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I just realized I totally forgot to blog about NYE, Cirque du Soleil, or the duck. I know it’s all old news now so I’ll just quickly show you some pictures.

We went to our friends apartment for New Years Eve. It was fun. They had crackers that had sweet gifts inside like luggage tags and paper clip holders. One person got a camera tripod!

Cirque du Soleil (Amaluna) was awesome. The tallest guy in the whole tent sat in front of me but I just creepily leaned over towards the stranger on my left so I could see the stage. I let Scott have the good seat because it was his first Cirque experience. He liked it.

I liked: the flexible water tub girl, especially when she swam out of the tub directly into a handstand (I HAVE TO LEARN THAT!!), the tight-rope girl (not the guy), and the see-saw flipping guys. The balancing branches thingy was neato. I wonder if she has ever had it fall down during a show. I wonder how fast she could set it up if she wanted to.

I didn’t like: the bars act, I don’t think it was special enough to be part of the show. We’ve all seen the Olympics! (I know I am a tough customer.)


It’s not burnt, it’s caramelized honey I swear

I decided I wanted to try to roast a duck because they were on sale at Superstore. By the way I really like that Superstore has pages of foods on sale that are for non-white-people holidays. Good on them for realizing that Vancouver has so many people with their own holidays that they should be able to celebrate with as much ease as people that celebrate Christmas.

Scott made scallion pancakes and we chopped up some green onion and cucumber to eat with our duck. It turned out pretty well! Most of the fat drained off the duck onto the pan below. (So much for trying to save some scrubbing… the fat all went underneath the tin foil). I don’t know if I’ll ever cook it again but it was fun to try. PS did you notice that our duck was missing one leg?

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Last Friday Scott and I went to see Dan Mangan, at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. I thought it was a great show! Robots got a bit tedious after the 150th “robots need love too, they want to be loved by you” but other than that I had lots of fun.

I always enjoy it when a musician talks in between songs, and he did that. If they’re not going to talk you might as well just stay home and listen to the CD really loud!

His electric guitarist (on the left of this pic) was really funny. I give him an A+ for enthusiasm!!!

For the last song of the encore he came right out in to the audience. Right after I took this picture he told everyone to put away their phones and cameras and just enjoy being in the moment. We all sang along and it sounded pretty cool in the big theatre. That girl right underneath his left elbow looked like she might pass out from happiness from being so close to Mr. Mangan. Hahahaha.

If you still don’t know who Dan Mangan is you are missing out. He’s from Vancouver and has a lovely gravelly voice. Check him out! Here’s a video from a performance for CBC.

In other news I made eggs benedict for our breakfast this morning, complete with home made Hollandaise sauce. I am pretty proud of myself. The part I still need to work on is how to get all of the elements ready at the same time so they are still hot when it’s time to eat. Tricky! I won’t be trying this again for a while though… this breakfast is definitely a “sometimes” food.

BTW, this is the Hollandaise recipe I used. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/hollandaise-sauce-recipe/index.html Works out to one egg yolk per person you are cooking for.

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Nutella pecan pie. This pie was really really really good. I used store-bought crust.

I mean look at that. YUM.

This is the paper that ripped off inside my printer. I called Epson support to get them to tell me how to get it out. I got it out no problem but then the printer decided to say that all of my ink is empty even though I can hear the ink sloshing around the cartridge when I shake it. What a scam.

I complained to Epson on Twitter and the rep said that customer service would be contacting me, but they haven’t yet. I’m not going to let this go though.

Water marbled my nails last week. I like the swirl patterns but I don’t like the colours together.

I’ve been doing school work all day. Ugh. I’ve accomplished a lot though, which is good news. I have three midterms this week, plus a case study, and two labs to do, then four labs total to write up. BLECH.

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So this last weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving, and because almost all of our friends here are not from Vancouver (and can’t easily fly home), we hosted a potluck dinner at our house. This year we had 12 Ontarioians (Ontarians?) and Australians!

I cooked a 11.5 lbs turkey upside down, and while it took an hour longer than I expected it to take, it turned out juicy and delicious. Much better than last year.

Scott is clearly not a vegetarian anymore

Scott made super rich mashed potatoes and homemade whole wheat bread, and I made stuffing and gravy. Everyone else brought caesar salad with homemade dressing, homemade cranberry sauce, brussel sprouts that were 50% bacon, and 20 million kinds of dessert (mostly pie). It was delicious and amazing.

Everyone chowing down

I miss being around my family on holidays like this, but it was really nice to at least be surrounded by friends.

Our house still smells strongly of turkey because I am trying out making homemade stock in the slow cooker. I put the turkey bones and leftover celery, carrots, and onions into the slow cooker, filled it 3/4 with water, and set it on low for 18 hours. Then I strained it as best as I could and right now it’s cooling in the fridge so I can get rid of some of the fat before freezing it. It looks pretty lean though so I might not need to do anything to it.

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Oh glorious weekend after a long week at school. We haven’t actually gotten that much homework yet, but being at school sucks compared to working at the hospital. I am looking forward to my first rotation at St. Pauls Hospital, next next week.


For some reason we decided to cook all sorts of things this afternoon.

I made oatmeal choc chip muffins, nutella stuffed choc chip cookies, and two mushroom spinach bacon quiches (although I should have just made one, they turned out really thin). I kind of want to cut out a circle out of one of the quiche and just put it on top of the other quiche. :/

Scott made that amazing looking cheddar jalapeno bread in the middle of the picture, and also tempered some chocolate to make chocolate covered strawberries. OM NOM NOM.

Now every single dish that we have is dirty. Also I have no idea where we are going to put all of this food. Scott said we should have a bake sale.

I think my nails turned out pretty cool last week. I used my nail stickers again. I like the bare nail parts. Pretty handy that this manicure doesn’t get messed up when your nails grow!

Well……… I don’t have much more to talk about at the moment so I guess I’m off to start the dishes now.

P.S. Thank you very much for all your nice comments on my last post. I appreciate them very much. <3