missing movement...

Thought for Food, Hong Kong, 2006

Reminiscing... what feels like a lifetime ago.. the days when dancing was my life.

A good friend came over tonight and we talked a bit (amongst other things) about my transition from dance to my life now, looking for a job in the Vancouver marketing industry.  The struggles that I went through redefining myself as no longer a dancer, but... something, or someone else.

During the "finding myself" phase, about 5 to 6 years ago, I had kept a journal.  Reading it now, I have to say, it's quite entertaining.  Interestingly enough, I have come around full circle - all the things that I was scared of becoming, I am actually looking for now.  Whether that be maturity or a realization that that future really isn't so bad, I'm not sure. However, I am very happy to have gone through that process of breaking myself down, in order to build myself up.  

Yoga helped, too. 

Thought for Food was one of my last performances.  The choreographer, Rob Kitsos, a dance professor at SFU hired me after graduation.  It was a wonderful last experience and Rob definitely saved me during my BFA at SFU. His movement was organic, and felt great for my body.  It came so naturally to me. 

Maybe one of these days, when I build up the courage again to join a class after being absent for so long... 

s'mores cookies

Football Sunday!!!! Boys watching the games and I don't want to make normal chocolate chip cookies, or cupcakes... what to do what to do? I came across this recipe and went directly to the grocery store for  some missing ingredients.  I made minor changes... only because my beau likes dark chocolate... nothing all that drastic, and they turned out wonderful!

Oh how I love some s'mores. Mmmmm...

Click here to see where I found this recipe.

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of sea salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups all purpose flour

0.5 cup salted butter 
1 cup brown sugar
0.5 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
0.5 cup dark chocolate chips
1 cup mini marshmallows
1 box of graham crackers
3 bars Hershey's dark chocolate, broken into pieces

Sift together the baking soda, sea salt, cinnamon and flour together in a medium sized bowl.  Set aside.

In a larger bowl, cream the butter and the sugars until light and fluffy.  Add egg and vanilla and beat. together.  Add in flour mixture slowly and beat until combined.  Fold in dark chocolate chips and marshmallows.  Transfer dough into a smaller, clean bowl and Set aside in refrigerator for 1 hour. 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Place the graham crackers on top of parchment paper on a baking tray.  I was able to fit 5 x 5 rows of graham crackers.  Take a tablespoon of dough and place on top of each graham cracker.

Bake for 5 minutes.  Mmm... you can smell the marshmallows melting... After 5 minutes, take the cookies out and place a piece of Hershey's chocolate on top of each s'more.
<-- Cookies are half baked here... could probably eat them if you like somewhat raw cookie dough.

Bake for additional 5-7 minutes... cookies will be ready when you start to see the edges turn a golden brown.  Baking times will vary depending on oven. Wait a little bit, and then tranfer the cookies to a cooling tray.  

Voila! Ready to be devoured!

exploring the west coast! pacific city

Some wonderful things happened at Rockaway ;) 

I'm a pretty happy girl. 

Yay!

Anyway, back to the trip: After Rockaway, we decided to head a bit more south and ended up at Tierra Del Mar - a quaint, quiet, on the beach town. It's practically deserted.  Many homes were for sale, and there weren't that many people around since it's off the main highway. To get to Tierra Del Mar, you have to drive along the scenic route.  We found a possible rental, but unfortunately, the owners were expecting other guests and had some house work to do before then.  We were pretty disappointed, considering it was such a remote town - perfect for the 4 of us.

Wait! Where'd my Daddy go????? Come back!

We made our way to Pacific City, another coastal town about 15 minutes from Tierra Del Mar. At the end of the main road, after the super touristy stuff and right before you get into the townsy side, there's a business that rents out vacation homes at Pacific City. We were SUPER lucky to get a cabin in a gated community with a great location.  The beach was right across the street from us!

We stayed at this beautiful location for 2 nights.  The section of beach that we were on was far enough away from all the riff raff, so it was actually very quiet and quite lovely.

Joey and Kix had a wonderful time running around, however, there were a few not so memorable moments.  Beach horse rides were available in Tierra Del Mar, and they would take the horses for a walk along the coast.  Sounds and looks like an amazing time, except that the horses would shit everywhere! That's not the worst part though... Kix decided to have a smorgasbord of horse poop one day when T and I were deep in conversation. He disappeared quite a distance away from us and had a tasty lunch. EW!

My boys, super sleepy....

exploring the west coast! Cannon Beach & Rockaway Beach

I LOVE THE OCEAN!! The fresh air, the beach, the laid back attitudes... love love love.

Sigh.

I had been to the Oregon Coast once before, during an epic surfing road trip to the Baja with three friends. I didn't have Joey with me, since the trip was a month long and we were driving the entire way and not sure where we would stay. I promised myself that one day, I would bring Joey to the Oregon Coast so he could run free and have the time of his life on the beautiful beaches.

We stopped off at Cannon Beach, first.  The dogs went crazzzzyyyy! They were SO excited. The Oregon Coast is so dog friendly, there didn't seem to be any rules about dogs or ...  anything, really. We had them off leash our entire trip.

The sand is so fine that it squeaks as you walk.  Kix did not understand where the squeaking was coming from so he would attack your feet as you ran. Or... attack his own feet as he walked.  He's a smart one, I tells ya.

We decided not to stay at Cannon Beach, we wanted to go a bit more south. But.. we did stop and look at real estate and get an ice cream cone.  Yum!  BTW, the dogs were allowed inside the ice cream store.  Love, love, love this place.

Luckily, we had found this website that had a list of great dog-friendly hotels. We decided to drive to Rockaway Beach... it wasn't too far from Cannon Beach but it was much quieter and less populated.  We got a room at the Surfside Resort and our room was much larger than expected.  The porch opened up to the ocean, and we couldn't have been happier.  We found some great food at the local restaurant and then headed out for a long walk on the beach....

Apple... i can't keep up..!

I'm sorry.... a new Apple iPad??? I just got my iPad 3! I can't keep up! And I so desperately want to keep up........