Weekend getaway =)

We just got home from a weekend visiting Bilbao and Pamplona (where the running of the bulls is), and it was so much fun! We had to leave our puppies for the first time... there were no tears, thank goodness, i love those dogs! And of course on Friday morning Goyo ate a tea bag - so I was hoping it would pass before he got to the dog kennel, I wonder what they would have thought.. haha. But all is well in dog country, and they're both fine.

Anyway, Carolyn is a coworker of Greg's and is living in Spain for about 3 months, she has a friend who lives in Pamplona so we decided we'd take a weekend trip to go visit. We stopped in Bilbao overnight (about 3 hours east of Gijon), and it's actually in the Basque country, and the language there is crazy, there were so many z's and u's and k's. I had no idea what we were getting into but it was awesome! About 20 years ago it was considered the ugliest city in the north, and they've done a lot of work to it, and it shows-it was beautiful!! They even have a Guggenheim museum, which are also found in: Venice, Berlin, and New York. And the weather was fantastic, we had a wonderful time visiting the museum and walking through the city.

A view of Bilbao's river walk, from a pedestrian bridge (you can see part of the Guggenheim in the backround):

The oh-so-cool Guggenheim museum:

Are we still in Spain? What in the world is this language...!

Saturday night we drove to Pamplona and met up with Carolyn's friend Roberto and his girlfriend Helena. Carolyn and Roberto volunteered together in Thailand a few years ago. Anyway-we took a quick tour of the city, it's pretty small, and watched the end of a sport they play there, it's called Pala and it's almost like Raquetball, wall ball, and tennis all got smashed together. Then we ate a very Spanish dinner (super late, I could barely keep my eyes open!). Sunday we took a tour of the city in the daylight, and it's really cool. It's a medieval town and so it's surrounded by these huge walls, and they've put in an elevator that takes you up into the town through the wall, it's pretty neat. We walked along the path where the running of the bulls takes place, and we had coffee in the plaza where Ernest Hemingway would stay when he visited the city.

The elevator that takes you up through the wall:

A statue commemorating the running of the bulls:

My puppies are all grown up!

Last Tuesday I surprised Greg by taking the dogs to the groomers to get their first hair cuts. Schnauzers have a very particular cut, and I was super nervous because I loved their fluffy puppy hair, but it was getting ridiculously long and hard to take care of. But it was a success and they look adorable!!! They don't sit still for pictures, so here's the best I could do.

Before: Greg has Lola and I'm holding Goyo

Lola after her haircut

Isn't he handsome?! This one is Goyo.

And my dogs love vegetables, so they sit at my feet while I chop hoping for something to snack on, Greg thinks they're weird.

baking and birthdays

The last week and a half I've been baking everything in sight and I've discovered some amazing new recipes. I mentioned the blog Bakerella before, and I love her, but anyway-for Valentine's day she made cookie sandwiches from a cake mix filled with cream cheese icing... we had a few people over for Mexican (I made flautas... they were amazing) and I tried out these cookies with a boxed white cake mix, and they were such a hit! I even took pictures, but I need to load them onto the computer. If you've had oreo cakesters.. these were the same, but only cost me $2 to make.

Refrigeration in Spain isn't as advanced as what I'm used to back home, and when you mix in the lack of preservatives-food goes bad very quickly at the Schmeers. Unfortunately I can't blame the fridge, but I ruined a pound of strawberries last week but still wanted to use what I could salvage from them (I'm on a new kick to try really hard not to let our food spoil). And I made strawberry scones, they were fabulous! My mom made some great scones this summer and I've been meaning to try to make them, I attempted one night for Greg and I and ended up with a huge mess all over the oven, I'm not sure what went wrong. But these were fantastic, and they kept for 2 days! Goodthingscatered.blogspot.com is where I found the recipe and I'll post it later this week. It was so easy... the trick is in the butter.

And my last accomplishment was homemade brownies, I've tried a few different recipes and they just do not cut it. We brought some Duncan Hines box mixes with us from home, and I don't know what secret ingredient they have in those mixes, but nothing beats the boxed mix. But I've finally found a decent recipe. Tineke and Charles are great friends of ours (they're from Holland) and they have 3 kids. Charles had to fly to Holland this weekend because he just found out his dad is really sick, and Tineke was stuck with hosting a sleepover birthday party for her 10 year old son and 9 of his friends! She asked Greg and I to help out, and of course we said yes, we had no idea how much fun we'd have! She's a planner, so the party was planned out to the minute. And Greg and I had a blast playing games with all the kids and keeping them entertained, and we got a free dinner out of the deal! And Tineke was the holder of the secret awesome brownie recipe, who she got from our American friend Amber.

It's almost too simple.. give it a try!

Brownie Pie

1 c. white sugar

1 c. butter or margarine melted

2/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Hershey's)

3 eggs

6 tbsp. flour

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix sugar, cocoa powder, and butter in bowl.

Add eggs one at a time, mixing well between each egg.

Add flour and vanilla extract, again-mix well.

Grease and flour a 9 inch pie plate (this step is surprisingly important!).

Bake for 30 minutes, or until edges pull away from pan and toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool for at least 5 minutes and cut into wedges.

Enjoy!