date

a gorgeous hike through macleay park.









(we felt the need to jump in the doorway. and apparently make scary faces while doing so)


it was SUCH a nice day.
i suggest you go there, pack a lunch and make it a date.

iphone apps i love

I love me a useful iphone app (i'm not into games or fart apps or whatever else there is out there) and I also love when I see blog posts about peoples favorite apps because I always discover new ones. I made a list of mine, I hope you find them useful! (These are all free, by the way.. i'm a tightwad)

sidenote: Most of these apps are probably made for droid as well, do a little search and see what you can find.

MobileRSS - A great app you can sync your google reader too. This is helpful for slow days at work.. or anywhere you feel the need to catch up on your blog reading.

Tumblr gear - If you're into tumblr, this is by far the best app for browsing through posts. It loads super quick and also makes it easy to "like" and "reblog".

Sparkpeople - This is SUCH (!!) a great one. I think i'm long overdue for a lengthy post about my love for sparkpeople in general. Many people use it to lose weight (very successfully too) but I use this to track my food intake to make sure i'm getting enough protein/fats/ect. You can ANY food and also add entire recipes to see how many calories/fat/protein/vitamins in is each serving. That's just the beginning. I love sparkpeople.. and having it wherever you go is very convenient.

Craiglist - Pretty self-explanatory. I found my couch and bed while waiting in line somewhere.. hows that for convenient.

Yard sale mapper - This app takes all the garage sale listings from craigslist and puts them on a map. Makes it so easy to map out your route and get directions to each one. (You can also view the craigslist listing to see what they were advertising..)

ThriftBuddy - A thrift store mapper that finds any/all thrift stores near your location. Perfect if you're traveling..

PuddingCamera - Another awesome free photo app. It's mostly in korean but still pretty easy to use. You can choose different films and cameras... endless fun.

Fooducate - You can use this app to help read ingredient lists and nutrition labels on food. It tells you other words used for MSG, preservatives, ect.. and if its bad, it shows you a better option for the same type of food. Confusing? Try it out, it'll make more sense.

Pinterest - So glad they made an iphone app! This is just as addicting as the website.

Firefox home - This gives you access to your desktop history, bookmarks and open
tabs on your iPhone. If you're like me and have about a million websites bookmarked on your computer but not on your phone, this one is for you. I love being able to bookmark a recipe on my computer and pull it up on my phone at someone elses house later on..

MapMyRun - By far one of my most favorites.. this makes running so easy (well.. not literally). It tracks your pace, distance, and route using GPS, which makes it easy to hit your goals. I LOVE it.



Some basic ones i use all the time are: twitter, urbanspoon, yelp, pandora, paypal, netflix, and Skype.

And since i'm always looking for new ones, What are your top 3 favorite apps?

stumptown

(oh yeah! i cut 5 inches off my hair a couple weeks ago..)

Lately, Josh has been showing interest in coffee and has all kinds of questions for connoisseurs. The only way he likes it is FULL of sugar and milk (i'm talking disgustingly sweet). But since we're in an area of the world the takes coffee very seriously we thought it'd be the perfect time to introduce him to good coffee. I like my coffee black and strong so I didn't really know where to start with him. So while we were out and about, we stopped by stumptown and I ordered him a cappuccino. And well, this is how it went...

I guess we started off too strong. I think next time we'll go with a french press with some milk and a LITTLE sugar. I'll keep you updated on the process... ha!

Peanut butter pretzel bites

Have you ever had those chocolate covered peanut butter pretzel things from trader joes? If you have, i'm sure you, like myself, had to practice MUCH self-control to prevent yourself from eating the entire bag in one sitting. They are SERIOUSLY addicting. (Josh and I will occasionally eat them as a pre-run snack.. not ideal i know)
Well anyway, I wanted to try and make them myself (as i always do..). And about 15 minutes later, i had big bowl of them in my freezer. These are super easy to make, and it'd be a fun one to make with kids.

Peanut butter pretzel bites

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1 tbsp softened earth balance (or butter)

1/4 cup powdered sugar (use more if you like things especially sweet)

1/4 cup plus 2 TBSP brown sugar

Pretzels

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Combine peanut butter and earth balance in a large bowl with a fork or whisk, or in a stand mixer. Add the sugars and mix to combine. At this point if the filling will roll easily into balls without sticking to your hands you’re ready to go. Refrigerate to firm up, if needed.

Use a teaspoon measure to scoop the filling. Roll each portion into a small ball, then sandwich them between two whole pretzels. When all the balls are rolled and successfully sandwiched, stick the whole tray in the freezer for about half an hour.

Melt the chocolate chips. Remove the pretzel sandwiches from the freezer and quickly dip each half-way into the melted chocolate. Return to the tray and repeat with remaining sandwiches. When all are dipped, return the tray to the freezer to set up completely. Store the sandwiches in the refrigerator until serving time.

instagram love

I need to express my instagram love for a second here. I'm totally smitten with it.
(sidenote: I'm rounding up my favorite iphone apps for a different post but i thought instagram deserved its own.)
At first, I just used it to take photos and put fun filters on them but then I realized the whole social networking part of it is the most fun. It's like twitter with photos. An exclusive little iphone community!

Not to mention, the filters are the best of any iphone camera app i've used so far. And the tilt shift feature is really fun to play with.








The best part, its free. Need I say more??

If you don't have instagram, get it! And if you do, come find me and lets be instagram friends. My username is vanillaandlace.

yesterday was my favorite day in a long time

The sun was shining.
We browsed around powells.
Ate at the foodcarts on 10th and alder.
ate a doughnut.
relaxed at home on the couch.
took a long walk around our neighborhood.
all while having long talks about the past and the future
it was pretty perfect..





bbq sandwich for him

spinach and pesto crepe for me.



oreo doughnut. maybe overkill... or maybe the best doughnut ever.




this is my favorite house in our neighborhood. i want to live in it.

from last week

1. breakfast - greek yogurt with granola
2. his favorite spot in the house
3. afternoon lounging
4. kale chips in the making
5. lunch - quinoa, feta, asparagus, kale chips
6. left-over wings = messy husband
7. sweet baby calvin. (he's growing too fast)

soda dates

Josh and i discovered a soda place a few blocks down from our house that has become one of our favorite simple date places. (sidenote: we've been going on lots of fun dates lately, making up for lost time!) Now I'm not a soda drinker in terms of regular soda (ie: coke, sprite, ect) but i love me a specialty soda, made with cane sugar and natural flavors like juice (what a concept!). One of my favorites is Dry soda, i LOVE the lavender one. The one below was lemongrass and it was also great.

We went again yesterday and i got Thomas kemper bumble berry, with hints of honey and vanilla.. SO GOOD!





josh has been working his way through all the different orange cream sodas. (..boring)

p.s. have i mentioned how awesome it is to have him home.. i'm on cloud 9 all the time.