one month

One month from today, I'm hopping on a plane at SeaTac, meeting up with my parents in Texas and heading to Honduras. I came across Living Water International through a clean water campaign at church in the spring and really felt the Lord leading me to serve with them. I went online, saw when and where there were trips, prayed about it for a few weeks and signed up!

All of this happened back in March, so September felt like it would never come. Over the past few months I've gotten excited, then forgotten about it, remembered it and gotten excited all over again. And now, it's finally coming.

While my dad drills holes to produce a well, my mom and I are going to be on the "health and hygeine team". This means we teach the community leaders how to use the well once it is in place, the value of hand washing, basic nutrition knowledge and basic health knowledge. I'm pretty excited to be on this part of the team and get to interact with the different peolple as we teach them. Since hearing about LWI I have found myself saying, many times, "I've never found something that is so in-line with my passions, what I'm learning in school, what tugs at my heart and my career goals." And that still rings true.

If you think about it please be praying for me, my parents, the team and all the people that we will come in contact with. That we would not only be helpful and bring them clean water, but that they would see the love of Christ through us and be blessed by His work in Honduras.

One month and counting...

betcha can't guess what I'm gonna blog about...

I have no idea where my new obsession with blackberries came from, but fear not, it's going strong...I think it's a combo of I've never picked them before, they are free, and just the fact that it's summer. I spent the afternoon searching for berries throughout Magnolia and once again was not disappointed. Here are a few things I've learned and observed through this new fascination of mine...

Blackberry bushes have thorns. Lots of them. Wear shoes.

Don't get greedy, if you eat as much as you pick you will get a stomach ache, trust me I tried.

Bring someone tall with you to pick berries. They are helpful for the ones that look out of reach but soo good. It'll save you from climbing up that impossible black fence. Matt Van Deren, you'd be perfect for the job :)

Wash them before you eat them!! Or at least inspect them. I'm usually not a huge advocate for washing stuff, but I was driving home today, munching away on my freshly picked berries and out jumps this....yes, that is a worm.

Wild blackberries are much smaller than store bought. Sweeter too. Makes me wonder what they do to them.

In the summer months, keep a ziploc in your purse. It's served me well

Blackberries are great in anything. Pie, scones, ice cream, smoothies, cobbler, on top of yogurt. Seriously anything.

One ripe blackberry is worth 5 almost ripe ones. Be patient

And most importantly, always have a good answer about what you are doing when the neighbors walk by and give you funny looks...

more than just food.

Up until now, this blog has served solely as a place to share things that I've made, food I've eaten, and people we've had over for dinner. It's been on my heart lately that there is so much more to food and nutrition then just making scones that taste good or impressing the new friends with pasta. There so much more than just food...

I had the wonderful blessing this weekend of going down to portland to see my friend and first roommate. Joy was that random roommate that gets assigned, you look up on facebook and try to figure out before that awkward meeting in August when you all of a sudden live together. It could not have gone better and she has grown into someone that I love, have so much fun with and miss dearly when we are in different states.

This weekend we got to hang out, see her family, jump on the trampoline, play badminton (my first time), and sleep in the treehouse. Even though I don't see the Brennemans very often, they feel like family and I love all of them very much. Among the many conversations, I found joy and I talking about our futures. I relayed to her my dream of working with a non-profit doing nutrition in developing countries. We talked about how simple the concept of providing clean water is and yet how so many different places don't have that luxury. And all of a sudden, like a little slideshow in my mind, I remembered that exact conversation with her freshman year. We were sitting in our little white box of a room, getting to know each other and those exact words came out.

So I guess it's telling that I still have the same passion three years later. New city, new school, new roommate, new major and yet I still want to bring people clean water. I've been learning, finding out ways to help and waiting for God to use me. I guess I just need to keep waiting and see where that takes me :)

perfect summer day

Yesterday fell under the "perfect summer day" category of life. It's been so sunny and wonderful up here, so Meg and I decided to have a lake day. We packed a picnic and headed up to Martha Lake, which is a tiny, beautiful lake a little north of Seattle. It felt like summer camp. Laying in the grass, laughing at all the 'cool' high school kids, jumping off the dock, swimming around and feeling the back of my legs burn. So wonderful.

I'm just now realizing that this doesn't really have anything to do with food or cooking...We did, however, have a bomb picnic. Hummus, crackers, carrots, watermelon, trail mix and cheese. All our favorite foods.On the way home we were sweaty and thirsty, so we stopped and got a slushy from Chevron. Great way to end out little adventure.

In other news, I'm loving the long, warm summer nights. It's been fun to have different people over for dinner and just sit outside while it slowly cools off and gets darker. It's been a surprisingly wonderful summer so far and it's not even half over!

From vine to the sunday breakfast table

When I was little, every time I would spend the night at my grandparents-mostly at the lake- I would wake up to my grandpa whistling away in the kitchen. He is one of those mysterious people, who wake up at 3 or 4 and goes non-stop until his very early bedtime of 6 or 7. So when all of us grandkids would slowly trickle up the brown shag-carpeted stairs, he was ready for us. There was always eggs, bacon, pancakes, and most importantly-scones. I don't know what it was, but those scones crept their way into my entire family's hearts and remain my favorite pastry to date.

While I don't have grandpa's recipe, today seemed like a day for scones. It's summer, I feel like I'm on vacation, Meg is home and we have blackberries. Back to the scones in a minute...

Blackberries. These little purple balls of goodness were very under appreciated by me until recently. After getting some from Aunt Val, I've slowly become obsessed. My fascination comes from the fact that you can actually pick them at various locations around Seattle during the summer. Multiple times a week, I've driven over to Magnolia Park, walked along the fence and searched for anything that looks slightly ripe.

It was pretty much a let down until Meg and I went there on Friday. While she slept her jet lag away and layed on the grassy hill, I skipped around like a little kid picking every berry within reach. It's one of those simple joys in life. If you've never picked blackberries, I strongly recommend it. Ten stained fingers, a few thorns in the arm, and one stomach waayy too full of berries later, I was satisfied.

I finally had my berries and now for the big question-what to do with them? Meg and I ran through the options-muffins (too typical), pie (too fancy), mix into yogurt (again, too typical) then finally came up with scones.

Sunday morning seemed like the perfect time-coffee in hand, happy music in the background, birds chirping, really sunny, memories of grandpa at the lake, and warm, tangy steaming scones.

I am blessed and life is good.

blackberries

My wonderful bride-to-be friend Kat, gave me some homegrown blackberries a few weeks ago from her Aunt. I was in the middle of moving, then headed out of town for a few weeks so I froze them and thought about what to do with them while I was gone. Smoothies, bread, muffins, pie, scones... So many options, but then it came to me! Mom has this amazing cherry cobbler recipe and it just so happened that I was home and could photo-copy it. So I scrounged around through her stack of cook books and came up with this...

Then Alex came to visit and we had some of her friends over for dinner. I decided to make the cobbler for them! I added lemon juice and rind to the fruit part of it, kinda gave it an extra something. Add a little vanilla ice cream and vio-la!

There are wild blackberry bushes in Seattle everywhere I turn. They are all starting to turn from green to pink to dark purple which means it's time for me to go pick them! I'm hoping to get a bunch, freeze them, then use them throughout the year. I mean, if we're being honest-what is better than wild, free, ripe-on-the-vine blackberries :)

Thanks to Kat and Aunt Val for the amazing contribution, I thoroughly enjoyed your blackberries :)

passion tea

this is my life lately. i highly recommend it as your drink of choice this summer