Gluten-free weekend

Mark called us on Friday evening wanting to know what we were doing for dinner. I didn't even realise that they were coming to us on Friday eve, and panicked to get their cake done in time. Luckily it was ready when they arrived. We basically spent Friday evening in front of the fire, watching tv. On Saturday morning, Moira taught Christina and I how to make the St Brigid's cross.

Barry and Harpinder only arrived at around 6pm last night and then we had to get ready for the dinner. The ladies had pre-dinner cocktails :)

We arrived at the restaurant just after 8pm, and did the whole family photo thing

The waiter took his own sweet time to show us the specials menu, so Barry got up to give us the low down!

The in-laws are going on a cruise for Moira's 60th in May. They bought a package, all inclusive except for lunches and drinks, so we all put some cash together as a gift.

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We headed off to Johnny Joe's for a few drinks and some music. The music wasn't that great, so Harps took things into her own hands...

Christina HATES photographs! She's always trying to block my shot of her. This one came out pretty well though

I think we got home shortly after midnight. I attempted to take off my boots and failed! I had on a pair of socks, a pair of tights AND a large pair of woolly fleece socks on and shoved my feet into my boots, not thinking about how to take them off later. This is Karl trying to take them off for me..

Then came the cake-cutting ceremony practice round (Mark & Chris are getting married this New Years Eve)

Christina seriously at 6 slices of this cake last night. Since she can't eat gluten, its not that often she gets to eat cake, so she had more than her fair share of cake last night (and this morning for breakfast!)

Mark does this funny thing (if you beg him enough!) that he saw in Lethal Weapon. White bread brown bread in a South African accent. It was soooo funny that I dropped the camera (oops!) in this clip.

We all ended up sleeping at the in-laws last night. And needless to say we all slept quite late this morning. The rest of the day was spent sitting around, chatting, reading newspapers and watching Modern Family episodes. That was until Christina decided it was time to bake some more gluten free stuff! Christina made traditional Irish soda bread, which is delicious with butter and jam, especially when its hot off the gridle. 

And I tried these marble mini muffins out, also gluten free.  

Karl's granny is with us for the afternoon, and my mom-in-law jumped at the opportunity for another family pic (I look really fat in this photo because I'm squatting in a very uncomfortable position, and my shoulders are hunched so it looks like I have no neck. Well, thats my excuse anyway, and I'm sticking to it!)

Everyone has left now, and we are still at the in-laws place (its nice and warm). Sunday evening pizza is a bit of a tradition in this house. So after our pizza, we will head up the road to our own wee house. I need to gather all my things for my first day at my new job in the BIG CITY :)

Oh what a night (image heavy!)

Karl and I started cleaning up on Friday. Just general sorting and shifting and cleaning so that the house is sorted for the New Year. We had initially planned to go down the road and have a house party with the cousins. But Karl kept inviting more and more of our friends for New Years, and eventually, at around 4pm yesterday, the party was moved to our house! Luckily our house was clean! The ladies decided to have a cocktail evening, everybody brings some kind of alcohol and liquer and we just made up our own cocktails as we went. Everybody brought snacks too: I made chocolate mousse, and my mommy's awesome peppermint crisp tart (with mint aero) and some pigs in blankets.

the beginings of my choc mousse

result

mommy's peppermint crisp fridge tart

We then got busy making the house all partyish andlit candles, set the cocktail table and prepped the glasses :

After everyone arrived, we started straight into the cocktails and snacks:

I call this one "The Tarrin-Rae Cocktail" :)

And then, on to some pizza, ordered from Karl's uncles chip shop down the road :)

And then the fun really started! With xbox kinnect zumba and dance offs, followed by mad dancing in our kitchen!

Kerrie drinking water out of our milk jug, just because she can!

And then of course, the main event:

The cleaning up party! Awesome guests, my house was spotless this morning :)

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

As you know, we celebrated Christmas on Saturday, so it now feels like Christmas is over, but its NOT! Our dinner was fantastic, and the food was even better.We cleared out the room that Karl and I shared at his parents place, and set up all the tables and decor in there.

This is the arrangement I made at my flower arranging class last week.

Christina is gonna kill me, but I couldn't resist putting this up. She was trying to catch a snooze before the festivities.

I made potato and leek soup for starters, and then roast veg with the main. Moira made turkey, gammon and sausages with stuffinf and gravy. Aunt Margaret broke her arm, but she somehow still managed to make the mash and a baileys (sort of like amarula) cheesecake. Christina made a rocky road cake, Harpinder made banana bread and Fionnula made cake!

Finn's xmas tree cake

the girls hard work!

And I made a chocolate fudge and carrot cake snowman (who is melting a bit!)

the beginnings of a yummy pot of mulled wine - cool Jamie Oliver recipe - very easy

Jimmy & Fionnulal

Xmas Charades game

And Santa :)

 I am actually on my way to work.... sort of. Helping out with a friend's business over the busy Xmas period for a few days a week, so at least it keeps me out of trouble! xx

Weekend update

Can’t believe Monday is finished again. My brother-in-laws and their girlfriends headed out to us on Friday for the weekend again. So the house was manic over the weekend. Friday night we celebrated Karl’s American great-aunt’s 82^nd birthday at the house.

On Saturday, before the wedding we decided to go for a short walk. This waterfall is literally about one km from Karl’s parents’ house. So we went for a bit of an adventure walk. Luckily no one got hurt, but Karl went for a pretty rough slide on his bum!

So glad we eventually reached the waterfall

Karl after his slide down the mountain



The back of Karl's parents' house on our way to the waterfall



We headed out to the wedding later on, and left when the hotel kicked everybody out. Irish weddings are so much different to ours! I spent the latter part of the night as the rogue photographer. Apparently I was sitting on the dance floor taking photos of everyone! Lol!

Sunday morning, we all had a bit of a lie in and then sat around in our pjs and played cranium, boys vs girls! The boys won L But I maintain that its because they’ve known each other all their lives so they obviously have far more inside jokes etc than the girls do. Here's a really funny clip of the brothers doing a star performer card!

The sun was shining yesterday afternoon, so we all headed to the beach for lunch with the American cousins, and even had ice-cream at the harbour-it was probably about 15 degrees in the sun, but everybody was out in their shorts and flip-flops! What crazy place had I moved to?!  

The harbour

Last night was the last night of the 2 week summer festival in the Glens. And we all went down for whats known as the Waves of Tory. Its an Irish dance that they do in the middle of the town and hundreds of people line up and dance in the streets. Karl really didn’t have a choice and was my partner for it, it was good fun!

Waiting to dance

Today was my turn to cook. I decided to walk the 3.2km to the shop to buy ingredients and my father-in-law came to get fetch me with my green-friendly Woolworths shopping bags. The walk is really amazing, very peaceful. But I won’t be doing that everyday! 

The 3.2km walk to the next village

You can see Scotland in the distance on a clear day like today

The view on the walk to the next village

Had to walk to the next village to buy chicken breasts. I’m a long way from home when I pay Nearly R45 for 450g of chicken breasts! Thats pretty ridiculous! And none of the shops in the village have feta cheese. I’m going to have to drive the 30mins to the bigger town and do a big shop and freeze things. Well, it won’t be for too long. We’ll probably try to get our own place at the beginning of November in Belfast, where things are a bit more civilised (ahem!). I must say, I haven’t really begun to feel homesick yet, probably because its so busy here at the moment, and probably because I know I’ll be back for about 3 weeks next month. Time will tell!

So after a bit of chicken pie, salad and a glass of wine, we’ll probably take a drive to one of Karl’s friends who have recently had a baby girl. Other than trying to wrap up my thesis and send it off to my supervisor for the last time on Friday, nothing much going on until the weekend. We’re going to Belfast on Saturday to stay over with my brother-in-law and his girlfriend. We (the girls) are gonna go watch the smurfs in 3D J

Thats all folks! Enjoy the pics