enjoy the Puyallup Fair on September 20th. Despite the rain, we had a great time!
Jonathan enjoyed his first ever funnel cake:
And we enjoyed Krusty Pup’s for dinner:
And played around on some fair games:
As well as enjoying some exhibits:
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10.01.08
Posted in fun at 10:34 am by kelly
This will be quick, but we had someone post a message on our blog about how he’d searched for “oatmeal for breakfast” and found our blog (we actually have quite a few hits from folks simply searching for oatmeal, I feel sort of bad about this and we may begin featuring oatmeal for this very reason). Well, this fellow happens to have written a very catchy song about oatmeal for breakfast. You can check it out here.
I’ll post more soon-there’s quite a bit in the reserves. Stay tuned!
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