Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Fogles do KC

We made it to Kansas City!

Monday morning at 7:30am, we left Waco with the Civic packed to the brim.  We drove through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and then Missouri before finally reaching KC at about 5:30pm.  The trip went well, although it took us about an hour and a half longer than we thought it would, so we were getting a little nervous that we weren't going to make it to the apartment before the office closed at 6pm. Luckily, though, we made it no problem.

The past few days have been a whirlwind of trips to Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, Goodwill, and random people's apartments to get stuff that they advertised on Craig's List. I'll have to post more details sometime about how we went about getting Dan's apartment ready for as cheap as we could...but for today, I'll just show you some pictures of his bachelor pad that he'll be living in for the next seven months.

Oh by the way...I didn't clean up at all before taking these...so ignore all the extraneous random stuff such as suitcases and vacuums!

Here's the living room, which is where you come into when you walk in the front door. The couch is from Craig's List and was a great deal! It's really nice and comfortable.

Here's the kitchen (and front door) if you are standing in the middle of the living room. 

You also go to the bedroom through the living room.  Here's a picture of half of it.  Obviously, Dan was unpacked within a half hour of arriving. Also, have you noticed the decoration theme for his bachelor pad? Apparently it's "flags." I can't make fun; I was with him when he bought them and helped put them all up.

And the other half. Notice the nice futon he's laying on as he talks on the phone (Hi Mom!).

We've been doing a lot of shopping, and I'm pretty sure this was Dan's favorite purchase so far. Can you tell what it is? 

Did you guess.... a shower curtain? That's right! Admittedly, we bought it since it was on clearance, but so far it's made me smile every time I've walked into the bathroom!

And finally, here's the view out the back door (in the living room; you couldn't see it from where I took the picture of the living room but it's there.) Yes, he has a back door and a patio. It's amazing. I'm really jealous and I'm not even going to show Sammie these pictures because I know she'll be completely jealous and want to move in with her dad - which we all know is NOT going to happen.


So that's it! It's so nice. Small but perfect for Dan for the rest of the year.  And if you're wondering how we got all the furniture here..well...here's a clue:


Oh yeah, we totally rented a big van. I got a lot of honks as I drove this guy, that's for sure. 

I fly back to Waco on Saturday, so we are hoping to just spend the next few days hanging out and maybe exploring the city a little more. Dan starts work on Tuesday, so wish him luck! We'll keep you posted. :) 

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Fish Biscuits!

So we're moving Dan to Kansas City tomorrow morning. Sammie is being dropped off at our friends' house in a few hours, we packed up the car, and Dan is on Craig's List searching for furniture right now.

But.

BUT.

First, the LOST finale is tonight. The series finale. The one we've been waiting for ever since we got sucked into this little show.

We actually did move our moving date back a few days in order to be able to watch this here.

And Sean and Faith bought their honeymoon tickets for tomorrow rather than this weekend, as originally planned.

As you can see, this is a big deal. However, it's also a four and a half hour long show. So from 6:00 to 10:30 tonight, seven of us will be glued to the TV at Sean and Faith's apartment. Naturally, we are going to need some sustenance to keep us going for that amount of time. So we decided to have a Lost-themed potluck. Also naturally, I volunteered to bring dessert. But what to bring? For an event that is this important, dessert can't just be any old thing. We thought about some sort of tropical fruit crisp, but someone else is bringing fruit salad, so that idea was out. We also talked about rice krispie treats in the shape of the statue or just trying to make cute cupcakes or an awesome cake. But the thing is, my decorating skills are really not up to making any of those. If this was going to be a success, I knew it needed to be simple.

And then came the idea.

Fish biscuits!

If you haven't seen Lost, watch this clip (even just the first minute) to see what a fish biscuit is. It was part of the show during the first season, when Sawyer ate them.



So I decided I had to copy them. First, I went to the store and bought a fish cookie cutter. The woman working there asked me why I was buying an icthmus, and I had to explain that no, actually, it wasn't for religious use, but because of a TV show. With that embarrassment behind me, I then set out to make the cookies.

First, I made these citrus flavored sugar cookies. Thanks to this inspiration, I added equal parts yellow and red food coloring to the dough in order to get the lovely salmon color of the actual fish biscuits. I then cut them out with my new cookie cutter. Dan came into the kitchen at this point and couldn't stop laughing. He thought the color made them look like real fish. I had to reassure him with a taste that they actually tasted okay, and that accuracy is important goshdarnit and we want them to look real.

After baking them and letting them cool, I made the frosting for them. I left it white and then thinned part of it with extra milk to make it possible to glaze the cookies with the frosting. Again, accuracy is very important and we can't have frosting taking away from the color of our fish. Also, the real fish biscuits didn't have frosting so it had to blend in. I brushed both sides of the fish with the a pastry brush dipped in the glaze and let that dry. Again, Dan came in and freaked out because he said that they now looked like dead fish. Another cookie was stuck in his mouth and he left the room happy again.

Finally, I added the "Dharma" on each fish with the rest of the frosting that I didn't use for glaze. I dyed it brown (equal parts red, blue, and yellow) to be authentic (obvi) but couldn't get it as dark as I wanted. Oh well, close enough. I then painstakingly wrote Dharma on each fish. If I messed up, it was easy to redo because the glaze underneath allowed the writing to be wiped off easily.

Here they are drying:

And here are the finished products!





At this point, you're probably thinking...Wait, aren't you leaving for Kansas City early tomorrow morning? Don't you have better things to be doing?
Answer: Probably.

You're probably also thinking... You take awful photographs.
Answer: Sorry, deal with it. I don't know how to take pictures well to begin with, and I was taking those photos at night.

You're probably also thinking...Wow, Kristi, that seems like a lot of effort to make sort of ugly and unappetizing cookies.
Answer: People! It's about authenticity here!

Everyone enjoy the finale tonight!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Waco Love

We couldn't let David's visit pass without taking some pictures on some bulls...or cows...actually, I'm not really sure what to call these animals. But they were some sweet metal cow statues...

On second thought, I have no idea why this was important in David's visit. But it was fun! So after visiting the Dr. Pepper museum, we walked over toward the Brazos River and climbed up some cow statues.

David was brave and climbed up first.


He's a natural cowboy!

We finally convinced Dan to climb up as well. Here they are riding together...awwwww
David had a good time bonding with the cow.

Yep...that's what we do when you visit!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Done with the Semester!

Friends! It's been a while. I hope you haven't abandoned me.

The semester is OVER! I officially am done with the hardest semester of my grad school program. And I survived (with an A and a B when all the grades were put in).

Dan is done too, and although he doesn't have all his grades back yet, he is confident he passed all his classes and earned mostly A's. So we are celebrating the end of the semester.

Well, actually I celebrated by picking up my 3rd year comprehensive exams. It's a big paper I have to do and I now have two weeks to write it. But you know what? That's okay.  Because I'm done with the semester! Honestly, this paper feels like a breeze after trying to study for that Molecular Neuropharmacology class for the last four months.

We've had a visitor for the last few days! David - Dan's younger brother - is in town for an inaugural visit to the great state of Texas. We've had so much fun showing him around and I'm pretty sure Sammie has never been happier.  She has snuggled up with him every minute possible, well when she's not trying to get him to play with her and her dinosaur.

I've had to work still so I haven't gotten to spend as much time showing Dave around, but he and Dan have been having a lot of fun spending brother time together, playing racquetball, ping-pong, and going to see Ironman 2. Of course we've taken him out for some good food - Tony De Maria's barbeque, Vitek's barbeque, Dubl-R Burgers, and Papa Rollo's pizza. None of those names sound familiar? That's because they're all local Waco joints. We've also been trying to convince him he needs a pair of cowboy boots but so far he's refused. He did buy a Waco t-shirt, though, so we're slowly winning him over!

Anyway, that's what we're up to...hope you're all doing well!  Happy beginning of summer!