Sushi and not much else...

I really haven't had anything blog-worthy lately.

The Sprouts and I are settling into our new "back-to-school-and-work" routine. Lots of good stuff to harvest (it IS Autumn here after all...) but nothing very creative or original.

My friend Froggy will be coming into town for the Holiday weekend (and my birthday - yay!). I'm looking forward to that! We'll be hanging out in Seattle, and I imagine we'll be cooking up some yummy stuff, as well as going out to whatever yummy restaurants we can think of...

Until then, I'll leave you with a pic of this WONDERFUL and ALL VEGETARIAN sushi platter prepared for a friend and I last night. Made by a little neighborhood hole-in-the-wall sushi place that I've come to love. Aren't local places just the best?

Anyway. That's about all. Have a great weekend.

More Veggies for Supper.

Simple sautee of fresh garden veggies for supper tonight: Yellow crookneck squash, cherry tomatoes, mild little purple onions, chives and garlic.

No specific recipe, just sliced everything up and sauteed in a couple Tbsp. vegetable broth. Yummy!

Some 8-grain bread (which I didn't take a picture of since it was just plain old bread) and we called it a meal.

Happy End-of-the-Summer-Harvest to everyone!

Back-To-School and SOURDOUGH PANCAKES!

My Sprouts started school today, and in a burst of domestic-Betty-Crocker-like inspiration I offered to make pancakes! (You have to understand, none of us are morning people around here. Muffins and smoothies are usually our grab-n-go breakfast of choice - and necessity.) Pancakes are usually reserved for weekends.

But... I'm the lucky owner of sourdough starter now, and I was just dying to try it out!

See, last week, I happened on the positively drool-worthy sourdough pancakes and waffles over on VegChic's Blog.

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So of course, I had to whine about wanting my own sourdough starter. Well, Jody was wonderful and generous enough to actually send me some starter!!

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Starter in the MAIL? In the summer? I imagined exploding packages and messy mailboxes and wasn't all that sure it would work.

But she had heard that you can dry some of the starter out into a dry dough and ship it, and it can be resurrected into liquid starter with warm water, flour and a few hours of time... It was sort of an experiment for both of us.

Well, when my starter 'dough' arrived, I was excited, but a bit skeptical too - it was just a flat piece of leathery bready dough about the size of my hand - was this really going to work?

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I slowly added warm water and flour until the leathery dough was incorporated into the liquid, per instructions, and just a few hours later, my starter was bubbling away all happy-like.

So, this morning I made pancakes for my kids and they turned out perfect and wonderful and fluffy and yummy!

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THANKS SO MUCH VEGCHIC!

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Sourdough Pancakes

1 cup soymilk

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sourdough starter

At least 6 hours before using, stir together starter, milk and 1/2 cup flour.
Let stand out overnight.
When ready to cook, preheat griddle, add remaining ingredients to sour dough batter. Adjust flour or soymilk to make correct consistancy. (You can let the dough rest for an hour here if you want, I didn't.)
Pour a scoop of batter for each pancake onto lightly oiled griddle.
Cook aprox. two minutes on each side.

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I didn't have any whole-wheat flour, I think that would have made them a bit more hearty, (the way I like pancakes), but my kids thought they were in Heaven with "white pancakes". And hey, I was dying to try the starter, so I figured it was a good excuse. We even had REAL maple syrup to go with! (Major luxury around here!).

So that's how we started our Back-To-School day. The sourdough starter is bubbling away again and everyone's well fed and happy.

Oh.

Except the dog.

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Pffft.

He managed to dig quite a large hole in our gravel driveway and in the process of destroying the driveway, ripped a good chunk off one of the pads on his front paw.

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Ouch! Did you not notice you were hurting yourself, silly pup?

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He has to wear a 'lampshade' collar for a few days to give that paw a chance to heal. Of course he's so humiliated all he will do is look at me disdainfully, sulk on the couch and grunt little complaining sounds...

Comfort Food is Brown ("Fried Chicken" Seitan)

My oldest 'Sprout' left for school today. As in, away from home for HIGH school!

This is what's happening:
Little Miss Sports Sprout was awarded this really amazing scholarship!
She'd heard about this great school. Private high school. Excellent academics, great sports teams, National Merit scholars, insane tuition. More than I bring HOME every month.

But they did have a few scholarships and quite skeptically (on my part) we'd applied. Way back in March. And hadn't heard anything. Not even a condescending letter laughing in our hopeful faces! J. Sprout really wanted to attend this particular school and I hated to dash her dreams, regardless of how impossibly far-fetched I thought they were.

Even though we wished, hoped, prayed, and crossed our fingers just as hard as we possibly could, the realist (OK, pessimist) in me naturally assumed there wasn't a snowball's chance in...well...you know....

On the other hand... pessimistic as I am, I have a few grains of faith too. I always tell my kids "Be careful what you ask God for, 'cause you just might get it." Believe me, it's happened too many times to be a fluke.
Amazingly enough, a couple weeks ago the school's administrators called and said they'd had someone drop out, and MY Sprout was next in line for eligibility. Well, heck, "next in line" ain't so great for party invitations, but for an elite, private school scholarship? I'm not complaining! Needless to say, she's thrilled out of her gym shorts!

The up side? J Sprout gets to attend an exclusive foo-foo private College-Preparatory high-school! The downside? It's two hours away. The upside? It's paid for. The downside? It's two hours away. The upside? Ugh. You get my point.

Of course I was thrilled and so very proud beyond words, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity, first-rate education, awesome sports program, blah-blah-blah. But because of distance she gets to board in the school's dorm. Wow. Yep, they have dorms just like those in college. And yep, she'll be home every weekend... but still...

Well, I mulled it over for a while, checked references, called parents and staff and made a nuisance of myself, but in the end, I think this is such an amazing opportunity for her. So I resigned myself to trying something new and far out of my comfort zone... having my J. Sprout away from home (during the week anyway).
We spent the next few days deliriously packing and buying brightly colored girly stuff for her room and scrambling to get paperwork and sports physicals and everything done. How fun!

But the reality of it hit me today at Registration and Orientation. And it wasn't so easy.
What sort of Mother was I? Dropping my BABY off to live with a bunch of other teenage girls. In a big ivy-covered building? With some other woman playing "Mom" and checking up on her and enforcing rules and telling her to turn her music down... Who's going to make sure she gets to bed on time? Who's going to make sure she does her homework? Does she look too young to you? Sure, she can drive, she can travel to foreign countries, she can fix computers and repair fences. She can take care of herself... but can she be away from her Mommy?

Really. Who's going to read her stories? Who's going to tuck her in? Who's going to bake her cookies? (OK, maybe I don't do all those things any more - but I still wish she'd let me!)

Obviously the staff take care of these things, and obviously she will be OK and obviously she's not in Mongolia or anything - we can send off care packages - which my Middle Sprout thinks will be great fun. (In fact, I think Middle Sprout is enjoying this a little TOO much - no one to boss her around or argue with...) .

Sigh. It's still very hard for me.

So I came home and did what I always do when I'm in a funk. Whipped up something crispy and tasty and fried... and brown. Comfort food. The best comfort food is brown. Gravy. Chocolate. Tea. Toast. Or in this case, crispy-fried seitan strips, home-fried potatoes and garden green beans slightly overcooked and drenched in Earth Balance to be exact. (OK, the beans weren't brown.)

Analyze this however you want. Send me to therapy. Yes, I know darn well that eating because you're in a blue funky mood is not a good idea. And just so you know - I don't turn to my secret cookie stash every time I'm sad. But sometimes it helps a lot...

OK. Enough moping.
I have a recipe for you here:

For the seitan strips I used some chicken-type that I'd made and frozen earlier. Use store bought if you want. I use a recipe loosely based on one from The PPK website, but with lots of my own changes in it.


"Chicken-y" Seitan

1 1/2 cups vital wheat gluten flour
1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
2 Tbsp. garbanzo flour
1/4 tsp. white pepper
1/2 tsp sage
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1 1/4 cup very cold chicken-flavor vegetable broth
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tbsp white wine
1 Tbsp. tomato paste
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
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Simmering Broth
10 cups vegetarian chicken broth (I buy vegetarian chicken bullion and mix with water)
1/2 cup soy sauce


In a large bowl, mix together Vital Wheat Gluten Flour, garbanzo flour, dry spices and herbs and nutritional yeast.

In a separate bowl, mix together remaining ingredients: broth, wine, soy sauce, tomato paste, garlic, lemon zest.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and combine, knead dough for about 10 minutes until a spongy, elastic dough is formed.

Let dough rest for a couple of minutes and prepare your broth, but don't start boiling it.
Roll your dough into a log shape about 8 inches long and cut into 3 equal sized pieces.
I usually stretch the dough as thin as I can and wrap it back on itself into a log several times - I like this rolled texture and it makes it seem a little more "chicken-y".
Place the pieces in the broth.
It is important that the water/broth be very cold when you add the dough, it helps with the texture and ensures that it doesn't fall apart.
Partially cover the pot (leave a little space for steam to escape) and bring ALMOST to a boil.
When the water has ALMOST BUT NOT QUITE come to a boil set the heat to low and gently simmer for an hour, turning the pieces every now and again.
Now you've got gluten. Let it cool in the simmering broth overnight and use or freeze in the broth.


So after doing all of the above, I am never in the mood to actually eat the seitan, so I freeze it for later.

I cut it into strips tonight and dipped it in 1.) cornstarch, then 2.) Veganaise diluted with a little soymilk then 3.) in pretty highly seasoned breadcrumbs.

And fried, fried, fried to my heart's content.
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OK, one might argue that literally, fried food is not good for my heart. Maybe not.
But somehow my heart feels a little better tonight.

Potato Bread and a Veggie Sandwich!

I really don't bake bread too often, but I've been suffering "Bread-Machine-Abandonment Guilt" lately and I had some yeast I wasn't sure was still good, (obviously it was fine!) so I decided to give it a shot.

This potato bread is one I've been making forever, and it always turns out so nice. Moist, dense and holds together. Lovely for sandwiches.
I have no idea where it came from. Sorry.

Yes, it's obviously made with glaringly white flour, I was out of whole wheat flour. Call the carb police. Send the fiber patrol after me, I don't care. It was GOOD!

Besides - I'm sure I more than made up for nutritional deficiencies when I concocted this oddly colorful veggie sandwich. Tofurkey, sprouts, spinach, shredded roasted beets and carrots, and leaf lettuce. Soo yummy it was insane; I barely waited for the bread to cool.

Potato Bread recipe for the Bread Machine
Yield: (1) 2 pound loaf

1 Cup Mashed Potatoes (sweet potatoes are good here too!!)
1 Cup Potato Cooking Water
3 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
1 Tsp Salt
1 1/3 Tbsp Sugar
2 Cups Bread Flour
1 Tbsp. Vital Wheat Gluten
2 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
2 Tsp Yeast

Add ingredients to your bread machine in the order preferred by your maker. I set this on the dark bread setting when using wheat flour.

Bake as directed. Let cool and slice for sandwiches or whatever.

Garden Produce!

Woo, we're home from vacation. And let me tell you, the food was yummy in Canada, but I was still craving some plain ol', fresh garden veggies.

Fortunately, my Mom is like my own personal CSA. She grows a huge garden and shares it with everyone within driving distance. (Whether they want zucchini or not!)

This afternoon, Mom dropped off a giant box of beets, squash, peas, carrots, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes. Problem solved, I happily cut up a little of everything and made a tasty, simple supper.

The beets were wrapped in foil and baked. The stirfry has no recipe. It's just carrots, tomatoes, pea pods, squash and zucchini, onions and a few herbs from my patio.

Yum. Have a great evening.

Tofu-Family VICTORIA Vacation: Day 5 - Headed Home!

Yes, our final day in this beautiful city. We had so much fun!! And except for a few purchases cleverly disguised as "back-to-school-shopping" we stayed well within our budget. Which makes it more fun for stingy ol' me!

The girls woke up early, excited about t

he prospect of ordering room service. I think they were slightly disappointed the bellhop didn't dramatically sweep a white cloth off the cart and present us with champagne or something... not to worry, it was still delicious!

There were several vegan options on the room-service menu, but nothing noted specifically for breakfast. I called and asked if there was anything and the kitchen staff told me their potato pancakes just happened to be vegan (just fried mashed potatoes and onions) as well as the English muffins, home-fried potatoes, oatmeal and fruit (obviously). I ordered the potato pancakes and fresh mixed berries (yum!). My kids chose waffles, french toast, and vegetarian eggs Benedict (with mushrooms instead of ham). And breakfast included orange juice! You can't beat that!

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My 'pancakes' arrived as this 1 HUGE pancake/fried-mashed-potato-patty... I was a little surprised but it was wonderful, crisp on the outside and actually tasted like real potatoes! Needless to say, we were absolutely stuffed, but it was a good way to start our last day...

After checking out - (and playing with the luggage cart and hugging the bear), we made our final drive thru the city of Victoria, stopping a few places for pictures and finally making our final sidetrip to Beacon Hill Drive In.

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The place is evidently a landmark and I'd promised the Sprouts they could try some of their famous Soft-Serve Ice Cream (not vegan, so I skipped it, I'm not a huge soft-serve fan anyway).

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We'd heard from several people that we couldn't leave town without trying it - 100% natural, no funky ingredients, supposedly the "best ice cream in the city" and on and on.... Ordinarily we try to stick to soy based ice-creams, and all of us like those just fine - but this was something the Sprouts really wanted to try. Yes, I make lots of "exceptions" on vacation - and the Drive-In is such a cute little retro sorta place, it's worth it for the atmosphere alone!

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Was it "the best"? I don't know, after some discussion we determined that we weren't really sure we remembered what dairy ice-cream tasted like any more. That said, the kids did think it was very good - far richer and creamier than they remembered most ice cream being. "At least it didn't smell like a cow, like real milk does" was my youngest Sprout's final assessment.

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We wandered back roads out of Victoria and made it to the Custom's check-in and

Ferry Terminal well ahead of schedule. More snacking (is that all we do?) more watching

the boats and the birds, more brain stimulating DVD's, more Kodak moments and more crosswords...

The weather was perfect for a ferry trip once again.

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9:00 PM we arrived home safe and sound. Time to get ready for school and work and all those responsibilities we've been avoiding for the last week. Would we do it again? In a heartbeat.

Thanks for re-living our memories with us.

Victoria Vacation Continued and Continued

We're still vacationing.

But hey - the room is inexpensive, we brought our own food... we're doing so much better with the budget than most vacations half this length...

Speaking of budgets, My Middle Fashionista Sprout was still determined to blow hers and a little worried that we hadn't hit the famous Canadian ROOTS store yet. "We just HAAAAVE to Mom, this is our last chance". How sad!

OK, our first exciting event: we were nearly run down by a "parade" of Hemp Nationalists (they called themselves).

Now, I don't know exactly what that means except they felt the need to march noisily down the sidewalk waving Hemp Power flags, probably wearing Hemp underwear too, and who KNOWS what they were smokin'...

My oldest Sprout thought it was hilarious and snapped a picture just as they were rounding the corner.

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After that we trudged back downtown to the shopping district for our last bit of (note my excitement!) shopping. I would rather lie on the Interstate than shop two consecutive days in a row, but my Sprouts convinced me this was, somehow, a VERY important and overlooked stop.

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Plenty more photo ops along the way too - every shop and trinket store seems to have it's own mascot out front and my very UN camera shy Sprouts enjoyed every minute!

Well, we finally procured the precious and much coveted ROOTS sweatshirts... Oh, sorry, my children are appalled at my lack of fashion vocabulary. They're "HOODIES" of course, not sweatshirts. Whatever you call them, my kids live in these things, regardless of temperature. It can be 80 degrees and they still freak out if they don't have their "hoodie". That is why all the vacation pictures show my children in jackets... It wasn't cold! But I digress.

Hoodie -shopping finished, we grabbed lunch at a little sidewalk Hot Dog Kiosk. Yes, they had vegetarian (VEGAN actually!) hotdogs, all cooked and stored totally separate from the others. I was impressed! And it was fun to find vegan "fast food" for a change.

Then we headed to the Beacon Hill Children's Farm.

I'm sometimes hesitant of petting "zoos" and such, but this facility is actually part of BC's Animal Protection and Rescue League as well.

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All the farm's furry residents have been rescued from some situation or another. They make their homes at the farm or are adopted out.

It was our luck that right now, the Farm had quite a few babies. My Sprouts just fell in love with them.

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I personally liked watching the funny little Vietnamese potbelly piglets, and a sweet little Shetland sheep caught my Middle Sprout's attention. Every time she walked past the pen, the sheep ran over and bobbed it's head up and down and 'baa-aaa-ed' until she scratched it's head. We told her she'd have to stay there as official "Sheep Scratcher"!

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There was also a whole pen of goats and the Farm staff let us climb in and hold the kids. So fun!

After we'd loved on the darling little goats for a while and talking to the nice staff at the Farm, we hiked some trails in the park, stopped by the duck pond and then headed back to our hotel.

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While I was making supper, the Sprouts pointed out the VEGAN options listed in the room-service menu (hinting that they were tired of my cooking? Surely not!).

I told them we'd do room service for breakfast tomorrow as a special treat before leaving. (It was a treat for me too - That way I could pack all the kitchen gear ahead of time and no breakfast clean up!) Ordering room service sounded pretty exotic and exciting to them, though they definitely didn't want to leave!

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We played in the hotel's game room for a while tonight, learning valuable skills like shooting pool and playing chess and hoping the "hot guys" would happen by. (My Sprouts, not me!!) Swimming and a long, welcome soak in the hot tub ended our day.

More Vacation; Converse Shoes and Rebar Cafe.

"Mom, Today was my favorite day!"
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One of the major destinations for my kids on this vacation was a little back-to-school shopping at "The Converse Store".

Otherwise known as Baggins, their slogan: "Possibly The Worlds Largest Selection of Converse and Vans."

I think it's possibly true.

I like them because they have a great selection and very few of the shoes are made from leather. Although I'm not obsessive about it, whenever possible, I try to purchase nonleather shoes for myself and my kids. It makes it easier when there's lots of fun patterns and designs to choose from...

And fortunately, my kids LOVE Converse.

OK, so I'd promised my Sprouts each a pair of shoes. You'd think that would be enough. But no. They had been saving their pennies as well. They intended to make the most of this trip! I think we happily left with eight pairs of shoes. (The store owner was probably just as happy!)

Fortunately my teen's feet have stopped growing so these shoes will actually last longer than a nanosecond.

And even better - they actually delivered the giant box of shoes to our hotel so we didn't have to lug it all over Victoria!

After our Converse adventure, we were revved up for more sightseeing, tourist-y shopping, crazy pictures and plain old browsing.

We went through Victoria's Chinatown district (which our tour driver yesterday pointed out was the second-largest China town in...well... somewhere... obviously I was taking such careful notes.) Plenty of hamming for the camera at the Dragon Gate and stuff.

My oldest Sprout was happily trying on furry hats in the Hudson's Bay store. Just after her sister snapped this picture, I mentioned the hats were REAL fox fur. (I don't think she'd ever seen real fur). She screamed and threw the hat across the store and muttered "murderers!" the whole rest of the time we were in the store.

*ahem* I don't think anyone actually noticed, and I don't particularly condone horrified screaming and throwing merchandise in stores... but secretly I thought her little activist tantrum was amusing. (Not saying fur is funny - don't send me hate mail or anything!)

Finally we decided to slow down and have a late lunch. Our restaurant of choice (well, MY restaurant of choice) was ReBar. If you're ever in Victoria, go there!

Let me tell you this is my favorite restaurant, the Holy Grail, Mecca, the BEST EVER vegan friendly restaurant on the planet. OK, maybe I'm prone to slight exaggeration, but it IS a wonderful place and I wasn't disappointed in the least!

I was even happier that my (sometimes picky) kids all found things on the menu that they really LOVED!

This was the first time they'd ever been here so I was a little worried... Little Sprout had to take all the veggies and tofu OFF her curry and rice bowl. ("Don't they KNOW I don't like stuff all mixed up, Mom?") and even though the chopsticks were a bit of a mystery to her, she still gobbled every bit - she said MY tofu was better though... awww... I love my kids!

I had an amazing lemon-pesto pasta with kale and pine nuts. YES, I could throw the same ingredients together at home, but it wouldn't be the same somehow...

Of course we shopped 'till we dropped that afternoon, definitely walking off lunch, dinner and all the snacks in between! When we were finally exhausted, we returned to the hotel for a light supper, a little bit of catching up on e-mails and of course...MORE swimming!

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I'll close this post with a picture to prove to all you doubters out there that YES! I did indeed put on a bathing suit and go swimming each and every night. (*grumble*) I actually LOVE swimming... but to save your eyeballs, I made the picture as small as possible.

Tofu-Family Vacation, Day 3 (Sick of us yet?)

Day Three dawned bright and clear, thankfully not quite so warm.

We took Little Sprout over to Beacon Hill Park for some play time in the water fountains.

Beacon Hill Park is just beautiful, and has two really nice clean areas for kids to play and get wet, we especially thought the giant Watering Can fountain was fun - you could push giant buttons to make the spray change patterns. She absolutely LOVED it and we spent most of the morning there - I think this was her favorite part of the trip (even if it was REALLY cold water...).

Big sisters thought water play was beneath them, but I secretly think they wished they had the nerve to run through the water once or twice...

Another interesting (and free) destination we hit while in the park; The Tallest Totem Pole In North America. Little Sprout wanted her picture taken at the base of the pole even though there's really not much to see from there - my older girls were too cool for totem pole pictures I guess.

After lunch we walked along the Inner Harbour waterfront and peeked in the lobby of the Wax Museum, but the wax figures weirded the kids out just a little, and they decided to pass, which was fine with me.

Instead, we opted for a horse-drawn carriage ride around the city. (I'm such a sucker for anything "horse-y") The driver played tour guide - of course - and showed us lots of historical sites and beautiful old homes.

Somewhere in the conversation, we mentioned we were vegetarian and she helpfully recommended a "great little restaurant with lots of vegetarian choices and local, organic food" - It sounded great, but I looked them up on the Internet later, and decided to pass - "great little restaurant" indeed! Meals started at 28$ each...

Instead, we took the recommendation of one of the hotel's shuttle drivers and checked out a Mexican place (yes, I know, Mexican in Canada?) called Delicados.

I'm not a huge fan of "rice and beans" Mexican food, and when we saw it was just a walk-up deli with a few street-side picnic tables, I almost changed my mind altogether - but we were starving and had heard such good things...

I'm glad we tried it - this little place really surprised us! Everything was so fresh, organic and could be made veggie!

The Sprouts all opted for the Rainbow Nachos with red, blue, white and yellow-corn chips and all sorts of colorful veggies - They loved being able to customize their orders exactly as they liked them - no onions, no tomatoes, extra avocados, whatever...

I ordered the Small Combo Plate and wouldn't have been able to finish the thing if I'd had two days to work on it. It included a nopalito, roasted corn and pumpkin seed burrito in a green cilantro tortilla with red chile sauce; a pinto bean, avocado, green chile enchilada in a whole wheat and corn tortilla; and a "side" of refreshing black-bean and corn salad with a garlic-lime dressing.

Wow. That's a "small"? It was probably the tastiest and most creative Mexican-type meal I've ever eaten... except for one small detail.

Now, I can usually handle things quite spicy, but after noticing they titled their hottest sauce "Nitro", I decided to play it safe (OK, I was tired and grumpy and being a weenie) and ordered the "medium" red chile sauce. They assured me it was only "moderately hot".

Riii-ii-iight!

One bite and I knew I was going to die. Seriously die. Or at least hyperventilate!! My sinuses were on fire and I thought I'd never be able to swallow again. Mercy! I have to confess here - I actually grabbed a spoonful of my daughters (very NOT vegan) sour cream to dull the heat. Fortunately this remedy helped immensely and immediately, and I was able to breathe again. I scraped the rest of the offending molten peppers off my enchilada (thankfully there wasn't much anyway) and enjoyed the rest of my dinner thoroughly.

Everything was was delicious, despite the evil pepper incident. The green chiles in my burrito were fire-roasted and tasted as "authentic" as those I get in New Mexico, and the nopalitos (cactus) were tender-crunchy and sort of tasted like green beans.

For those of you who might suffer pangs of dairy guilt I don't recommend my emergency method for dousing habanero flames - but desperate times call for desperate measures - it did do the job.

After the excitement of dinner, with full tummies and tired from our day's adventures, we wandered home enjoying the sunset. The kids somehow found the energy to climb and play around the artwork and murals in a small park (I'm sure they're supposed to represent something important and historical though I apologise to the good people of Canada, I have no idea what).

I made sure we caught a glimpse of the lights on the Parliament (sorry for the fuzzy picture) buildings just as we headed back to the motel.

And pool.

And hot tub.

And bed!

More tomorrow. You know you're on the edge of your seat in anticipation!