I was very excited when my friend Lara remined me of this great little breakfast.  Now, if you click on her name and go to her posting, it is much more in depth than mine is.   I thought this was a well know dish to all, but then when I was talking to MY SISTER, she had NO IDEA what I was talking about.  So, here you go, eggs in a nest....make them for your kids or your husband, they will love you for it. 

Use 100% whole wheat bread, because you just need to.  Cut holes in the middle of your bread. I like using fun shaped cookie cutters, but you use whatever strikes your fancy.

Next, melt some butter, my friend Lara says margarine is better in this dish, even though she detest margarine, I think Lara is a smart girl & follow her example often times, but this time I did not listen and I still used butter as I could not stand the thought of purchasing margarine. You just use whatever makes you feel more comfortable. 

After you have sorted out if you are going to use butter or margarine and it is melted in your pan, put your 100% whole wheat bread in the skillet, then break your egg and put it in the hole.  (Don't forget to put your little cut out in the skillet as well.)

Flip it.

Slap some jelly on your cut out, serve with bacon (oh baby, I love bacon), and fresh fruit. 

Girl really got into planning her birthday this year.  She wanted a animal theme party, she ask all her guest to dress as their favorite animal.  Girl was a cat. As the guest arrived they went out back to decorate their animal goodie bags.....

Once their goodie bags were done, they started their next activity....ANIMAL SCAVANGER HUNT!  The kids were really pumped about this and all had a great time collecting the items on there list. A few things listed were: a banana for the monkeys, peanuts for the elephants, a dog bone, cat food, goldfish and much, much more.  Here a few of them are going from house to house......

In the picture below one girl has a carrot in hand...ya know, to feed the rabbits.

And here they are attacking a neighbor before she even gets out of her vehicle....and guess what?!  She had a plastic spider in her van!

After the scavanger hunt it was time to snack on pigs in the blanket, goldfish crackers, animal cookies, Scooby-Doo dog biscuits, and animal shaped Jello Jigglers!

Once they were all done with snacks, they headed out back for more games.  They played pin the tail on the donkey....

Barrel of monkeys, and elephants on parade....

And what would a party be without a  piñata?!

Finally it was time for cake....

Girl had a great birthday!  Thanks to all of you who helped celebrate!

This past Saturday Hubby and I went to see Cirque du Soleil at Allegria Theater at the Jamsil Sports Complex.  This is the same area where much of the 1988 Olympics were held.  In the picture below there was a band playing and dancing going on.  We would have stayed to watch, but we didn't know how long it would take to pick up our tickets at “will call”, find the tent where our show was being held, and to find our seats. 

As it turns out, it didn't take long at all.  I should have know this, as most of the time whenever we go out to a "touristy" type place, there are always people that speak English, and if they don't speak English, they seem to understand what we want or what we are trying to say.   

All in all, we had a great evening, the show was well worth going to!  If you have a chance to see it, I would recommend going.  If you have older children I would take them. I would not recommend taking younger children; I think my 3 year old would have lost interest during parts of if. 

Happy Birthdy Girl!!


I can't believe you are 7! Where did all the time go?  Girl had a great birthday!  As per tradition, Girl got whatever she wanted for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  When ask a few weeks ago what she wanted, she told her Dad, "I want cinnamon rolls for breakfast, I want cinnamon rolls for lunch and I want cinnamon rolls for dinner!  Mom is going to be baking a lot on my birthday!" (I was able to sneak in a little protein, fruit and dairy into her diet today, but sadly no vegie's)  First thing in the morning she opened gifts, and then we had cinnamon rolls.

Remember this blog?  The one where we went to Sorak Mountain?  Remember we had a great time?  Well, it was a little more expensive than we thought.  I just go this in the mail:

The worst part of this is that I KNOW there are cameras EVERYWHERE!  They post when a camera is coming up.  I know this.  I had my cruise control set for most of the way.  ONE time, ONE TIME,  I started yapping & my lead foot got the better of me, I looked up just in time to see the camera, glance at my speed, throw on my brakes and start saying, CRAP, CRAP, CRAP, I think I just got a ticket. 

What can you do?

I was totally ready for Halloween.  Everyone that lived here last year said "buy your candy early for Halloween, it goes fast".  I like to be prepared, so I listened and bought TONS of candy because "they"  told me that you give out TONS of candy Halloween night.  Everything would have been just fine if my kids had not found it.  This box was FULL, OVERFLOWING with candy; in fact I could not even shut the box.  When I found this my first instinct was to be mad, but then I secretly started laughing!!  They really did some damage in the past month!

OH to be a child........

Life without the chocolate chip cookie would just be wrong. My love affair with the chocolate chip cookie dates WAY back.  My mom was not into baking,  and we never had baking ingredients on hand.  I remember my sister and I would scour the cook books looking for some sort of dessert we could make, but it always seemed we were missing something necessary, flour, sugar, chocolate chips, vanilla.  All of which are staples in my house now, and I normally have a backup "just in case".  

I remember when the Soft Batch cookies came out - they sent out a free sample. Wow, I was in heaven.  I was tempted to go through all the mailboxes of my neighbors and take their free samples.  I didn't do it.  BUT, every time I got a few extra dollars in my pocket this is what I bought......

So, today, I normally bake cookies or some sort of dessert (mostly cookies) a few times a week, you know, so my kids don't feel deprived like I did.  :)

This recipe is from the back of the Gold Medal flour bag.  I have been making it for years.  It makes a HUGE batch, so feel free to half it if you would like.

Extraordinary Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 ½ cups butter (I use with salt)
1 ¼ cups sugar
1 ¼ cups brown sugar
1 TBL vanilla
2 eggs
4 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 (24oz) bag semisweet chocolate chips

Throw in 2 cups of nuts if you like that sort of thing.

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.  In a large bowl, beat butter, sugars,  vanilla and eggs until light and fluffy.  Stir in flour, baking soda and salt – dough will be somewhat stiff.  Stir in chocolate chips.

On ungreased cookie sheet (I like to use a baking stone for these cookies & I preheat my stone) drop dough by tablespoons, 2 inches apart. 

I bake mine about 10 minutes…I like them very soft in the middle.  It you like them a bit more firm, cook them as per the directions, 11-13 minutes.

Makes 6 dozen luscious cookies

I like them best warm with a glass of cold skim milk!  

As you know, Hubby and I have date night every weekend.  Most of the time we find something new and exciting to do, but sometimes we just don't feel up to the challenge of a new place.  Here are on Yongsan there are 3 types of people:  1 - Those who NEVER leave post, seriously, there are people here that will not step outside the walls that surround us here on post.  Don't they know there is a bright vibrant world out there that is calling their name?  ANYWAY....  2 - Those who will only venture out to Itaewon.  Itaewon is right outside the military post, only a 1 minute walk. English is widely spoken here.  Itaewon is one of the most popular shopping and dining areas for foreign tourist.  In tourist magazines it is said that you see more foreigners in this area than Koreans and I believe them.  3. - The adventurous sort.  Those of us who will go anywhere Korea has to offer. 

With that being said, Hubby and I have tried to stay away from Itaewon, because we do not want to be considered a #2.  However this weekend a few of the girls wanted to have a girls night out, it was spur of the moment so we headed out to Itaewon where we discovered they were having their International Food Festival.  Now the girls and I did not stop off and try the food, we headed straight for a bar.  It had been a rough week for a couple of them....

I have no idea what the name of this place is, but the drinks were FANTASTIC!  We only had one drink here then headed out to another bar.  We had a great time.  When we were ready to come home, I called Hubby and he picked us up at the gate.  He's a good man. 

The next night was date night with Hubby.  Neither of us really wanted to go out, but we forced ourselves, so to make it easy on us, we just headed out to good ol' Itaewon.  The food festival produced some good food. Hubby and I stopped at a couple of place and tried food that resembled chicken or pork, all very good.  Hubby also had a really nice Russian beer.

Our next stop was to LOCO LOCA, this place was very interesting.  It was an Italian / Mexican restaurant / bar. Their chips and salsa left something to be desired.  Their "salsa" was marinara sauce, I kid you not.   I tried the margarita, which blew (nothing compared to mine).  Hubby had a mojito, which was fabulous!  He said it was the best mojito he has ever had!  Even though this Italian / Mexican / restaurant / bar was interesting to say the least, we really loved it here and will go back again.  Next time I will just order a mojito and stay away from the chips and marinara.  

This next picture is of one of the crazy chandeliers at Loco Loca.

The next place we went was the same place the girls and I went on Friday night.  I still don't know the name of it, but I do know they have the best Apple Martinis! I need to try and mimic this drink.   

We were on our way home when I ran into some of my friends, so we had to make one more stop.......

Where Hubby ordered SOJU and made me try it.  I was expecting something TERRIBLE, but really it wasn't bad. 

OMG, the construction around our house is OUT OF CONTROL!!!!  We have had construction going on around our house since early June.  Right next door they are remodeling an apartment; adjacent to our house they are remodeling the entire building, it is nice the left our parking space open.  (That is the backside of our new van)

Behind our house, out our backdoor, they are remodeling the playground. (The fence in the picture is our fence)

On Thursday, I was sitting at the table having coffee with the girls, and this is what I saw out our window....

I mean I could have opened the window stuck my hand out and touched the cement truck! So of course I had to run outside and snap another picture.....