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West Virginia
When I started my retirement travels in 2009, I wanted a way to share it with family and friends as it was happening. Hence, "My Travel Journal". However I realized I wouldn't always be on a trip and wondered what to do with the blog in between times. My daughter pointed out, wisely, that travels can also include trips to the kitchen to try a new recipe, trips to visit family, trips to my neighborhood Starbucks, or a fun day trip with a friend. You're welcome to join me on any of these journeys! I've set up individual pages for each of my major trips (see tabs above).

Also, I have an Etsy shop where my current needlework resides. The last pieces I posted here were in 2013! So if you'd like to see what I have accomplished recently, go to (and I apologize for having to copy and paste):

www.etsy.com/shop/thedollhouseneedle

I recently added an "Italian Word a Day" thingie which shows up at the bottom of every page. You see the word and can click to hear it pronounced. I've been enjoying it and I think my accent is improving as time goes by.

April 21, 2011

Addendum to "My Week With Johnny" (with videos!!)

Not too much to report although we DID make English muffins from scratch!  I had found a recipe probably a year ago or more in my "Small Batch Baking" cookbook that I marked to try sometime cause I thought "how neat to make English muffins!"  So we did and it went pretty well actually.  I'm not going to post the recipe right now, because there are a few things I would do differently and I think I'll try making them a couple more times before I decide if I end up with something "right" enough to post.  But here are the pictures to prove we made them. :)


Cooking...

Split - and they actually have holes!

And, we also got a thumbs-up. :)

Friday was a really rainy day so we didn't get to make a new video of the solar-powered race car to replace the one I lost.  But we did go to the Pottery Place and Johnny painted a pirate treasure chest which will be mailed to him when it's been glazed and fired.  We had a last lunch at Hillbilly Hotdogs with Johnny wearing his Hillbilly Hotdogs shirt, went to the grocery store to get the stuff to make my pork tenderloin with sweet potatoes and sauteed apples and started generally getting things organized for the trip back to Maryland on Saturday - laundry, putting Legos away, etc.

Our trip back to Maryland started in rain and ended in a beautiful sunshine-y afternoon and was uneventful, albeit looonnnng.

So that's my report and now here are the videos showing the results of our "work" the last couple days of Johnny's visit.  After my first Visit post, we got out the second projects kit I gave Johnny for Christmas which was all about electricity.  We really had fun with that one - a much easier kit to use, totally clear instructions and such great results that we had to take videos of those too. 

 





And finally!!  the solar race car - which for some reason I just really enjoy!  It's sort of the "little engine that could".

Oh, and I have to sneak in this picture cause I got so tickled last night when I saw her, I had to take a picture.  Heather has one of those whirlpool tubs and she turned it on until the soap bubbles about buried Sophia, so this is a true "head" shot of Sophia!


And, as a last parting shot, I thought I'd throw in a video I took while I was in Riomaggiore and then could never figure out how to get it on my blog.  And you can see I still haven't learned how to do things like edit out the line that the setting sun made.  If you happen to wish this one was bigger, you'll notice there's a "You Tube" link down in the bottom right corner.  You can click on that and it takes you to this video on You Tube where you get a larger size (or even full screen size) picture.


Ah, bella Italia!

3 comments:

Christopher said...

Neat to see the vids working at last... And how English muffins are made---I wouldn't have guessed in a skillet. Give that soapy, silly Sophia a hug and kiss for me! Seeya soon!

Unknown said...

Well I'm impressed. By everything!! You'll have to explain sometime how you did the videos and for starters, what you were using to take them. All the put-together things look really fun -- makes me wish they'd had Legos in my day. Do Legos come with lots of little people and lots of costume parts so that one decides whether to do pirates or, say, ballerinas? And then there's the food: I'm really impressed by the English muffins and hope you keep at them long enough to post a recipe someday. Have a happy visit with all your kiddies. xoxo

Cynthia said...

Enjoyed reading about Johnny's visit; looked like great fun. Incredible English muffins; would like to try that one. Hope to see you soon. -cb

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