I have to title this?

Salutations, most beloved blood relations. (or 'Hi guys' in plain english)

As the eldest and 'most responible' (snigger snigger) of us 4 kids, I've taken it upon myself to blog everything that I feel must absolutely be blogged. Therefore, you can expect to be seeing a lot of pointless photos, unecessary blurbs, random posts passionately dedicated to ridiculous objects, plenty of spelling errors, numerous competitions - mostly Rafael vs. fruits & veggies in the kitchen (he usually wins), and oodles of Icelandic phrases which we find hilarious, but you'll just have to figure out on your own.

All this in a genuine effort to keep you all convinced that we are indeed still alive, and have not frozen to death in this antartic country (yet)

Alright enough chit-chat. Time for a few photos so you can see we're legit. :D

Me and wuvly wittle boo (who is growing up sooo fast!)

Aww she's so pretty, no?

The devilishly handsome Rafael

Thea hiding in a cupboard

All 3 of the little buggers at Thea's birthday

Rafi & Thea at a waterfall in Akureyri

Me & Rafi looking shocked at something...

Boo & Thea, soon after our arrival to Iceland

Me & Thea being FOOLS

All these pictures are kind of splashed out over the past year and not necessarily in chronological order, but it'll do. :D
Anyway I'll try to post as much as I can, but we don't have internet at our house right now so the posts might be a little sporadic.

Sjáumst!

-Dominique (with the "helpful" oversight & commentary of the other kids)

More August birthdays

Kind, generous and creative...


Happy birthday G who is 13 on August 7th

Happy birthday Z who is 15 on August 16th

It's....

Somebody's BIRTHDAY TODAY!!!!



Happy Birthday little bro Raphael! Is it 15 now?? For real? Not 11? 6? You no has my permissions to grow up!!! :) I love you and miss you tonnnnnnnns. Hope you have a splendiferous day of celebrations.

xoxoxoxox

PS Make sure you post soon on this blog! :)

Wasting your life on the Internet...

Chorus Camp provides room for blogging and cooking desserts

Now I have a kind of reprieve from my work because Grace is at chorus camp for the next week. That means I have a bit more time for this blog enterprise.

I'd like to share my recipe for Rhubarb Crisp with everyone because I like it and Kristina likes it so you will probably like it too. It is not my personal recipe invention, it's just from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food cookbook. More about this cookbook in a bit... I have increased the quantities in the recipe so this recipe makes about half again as much as the original.

Rhubarb Crisp

3 pounds rhubarb
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
2 sticks of butter (a half pound)
2 cups rolled oats
cinnamon to taste (1 tsp or so)
1/4 tsp nutmeg

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Slice the rhubarb stalks on the diagonal into uniform 3/4-inch-thick pieces. Toss with3/4 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of flour and place in a 9 by 13 inch baking dish.

2. Combine the remaining flour by hand (or in a food processor) with the butter until the butter is distributed evenly in pea sized pieces. Combine in the remaining sugar, rolled oats, spices. Sprinkle over the rhubarb.

3. Bake until the rhubarb is tender and topping is golden, 35 minutes. Serve warm or cool. Refrigerate any leftovers (if you have any). It's good for breakfast too!

The book Everyday Food is very useful to me. I love this cookbook because I am such a sucker for pictures. Every single recipe has a large color photo illustrating it. It's amazing what a difference this makes. Almost as though I am cooking visually instead of by taste. Or maybe it's that I don't know if I'll like a dish unless I see it first. Come to think of it, I sometimes eat in restaurants like this too. Along the lines of: "I'll have what the man at the third table is having" or even "Excuse me, what is that dish you are eating called?"

My next favorite cookbook is Vegetable Soups by Deborah Madison. This book has the most wonderful soups I have ever made. My goal is to make every recipe in this book by the end of the summer, erm....fall more likely. My favorites so far are the Mexican Tomato Broth, which is much more complex and exciting than it sounds. And the Yellow Pea and Coconut Milk Soup - just right for these cold summer days (yeah, Bay Area 'winter').

This week I am looking for something interesting to do with nectarines or maybe nectarines, raspberries and blackberries since that is what I have in the house right now. I'm thinking maybe nectarine crisp with ginger whipped cream and fresh berries sprinkled on top. Mmmmmm.

Who's got a favorite nectarine recipe?

Name for this blog

Can everyone post their suggestions as to what we should name this blog? Just leave it as a comment. Something funny or intelligent. Or both!

Oh and Andrea gets the grand prize of a million points for posting first and what a lovely first post it was. Hurray!

As for everyone else... I'm rather disappointed in you!!! :/ Is it that everyone thinks this is such a bad idea? Well, what's your idea?

I will help roll this ball forward...

Great idea Emily (and Manny for the inspiration)!

Our family has been at family camp this past week. In case you haven't been to or heard of family camp before, it is a summer camp for families (ok, ok, you knew that part). Ours is up in the Sierra at about 5000 foot elevation. We camp in tent cabins (see picture), sleep in sleeping bags, go on long hikes, swim in the pool, make lanyards and hang with our friends. Our camp is called Camp Gold and we have been going to this same camp during the 7th week of summer for 14 years. The attractions are that the same people go every year at the same week of July and we do the exact same things at camp every year.

I am not kidding when I say EXACT same things each year. First off, 7th week turns out to be a popular week so it's hard to get into in the first place. And that means nobody ever leaves! Some families have been going to Camp Gold Seventh Week for several generations! There are events every night, like music shows and talks and although some of the specific content changes, the order of the activities is always the same. The meals are almost identical from year to year: turkey dinner the first night, mexican enchiladas the third night, BLTs for lunch of the fifth day, strawberry pancakes the last breakfast, all so regular that I can now recite the menu for the week from memory!

One drawback to such long standing traditions we found when we first started going to 7th week is that everybody already knew each other (it seemed like). So, how to break in and make friends? Soon it was discovered that we are a musical family and we were invited to join the Jug Band. This meant we had new musical friends and we got to perform in the Wednesday night show for the entire camp. After that four minutes of fame, everyone at camp knew us and had something to talk to us about. We have performed with the Jug Band every year since then.

As I'm writing this, Grace is reading over my shoulder. Now she says, "I want to go back and do the week over. " And I do understand. We all had a lot of fun this year at camp but Grace had her best time ever and a big success! I think I'll tell you more about that in another post.

I will begin...

Hello from Seattle, Washington everyone!

I've been here for just about 2 weeks and so far so good. The weather has been amazing and warm (hot even), with just a few cloudy days here and there. They say the winters can be tough because it's pretty much dark and gray the whole time, but I can't imagine it's worse than Iceland and you guys over there are still alive right?? :) I will just bundle up and drink lots of coffee, which are two things I love anyway. Brandt, my boyfriend of a year and a half now, is still in Sacramento till the end of summer. He is just working through the summer to make as much money as he can before he moves up just in time to keep me warm when it gets cold. Haha! (don't tell him this, but that's the only reason I want him to come :P)

Other than that I still work at the clothing store called Urban Outfitters - a rather nifty store! We sell a little more counter culture fashion than the average clothing store, so it appeals to me even tho I am not really of any culture per se. I think I fit into the cracks of culture and make my own. SO that's hopefully even better!!

Alright, I'll save more tales for later. Here are a few recent pics taken with sista Danie (18 now!!) at Snoqualmie Falls.

GREEEETINGS to most of the family!

So, our dear Manny has launched the attack on us as a family committing to getting back in touch and staying that way. His efforts have given me an idea that I hope everyone will be down for. A FAMILY blog! I have invited everyone on this email list to author the blog, so you just need to create your profile and log-in (if anyone needs help just ask and I will tell you exactly what to do). Also, as for cousins or anyone that I didn't include in the email due to not having their email addresses, if you see that I missed someone please send me their emails to include them as well!

The idea with the blog is that it will be a place that everyone can post to with pictures or just some 'hellos' or what you've been up to. I think it will be more organized and centralized than if everyone was communicating by email. I realize that some may post more than others, and that is fine, but PLEASE if everyone could try and post at least once a month with SOMETHING! We also want to respect our families privacy so feel free to choose alias nicknames if you'd like! (maybe the nickname you had when you were little)

The blog title is yet to be decided and I am hoping for some suggestions which you can leave as a comment on the first post (which will be a copy of this email for now, I'll delete it when we get going).

I am sure I speak for everyone in saying that we have gone too long with so little communication between us that it would just be nice to have our family come a little closer together again (or maybe for the first time?). Your efforts will be much appreciated by all!

Love everyone and hope we can one day be close not only in the world of cyber but also in person!

Emma