New sport : Hotel bed jumping

New photo sport, hotel bed jumping. Bring funny props and jump away! Ali and I had some fun last night.

Texas Open Spiel

Wen to Houston this past weekend to visit my sister-in-law and to participate in the Texas Open Spiel. First time curling on hockey ice. Yuck. The only way to get it to the tee line was to push out from the hack as hard as I could and then give the rock a shove.

Also toured NASA which was really cool. More photos to come.

April Spiel 2010!

April Spiel 2010 is in full swing at the Seattle Granite Curling Club.

My team is in the sweet, sweet B bracket. We had a 2 pm draw on Friday, a 4 am draw on Saturday, a 10 am draw on Saturday, and then a 27 hour wait until the 1 pm draw on Sunday.

Update: Won the B bracket!!

Black Forest Cupcakes

Ingredients:
15 oz can pitted cherries (sweet) in syrup
4 oz bittersweek (dark) eating chocolate, coarsely chopped
5 1/2 oz butter, coarsely chopped
11 oz (aka1 1/3 cup) of superfine (castor) sugar
2/14 fl oz (aka 1/4 cup) cherry brandy
5 oz (aka 1 cup) all-purpose plain flour
2 tablespoons self-rising flour
1 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 egg

decoration
2/3 cup thickened cream, whipped
2 tsp cherry brandy
Shavings of bittersweet dark eating chocolate.

1. Preheat oven to 335 degree F
2. Line a 12 cupcake pan, with cupcake papers
3. Drain cherries and reserve the syrup
4. Take 1/2 cup of cherries and 1/2 of syrup and process in a food processor until smooth.
5. Cut the remaining cherries in half and reserve. Discard the remaining syrup
6. Place the chocolate, butter, sugar, brandy, and cherry puree into a saucepan. Cook over a low heat. Stir until chocolate and butter has melted.
7. Pour into a large bowl and allow to cool for 15 minutes.
8. Sift flours and cocoa.
9. Whisk in sifted flours and cocoa.
10. Whisk in egg.
11. Divide mixture evenly between cupcake holes. You will probably find that they fill the cases close to the top. (don't worry, they don't rise a lot)
12. Bake for 40-45 minutes until firm to touch
13. Allow to cool for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

Decorate
1. allow cupcakes to cool completely.
2. Mix brandy into the whipped cream
3. Top each cake with some of the remaining cherry halves
4. Top each cake with some of the cream
5. Using a vegetable peeler, scrape along side a block of chocolate to create curls. Sprinkle on each cake.

This recipe comes from http://www.cupcake-creations.com

Curling season is almost over!

So close to being over.

Last night was the last women's league draw. My team won "crystal" in the A bracket. We played with three, as my skip had an emergency at work. We were ahead going into the 6th end. I turned around after delivering my first rock to find that the Lead of the other team had fallen. She had cracked her noggin a good one, but was refusing medical assistance. She was escorted into the warm room area. We finished the end and with her teammates distracted we scored two.

Our team decided it just wasn't right, and offered to shake, split the points with a tie. To play when the other team is distracted over a team mate just isn't in the spirit of curling. However the league manager said because the game affected other standings we weren't allowed to tie. I am still disappointed about this decision.

I've got one more league game to play on the Sunday Mixed League. This game is also for crystal. We would have played last Sunday, however the Clark rink was busy winning the Mixed Nationals title for the 7th time in 9 years.

I have 4 bonspiels across three weekends in April left. Two weekends from now, I am playing in the Seattle April Spiel. The following weekend I'll be in Texas for the Texas Open Spiel. The weekend after that, I'm the 5th man for the San Francisco PIC team. However, I ended up being over committed and will be coming back the same weekend to play in the Last Chance spiel with my hubby Jer and my coworker Alex.

Busy times.