epic p-town sisters weekend

Julie came to Pullman!  We were in the same "P-town" for 4 days - Halloween weekend.  I didn't have an exam to worry about, and I was off of surgery block the following week, so we basically chilled, and cooked, and partied, and were crafty the whole time (well, Julie worked on the house when I was at school).

WSU vs. U of O

What are the chances that the weekend that Julie comes to visit, the cougs are playing the ducks?  I didn't have a lot of hope that we would win, but enough to watch the game at a local bar.  Julie insisted on wearing duck gear so I took her to my favorite bar where I knew there wouldn't be very many people - particularly, no drunk coug fans that were going to be drunk and disappointed.  See what a good sister I am, protecting my sister like that?

I think that the cougs did a good job of hanging in there in the first half.  And I think our 2 point conversion in the last 2 minutes of the game despite being behind by quite a bit really highlights our heart.  The coug fans never give up, so I really appreciate when the coug football team doesn't give up either.  I had the fish and chips as usual with extra cole slaw and Julie had a very unique southern style burger with a vegetarian patty made of black beans and corn.  Delicious! 

Halloween Festivities

Costumes were Julie: cheerleader night one and girl from future night two.  the cheerleader costume that she wore was my mom's when she was in high school.  and michelle (me) in the ghost costume.  i've been planning that one for a while.  I have decided i'm going to be a minimalist, on halloween anyway.  and i'm not going to flaunt my sexuality and use halloween as an excuse to be half naked in public.  nothing against that...just seems like a lot of work, and since we were on the verge of "no shave november", I thought I would just start my support of prostate health awareness early.  a lot of people actually asked me if i was a man or a woman.  before halloween people made fun of my "lame" and "unoriginal" costume idea, but when was the last time you saw someone dressed as a sheet ghost on halloween?  nobody had the same costume as me, and i had a lot of fun when they played the ghostbusters theme song at the bar :) 

 Food

Starbucks: This is the only way to eat breakfast when you've stayed up until 3am the night before.  We did that three of the four nights.

Ice Cream Sandwiches: These ice cream sandwiches were a serious FAIL!  For one thing, the freezer wasn't very cold to begin with, but we were also supposed to leave the ice cream in the freezer for four hours before cutting out each sandwich.  I waited 30 minutes and the cookie part was so hard that, while attempting to cut it, I just squished it down and all of the ice cream bulged out of the sides.  The decorating was fun, but only a very small part of the project.  In the future I would just buy ice cream sandwiches from the store and dip them in melted chocolate and decorate them with candies.   (from Michelle - my roommate Jill ate one a couple days after we made them and they had had time to harden up, and she said even though they look weird, they tasted good!)

Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans?  When I saw all that extra melted chocolate laying around, I thought, this would be a good opportunity to make chocolate covered coffee beans.  Well, there must be more to it than just having coffee beans and melted chocolate because the chocolate was so runny that I could keep it on just one bean and ended up making coffee bean chocolate bars. they are yummy, and deliver a lot of caffein, but I would like to look into making actual chocolate covered coffee beans in the future.

Pulled pork BBQ Sandwiches with Slaw and salad: Sadly we did not get a picture of this one even though we had it two of the four nights I was there.  The slaw is a great fresh side for the pork sandwiches.  Another product of Bon Appetit.  Here is the recipe.

New York Steak with Boursin and Merlot sauce, fried green beans and roasted potatoes: This was absolutely delicious, but a lot of food for one person.  Sadly I also forgot to put the Boursin cheese on top of the steak after removing them from the pan.  This is one of my favorite Bon Appetit recipes.

The result of all of our mad carving was a ton of pumpkin seeds.  I found a bunch of recipes online, but I wanted something cajun stlyle.  I was going to buy seasoning which is hella expensive, but I happened to be purchasing some chicken breasts from the butcher and remembered that you get free seasonings/marinades with your meat.  I got the perfect seasoning.  It was some sort of cajun, southwest, BBQ type of thing.  I just asked for it in a separate container and it was plenty for what I had.  The recipe is just vegetable oil, cajun seasoning and salt.  Super good and a nice change if you are used to the salt and Worcestershire recipe for pumpkin seeds.  

Being Crafty

jar and candle idea that i saw on pinterest, pinned from this 

blog.  hers are prettier.  think i need more of them and have

 them be inside to get the full effect.

michelle's pumpkin vs. julie's pumpkin.  i decided to go

off the grid with pumpkin carving this year and free style

them.  this was my first creation and it was a success.

when i saw the wind-up teeth at the dollar tree, i was

thinking, this will be a great spin on the marth stewert

project that julie did with pumpkins and dracula teeth

in this earlier blog.in the end i decided that this is just

creepy and not very cute.  won't be doing this next year.

the full effect on halloween.  I got a red light because the bright white light that is normally there was making it hard to see the glow of the pumpkins.  only had one trick-o-treater, which is on par with the last 4 years, but that didn't stop me from buying 4 bags of candy.  I even bought the good stuff, or "rich people candy" as my roommate called it. 

Overall, a successful trip.  Julie got a lot of yardwork done, and cooking, and I didn't get any studying done while she was here.  Maybe I'll have better luck over thanksgiving break. the p-town sisters will be in the same town again, this time in Portland.