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Tuesday 30 October 2012

A Little trip away to Conwy

To celebrate our Birthdays and Anniversary Jamie and I spent a couple of nights away in Conwy.
(I am now 26- I have just realised I only have 3 years left for my 30 before 30 challenge... it may be a long shot to try to complete every one!)

Conwy is a lovely little walled town in North Wales. 
We are big fans of Conwy and have visited many times, but we have never stayed before.
 We first visited because it has a brilliant castle (Jamie loves castles.)

We rented a little cottage within the walls.   


The aim of our trip was to relax, slow down and have some quality time.
We stayed inside the walls of the town, wandered through the pretty streets, sat in coffee shops, had a couple of lie ins, ate good food and watched films. 

It was lovely.

The port of Conwy is idyllic, with little boats floating in the estuary.


Conwy is famous for its mussels.






Getting away every now and them is essential for us. 
Jamie is in demand thanks to his job as a youth worker for our church. 
It is a really full on but extremely rewarding job. 
But it does mean we don't get to see each other as much as we would like.

Having a few days to just us helps us to reconnect with each other and with God.



Sunday 28 October 2012

An attempt at making Macarons


  My lovely friend Rachel has had the misfortune of being diagnosed as intolerant to Gluten, Dairy and soy. She is also highly allergic to peanuts and some other nuts.

 This is a problem as Cakes and treats made without proper flour are often a little gross. I tried to make Rachel a gluten and dairy free birthday cake- it didn't go well. It was a bit like a large biscuit. 

I expressed my concern that her intolerance is limiting her treat and cake intake and I like making cakes for my friends, So we came up with a plan...

Make things that are naturally gluten and dairy free first then move on to using gluten free stuff.

We started with Macarons!

We needed egg whites, ground almond, caster sugar, icing sugar. vanilla essence, gel dye and we cheated by using Betty Crocker icing for the filling (it is shockingly dairy free!)


I don't have an electric whisk so we used a hand whisk. Rachel was very impressed with my whisk - it has a little cage and a ball inside it.

 We got a little confused when making the first batch and made it far to runny, 'pipping it' didn't really happen, it was more of a pouring action


 We gave up trying to make them neat and just flooded the tray.
It was very funny. We just kept laughing - which probably didn't help!
 It was not good - We threw it away and tried again.
(the best sad face ever)
 Our next batch was MUCH better!
 We left them to rest for over an hour, we forgot about them whilst we were chatting. 
Baking with a good friend is great. 
Chatting over a cup of tea whilst baking is even better.
We eventually baked them and the turned out like this...

 They aren't very uniform or as shiny as they are meant to be, but we still felt proud of our creations.
 They didn't crack which I think is down to the excessive resting.
Rachel liked her's best dipped in a cup of coffee - we couldn't eat too many they are very sweet!

We will continue our baking adventures soon. It is really fun to have baking plans and to experiment with a friends, if it all goes wrong we can laugh and start again.

Thursday 25 October 2012

3 years of Marriage

Yesterday We celebrated our three year anniversary. 
Being Married to Jamie has so far been relatively easy and fun, 
we are very much in love but first we were and are friends. 
I found these photos from before we married and one before we were together. 
They made me laugh.

My Lovely Jamie
Thanks for the journey so far. 
I'm really looking torward to the next 63 years. 
Only God knows what will happen

Thursday 18 October 2012

#ThankfulThursday Rainbows

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow
Today I am thankful for Rainbows because as I was driving home today marveling at the rain falling from a bright sky I re-realised how extravagant our God is.

God did not have to make creation beautiful, He could just have made it functional, The sun and the rain are necessary for the life cycle of EVERYTHING. God not only came up with that awesome self renewing cyclical system, He made it that water and the composition of light are just so that when they interact in a specific manor, prism dispersion occurs causing a rainbow or two.

That is the nature of our awesome and extravagant God.


Thursday 11 October 2012

Playing in the allotment

I have a cold. and i'm feeling sorry for myself so i thought i would share some photos i took whilst helping James and Hannah weed and dig their allotment.
 It was one of the last really warm days this summer.
The four of us spent the day chatting and working, it was really enjoyable and i'm hoping we will be rewarded with some veg next year! 

It was lovely to spend time outside in the sun.

Thursday 4 October 2012

Wicked!! (30 before 30)

Last Saturday I traveled to London to meet my Mum, Sister, Sister-in-law and two nieces.


It was a good ladies gathering.
For all of our Birthdays Mum bought us tickets to see Wicked.

It was great.
I had wanted to see Wicked for years, it didn't disappoint.

I knew a few of the songs and a bit of the story before we went.



Afterward we got the tube to Covent garden and had dinner in TGI fridays
Buy this point everyone had got a little fed up of my incessant picture taking, which led to a very funny photo shoot...





I had a lovely day and now I get to cross off another 30 Before 30!