Idle Hands...

And so, we like to keep busy. Here are a few things that we have made in our free time here in Portugal.

Brandon set about  making  scrabble pieces (all 100 of them) within days of being here so that we could play speed scrabble or bananagrams to some. He made them by hammering rough squares out of schist, “sanding” the pieces on a large rock, chiseling out the letters with his Leatherman and then I painted them in.

The bag to carry them in was crocheted using a hook that Brandon also fashioned. So handy!

We were commissioned to make the birthday cake for the family’s son so Brandon and I made a Genois cake. As were making the cake without a real double boiler it took about an hour of whisking before the eggs and sugar tripled in size as they were supposed to. 

It was super delicious with a strawberry simple syrup dribbled between the layers, chocolate ganauche icing and whipped cream on top. The strawberries are from the garden even in the middle of December!

 Somehow it came out looking like an albino American flag. Subconscious homesickness? I think not. 

 For Christmas I knit Brandon a pair of sleeping socks to complement the sleeping socks I had knit for myself while in Germany. Sleeping socks are an essential part of comfortable sleeping. 

These are the wrapped Christmas presents we gave one another (mostly edible goodies from the local market store).

After our first taste of hobo cooking we decided to make Christmas cookies on our hobo fire. 

Here they are with some Persimmon jam sent to me by my stepdad.  Though more like pancakes than cookies

It took a looong time to make 3 dozen

 Our last day of 2011 was complete with Jennifer's traditional birthday crepe breakfast.

Jen wearing her birthday bow

HAAAAAAAPPY NEW YEAR *van door slams*