Healthy and Delicious Vegetable Soup

So, this past weekend I went up to Prescott and then Flagstaff to spend some time with my parents and to go skiing with my Dad. I hadn't gone skiing since I was very little so it was definitely interesting... I got up at 6 am (which is SO early for me... closer to my usual bedtime than the time I usually wake up!) and we got to the Flagstaff Snowbowl around 8. I was pretty unsure of my abilities and was basically downright terrified for the first bit. I could only go across the slope in an ever-so-slight decline (as opposed to going vertically down the slope) at a snail pace... and I was on the bunny hill (which toddlers were learning on!). BUT, we took a two hour lesson from 10-12 and it helped so much! I fell a few times, but after a couple tries I was able to stop myself, turn, speed up and slow down, and actually go down the slope in the direction intended. After the lesson, I was able to go down the entirety of the hill easily and even rode the ski lift to one of the higher starting points and managed to ski from there as well!

Unfortunately during the first half of the day I stupidly forgot to put on sunscreen... even though it was just a few morning hours, my face got SCORCHED! Having never really skied before I didn't know snow sunburn was such a serious thing. Basically you get double sunburn from the sun reflecting off the bright white snow. Anyways, by the next day my face was bright pink (aside from a few attractive pale sections from my hat... ugh) and blistered! The blisters turned to scabs and now for the past couple days my face has been dry, tight, flaky, and still bright red. I can't WAIT for it to heal and for my face to go back to normal. Working the counter at Brooklyn on Sunday and Monday was NOT fun.

That was really the only low of my weekend... the rest of the (short) time was spent with my aunt and uncle in Flagstaff and my parents in Prescott. I don't have the opportunity to come home all that often, but it's nice when I do because it's kind of like being a teenager again. I can sleep in my old (pink) room with all my old things, sit on an actual couch (not a futon!) and watch an actual tv (not a laptop!), and eat from a fridge full of food I didn't have to pay for (or cook!). The last thing is particularly nice because my parents eat very healthfully... and they have the money and skillz to do it right and make it super delicious!  I try to be very health conscious down here in Tucson, but it's expensive.. and between cooking from scratch every day (on top of school, work, and everything else), researching recipes, and meticulously calculating, counting, and recording calories... it is work. When I can open a fridge and have a ton of fresh, healthy stuff already there ready to eat, it makes me happy.

And that's where this vegetable soup comes in. My mom made some last week from a recipe loosely based on the 7 day diet 'wonder soup' (oh gee, another crash diet that has you eat practically no calories in order to lose 10 pounds in a week- miraculous!). This version bulks up the veggies, adds spices, vegetable broth, and tomatoes (and V8, if you like) for flavoring, and comes with no hyperbolic weight loss claims! At 60 calories a cup though, it doesn't really need to.

I ate this with a simple soup for lunch 2 of the 3 days I was out of town... it probably would have been 3 for 3 but I spent one of the days on the slopes! It is SO yummy and filling. I liked it so much that today, 3 days after being back in Tucson, I whipped up a batch for dinner tonight and lunch for the next few days. It was so easy too. If you're looking for a simple, low calorie, nutritious meal you can eat throughout the week, definitely try this one out! It's the perfect thing alongside a salad or sandwich.

I was going to take pictures while I was making this to go with the recipe... I took a picture of the veggies sauteing... and then put my camera down and forgot about it. Oops. I do have a picture of the finished product before I had it at my parents' house.

Simple Vegetable Soup 
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
2 large carrots, diced
2 large celery stalks, diced
1 large green bell pepper, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp  fresh ground black pepper
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (omit if you do not like heat)
1 box (4 cups) vegetable broth (I used Safeway O Organics brand)
1 14.5 oz can diced italian stewed tomatoes (regular Safeway brand)
1/2 head cabbage, roughly chopped
2 cups baby spinach
4 cups water (or v8, if desired)

1. Heat olive oil in large pot.
2. Add onion, carrots, celery, and bell pepper. Sautee 5 minutes, or until slightly softened.
3. Add salt, pepper, spices, and garlic. Continue to cook until veggies begin to brown.
4. Add vegetable broth and tomatoes. Bring to a boil.
5. Add cabbage. Cook for 2-3 minutes, or until beginning to soften.
6. Add spinach. Stir to incorporate until spinach has fully wilted.
7. Add water and/or v8 and boil to reach desired broth:veggie ratio. Taste and adjust  seasonings.

That's it!

This recipe (made with water) makes about 9.5 cups with a 1 cup serving equaling about 60 calories.
The total calories for the recipe is only 557! Crazy, right? It will be about 200 more if you use 4 cups of v8 as opposed to water... so then it would be about 80 calories a cup. Still fantastic.

The salad is a mix of spinach, arugula, and kale with cucumber, carrot, cherry tomatoes, onion, celery, and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice for dressing.

a little off...

is how i'm feeling today. While I've been bombarding you with wardrobe posts I've actually been on a fun little family camping trip with my parents, my sister, stewart, and my sister's boyfriend. It was really great and refreshing and enjoyable but also very tiring and strenuous in the way camping trips can be. I loooove getting outdoors and tenting it up, but after I'm finally home I always feel exhausted, dirty, and in need of some serious me-time. This trip was no different, although there was the added discomfort of having a million bug bites. literally, a million. We went on this crazy awesome hike that involved scaling the side of a mountain, but every time we stopped we would be attacked by a cloud of no-see-ums or gnats or something. At first we didn't think they were biting us, but oh were we wrong. My dad and my sister looked like they had come down with a serious case of chicken pox and I... well, for some reason the insects decided to only bite me on the face and neck. So I look like I came down with a serious case of puberty. ugh >.< I'm also mildly sunburnt and my upper body muscles are a little sore from the whole scaling the mountain thing... and even though I took a hour long bath followed by a shower, I still feel kind of dirty and blah.

What I really need to do is doll myself up and go out so I can feel refreshed and pretty again... but I think I'm going to confine myself to my house until these bites die down. I'm also going to skip today's wardrobe post although I will tell you what my theme of choice is going to be in a few.

I still have about a million things left on my to-do list between the youth retreat and my ever-approaching trip to greece, and I'm stressing hard. Tomorrow it's going to be all systems go and I'm going to just cook, cook, cook all day long. Maybe I can whip all this stuff out in like three days, and then finish my greece stuff in two days, and then have like 1 week left where I can just relax. That would be splendid.

I'll tell you more about the camping trip (complete with lots of pics) in a later post, but for now I'll just tell you what I've been doing since I got back. Stew and I went out with a couple friends last night to our old stomping grounds- the courthouse square. It was a nice, cool evening and we walked around and eventually ended up getting coffee and chatting. After that we went on a random adventure to the top of a hill called acker park where stewart and one of the other people we were with had burried a case 2 years ago for a game of godfather. Unsurprisingly we were not able to find the case in the dark... but it was fun to do a bit of a night hike. We then went to hang out at our friend's house where I sipped on a bottle of mead I had recieved for my birthday and we chatted until about 1am. Then stew and I came home and passed out to Big Fish.

Today I slept way longer than I wanted to because I didn't want to get up before stew, and then we went to lunch with my sis, her boyfriend, and my dad. We went to Kendalls, an old 50's style burger joint where everything is covered in grease... needless to say I felt awful about 5 minutes after finishing my meal. Stewart left to head back down to tucson, I drove my sister and her boyfriend to the airport, and then I decided to go home and teach myself the guitar until I was afraid that my fingers were going to start bleeding. Now I'm here, writing this blog and about to go for a run to work off that mid-day nastiness. For some reason I just felt like telling you guys everything that's going on. um, yeah.

Anyways, I'm really excited about what I'm going to do for this wardrobe challenge week 2 situation. As I've said before it's a wild card so I get to choose my theme for the week!

have you guys seen those funny things online that are like the evolution of the hipster or the various types of hipster? I find them to be hilarious and also remarkably accurate. I won't mince words... I definitely fit into the category of a hipster, even though I think most people scoff at that term and claim they are way better than hipsters. And everyone and their mother makes fun of hipsters. Honestly though, 'hipster' is such a broad term and it includes a ton of people. So many, in fact, that there are tons of subcategories of hipsters which are all totally different from each other. For the second week of the wardrobe challenge, I'm going to represent a few of these different types of hipsters. It's going to be hella awesome, yo. bahaha.

I didn't take pictures today because like I said before, puberty all over the face. Just not feeling very photo worthy. However, I still styled myself according to my theme.

Today I was a granola hipster. These are the hipsters that were likely raised by aged hippies- they wear tie dye, cutt-offs, and hiking boots and eat artichokes dipped in veganaise. They could very possibly have dreadlocks and enjoy being in the outdoors and making stuff out of hemp.

I wore:
a cut-up tie dye tank top that I made back in highschool
a thrifted flannel shirt
cut-off daisy dukes (ross)
suede knee-high boots (wet seal)
a necklace with a stone pendant I received as a gift
a pink bandana head band
a braided brown belt (wet seal)

I looked cute, but definitely very granola. Not something I would wear every day for sure, but I bet everyone thought I was a vegan democrat.
which is..um.. true.. lol

anyways, tomorrow will be another type of hipster and hopefully these bites die down enough for me to snap some pictures.

sorry for the absurdly long post about nothing in particular. I just roll like that.

<3
Em

A Very Long Overdue Easter Post

So... I have this thing where I think up awesome posts/events and take pictures on my swell nikon d40 to show you guys just how awesome everything was... and then 2 days later the idea of pulling out my camera-to-computer cord and like, plugging it in... let alone actually editing the 372480 million pictures seems like the most daunting and strenuous task ever. And so, when I finally do get all those pictures on my computer I find that half of them are random pictures of food or trips to the froyo shop from a month ago which are entirely irrelevant now. ah, well. I do have one collection of photos from my most recent upload extravaganza that can be lumped into a coherent post- easter pics!

So here ya go, a month late:

My parents came to visit me down in Tucson for easter weekend. It was so, so lovely to have them down there. On Friday evening we went to one of my favorite little italian places in tucson- vero amore. afterwards we got gelato at the most amazing gelato place in the universe which stewie and i were introduced to by our friend nicole and her boyfriend sam... I'm pretty sure we are forever in debt to them for it ;)

 mmm... I got rose and saffron and marsala wine and stew got chocolate mint and almond biscotti. soooooo gooood.

the next day we went out to tanque verde falls to have a little picnic and go swimming. It was a fun hike down and up into the canyon, although at first we couldn't really find any deep pools. we had lunch around here:

while we were hiking back through the canyon we decided to go past where you hike up to the road. we came across a group of semi intoxicated college boys and a totally awesome super deep swimming hole! the boys were jumping off a cliff into the water, and their faces when my dad climbed up to the cliff and jumped off were hilarious. they totally wrote him off as an old geezer and he totally showed them up ;)

after a bit the boys left, so i decided to swim a bit. the water was freeeezing but it was a warm day and it felt really nice.

that evening we had dinner at my grandpa's house and then stew and I headed home and then to the grocery store to get some things for brunch the next day. I had convinced my parents to let me take care of the whole easter meal, aside from them bringing some bagels. it was so, so fun.. even though i got like no sleep because i was cooking all night haha.

First and most impressively I made and absolutley beautiful and delicious braided bread stuffed with sweet cheese and fresh lemon curd. holy crap it was so good. and surprisingly easy!

i also made some really good and simple mustard roasted potatoes made with both red and yellow skinned taters.

I put together a little melon ball salad for something fresh...

and i also made a realllly yummy mushroom and spinach baked egg dish but for some reason I don't have a picture of it. stew and I had about 7 eggs to spare after we used them in the different dishes so we bought a little egg coloring kit and colored them (at like 3 in the morning) to use for decorations/place markers. I think they came out really cute!

hmm, what else... I brewed a pot of coffee bean and tea leaf jasmine pearl tea... it's so amazing and also so expensive.... love and thanks to our wonderful friend marby for giving it to us for christmas!!! we've been trying to ration it, it's so good. The beautiful tea pot I got from my dad for christmas and I use it like, every day. me love tea.

For decorations I bought a simple, plastic purple table cloth, some tulips, and some cadbury's mini eggs. You can see the extra colored eggs hiding in the tulips :)

Everything was so beautiful and so delicious and i was exceptionally proud of myself for pulling off such a pretty and homemade easter brunch. I definitely hope to host a ton more brunches in the future :)

my helped me clean up and then left shortly after. stew and i spent the rest of the day doing a whole lot of nothing, although there was quite a bit of playing with the bubbles my parents had brought us in a cute little easter basket full of treats.

and that was our easter weekend! it was so great and relaxing and full of great company and great food. so, um... happy easter? lol.

<3
Em

A Vacation to Winter

In Tucson it's been 80-90 degrees out recently- which I love- although it made me excited to trip up to Prescott for a bit colder weather. Little did we know that colder weather meant several inches of snow! I couldn't have been happier about it, since I haven't gotten to experience snow in about 2 years since it didn't snow in Portland last year and I always just miss it whenever I come to Prescott. So waking up to a fresh blanket of sparkling white on Saturday morning was just what I wanted (although everyone else in Prescott was quite disgruntled with it). It was like taking a vacation to a winter wonderland- a great break to the summer like weather we've been having. Unfortunately I didn't pack for it though- only one pair of jeans, a thin cardigan, and no jacket... good thing I've got a mountain of clothing at my parents' house!

We began our trip at midnight Thursday night, because Stewie was busy doing things until then. We were planning on driving up to Phoenix that night to hang out with Stew's brother, brian, and didn't end up getting there until 2:30 in the morning! Luckily we had warned Brian of our late arrival so he was up when we got there and we ended up staying awake until 7am! It was absurd but so much fun. We slept in until about 2pm and then went to lunch at the pita jungle, which I had been wanting to try for a long time.

 

Excuse the mix of Nikon D40 pics and android pics. I went back and forth the whole trip. Don't Stewart and his brother look so similar though?

Anyways, we drove up to prescott that afternoon and experienced quite a weather change. It was so rainy and cloudy and dark- just the way I like it :)

We hung out with my parents for most of the night, and then moved stewarts car to his mom's so that it wouldn't get stuck in the snow that was predicted for that night. In the morning I was so happy to see 5 or six inches of it coating everything outside my window! Unfortunately snow never lasts long in prescott... by noon much of it had melted. It continued to snow on and off throughout the rest of the day, but no more than another inch stuck around. 

On Saturday we started out the day with chatting with my mom for a bit, and then I decided to make eggs benedict for breakfast. I don't generally like eggs- or breakfast for that matter- but eggs benedict is one dish that I can't turn down. Blame it on the hollandaise sauce- who can refuse something so lemony, buttery, and sinfully delicious? Emphasis on sinfully. It's gotta be like 500 calories a serving! Anyways, instead of using the ham which is typical I sliced up a tomato and sauteed the thick slices in olive oil and herbs. yummy yummy. I I poached the eggs which is always interesting and made the sauce from scratch- it's less of an undertaking than most people assume so if you dig hollandaise like I do I urge you to make it! We didn't have any english muffins (or bread for that matter) so I used a couple of hamburger buns we had lying around. Ridiculous, i know! but I toasted them and you couldn't tell the difference :)

Then we went to share a pot of coconut tea at the wild iris (soo yummy) and had fun just sitting and sipping and chatting.

 red lipstick marks all over my cup!

After that we tried to go to the local college, where my dad's painting had made it into the gallery. unfortunately it was closed... so we'll just have to check it out next time when it's in my house somewhere. I did manage to snap a few pics of a gorgeous cherry blossom tree with a bit of snow on it that was on the campus... so pretty.

After than we drove out to target because I've had a 50$ gift card burning a hole in my wallet for almost a year! I wanted to find boots, but they didn't have a single pair... so I opted for a really cute 20$ romper instead. I also tried on this dress, and I loved it but opted not to buy it.

After that I dropped stewie off at his moms so he could get his car and head to the party. I headed home and watched some tv with my dad, and then we made a fire in the fireplace and the three of us (my parents and myself) hung out and chatted for a while. Eventually we decided to get takeout (spinach enchiladas, nachos, and tortilla soup from casa alvarez- so yummy!) and ate in front of the fire in the living room. We then watched an episode of Harry's Law- a show my parents have been watching lately. After that I had stewart come pick me up and take me to the party, where I chatted with zillions of people and had a lot of fun. It was also incredibly sad, but a good way to send off a dear friend. 

On sunday I napped for a bit in the morning after staying up the whole night, and then watched Stranger than Fiction with my mom. I had never seen it in it's entirety, so it was fun to finally watch the whole thing through! Around 2 o clock stew and I decided to head back to tucson... I slept for a lot of the way which was SUCH a nice alternative to being the one who has to drive the whole 4 hour way. We picked up some chipotle for dinner, watched a few episodes of buffy and angel, and went to sleep. All in all, it was a very busy, very exhausting, but very fun weekend. I'm looking forward to next weekend being nice and quiet with plenty of time to clean up the apartment and start packing my stuff up to head back up north. 

Movie monday coming up tonight!

30 Day Challenge- 19

 Day 19 - Disrespecting your parents.

My parents are awesome. They are both so wonderful, talented, kind, compassionate, intelligent... I could go on and on. I think my sister and I are the two luckiest kiddos around to have been blessed with such amazing parents. I love them so, so much.

But yeah, I was a teenager once. I guess technically I still am one, for the next 3 months or so. Seriously, though, I'm scared to death to have a teenage girl someday. My sister and I certainly weren't the worst out there, but we definitely weren't the best either. Freaking teenage hormones, man! and self-consciousness, and the need to impress all the other little 15-year-old's and of course the need to find the perfect boyfriend so that you can have the most perfect year and go to the most perfect prom ever. All while starring in the school musical, obviously.

There were definitely times when I was a huge B to my parents. At the time I felt like I was totally justified in my actions, but in retrospect I feel terrible about it. I don't know if it would have been avoidable though... I mean, I think all teenagers go through this period of being moody and rude in an effort to be the coolest they can be. Seriously, I think people should stop worrying about the terrible twos and start freaking out about the terrible teens. I would take a screaming, toddling, destructive baby over a bitchy, hormonal teenager any day. At least a toddler can be reasoned with :)

Anyways, I feel so remorseful about the way I sometimes treated my parents back in highschool- but I think I've told them this and now we're the best of friends so thank goodness all that crap is over :)

Love you mom and dad!

A Mexico Winter

Yes, I am FINALLY getting around to telling you about my mexico trip. a month later. it's been busy, ok? and editing all those photos is no quick and easy feat!!

This is going to be more of a picture post that an explain-y post... I'll basically just give you a quick rundown of the best moments :)

My family was in mexico for a spiritual sufi retreat. We flew into peurto vallarta and spent one day there. We had dinner on the beach and walked around a bit and slept at a really cute and low-key hotel. The next day we had breakfast at a nice open-air place and then walked around some more- and then that afternoon we went back to the airport to meet up with our group. There were, oh, about 30 of us... and we all piled onto a tour bus and drove about 1.5 hours to Chacala, a really wonderful and really small rural jungle town nestled right on the beach. The retreat center was about a five minute walk from the actual town, and was so BEAUTIFUL!!!! open air dining area, wonderful rooms, a garden, a beautiful spa... rural but at the same time luxurious. it was probably one of the most amazing places I have ever been.

Anyways, we spent a full week there- the food was fantastic, the sufi stuff was enlightening, the ocean was beautiful and a great temperature, and the people were all so wonderful! My sister, myself, and the only other young girl there made friends with a bunch of the people that worked there. One night we hung out up at the spa with some baby pacificos, another night we made a campfire on the beach... it was such a wonderful, fun time, and the people were so awesome :)

speaking of baby pacificos, it was really nice being able to go to a restaurant or the bar at the retreat center and order something to drink :) I had a really delicious pina colada when my fam went out to dinner one night, and i swear the coronas taste better in mexico. haha^^

I spent a lot of time laying out by the beach reading, listening to music, writing, etc... we took a hike up the mountain one day which felt sooo good and was really beautiful.

I seriously can't wait to go back. I had such an amazing time and I really want to see everyone there again! hopefully i'll be able to go back for many years to come.

Here are (a ton) of pics:

30 Day Challenge- 15

Today was the first day of me waking up at 5:30 am and heading to the gym in time for it to open at 6:00 am. Go me!! It wasn't that difficult waking up, despite the fact that I feel like I got zero hours of sleep last night. You know those nights where you just lie there almost sleeping but for some reason just can't nod off? It was one of those. So very frustrating. I'm sure tonight will be better though since I'll be exhausted :)

Anyways, after about an hour at the gym I came home and made some tea and breakfast for stew and I. We ate in bed and now he's getting ready for his 9:10 class which I'll drive him to in a few minutes. I don't have class until two so I have plenty of time to get tonight's homework out of the way^^

Listen to me- am I productive or what?! I have no idea what has happened to me lol, waking up at 5:30 for the gym and doing my homework in advance. It's a wild world.

I've got a movie monday lined up for later today, and i'll post stew's and my hiking date, but for now I'll take care of the 30 day challenge.


Day 15 - 5 people in your life right now who mean the most.

These are in no particular order of importance, of course.

1. Stewart- of course! We are always together and we always have so much fun. Of course we bicker from time to time but for the most part I think we keep each other calm, sane, and happy.

2 & 3. My Parents- I love them both so much. They are so compassionate, intelligent, understanding, and fun. I miss them every day and I feel so blessed that I wound up as their daughter.

4. My Sister- Jenny is my best friend! I love her with all my heart and I'm so happy we are so close. She's amazing!!

5. This spot is difficult to fill because it's not as obvious as my family or my boyfriend. So, I'm going to choose to let it represent the few close friends that I've kept over many months or years, who I still speak to and see as often as possible- This includes most of the people I worked with last summer, Natalie, Ruby, Sharney, Brian, Jaimie, Marby, and others :) You are all amazing and you are all immensely important in my life.

Family Traditions

Well, the holidays are fast approaching (although I still think it is too early for Christmas music and decorations... that is strictly post-thanksgiving business) and it seems like everyone has at least one tradition that is special to them this time of year. I love thinking of all the fun little things my family does for the holidays, and that got me thinking about all the other family traditions we have throughout the year! I've always been a really big fan of traditions (and not much of a fan of change lol) and I hope that when I'm older and have kids of my own I can share some of the things that made my childhood so special. Here, to the best of my abilities, is a list of all the family traditions we have celebrated over the years. I don't have as many pictures as I'd like, but maybe when I go home for thanksgiving tomorrow I can scan some more.

1. Picking out a fresh Christmas tree and drinking hot apple cider while they cut off the trunk and put it on our car. Every year my Dad and Sister and I go to Watter's garden in Prescott and pick out the tallest, plumpest tree we can find. I love using a fresh tree because it makes the whole house smell like pine for a good month. The night after we get the tree, we all make hot cocoa, listen to christmas music, and decorate the tree with our box full of mismatched ornaments that we've collected throughout the years.

2. Having cozy holiday meals with way more food than is necessary (and pretty much always making the same things year after year). We used to have thanksgiving and christmas dinners just the four of us, but as Jenny and I (and other family members) have gotten older, we've started having various grandparents, aunts, and uncles join us as well. I love that every year we usually make the same dishes... and each person makes the same things haha. My Dad takes care of the turkey, my mom makes her mom's recipe of mashed potatoes (the ones I turned into a delicious Irish Colcannon dish), Jenny makes pecan pies, I make pumpkin pies and cranberry sauce, and towards the end of the day when things are getting frantic someone remembers to put the rolls in the oven, cook the stuffing, and sautee the green beans. We always use our nice white china and real silverware and drink champagne and sparkling apple cider out of "special occasion" flutes. It's just wonderful.

 3. Advent calender stockings throughout the month of December. For as long as I can remember, we have always hung a string of 24 little red stockings on our hearth on the first day of December. My parents would put a candy or two for both me and jenny for each night. It was such a fun and cute way to count down until Christmas.

4. Getting up early on Christmas morning and making my parents breakfast. Another Christmas tradition is that my sister and I always sleep in the same room on christmas eve so that we can wake each other up EARLY the next morning. When we were little kids we would get up around 4 or 5 o clock! Nowadays its more like 7 or 8 haha. after we wake up we go out into the living room to look at the tree and all the presents underneath and then we each take our stocking off of the hearth and look through the contents back in my room. Then we go out into the kitchen and put some coffee on. When we were younger we made honey scones from a children's cookbook we had, but now that we're older we make eggs and other things. Last year I made eggs benedict. yum!

5. Playing in the snow. It doesn't snow all that much in Prescott, but we usually get one or two big storms a year that can leave 6-12 inches of snow. When I was little and this happened, I would put on my blue snowsuit and play for hours. I remember making snow men and snow angels and going sledding with my Dad and then coming inside for hot chocolate :) One of the main things I remember though is snow ice cream! We always made a bowl whenever there was enough snow on the ground. It consisted of a lot of snow, some maple syrup, milk, and vanilla. Sooo yummy!

6. Tamales on Christmas Eve. This is a tradition in Mexico, and I don't know how it became a family tradition but I assume it has to do with my Dad growing up in Tucson. Sometimes we get them from a restaurant but a lot of the time we make them together a few days beforehand and then we move our table into the dining room and eat in front of the christmas tree. Delicious!

7. Making Christmas Cookies. I know everyone makes cookies around the holidays, but there are a few recipes that my mom and sister and I always try to make together. It's gotten harder in the past few years since we're both away at school until a week beforehand, but it's still a nice tradition! We make peppermint sugar cookies that are shaped like candy canes, chocolate spritz cookies with a spritz maker that looks about 50 years old and stained glass cookies (sugar cookie circles with melted lifesavers in the middle to look like stained glass windows).

8. A wild goose chase. I'm pretty sure this was my idea- my mom had this booklet of sweet little notes to put into kid's lunch boxes and I was looking through them one day. At the back was a kind of scavenger hunt called a 'wild goose chase'- basically a bunch of little rhymes that served as clues to lead to where the next rhyme was hidden and at the end was a prize. I begged my mom to let us do one for one christmas (I think I asked her about it like every day... how annoying haha) and we've done one ever since! A lot of families let their children open one present each on christmas eve, and this is how my family goes about it :)

9.Collecting Firewood. It's been a couple years since I've been free enough from school and things to do this one, but I still have many fond memories of it and hopefully I can do it again this year! One winter or fall day every year my Dad and I would drive out into the forest around prescott in his ollllld white pickup truck (sometimes we would stop at a gas station and get some pastries and cocoa first) and collect firewood. He took care of most of the big stuff, I mostly just picked up kindling and small, already broken up pieces. And when I got tired of that I'd play in the forest :) It was always so much fun and afterwards we could come home and have fires in the fireplace for the rest of the season.

10. Camping and coloring eggs on Easter. We haven't gone camping since I was 14, but it used to be a regular yearly thing. First we tent camped, and then after a few years we bought an old rv. We always go to the same campsite in Bullpen. The creek is right next to it and there's a big tree that my Dad would tie a rope and a piece of wood to to make a swing. We would all color eggs on a camper table and my parents would hide them after we went to bed so that we could look for them the next morning. So fun! A lot of these traditions have to do with religious holidays but my family isn't really crazy religious or anything... I think holidays are more about family, love, and fun times :)

11. Triple Scoops on our Birthdays. I don't know when this particular tradition started but food has always been an important thing to the Estes family. My Dad had 3 brothers and a sister so there was always a lot of food at their house. As soon as my sister and I were old enough to get excited about ice cream, my parents started taking us out for triple scoops at baskin robbins on our birthdays. It was really special and fun because cmon, who orders a triple scoop ever?! It's so tall and precarious and looks absolutely ridiculous when handed to a small child. It was always something we really looked forward to though :)

12. Traveling. I know this isn't really a tradition, but it's a very important part of my childhood. My family has always devoted time and money to be able to go new and interesting places. We've been to mexico and california many times, new england, the midwest, the northwest, and europe. I think it's so important to get out of the bubble where you live and go experience new cultures and ways of life. I hope to continue traveling for the rest of my life. The picture below is of my dad, my sister, and I in chicago. We drove there all the way from prescott, and that wasn't even the last stop! We went all the way up to Wisconsin to visit my aunt and uncle.

That's all I can remember for now. If any of my family members can remember more (because I'm sure I'm forgetting some but I'm getting too tired to keep at it haha), let me know! Also, what kind of family traditions do you cherish this time (or any time) of the year?

Happy holidays all, and I'll see you tomorrow Prescott!

Love,
Em