Good to be Home!

Vacation for the kids and I hasn't officially ended yet but we are attempting to get back into the swing of things. We start back to school on Monday. 

I'll share some of the photos from our trip {not very many} and some since we've been home. 

We went all over the place, or so it seemed, on our trip. We left Cleveland, OH, landed in Minneapolis, MN, and then onto Portland, OR. From there we visited Milwaukie, Dallas, Independence, Lincoln City, Tillamook, Corvallis, Medford, Central Point, and Klamath Falls {perhaps not in that order}. We also drove down to Yreka, CA, to visit my mom. And then we went back up, stopping at some of the same places, and McMinnville, OR. Finally, on the last day of 2013, we boarded a plane in Portland, OR, flew to Minnesota, and then home in Cleveland, OH. 

Some places we visited:

Powell's Books

Tillamook Cheese Factory

Tillamook Air Museum, Hangar B {HUGE hangar that used to hold 8 dirigibles!}

the ocean {how can one be so close and not?!}

movie theater {saw The Hobbit 2}

OMSI -Oregon Museum of Science and Industry {Sherlock Holmes was the special exhibit- of which we could not take photos of- boo}

Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum {Spruce Goose!}

I feel like I'm missing something. We went all over the place! It was fun to see how some places have changed, and also how they are the same as when we were there last.

And now that we are home- aw, home sweet home- here are some lovely photos of what we came back to *smile*

The outside pane of glass- cold!

Cooooold temperatures! Lots of snow and wind; oh, the wind! The kids spent much of yesterday shoveling and shoveling again. 

Our front yard...the road is there somewhere...

In our backyard. There is well over a foot of snow on the picnic table.

And finally, because it's what I do, I'll share some food photos. Since we've been back, I'm uh, we're trying to get away from the junk we'd come to love for 2 weeks. Last night for dinner I made a rather yummy Chana Dal soup with carrots, celery, chunks of chicken breast and some bouillon cubes {beef and chicken}. No photos of that but it looked like it was peanut butter soup lol. It was good.

This morning I made pancakes- special with no wheat. I found a couple of recipes on Pinterest. For THMers, it's an S. Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

4 eggs, beaten until frothy {I used my stick blender; real quick that way}

1/4 cup almond milk {homemade using 1/2 cup almonds per 2 quarts water}

3/4 cup plain greek yogurt

1 tsp vanilla {should have used a bit more}

4 stevia packets {Aldi brand}

1/2 cup coconut flour 

1 tsp baking powder

wee bit of salt

To the frothy beaten eggs added the milk, yogurt and stevia. In a separate bowl mixed coconut flour, baking powder and salt. {The coconut flour was a bit chunky so I had to really break it up to make it smooth. Perhaps more moisture in the air than I realized!} Mixed most of the wet ingredients to the dry and stirred. The coconut flour soaks up the liquid pretty quick.  I let it absorb it for a few minutes and then added the rest of the wet. It was a nice thick batter. 

I used a small frying pan with coconut oil to cook the pancakes one. at. a. time. It isn't advisable lol. In my situation it works because otherwise the smoke alarm goes off from the burning pan {need new pans...}. Anyway, I cooked each until they bubbled on top and were 'dry' looking on the edges. It's not like regular pancakes, let me tell you! They don't 'dry' like normal. Flipped the pancake and cooked for a couple minutes. Voila! 

The kids got honey on theirs, I got coconut oil {just skimmed a thin layer to add some moisture}. These are ...dry? But not really. It's difficult to describe. The egg adds moisture while the flour sucks it up. It's an odd combo.

The pancakes were flavorful and good enough that I would will make them again.

Here's a collage of the batter, while cooking and ready to eat:

And yes, the batter is really that yellow. Reminded me of how cornmeal mush looks...

Well, I'm so glad that we are home. It was a good vacation and great to see family all over. I'm really glad to be home!