Weekend(s)...please get here sooner!

I know, I know. It's Thursday night, which means it's ALMOST the weekend, but I'm very excited for this weekend. And the next. And the next! And, well, the next! And here's why!

This weekend I'll get to see my LUFFLY bestie, the other Amy! She turned 21 on Monday, so I'm headed up to Seattle to have some lovely 21-year-old time with the most wonderful girl ever!!!

The next weekend, the first weekend in Feb., the famous bassist extraordinaire, Victor Wooten, is coming to our lovely little college. He'll be talking about his book, The Music Lesson, (which I still need to finish...oopsies!) and then will be having a jam session with one of my most favorite music professors and a student drummer (Joe, who is a housemate and friend of my boyfriend's brother). PRETTY SWEET! That also means that Dustin's aunt Cathy, his grandma, and his two cousins, Geoff and Steven, will be coming up from Oregon (Portland and Eugene, respectively) to see this amazing event! That means I get to see them and spend more time with them!!! Always a plus! =)

The following weekend I plan to make Valentine cake pops with the dear Cailin.  I've gotten her addicted and promised she could help me make my Valentine's cake pops! Baking weekend it is! And, I suppose there's the little detail of celebrating ♥ Valentine's Day ♥ with my sweet boy that weekend since I'll be busy with school on the 14th and I'm pretty sure Dustin will have choir rehearsal that Monday night.

Then the NEXT weekend, I get to go to one of my most favorite things! I'll be going to Bellevue, WA (about 40 min. away) to attend the WMEA (Washington Music Educators Association) conference. It sounds dorky, but I LOVE getting to spend a whole two days just going to workshop after workshop about how to be a better teacher (or in my case, how to eventually become an awesome teacher!) It's a music educators delight, and I simply can't wait!

In the mean time, however, it's on to finish the rest of my homework! Good thing everything I needed for tomorrow is done. Now it's just working ahead so I can enjoy my WEEKENDS!!!!! =)

Ramblings of Randomness

Hooray for the first weekend of the semester! Here's a rundown of what went down...starting a little early with Thursday!

Thursday:

-January 20th just so happens to be my favorite former-roomie's birthday! So, it worked out that I was able to celebrate with her by going to Gig Harbor to meet up with her Aunt Bev. We enjoyed a delicious dinner at The Green House and then ventured over to the neighboring movie theatre to see the movie 'The King's Speech.' I was VERY excited about this because I had heard so many great things about the movie and was very anxious to see it. Colin Firth was fabulous. If you haven't seen it, shame on you. GO SEE IT!

Friday:

-Finished my whole 3 classes. Hooray for my shortest day of the week!

-Collected a HUGE stack of free music from my choir director. He had extra copies and was dying to give them away to someone like me...a future educator who needs to start her own music library! =)

 -Ran errands with the boy so I could get my 'bake' on this weekend.

-Made a yummy dinner of chicken quesadillas with Dustin

-Went to a concert featuring one of my professors on saxophone. Yay Fred Winkler!

- Enjoyed cuddling with my boy and watching one of my MOST favorite movies, 'Little Miss Sunshine.'

A lame attempt at showing just how much music Dr. Zopfi gifted me!

DO YOU SEE HOW MUCH MUSIC HE GAVE ME!?! I was beyond excited! My goal this summer (if not before) will be to go through each piece, listen to it (if possible), and categorize it in my computer for future use.

Saturday:

-Woke up and made a delightfully delicious breakfast of french toast using cinnamon raisin bagels! How brilliant is that? It tasted SO good!

-Made CAKE POPS in honor of Hope's birthday! I wanted to write 'Happy Birthday' on them, but didn't know how to go about it. But the brilliant idea hit me to take a plastic baggy, poke one corner with a toothpick, and fill as a piping bag! IT WORKED GREAT!

- Cleaned Dustin's apartment

-Worked out...hooray for fitness!

-Played the boy in cribbage and WON!

-Baked another WONDERFUL meal of lemon chicken with green beans and potatoes. I HIGHLY recommend this recipe. It's SO EASY... and healthy! Here's the recipe!

-Saw 'Easy A' at campus films with the lovely Ms. Cailin

-Watched 'Jurassic Park' with Dustin and Cailin

My cake pops!

Our YUMMY lemon chicken (pre-cooked. I forgot to get a picture post-cooked! BUT IT WAS GREAT!)

Sunday:

-Got an MSM (Magical Sandwich Makers) chicken Caesar sandwich

-Did some homework

-Bought some VERY cheap almond rocca at our local almond rocca factory outlet

-More cleaning of Dustin's apartment

-Played some more cribbage...but he won this time =(

-Made the best dinner we've ever made since we've started our cooking gig. It consisted of baked potatoes, left over green beans, and New York strip steak with caramelized onions. We were both in heaven and didn't say much during the meal except for grunts of approval for our new found Rachel Ray skills! Thanks to my mom for reminding me (yet again) of our favorite homemade meat marinade, and to Dustin's mom for gifting him the George Foreman grill we used to cook the steak!

This picture does this meal no justice what-so- ever

I came home tonight to give Hope her birthday surprise! We enjoyed a couple pops with our suitemate Beth! Happy Birthday Hope!

On to battle week 2 of the new semester! What? A FULL week...Monday included? What is this nonsense? =P

Spring Semester '11...Oh Boy!

WHOO. I've had exhausting semesters before, especially since transferring to UPS, but SHOOT this semester is going to whoop my booty! I'm taking a full course load, which at Puget Sound is 4.25 unit credits (each unit is equal to 4 semester hours, so around 17 hours), but then I'm also a member of the Adelphian Concert choir which meets every day for an "activity credit," and I'll be in the opera production (taken for zero credit - just an additional commitment.) I'm also going to be doing a teaching practicum at a local elementary school, as well as looking for volunteer opportunities in the Tacoma schools, all while trying to balance school work, babysitting, a social life, and a desire to work out regularly. Phew. Three days into the spring semester and my head is already spinning!

The good news is, nothing is really freaking me out...yet. I'm in class 90% of the time, and so far they are all subjects I enjoy (for the most part), but it's a time management thing. Here's my schedule:

Wednesdays will be either/or with my teaching practicum and elementary ed. class. There won't be a time when I do both in the same day. So that part of my schedule is kind of deceiving, but still...I'M BUSY! Then I'll have voice repertoire to practice and sanity to maintain!

Wish me luck as I attempt to keep all my plates spinning! =)

Celebrating Our 1st Dating Anniversary!

Well I'm officially back in Tacoma, ready to go for the new Spring semester (ok...back? Yes. Ready to go? Not so much. I'll get around to that eventually!) 

I got back into town on Saturday, the 15th, and Dustin picked me up from the airport. The next day, we dedicated to celebrating our 1 year dating anniversary! Although our "official" date is the 17th, it simply worked out better to celebrate on the 16th due to our schedules. Dustin was picking up his brother at the airport and has choir later tonight, and just the fact that I have an 8:30am class tomorrow morning was enough reason for me to skip out on a night of celebration! Gotta hit the hay early, ya know?

So! Our day consisted of waking up and going to a delicious breakfast at Knapps in the Proctor district. While we've done breakfast at another local favorite, Shakabrah, I just wasn't in the mood for their rather greasy breakfasts! So Dustin suggested this new place. It was scrumptious! 

Then we planned on seeing 'The King's Speech' at The Grand Cinema in downtown Tacoma. By the time we finished our 2 games of Cribbage (it's our new relationship bonding experience, although a match often results in one of us being unhappy while the other is elated by his/her win! Such is life) and found a parking spot, we were too late to obtain tickets at the tiny, local theatre. We simply went back to Dustin's apartment to think of Plan B.

Dustin mentioned a dollar theatre in Federal Way (a bit of a drive away, but oh well!). We looked up what movies were playing there, and saw 'The Social Network,' which we both wanted to see. So we popped in an episode of Glee to pass the time until we needed to leave!

The movie was great, but longer than we were expecting! Who knew they could make a 2+ hour movie about Facebook? haha. The best part of seeing that movie, however, was the price. 2 tickets for a grand total of $4? Yes please!!!

We got back from the movie and promptly got ready for our dinner out at THE MELTING POT! Mmmmm!

We cleaned up pretty nice, see?

We enjoyed a delicious dinner of Caesar salads, Wisconsin cheese fondue, and milk chocolate fondue, along with a beer and glass of wine (his and mine)...all for HALF PRICE because we ate in the bar and took advantage of all day happy hour on Sundays! Huzzah! We like deals!

I was the typical girl and asked our waiter to take a picture for us!

Once we got home, it was GIFT time! My favorite, especially since I was super excited to give Dustin the gift I had worked on endlessly for the past 2 days.

Here's what I made for him!

Having researched that 1st anniversaries typically entail 'paper' gifts (yes, I know this is traditionally for MARRIED couples, but shh...it doesn't matter!), I made him a paper bag scrapbook. Poor kid, he's probably entirely scrapbooked out since my mom just made him one over New Years, but oh well! I wanted to make him another one!

The book is quite literally made out of brown paper lunch bags. Simple as that! You fold them over, punch them, and tie them together. Then you go to town decorating the pages and filling the bag openings with goodies!

 Each page is dedicated to a month of our past year, with highlights and pictures of those months! Pretty smart, huh? I kept the theme red, green, blue, and cream. I loved how it turned out! Here are a few sample pages of what I did...

The cover:

February:

March:

July (I think my favorite page):

September:

And December (a close tie for my other favorite page):

Then in the pages that had bag openings and could hold goodies, I loaded up coupons (that can be redeemed for things like a guys' night out or a back scratch, which he loves). I also added handmade lotto tickets that he can scratch off for more surprises, in addition to REAL scratch off lotto tickets (in the hope that he'll strike it rich!) I've also kept a journal of our entire relationship, and I printed off little excerpts to include in this present for him to read about (from my point of view) and remember our past memories!

I made him take a picture with his present...

Dustin's gift to me was a movie night kit! He found my most favorite wine, a delicious Riesling, our favorite chocolate pie from The Met, 'Meet the Fockers,' and my very own Cribbage set (huzzah!). He put it all in a very cute pink bucket (he knows me so well).

So that was our night in a nutshell! Happy 1st Anniversary to us! =)

Baking...Bakerella Style!

So Nadine introduced me to this site Bakerella.com back over the summer when she discovered THESE! I was so amused that I started perusing the site more and more, finding the most adorable creations ever...AND ALL OUT OF CAKE!

When I discovered she had a cookbook out, I knew I wanted to get my hands on it! I requested it for Christmas, and my brother and future sister-in-law bought it for me! It's such a fabulous cookbook. I highly recommend it! Everything is so well laid out and helpful, not to mention it's chock-full of the most darling ideas ever!  

So today, I set out to complete my first set of Bakerella cake pops! I had my heart set on her darling cupcake pops.

Adorable, no?

And so it began!

Here's about all you need to get the party started!

You bake any old box cake in a 13X9 pan and let it cool completely.

Then you crumble the cake so it's very fine and there are no large chunks. This resulted in me removing (and eating..shhh) all of the outer layer...anything golden brown that was slightly crunchy.

The resulting cake dust! Whoo!

Then you do this...

Yup. You schlep a whole glob of frosting into the mix and mash it up. As this was my first time attempting cake pops, I didn't know what to expect. After tasting the final product, however, I think I used too much frosting. Next time, I think I'll cut down as the cake bites were all rather mushy and not very cakey.

After the frosting was mixed in...

Then you ball up the cake into 1 1/2" balls. Again, after doing this now, I think I would have scaled the size down a little bit. My lil' cupcakes turned out to be a little more honkin' than I expected!

You let these chill in the freezer for 15ish minutes to firm up. In the meantime, you can get your other ingredients ready!

 Oooooh! Sprinkles! Pretty colors!

After they've had time to cool, you have to roll the balls into cylinders and smoosh them through a flower cookie cutter, but only a little ways through. That makes the base of the cupcake. You then have to shape the top of the pop to make it like the rounded top of a cupcake, like so:

Back in the freezer for another chill sesh!

Then you melt your dipping chocolate and get ready to rumble!

You dip the bottoms in, only up to the rounded part, set them round side down, dip a lollipop stick in chocolate, and insert it into the cake pops. This ensures the stick will stay put and the cake won't fall off! What a catastrophe that'd be!

They looked a little naked...but not for long!

 This next step was my most favorite part of the entire decorating process! The cupcakes come together quickly (just like Bakerella said they would), and the results make you giggle with glee with how delightfully adorable they are!

I melted white chocolate and tinted some purple and some pink, leaving the remaining white. Then I went to town!

I added both dot sprinkles and jimmies to the pops for some variety, but personally, I liked the look of the dot sprinkles much better. I thought the jimmies were just a little too bulky and overwhelming, but I still liked the variety. We were lacking the mini M&Ms the recipe called for, so instead I tapped into our ridiculous stash of redhots to add that final cherry on top! =)

Here's how they turned out!

Pretty adorable, huh?

One hiccup, though completely minor, was forewarned in the cookbook. Sometimes, if you roll the cake bites too tightly, the cake wants to expand once it's dipped in the chocolate coating and will crack, like so:

We had two casualties, but that's ok! We ate them! =)

So note to self: don't roll the balls so tightly next time and hopefully the chocolate won't crack!

Oh, and did I mention I have a new adorable baking apron from etsy.com that my mommy got me for Christmas? (I just checked...it's not on the market anymore. Sorry!) It's only my new favorite (and very appropriate for these cupcakes, if I do say so myself!)

Happy baking! 

Christmas Break Thus Far!

It amazes me that Christmas break is nearly over! I head back to Tacoma on Saturday, and will be back starting this semester's classes come Tuesday! Where has the time gone? Well...I'll tell you where!

At the start of break, I traveled by car to San Jose, CA with Dustin, his brother Dylan, and his best friend Ricky. We stopped in Portland, OR to stay with his family, the Thomas (Cathy, David, Steven, and Geoff). It was fun getting to see them all again and enjoy an early Christmas dinner with everyone! It was also great meeting Steven's girlfriend, Natalie, and the Thoma's South African friend, Bianca. Both were wonderful company in a house FULL of rowdy boys! =)

The next day we headed out for the LONG drive to San Jose, CA. The trip ended up being longer and much more stressful than we ever anticipated due to horrible weather just over the OR/CA border. Thank goodness Dustin was driving, because I would have lost my cool. It was dark, and the snow made driving conditions impossible. I've never had driving vertigo, but this threw my mind for a loop. I couldn't tell which way was up and even though we were moving forward, it didn't feel as though we were moving at all! We eventually pulled into Dustin's driveway around 11:30pm and were POOPED! It was so much fun getting to see his parents, Dirk and Carol, however!

We celebrated Dustins' golden 23rd birthday this trip, which was so much fun! We spent some time downtown San Jose at a Christmas celebration with TONS of Christmas Trees decorated with different themes.

Just down the street, we met up with Dirk, Carol, Dylan, Nadine, and Ricky to celebrate Dustin's birthday dinner out. The food was SO YUMMY! And even though we were stuffed, Dustin got a birthday slice of cake that was quite tasty! 

 

We got home and Dustin opened his birthday presents. I made him a San Francisco Giant's clock for his apartment.

 

That night we also celebrated an early Christmas. The Damonte Family tradition is to stuff stockings with TONS of individually wrapped little gifts. Carol made me my very own, and I had SO much fun opening all my little goodies (including MINNIE EARS to celebrate our recent Disneyland trip from this summer!)  =)

 

My Christmas present to Dustin was paying for part of his airplane ticket out to Colorado, so I devised up this clever little candy-gram to give to him as the actual gift! It reads: "Hey Big Hunk, For Christmas this year, I thought it'd be Jolly if my SweetTart Rolo - ed his way over to Colorado to visit! So I used part of my PayDay to buy you a ticket to see me! When you land, I'll greet you with 1,000 Kisses! Merry Christmas! Love, Amy. P.S. I hope my KitKat doesn't make you sneeze Now and Later."

 Clever, huh? I thought so!

Dustin surprised me later (in Colorado) with my Christmas present. We're going to get all gussied up, have dinner in Seattle, and see Don Giovanni at the Seattle Opera!

The next day was Dustin's actual birthday, and his only wishes were to play disc golf and go see the San Jose Sharks play. Well...one of those wishes came true! Behold...DISC GOLF at DeLaveaga!

That night, after a failed attempt to snag seats at the San Jose Sharks game, the whole gang headed back to the Damonte's to watch the game on t.v. Oh...and eat this...

 ...the Spongebob cake I made Dustin

That's my boy!

I headed home the next day, on Christmas Eve, and joined my family is all of our festivities!

My parents were awesome and got me this as my main present this Christmas!

They sent me on a scavenger hunt around the house to collect the picks, guitar strap, stand, case, and finally...MY NEW GUITAR! WHOO HOO!

I've spent a lot of time seeing friends and relaxing at home. Come New Year's Eve, Dustin flew into town to spend some time here in snowy Colorado!

We ate our traditional New Year's Eve fondue feast! YUMMO!

 HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011!!!

The rest of his stay we enjoyed spending time with friends, eating dinner at Buca di Beppo with Michael, Mindy, and her parents, viewing the Christmas lights at the Hudson Gardens, spending time with Michael and Mindy, see the AMAZING show 'Next To Normal' downtown Denver, and going to Jump Street to get our hour work out jumping from trampoline to trampoline!

Now that Dustin is back in Tacoma, I'm busy finishing up my break in Colorado. I've been decorating cakes at Coldstone again...like this one...

(Spongebob seems to be a theme this break... except funny story. This particular cake wasn't supposed to be decorated as Spongebob. Whoopsies!)

And my latest baking fixation has been with Bakerella.com and her adorably dainty cake pop creations! Today, I set out to create her cupcake pops. My all day decorating extravaganza will be the topic of my next blogging rampage! However, for the time being, I feel as though this summation of my break has been long enough! 

Signing off!