Wednesday, March 07, 2007

We ate at the 1900 and met Cinderella

First, the mouse came around to greet the girls Later, Prince Charming came around and charmed all of the girls... Surenna is shy, but does let the prince kiss her hand. Dahlia poses with the prince. Jemma meets royalty She always was a sucker for a man in uniform... Finally! The woman we all came to see! After some arm-twisting, I agree to pose with the girl. By the end, we were all very tired and ready to go to bed. dbp

Technical Problems...

I am doing all the posting today from Surenna's mac mini. I cannot seem to get internet connectivity from the PC today and so I reloaded all the pictures back into the camera and then connected the camera to her computer. There are some little differences in how the computers work, like I cannot get a thumbnail preview of picture files, so it is a little tricky to photoblog. dbp

The End Of The First Day At Disney.

At the end of the first day, we had scheduled a dinner with Cinderella and friends. We decided to drive to the Grand Floridian, where the dinner was, and we got there early. So we hung-out for a while in the lobby. Surenna seemed bored by all the elegant opulance. We sat at the round table on the right hand side of the above picture by the elevator. There was a band playing jazz on the 2nd floor balcony. dbp

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Excuses for not getting-on with the disney blogging...

So, I expected that I would get a lot of Disney posting done this weekend; maybe even the rest of it. No such luck. Saturday, I took Dahlia to her learn to skate program--she needs to learn to glide. Then, I needed to bake in preperation for a late lunch at our in-laws. First, I got a huckleberry pie going: Vaishali made the crust dough (which is always very easy to handle and comes out tasty), which I rolled-out and filled: 1 Quart of frozen huckleberries 1 Cup of white granulated sugar 1/2 Cup all purpose flour 2 Tablespoons cornstarch I toss all of the above together in a bowl and as the berries melt, the various powders and granuals stick to the huckleberries. Bake at 400F until it looks done. Once the pie was in the oven I started in on the pizzellies: Cream 1 Cup of butter (two sticks) with 1 1/2 Cup of Granulated sugar, add 6 eggs and 3 1/2 cups of all purpose flour and 4 teaspoons of baking powder and 2 tablespoons of anise extract. Cook iaw pizzelli maker instructions. I also roasted 1/2 pound of coffee before all the baking: --Pre-heat oven on convection bake to 466F. --Put in the beans on a baking sheet (with raised edge) which is large enough for the coffee to be in a single layer. --I roast for around 12 minutes. I look for the beans to be just starting to get glossy and be the color of mahogany. It smokes-up the house, but is well worth it if you like really good coffee. The coffee crackles and throws-off a papery skin, so you will need to sort of thresh this off before storage. It is a mess, so do this step outside. Just pour the coffee back and forth between two bowls and blow at the pouring stream. The papery parts will blow away leaving clean beans. If you do this step inside, your wife will kill you, and you have no excuse since you were warned. dbp ps Why didn't I do the Disney posting on Sunday? I have good reasons, but if I post about them, the question will come up: Why spend all that time on the excuses post, when in the same amout of time, you could have just done the real posting? pps. Belated happy birthday to my sister Mary: It is on the first day of the month, right after the shortest month--I always remember too it late to send a card.