Grimmy Snow Time!

Actually meant to post this last week, but I've been a little side tracked with other things...

Alrighty, so a week ago, we started getting some snow! YAY! I remember when Piper experienced her first time with it, she was in heaven! Sadly, I wasn't able to get it on video then, but this time around, I managed to get Grimms first experience on my handy dandy iPad!

I wish I could get this excited over the little things, lol. Unfortunately,the snow melted off the same day...and ever since, it's been raining on and off. The weather forecast is calling for some more snow this week, but we'll see how that goes. I just want some more Belgian winter weather before we roll out to the desert! 

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FLUFFY!!!!

IT'S HAPPENED! 

It finally snowed!! AHHHH!!

We've been hearing rumblings and rumors about potential snow on and off for the last several weeks, yet, it never snowed. You'd bet your life on it that we were gonna get snow then because it was FREEZING for the last month, but still, no white landscapes or anything. Truth be told, I was getting a little jealous of my friends in the States who were posting pics of their snow days and what not. I'm a cold weather person, what can I say?

Anyway, Eric came in the bedroom to wake me up with his good-bye kiss, he said "It snowed last night and it's still snowing right now". The the front door! Really? I didn't wanna believe him because I know he likes to screw we me, especially when he knows I'm still groggy from just waking up, lol. Sure enough, SNOW! SNOOOOOOW!! Even Piper was excited to check it out!

Once she was all done investigating (and getting snow all in her beard), she decided she wanted to appreciate the new scenery from inside our nice, warm house :)

More importantly, I FINALLY got to use my snow shovel!! I'm sure you're wondering why I'm so thrilled to use it. Ya seeeeee.... when we bought it during the winter in 2010, I couldn't find one on the economy since they were all sold out. Everywhere. So, I bought one off of Amazon for a reasonable price..but they wouldn't ship to APO. Long story short, I used my Ship-It-APO account because, hey, the shovel doesn't weigh that much. I didn't take into consideration that the length of the shovel would jack the shipping price up astronomically. Between Amazon and Ship-It-APO, I now am the proud owner of a $150 snow shovel. 

By the time it finally showed up, all the snow was gone.Yup. 

It took a year, but it's finally been Christened. 

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Third Belgian Winter

When we originally found out we were moving to Belgium, we were told that it NEVER snowed here. Never. Since we were coming from California, we didn't have any cold weather / snow gear since, hey, we lived on the beach. Of course, the first winter that we're here...we got snow. LOTS of snow:

December 20th, 2009

Everyone told us that it was a fluke that there was so much snow because, hey, it NEVER snow here. So, here comes winter 2010 and we weren't too worried about getting a snow shovel or anything because it shouldn't snow again. WELLLLL....2010 was by far the worst winter Europe had seen in a VERY long time. By "a very long time", I mean one hundred years:

December 16th, 2010

At that point, I don't believe a damn thing anyone tells me anymore when it comes to weather in Belgium. I've already figured out that it's pretty unreliable when it comes to sunshine. By three in the afternoon, expect rain or high winds. So, I finally broke down and bought a pretty bitchin' snow shovel since our driveway turns into a massive slip 'n' slide when there's snow / ice caked on it. Of course, by the time it arrived, the snow was gone..but hey! I'm prepared for this year!

December 18th 2011

I AM PREPARED! I am READY for some snow! I got not one, but TWO snow shovels readily available for  some bitchin' snow storms since we've had two snowy winters thus far. There's GOTTA be some snow coming our way!

This is what I woke up to this morning:

Barely a "dusting" of snow..and it all melted off by the time Eric and I left to go to the movies. I checked the weather forecast and it's going to be raining for the rest of the week...no snow. 

I. AM. DISPLEASED.

Get with the program, Beglie!

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Winter Wonderland 2010

Ever since Thanksgiving, it's been snowing on and off over here in lovely Belgium. I absolutely love it! Thing is, we don't have a snow shovel. Or, a shovel in general. So when you drive / slide down our street, you can see the majority of our neighbors have been rather diligent about shoveling their driveways / walkways for their home. Us? Not so much. Here's how our driveway currently looks...keep in mind, it slopes so it makes things a lil more difficult when trying to drive up onto it from the street:

I took my ruler out with me to get some idea of how much it snowed.

 

8 inches of fluff out there! 

I was trying to move some snow out from under my feet, but I couldn't get to the brickwork...but, at least you can see how far my feet go into the snow, lol

Our poor little wood pile isn't liking the snow very much...nor are our trucks!

The wheel on Johns bike:

Icicles hangin' out around the house:

 

Macie, our little Dachshund / Beagle mix, was LOVING the snow! She kept hopping around in it like a snow bunny! The whole time I'm walking around to check out stuff, she would hop around, bite at the snow and run...well...run as best as she could since she's a short / stumpy dog in several inches of snow.

As I'm walking down the driveway, I looked up and noticed the layers and layers of snow that's building up on the rooftop. The Sky dish doesn't seem to like all the snow on it! 

The view from our front porch:

The side yard that the dogs normally get to run around and play in:

Last but not least, a jimmy rigged panoramic shot of my house with the side yard (to the left) and the horse pasture on the right. If you click on the actual picture, it'll come up larger.

The Belgians make me kinda giggle because they say it never really ever snowed here. You'd get a light dusting here and there, but as it seems in recent years..Mother Nature wants to paint their country white. Last year they said it's the worst winter they've had in 50 something years.. not this year is the worst they've had in 100 years. No biggy cause I'm loving it! It's not all that bad if a California gal from the coast says she's lovin' it :) 

Merry Christmas (Eve), everyone!

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Smash & Grab, Baby!

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll remember the post about when I attended the Bazaar in Germany a few weeks ago in addition to venturing over to Bernkastle to pick up some pottery for Eric. Well, that day didn't end well...so Eric and I figured we'd attempt again sometime in the Spring to return there since the winter weather doesn't exactly make the drive very enjoyable.

We didn't stick with that plan. 

Yesterday, we made our way over Spangdahlem AB to do some shopping since our "local" base isn't exactly known for their wide selection of goods. For the last several days, Europe has been getting smacked with numerous snow storms which has made life a lil more...errr.. difficult for people who aren't exactly experts with driving in those type of road conditions. Since Eric gets to drive to Spangdahlem several times a month, he was volunteered to do the driving since I'm usually a nervous wreck when there's snow / ice on the road. I will say, though, that the scenery was really pretty!

 For the life of me, I don't understand why Belgium only salted one lane of the highway. You could tell that only one side was done, which sucked! Made the drive take ten times longer and people were driving rather stupid to bypass slower moving vehicles. 

 Perfect example of how the roads looked in Belgium. You can see on the left hand side that there's road tracks from cars that passed by, but you could see them slip and slide a little bit when driving through the snow / ice.

Once we hit the German border, the roads INSTANTLY got better! It was SUCH a relief! The whole highway was plowed and salted..so nice! 

Random cow statue I liked when we stopped to refuel:

Once we reached Spangdahlem and did out shopping, we ran over to Bitburg since I was wanting to check out the Polish pottery shop I had heard about. Honestly, I was expecting a decent amount of selection...I was wrong, sadly. When we were leaving the shop, I stopped into a small antique shop that had some really cool little signs and paintings. I fell in love with a pizza paddle that had edelweiss painted all over it! I love love love edelweiss! In addition to the pizza paddle, I found another cute little sign that is rather fitting for our bathroom...haa...

 From there, we headed on over to Bernkastle to attempt, yet again, to invade the pottery shop since Eric was really wanting those bowls and I wanted to get them for him as his part of his Christmas gift. We ended up taking a different route to get there and the countryside was SO so pretty! 

I was getting a little nervous once we actually got to Bernkastle since we started seeing signs with huge red "x"s through them as if they were saying the town was shut down or something. It was a little unsettling considering we had driven the extra distance JUST for that shop and it would've been our luck that it was shut down or something. Who knows...maybe the town was inaccessible due to heavy snow fall or something. Turns out that the heart of the town was shut down due to road reconstruction. We managed to find a parking spot not too far from there and walked the rest of the way in :)

A pretty view of the vineyard:

There was actually a Christmas Market going on in the town, but it was a little on the disappointing side. I guess I'm used to the larger ones from Aachen, Brussels and Brugge. This one mainly had vendors selling food and drinks and everyone was hanging out and getting drunk, lol. I suppose that's really the only thing to do when it's all cold and snowy...eat, drink and gossip!

Got to the store, gathered up all the bowls that Eric had wanted in addition to a a few butterbells that were requested on the behalf of some people, then rolled out! I think we spent barely ten minutes in the place since we were just wanting to get our stuff and head on home. Word on the street was that there was another snow storm that was inbound..and we could feel it in the air, as funny as that sounds. 

Here are the bowls we picked up...Eric's a very happy camper, lol. You can see how large they are (figured that holding one of 'em can help gauge the size)...two of 'em have handles cause they're deemed to be used as soup bowls, lol.

So! Not too shabby! Got to run around the Belgian / German countryside, picked up some TV shows we've been wanting for a while, got some cool goodies for the house in addition to the coveted bowls that Eric has wanted for some time. NO MORE traveling around in crappy weather for a while :)

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Hey, look! A real post!

Aye Aye Aye, it's been a while since I've actually posted something that isn't either a recipe or something to do with the 30 day challenge :) 

I've been under the weather for the last several days. I guess there's some sort of bug that's making it's way through the base..so I suppose it was only a matter of time where it got me. So, for the most part, I've been trying...I say, "TRYING" to take it easy since everything feels like it takes 10x more energy to accomplish. 

We finally got some snow! It actually started snowing earlier this week, so sorry for just now posting some sort of picture of it. There have been some pretty big snow storms mauling England and have steadily made their way to here, but nothing as severe as to what they've been dealing with. I think I've gotten the hang of driving in snow..at least on my street since there's a nice, thick layer of ice to drive on, lol

 My side mirror:

The backyard:

Due to the snow and everything, I got around to dragging the Christmas tree from the garage and got it all set up and decorated. I found some really cool aluminum poinsettia ornaments while I was at the BX, so I figured those would look pretty cool on the tree. I'm sittin' here and actually staring at my anorexic tree and thinking about all the places I've managed to see since we've been in Europe. For every place that I go to, I pick up a cool little vintage glass ornament (except Poland, that's an actual Polish pottery piece). As of now, I have a beer stein for Belgium, a tea cup for England, a coo coo clock for Germany, a pottery bell from Poland, a church tower for the town we live in and I'm working on finding either the Eiffel Tower or a croissant for France. 

My favorite little ornament...chunky lil sheepy :)

Eric and I are heading to an "Ugly Christmas Sweater" party tomorrow, so I figured I'd make some of my Grandma's "Cream Cheese Cookies" . I absolutely LOVE these lil cookies..and so do a lot of other people. I try to switch up the icing by using different flavors (orange, lemon, almond, or coconut) ...they taste great even plain! My only real complaint about making these is that you (usually) use a Cookie  Press. Sometimes it's your friend, sometimes it's not. Your batter can't be too thick or too soft...and if you use stoneware, it has to be COLD (as in running cold water over it once it's cooled down a bit) to impress the dough onto it. I looked like a cookie factory earlier since I was using four different stoneware pieces to keep the flow of little tree's going.

Ingredients

I tend to double this recipe! So if you want a good amount of cookies, double all of the ingredients)

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups Self Rising flour

Directions 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease cookie sheets.If you have seasoned Stoneware, you won't need to worry about greasing.  

In a large bowl, cream together butter, cream cheese, and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolk and vanilla. Stir in flour until well blended (I tend to sift the flour into the batter so it insures no clumps). Drop dough by spoonfuls or use a cookie press to place onto prepared cookie sheets.  

Bake for 15 minutes (no more, no less) in preheated oven. Cookies will look pale (that's normal!). 

Ingredients for Icing:

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 Tablespoons of milk
• 1 Teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 Tablespoon of flavoring (lemon juice, orange juice, almond extract or coconut extract. Or, nothing at all). 

I HIGHLY recommend you use FRESH squeezed lemon juice (you can even buy it in those little bottles that look like lemons), get oranges and squeeze 'em out (I use a Citrus Press)...I haven't tried processed orange juice that you buy in the carton, then again, I can't drink that stuff, lol. Try not to get any pulp in the icing..it'll give a weird texture I don't think you'll want.. Oh, and I say fresh is better than the orange / lemon extract cause the extract stuff makes the icing taste "chemical-y". I tend to "paint" on the frosting on with a silicone basting brush. Oh, and you can add more "flavoring" as you plug along depending on how thick / runny you want the icing :)

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It's the simple things....

I love my life :)

By the way, this was taken at 9:45 in the morning...

Macie wanting to play with Eric out in the yard. That dog LOVES the snow! She keeps begging to go outside and play in it!

My little "tank-a-saurous-rex" ..Cole had a good time plowing through the little "hills" of snow we had in various parts of the yard.

Eric madly inlove with our shipment of firewood. Not bad for 60 €, hunh??

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