Visiting Someone Special

 Sooo... the train of these blog posts is all higgle-dee-piggle-dee! After Vancouver... we went to the airport... where there was a ginormous line-up to get through security... It was because the international security section hadn't been open and... everyone was going to the two domestic security checks. Ugh!

Finally... we are almost to the actual security checkpoint... it took 60 minutes to get through!

But we made it... whew. 

Good thing we get to the airport early. Always good to have buffer time.

And... of course... we needed chocolate brownies after that.. except Mam only bought one... hmph!

We thought of going on strike but there had only been one left soo... we let it ride and split the brownie...

On the plane!

And landing in a pea-souper of fog. Back in the day when Mama went to university, this sort of weather would have sent the plane to another town for a 3 hour bus ride home! But now the tower has instrument landing capabilities so... pea soup doesn't stop us!

Can you tell you we are visiting??

We were just up here a few months ago...

For a previous sewing project...

Yes! It's Gramma!! But she's not sewing outfits for us this time...

Nope... we are making new ticking for these couch cushions which are always shedding feathers through the fabric and this old ticking.

New ticking ready to go... all we need to do is move the feathers from the old ticking to the new ticking...

Gramma said it would be best to do this in the bathtub with the shower curtain drawn...

Oh yes... otherwise we'll have feathers everywhere!

Cocoa Beanie decided to watch from here...

While I supervised from up here...

And... it was a feathery mess!! We had to get vacuumed off!! Crazy... but it's done and now... we can work on a puzzle...

While we supervise dinner... tonight we are making rouladen. It was great fun... we had to bash the meat with the wooden meat hammer... But Gramma gave hers away years ago. So we used the rolling pin (thank you Jamie Oliver for that tip!). We put them between parchment paper, laid them on the counter and gave it two whacks before deciding that the neighbours might get grumpy. So we put the parchment paper stuff on the floor (concrete) and whacked away quite happily... They are nice and thin now... spread with mustard, add some salt and pepper, diced bacon and thinly sliced onions...

Oh... and we have an assistant... Rose's mom! Doesn't she look thrilled??

Now we just have to roll them up and fasten with toothpicks...

And then roll in flour...

That's looking pretty good...

Now we sear them in the big pot... which was beary messy...

Then they get moved to the slow cooker...

On a bed of onions... and topped with water... mmmm...

While those were simmering away... we went up on the mountain. We heard that there were wolves up here!!

That sounds a bit dangerous but... it's not... not really...

See... wolves!!!

Super cool!

They have a nice view over the river and the valley.

They are rebarred into the granite so should be immune to vandalism (fingers crossed)... although if someone wanted to bring a battery operated angle grinder up here... they could probably do some damage.

Nose to nose... 

From this angle, it looks like some JRR Tolkien dragony thing...

We could be the Wolf-Riders!

Oh... and when we got home we did some baking too. (OK... this wasn't all in one day but...). We decided to make Lebkuchen... but used a different recipe that was easier than the traditional one.

This one uses sugar, eggs, Lebkuchen spice, ground almonds and hazlenuts and... think that's it... they look a little weird... beary coarse...

Do you think they are edible??

Cocoa thinks they might dry out quickly like this...

But... fear not... they are going to get coated with...

Melted chocolate!!!

Yummers!!!

Melted chocolate and stuffies do NOT go together so we are going to sit here and supervise...

Oh... yum!!

No pictures of us munching on them though... They had to cool off but... they get two paws up from us! And that was our trip to visit Gramma... we got back to Vancouver and caught a ferry the same day, just squeaking in ahead of the windstorm and atmospheric river that have torn apart all of the highways leading out of the Lower Mainland. Whew...