New Hero Arts Stamps...

blinkie_bloom
Originally uploaded by The Hours Between

New Hero Arts stamps are coming.. HOORAY! I'm getting my shopping list ready... :)

Meet Betty!

Yes, it's 7:30am on a Sunday, why on earth am I awake? Maybe it's because I am so excited thinking of all the wonderful, delicious, delightful things I'm going to make with this little beauty! Meet Betty! Betty is my new Kitchenaid Artisan Mix Master. HOORAY!! {crowd applauds} Why Betty? Well, I wanted a bit of a retro name to go with the retro Ice Blue colour, Will suggested Johnny Rockets (after the cafe at Washington that we loved) but she's a girl machine (of course!) and I maybe would have considered it if she was red, but in blue I thought Betty suited much better {wink!}

I have wanted one for, like, ever, LOL! Well, a while anyway. Never more so than since watching Martha Stewart every day and watching her use it for everything, and since listening to Elena, my work friend and second baking mentor along with Mum, rave constantly about how awesome they are and how you can do so much with them. You know I do lots of baking so it's perfect for me! No longer do I have to stand there for 7 minutes beating egg whites with an electrical hand beater while my phone rings across the room and I can't go answer it lest I lose all the fluffy airation from the egg whites! I did my research and was tossing up between the Kenwood Mixmaster, which is what Mum has had and loved for 40 years and what I grew up using when we baked, and the Kitchenaid. I trawled the internet for reviews on both, looked for prices and sales, tossed up whether to wait for a super dooper sale or wondered if they never went on sale like ipods don't. I did too much wondering, some things you need to just buy. Cos during the week I couldn't stand it anymore, the constant internet trawling and searching for a sale, and so said to Will, "Can I buy a Kitchenaid this afternoon" and cos he's the most darling husband ever he said... "You're not gonna wait for a sale?"... not! Actually he really said "ok. You can use the wedding gift money." No really he did! Just like that. HOORAY!! Love you Willy! Cos I love Betty too! I got it from Your Home Depot online, but they also have a store at Castle Hill Supacentre (I paid for it online then picked it up at the storefront). They're on sale at the moment for $632 which is an awesome price. If you're in America and reading this... you have no idea how lucky you are to be able to buy one from Target USA for $200! Buy an extra one for me while you're there wont you??

The first recipe I made was Bahama Mama Banana Rum Cake from my newest cook book buy "Sticky, Chewy, Messy Gooey" by Jill O'Connor. Have I told you about the book? I was having a really bad day on the first Monday back at work after our Honeymoon. It was the realisation that the Wedding and Honeymoon was over and i didn't have another holiday booked in at work (always the most depressing part, even though I like my job!) and I was feeling rather down... I popped into Borders on my way to work and saw this book. I had a tiny flick through it, liked the LO, saw a recipe for "Sugar-Crusted Brownie Sundaes with Whiskey-Walnut Caramel Sauce" and was sold. Plus I thought it was a sign that all the recipe titles were written in our wedding font. Meant to be. I only paid $19 in Borders, don't let them rip you off by paying $30 as listed on their website! Check it out in store.

I love Banana cake and this recipe uses dark rum, (I used my fave Coruba Jamaican Rum) and it is delicious! I would show you a pic of the giant bundt cake I made, but it turned out a bit like a "snickers" cake (deliously ugly) cos the walnut crust stuck to the bottom of the cheap pan (mental note, buy a Nordicware Cast Iron Bundt pan when we go to Hawaii!) and I had to scrape it off the pan and stick it to the top with the sugar rum glaze....ugly, but able to be hidden under a sprinkling of icing sugar (thanks Mum for teaching me that!) So here is a mini rose bundt I made with left over cake mix. Isn't it gorgeous! It's a cast iron pan- now I see the value cos it slid right out! The big cake is for Will's Mum's birthday today. It's only her theoretical birthday, cos when they immagrated to Australia they had to list their birthday and neither she nor Benny knew their actual birthday, so they picked one. She chose May 30. Happy Birthday Cindy!

:) C

How about some Honeymoon shares?!

I've already gotten into the swing of Scrappin some Honeymoon pages! I know I have to do it while the holiday vibe is still with me, before work saps out all the happiness and wonderful memories {giggles} no not really... well, maybe a little bit.
I started out with one of my fave pics from our Honeymoon, one I took on my phone and texted to Felicity. I didn't want to just journal "here we are at the Statue of Liberty" cos that's kinda obvious so I wrote how excited I was to come home and find this pic in a frame on our dining table! Felicity had printed it, framed it and put it on the table with a note to say there was fresh bread and milk to help with the jetlag.. AND had blown up red, black and white balloons and filled our lounge room with them! It was so awesome to come home and still feel like we were super special! Thank you so much Felicity!! I have been hoarding this apple paper for about 3 years waiting for the perfect page.. there is no more perfect place to use it than for a page on the "Big Apple"! The glitter button was a RAK from Yvette during her recent "glitter everything in sight" phase- thank you {wink!}

Have you heard of Magnolia Bakery? They are the most famous Cupcake bakery in NY, and I was pleased to get a chance to indulge in a Banana Cupcake with Chocolate Caramel Buttercream frosting. It was delicious! I didn't see any celebrities there though {sigh!} In fact, the only "celebrity" (I use that lightly) we saw on the whole trip was one of the guys off the Thredbo ad, he's now on a Maccas ad, and he was sitting across from us on the plane back to Australia! Bummer! We did see Jerry Springer and Steve Martin on the big screen at our baseball game, does that count? When they put Jerry on the big screen, our whole section started chanting "Jerry! Jerry!" All we needed was a bitch fight between a midgit and a trailer park ho with no front teeth, and we would have really felt like we were on the set of the show! LOL! Back to the page... isn't the cupcake sticker the cutest? It's Martha Stewart, but I did accent it with some of my long-hoarded stash like the flower lace cardstock, the journal spot and the tab sticker! Oh I love to use up my stash! Well, I have to anyway seeing as I bought like 40 papers in the US! How can you turn them down when some were 65c??!

Catch you later, I think I'm going to go create now!

:) C

Our last & most "Magical" honeymoon stop....

Our last stop… DISNEYLAND! Oh I love Disneyland. In fact, if you ask Will he will attest to the fact that as we were walking from our hotel to the gate for the first time I was jumping out of my skin with excitement just like a 5 year old, I could hardly contain it! I was listing all the rides I wanted to go on, how I wanted to chase all the characters to get a pic with them, how I was going to eat a Mickey-head shaped pretzel etc etc! As soon as we entered the park I let the Magic of Disney overwhelm me J Unfortunately for Will he had a little too much “Magic” overwhelm him on the Space Mountain ride and was quite ill afterwards {sigh!} oh no!! It is one of my favourite rides and Will proclaimed he would “NEVER” go on that ride again. {Insert travel diary excerpt for this day: Dear Diary, my Husband is a pussy…”} We did get some classic pics on the rides though, for example Will’s scared face on Space Mountain while I have my arms up in defiance of this fast-paced, indoor, dark rollercoaster, his death grip on the front of our “log” on Splash Mountain while squeezing his eyes tight shut and letting out a huge “aaaahhhh” while I give it 2 thumbs up! LOL! It made for some hilarious belly laughs when we got off the ride and saw the pics! I tried to get Will to go on every ride with me at least once, but after seeing his face on the Teacups (who knew a grown guy could get sick on the Teacups??!!) I gave in and started going on the rides on my own {sad face}. But as soon as we got on the water rides Will gained some bravery and ended up enjoying himself so it wasn’t a total disaster. Which was good considering we had another 4 days at Disneyland! He loved the log ride in the end (good job for facing his fears I’d say!) and we both LOVED the Grizzly River Rapids, a “donut-shaped” raft rapid ride, at California Adventure Park, which is the second park Disney owns right across the way from Disneyland. We were at DL Mon, Tues, Weds, Fri, Sat and my tip is go on Tues/Weds cos they were by far the quietest days for us- in fact on Wednesday we only waited about 10 mins for the rides which is awesome! Mon/Fri was full of school groups, I counted over 20 separate groups (they always have team T-shirts so they’re easy to spot) on Friday, and they crowd on the big rides all together so the ride looks empty then all of a sudden there is 30 people in front of you, then their friends come along and cut in line as well {argh!} so go Wednesday!
On Thurs we went on a bus tour around LA. It was so cool to see places we recognise from TV & movies, like the Hollywood Sign, LA Ink, those amazing freeway exit “spaghetti” systems, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, and the Walk of Fame at Hollywood. Will had fun picking out his idols like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan {giggles} I chose Charlize Theron and took a pic standing on Celine Dion (not a fan)! We ate lunch at the LA Farmer’s Market and were surrounded by people talking about the movie they are in and one guy was pitching a movie idea to another guy at the table next to ours! How Hollywood is that?!
One thing we didn’t like about LA was Venice Beach. It was really really windy on this day and so the normal cool street vendors weren’t there and so we got to see the bones of Venice Beach without all the frills. I have never seen so many homeless people in my whole life, and they are all really young. We must have seen about 50 homeless teenagers as soon as we got off the bus. The shops are all either shut and totally covered in graffiti or are selling medical marijuana and trying to solicit you off the sidewalk. It was so gross! We stayed near to the bus cos we didn’t want to get mugged! It really felt like that. It was like getting off the bus on the Redfern side of Surry Hills. Will is considering getting an STI by touching this payphone, gross!
Thankfully, it was back to Disneyland for another 2 days to calm our sensibilities! We had gotten Mickey Ears earlier in the week and so wore them all around the parks during our visit! They have these new style ones where you can choose the base, the ears and the patch separately and they put them all together for you! I got a “Just Married” patch with Cinderella and Prince Charming on it and got “Mrs Lam” embroidered on the back which was awesomely cool! Will got a black hat with silver ears and “Willy” on the back ;) It was cool cos the DL workers are trained to interact with you so whenever we got on a ride they’d always say “Congratulations!”, we felt special!!
We had such an awesome “Adventure Honeymoon!”, thanks for sharing it with me!
:) C

A surprise awaited at the Grand Canyon!

We set off for the Grand Canyon, with me at the wheel of our cool Pontiac G6, to see one of the 7 wonders of the natural world. We had no idea an awesome surprise awaited us! We passed through Kingman which was pretty cool for me! Though I had just signed over my name at our Wedding {wink!}, we passed semi-desert with red red sand, miles and miles of no trees, tiny scrubby shrubs, tumbleweed (who knew it was actually a real thing and not just in Western Movies!) and as we got closer and closer to the town of Williams there started to be trees and... oh my gosh... there was snow on the top of the hills and in the forested areas! What?! I hadn't even thought that there might be snow around!

Once we got to our hotel at Tusayan, we dumped our stuff and headed out to the car again for the trip to the Canyon. I was a bit perplexed by how slow the rain was falling and I said to Will, it looks like snow" but I tried to catch it and once it landed it was like rain. I was confused! But once we got in the car and started driving it really started snowing!! We made a few stops along the drive to Grandview lookout and when we stopped at this cool one with the amazing hoo-doo in the background the snow was coming thick and heavy! Would you believe it was the FIRST TIME WILL HAD EVER SEEN SNOW IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE!! What a cool thing to be on our honeymoon, seeing snow for the first time, and for there to be enough that it was sitting all over Will's jumper, in his eyebrows, in his hair! Oh it was so exciting! Oh, and it was FREEZING also!! We had so much fun playing in the falling snow! Tasting it, having it fall in your eyes and catch on your eyelashes, cuddling up inside our jumpers cos it was so so cold! In fact I had to wear a jacket of Will's that he bought in Washington cos I didn't even have a weatherproof jacket cos I didn't think it would be that cold! Oh it was exciting! I haven't experienced falling snow since 2003 in Tasmania so I was loving it too! Will had to drive super slow between the lookouts cos the snow was falling hard and the visibility was really bad! It was such a cool adventure :)

We headed toward Grandview lookout which was the first lookout at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Once we got there, the snow stopped falling, the clouds parted and the sun shone on the canyon off in the distance! WOW! It looked just like a hollywood backdrop! I wouldn't have been surprised if some stage hands walked past, picked up the view and walked off with it! But no, it was real! It was so beautiful, the colours of the canyon were superb- lots of pinks, oranges and reds, it was just awesome! You know what the best thing about it was- it felt like a real adventure travelling in the snow (especially for 2 summer-loving Aussies!) and we had the lookouts pretty much to ourselves, there was hardly any other tourists braving the weather! But what a gorgeous view they missed out on!

We chatted with one guy at Grandview who said they'd seen a bunch of Elk on their way to the lookout so we got back on the road and went Elk hunting (with our cameras at least!) We got one!! Just as we entered the area of the Grand Canyon Village an Elk took a walk across the road and we had to give way to him! He even stopped on the other side and did the whole "Northern Exposure head-turn pose!" We ended up seeing 4 Elk in the end which was cool :)

On our way back to Vegas the next day we stopped off at Hoover Dam to take some pics. We could even see a MASSIVE fish in the water which got Will excited. I think he was missing his fishing rod a lot! We saw 2 turtles kissing too which I named Charlotte and Will {giggles} . They are building a ginormous bridge right over the top of the river near Hoover Dam, they were just starting when I visited in 2006 and it's still not done! The traffic crawls over the Dam wall, and Buses and trucks aren't allowed on it at all which made Will wonder if it was gonna crack and spash into the water as we drove over LOL! It didn't. We didn't walk over it cos there was shopping to be done in Vegas {belly laugh!} and we wanted to get on our way!

All in all our trip to the Grand Canyon was absolutley fantastic! We loved hiring the car and cruising the long, arrow straight roads of Arizona with the radio cranked, chatting and singing along. It was so much fun!

:) C

Viva Las Vegas!

Stop 3 on our American Honeymoon was Las Vegas!! I love Vegas, it’s so over the top and out of this world! I love when you fly in you can see the totally flat city with these monumental giant Casinos rising out of the strip! It’s awesome! I love all the different themes of the hotels and this time we stayed 1 night at Paris Las Vegas, then 2 nights at the Bellagio after our trip out to the Grand Canyon. I have always wanted to stay at the Bellagio, and each time I have been to Vegas I have stood out the front and watched that water show and imagined what it would be like to actually stay there… and this time we really did!! Paris LV was also a lovely hotel inside, our room was nice but it was on the 9th floor and overlooked not much! We had a view of the top of the shops and a sneaky view through the hotel off to the west, but it was nothing spectacular.
We hired a car in Vegas and I drove for the first day cos Will hadn’t experienced driving on the other side of the road before! Seeing as I had control of the car, as soon as we picked it up we headed out to a Scrapbooking shop I had googled before we left! {giggles} I’ve got my priorities right!! I think it was a bit of an expensive shop, but it was still cheap (probably about 2/3 the price) compared to what we pay here! While in Vegas we also visited Michaels (kinda like Spotlight only much much better) where I got a lot more stuff (Marvy, EK Success and Martha Stewart punches especially) at super cheap prices compared to here! YAY!
After we checked in to Paris we went to explore around the giant Casinos. We had the most delicious Ice Cream sundae at Ghiradelli (I thought of you Yvette!) and walked through the beautiful Venetian, past the new Palazzo which was being built last time I was in Vegas, over to Mirage and TI where we had dinner. You can just spend so much time walking up and down the strip, and it’s really long cos the blocks the casinos are on are massive! So don’t think you can just nip from TI to Mandalay Bay cos it’s a long long way. And the traffic crawls too so I don’t think the bus is much better! We walked up and down the strip on both our stays and also took a bus out to Downtown LV which is the older part, and I have to say the dodgier part- Will was very uneasy there so we didn’t stay long. I wouldn’t really recommend it.
We did lots of factory outlet shopping in Vegas too, although I had to go a bit easy on the buying cos my bag was already so full! But we were lucky that we had a car cos I just filled that up instead {belly laugh}. No, I really had to buy a second bag in Vegas, and Will had a second bag too, mostly full of my stuff {hehehe}, thankfully the baggage allowance from LA to Sydney is 32kg!
After our trip to the Grand Canyon we came back to stay 2 nights at Bellagio. Would you believe I have not one pic inside our room? I have video though so you’ll have to come over for a coffee and a video day! The Bellagio was just what I hoped it would be. When we arrived the lovely lady at reception upgraded us cos it was our honeymoon (I shamelessly wrote it in the “special comments” bit when you book- hey, it paid off!) and she gave us a strip view room! Hooray! We were on the 6th floor but could see the private suites below with their private plunge pools, we could see Paris LV, Bally’s, Flamingo, Planet Hollywood, part of Caesar’s Palace and best of all, we could see the water show from our room!!!! Hooray!!!!! Pic at right is our view! My favourite thing about the room though was that you could operate the blinds from a panel next to the bed, so I kept opening and closing them while laying in bed! And in the morning I just pressed the button, the blinds opened and was like “Hello Vegas!!” as Will groaned cos of the bright desert sky in his face! LOL! Hillarious. We ate breakfast at the Bellagio Pool Café and it was so so beautiful. (Mind you, it cost us $60 for breakfast, so it had better be beautiful! LOL!) It looks as though you’re in a Mediterranean hot spot with blue as blue water, lush green gardens, stone arbours and gorgeous stone fountains! We loved it!! The Bellagio also has an amazing garden atrium inside where they make scenes out of masses and masses of flowers. It was so beautiful! This time it had giant ants, snails with shells made from rows and rows of roses, a frog made from green flowers etc! Great for a look even if you don’t stay at Bellagio.
Hope you’re still enjoying our trip! I’ve done some scrappin already so I can’t wait to share that with you soon too!
:) C

Second Stop.. Washington DC!

Washington DC was our second stop on our honeymoon and the only place we were visiting which I hadn’t been to before (it was Will’s first trip to the mainland US). We had a great time there! It was so cool to see all the famous national buildings and statues in person! Very impressive! It hadn’t really occurred to me just how old all the buildings in Washington would be. I had heard of Georgetown- that it was a fancy shopping area full of old buildings and guessed it was going to be like the Rocks area of Sydney, but Washington had so many old BEAUTIFUL buildings all over. I mean our Neighbourhood was FULL of gorgeous old houses, just like Dollshouses, and beautiful old schools and small hotels like ours. I really loved the houses of Washington! Will kept saying “Well, why don’t you move here then?!” I wonder if I can convince work to buy a Pathology company in DC, they have them everywhere else in the US!
Back to the important buildings… Well our hotel was only a 15 min walk to the White House and the National Mall so we walked everywhere in DC. Even over the Potomac River to Arlington Cemetary, which was a bit of a hike! The White House was pretty cool to see IRL! We even saw the snipers on the roof! The flags were all at half mast but I’m not sure why. Obama was in DC too cos we saw him on the news, not IRL though, bummer!

After the White House we moved on down to the National Mall (the long strip of government buildings) and over to the Washington Monument. Ok, I new it was big, but I just didn’t imagine that it was THAT BIG!! That thing is GIGANTIC!! A man pointed out that it’s made of 2 different coloured stone cos they stopped building during the Civil War then took it up again after. It’s just so so so so big. We had so much fun taking the ridiculous “look, I’m leaning on the monument!” pics, and I have one of Will “holding” it and there’s one where I’m wearing it on my head etc. LOL!! We looked so stupid doing it, but I have to say we weren’t the only ones! And yes, Will does need to pull his pants up, he doesn't have such tiny short legs!

Next it was on to the Lincoln Memorial past the Reflecting Pool which you’ll recognise from Forrest Gump! As soon as we got to Lincoln they herded everyone out cos there was a “Suspicious Package” and they had to call in the police and the Bomb Dog!! It was very cool to be in a bomb scare, LOL! We waited about 15 mins while they cleared the area and the dog checked it out then a family came rushing back cos their 12yo son had left his backpack next to Lincoln and it was what they thought was the suspicious package! The poor kid, cos his Dad was so annoyed that he had caused a national memorial incident and was pretty furious! Not to mention the 150 people looking on from the steps outside! I think Linc is my fave American president. He looks like you could just sit up his lap and tell him all about your day! LOL!! We saw a second baseball game in DC and they had a “president’s race” where there were 4 men dressed up with these giant oversized heads that were 4 presidents! There was Lincoln, Jefferson, Grant and someone else I can’t remember. It was hillarious! Lincoln won, mostly cos I was cheering him on {tongue in cheek!}

Arlington Cemetary was just amazing, the same white head stones just go on and on over the rolling hills and off in to the distance. It looks just like in the movies or NCIS! I kept my eye out for Gibbs but didn’t see him {wink!} It was very moving to be there and we walked up to JFK’s grave too. It also has a pretty good shopping centre nearby at Pentagon City so I made sure we made a visit there too :) They said at the current rate the cemetary will be full by 2020 so they are petitioning to expand it so it will last til 2060. Now that's a lot of these white head stones!

The Capitol Building is MASSIVE too! They do like their impressive Government buildings! We thought we were at the front of the Capitol until we walked around the other side and found the other "front"- the famous side from all the pics :) By that time I had exhausted all my poses and so we devised the "jump" pic! It was fun and it turns out White Girls can Jump! LOL! It only took Will 2 goes to actually get me in the air (the other pic looks like I'm trialling some weird new dance move involving a flamingo-like stance with flailing arms) {laughs}. Will also perfected his star jump at the Capitol. You can do tours though you have to book in etc and we're not that organised (or apparently, that interested).

We visited a couple of the Museums in Washington, though after walking everywhere I have to say I was quite stuffed so didn't have a huge amount of patience- I know I know, how very uncultural of me! All the Museums in Washington are free too BTW, which is pretty cool for tourists! We went to the National Air and Space Museum and the Native American People museum. I did feel a bit like the Native American museum was there out of political obligation, cos there was hardly any exhibits, only one giant shop of Indian Crafts. I think the government could put a bit more effort in cos the Air and Space museum had about 100 times the exhibits! There was a travelling photo exhibit about American Indian assimilation of white and Negro cultures which was quite cool but that was about it.

Our morning out in Georgetown was so beautiful, the old streetscapes were so beautiful and I found my first cardmaking store! Hooray! We had a beautiful morning tea at Dean & Deluca where I got a Red Velvet cupcake (will make an appearance in a later post!) and real espresso coffee! YAY!

So I'll leave you with a bunch of pics of the gorgeous houses in Washington, plus one more of the Washington Monument cos I still can't get over just how big that thing is!!

:) C

Did I mention it was big?