Trips

The Rolls Debacle

One of my absolute favorite things to do is to cook. I’m pretty calm, cool, and collected when I’m in the kitchen, even under semi stressful situations. So let me paint this picture. Do you see the rolls above? They look pretty good, right? Well, they didn’t always look that way. Oh no…

We celebrated Easter this year with my aunt and uncle down at their house in Oklahoma. By the way, I LOVE my aunt’s kitchen. If someone wants to grant me a wish, I want her kitchen please! Anyway… I was going to make the rolls on Thursday before we went down on Friday, but AC told me to use her kitchen. Probably best, because trying to travel with bread wouldn’t have been all that easy.

So I woke up Saturday morning (we did Easter on Saturday since we had to travel home on Sunday) and started in on the rolls. I chose Pioneer Woman’s Clover Leaf Rolls from her Thanksgiving episode. It’s basically the same dough she uses for her cinnamon rolls. And I absolutely LOVE that dough recipe.

Everything was going according to schedule. Milk, Sugar, and oil on the stove to heat up just below boiling point. Cool off. Add Yeast. Dump mixture into flour, let rise for about an hour. Pull off in walnut sized chunks. Place three to a muffin cup. Let rise second time. Bake. Eat. Enjoy. Yum!

Or so I thought. AC ran out of flour in her jar so I yanked a bag out of the freezer. Mistake potential number 1. Then I spent a little time measuring it while my milk mixture was cooling. When I tested the mixture, it seemed a little cooler than normal. Mistake potential number 2. When I added the milk/yeast mixture to the cold flour, placed a teatowel over it, and went on about my business. I’m sure I allowed them to rise way over an hour because I forgot to set a timer for myself or make note of when I set them aside. (more…)

The Original PW Cookbook

Yesterday’s post got really long, really fast… so I thought I’d discuss the cookbook incident today. You know, in a separate post.

When the initial cookbook came out, it was back in 2010 (technically late 2009, but I went to the signing in 2010). I remember because I drove to Stillwater, Oklahoma to get it signed and meet her. My husband and I were due to get married that year. Oddly enough I had to tell her all about that. Like she cared. haha. But this, this is how I remember 2010. (more…)

The Mercantile – Pawhuska, OK

There’s a long-running joke at my house that I have an arranged marriage for Tbug. I’m going to marry her to Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman’s oldest son Bryce.

This joke started sometime last summer. Truthfully, he’s a cute boy. He’s a farmer/rancher. I always say farm boys are the best. Tbug wanted to own a horse ranch someday, or so she said when she was younger. If he sticks with the family business, they run Mustangs plus all the horses they use for everyday ranch work. Win-win…

Then for my own reasons… they go snow skiing in Colorado and I always wanted to go. They can just take me too (and my husband… of course). Hello, his mom is The Pioneer Woman. I mean come on. And finally, if Abug would have been a boy, she’d have been named Bryce. I’d finally get my Bryce. There are more reasons for the joke and it keeps getting added to, but those are some of the big ones.

The Mercantile

Ever since the Merc has opened I have wanted to go. Pawhuska is only about 2 1/2 hours from here so not to bad. But it seems like every plan I had made to go, didn’t happen. They all fell through. I was starting to think it would NEVER happen. FINALLY, it did. I guess patience is key and sometimes I don’t have that.

A couple weeks ago I was talking to my sister in law about wanting to go. She said we should make plans to go. I kind of scoffed in her face and said I refuse to make any more plans like that because they keep falling through. Then a couple weeks later I mentioned to my husband and said she would go. One thing led to another and they made plans for us to go. (more…)

Ft. Worth 2017

The real start of the Christmas season for me tends to be our trip to Ft. Worth. There have been a few years I haven’t been able to go, but I try to make it down there every year. Sadly, for me this year was a little lackluster. It was fun, don’t get me wrong, but it just didn’t scream Christmas season to me.

Hubby had to go to San Francisco for work the whole week leading up to Ft. Worth. He flew into DFW on Thursday night. We left home Thursday night and drove as far as Denton, Texas. Then from there, Friday morning we drove to the hotel that hubby was at and picked him up.

It seems like every year they change up the schedule for the NCHA Futurity. This year the NonPro and Amateur finals happened Friday night, the Open Semi-finals happened on Saturday, and the finals for the Open happened Sunday evening. Truthfully, that’s how it used to be, then they started changing it. We’re back to basics now.

Ft. Worth Stockyards

No trip to Ft. Worth is complete without a trip to the Stockyards. I have to say, this is probably my favorite place on earth… or at least one of. Hubby though wasn’t in the Holiday spirit so I felt like I was “dragging” him and he pretty well refused to go into the stores with me. One of my favorite things to do is window shop at the stores and I couldn’t hardly budge him into a store with me. I was getting frustrated.

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DEMA entrance at the Orange County Convention Center

Talking/Feeling like an Idiot

DEMA entrance at the Orange County Convention Center

While we were in Orlando, gosh 2 weeks ago, I had an opportunity to speak with a lot of professionals in the SCUBA diving industry. Not only did we stop and have a visit with our SCUBAPRO Rep, Scott, but we spoke with guys from SDI, the SCUBA diving group that we are certified through.

Plus, Deb paid a little extra for the two of us to be able to sit in on any and all session conferences. Let’s just say, I spoke with diving professionals from all over the world. I remember Australia, Denmark, Fiji, Mexico, and some places I can’t even remember.

Deb and I played a game for the opportunity to win a trip to Fiji. I doubt I won that… especially because it’s been two weeks and they haven’t notified me. They did contact me through email to tell me about some really great packages they offer. We’ll add that to my bucket list along with Greece. I want to go to Greece, so why not dive while I’m there.

I hit up the dive master’s that we dive with in Cozumel for pictures (he’s owed me since May), a recipe (which he rattled off but I couldn’t write down so he said he’d email… still waiting), and told him I wanted a sponsor for the underwater photography festival in April (worth a shot, right?).

But the one thing that really bothers me is… When I was talking to one of the guys from SDI, I felt like a complete moron. When I walked away from the conversation I felt like I was trying to impress him with my blog/SEO/etc knowledge that I probably don’t have.

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Orlando, Florida: What to Eat, Where to Stay, What to Do

So my husband and I got to attend DEMA (Diver’s Equipment & Marketing Association) 2017, Go Dive Now. This is a yearly show that bounces between Las Vegas and Orlando, although I’ve heard a rumor that they are adding New Orleans into the mix in a couple years. But this was the year that DEMA was in Orlando. That means we hopped a plane with Deb and Grady and flew to Orlando, Florida.

Where to Eat

The first question is…. Where to eat in Orlando. Oh gosh. We were there at the Orange County Convention Center on International Drive. Let me just tell you there were gobs of GREAT places to eat, but here’s what we chose… And let’s just say, YUM!

Dunkin Donuts

7440-A International Drive, Orlando, FL 32819

We actually had a Dunkin Donuts almost right outside our hotel room. Not quite but pretty darn close. In fact, we had a lot of breakfast places right in that area. The first day we were there, hubby and I chose to walk here and get breakfast. Good choice!

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Quick Update on Last Week

Prepared for learning with donuts, muffins, coffee, and notebooks.

Hey guys! I just got back from an incredible week in Orlando Florida. Why was I there? Well, for a big SCUBA diving convention called DEMA. Wow, this place was extremely overwhelming. We flew out Monday morning from Kansas City Monday. It was a direct flight from Kansas City to Orlando. Getting a rental car in Orlando is extremely easy! Almost as easy as when we got it in Las Vegas a few years ago.

That night we were just there for fun. Deb and Grady had a SCUBAPRO Platinum meeting to go to on Tuesday, so hubby and I just bummed around Orlando. Wednesday through Friday we attended DEMA, classes, and ate excellent food. Wow, the food!

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Chiefs vs Eagles – Season opening home game

Sunday was our first home game of season. We won the season opening game against the Patriots. I’m not sure they were happy about that… lol.

Sunday was season opeing home game though. That meant it was a loud and proud day. It was a lot busier than preseason games… Wow! We didn’t get our “normal” spot on the grass for tailgating. That was fine with me. I’m easy going.

We decided to eat breakfast. One of the ladies walking around said that that was a new one on her. Most people were doing steaks and burgers, etc. I thought to myself, this isn’t the first time we’ve done breakfast….

The gates were supposed to open at 8:30. They opened at 7. There was a guy from Arkansas who is a season ticket holder who left home at like who knows when to be the first one in the gate. They said he’d been at the gate since 3am. Crazy. I’m not that crazy, although I kept saying we needed to have our heads examined because we were up at 5am driving to KC.

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