PASSION fruit

IF you haven't noticed, I get passionate about things very easily. It's very easy to please me, but also to make me sad or angry. In fact, pretty much any emotion comes to me as easily as breathing. It makes life scary and interesting all at the same time. I'm proud of friends who have stuck by me. I feel sorry for my future husband, but I'm thankful for God who keeps me sane. Anywho, I think my perfect fruit is the Passion Fruit. IT's a fruit that only grows in extremely tropical areas. And let me tell ya, it's the weirdest but best fruit ever. It's round and innocent looking on the outside, but what you find on the inside ISN'T. It looks like frog eggs, (gross i now) and EXTREMELY SOUR. However, add a little sugar, even just a pinch, and it's the most delicious thing you have ever tasted.  I'm serious. It's awesome in juice, in a desert, as a candy, frozen, or just straight up out of the skin. As long as you've got a little sugar, a spoon, and some love. You got a give it a chance and get to know it before you can really enjoy it. 

Which is just like a person. Almost everyone looks average on the outside, but you when you open them up, it's something unexpected, and there's a lot of little parts to them. When you add a little sugar, aka, kindness, they can be really sweet. Hog the sugar to yourself, aka, ignore them, they'll be as sour as lemons. So even if someone seems weird on the inside, show them some love! You might end up with a sweet treat, aka, friend. Wow, how did I get here? Anyways, here's some examples of DELISH passion fruit stuff I've had. All in the Dominican Republic.  

Passion fruit popsicles! The BEST popsicle I have EVER had in my life. I really can't describe what Passion Fruit tastes like, it's something you have to try yourself. 

At the resort they had "fruit punch" and since we were on a tropical island, I assumed it would be natural. It tasted like kool-aid. :p so I got a passion fruit from the fruit bar and squeezed it in. Yes those are seeds going up my straw. It was worth it. 

If you really want to try it, Welch has a passion fruit juice. However, while it might give you an IDEA of the flavor, you need to try an actual passion fruit to really enjoy it. Just like apple juice sort of reminds you of apples, but it never tastes like an actual bite of apple would. The juice is still really good though.

The END

I'm laughing in the rain.

Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner adventures are always the best. You eat what you like, with people you like, doing things you like, and usually you get to try something new.

Yesterday, Four friends, plus my sister and I went to Panera Bread for dinner.

 I had a greek salad, onion soup and a cup of hot tea. Oh and they threw in an orange scone for $1 which made my breakfast this morning absolutely heavenly. The flavor of each was so intense and different I had to take a sip of tea to "cleanse my palette" every so often. Ever tried that? It works wonders when you are eating something that is strongly flavored to take a break and have a sip of something. It "refreshes" your tongue and you can continue to enjoy your meal without getting sick of your rich food.  Anyways...I do think they went a little over board with the "extras" in the Greek Salad, it was lacking the amount of lettuce that is core to every salad. However, I forgive them for it, and everything else was great. There is something unique about eating things that taste so different in the same meal. It was like sensory overload but in a good way. And the night was made better that we were all enjoying our food and having a grand old time.

Afterwards we went to get some froyo, that's short for "frozen yogurt" for those of you don't know. ;) We then decided to walk ALL THE WAY to target from there. It didn't seem so far when we walked there, but little did we know what it would take to get back. I'm not sure what the other girls did, but me and syd had a grand ole time reading birthday cards. I tell ya, we could have spent an hour in there, there was an endless supply of funny, cheesy, obnoxious, you name it, cards. Next thing ya know, we hear thunder. Me and my easily distracted brain did not think about what that meant until we were walking out. Lo and Behold, there was a torrential rainstorm in between us and our cars. We debated, and debated, and debated. Finally, syd and I volunteered to get the cars. We took off our shoes and and headed out. Syd put a bag over her head. How wet could we possible get????
                                                                Very WET

While we were running we started laughing. I'm not sure why syd was laughing, but I suddenly found it hysterical that we were running in the rain and getting SO wet. I mean what were we thinking? I started laughing so hard I could barely run. Next thing we know two greasers ;) known as hayley and anna shriek past us. I don't know why they didn't wait. Maybe for the thrill of running in the rain. What I really don't know is why they thought getting to the car first would prevent them from getting wetter. You see, syd hadn't found her car keys yet. Yep, they just waited in the rain. Leslie and Katie were the only sensible ones to stay behind. We finally go to the cars and I squished on to my seat. I was soaked. 

Well life goes on. My seat was still a little wet this morning, and I'm pretty sure I'm getting a cold (I was an idiot and just walked around my freezing house in wet clothes). All in all it was an awesome night worth remembering for a very long time.

 p.s. I ate my scone with eggs cooked with tomatoes, salt and pepper, and a chai latte. It was a heavenly morning I tell ta.

Dominican Higlights

Best OJ ever. At that was just at the airport. Good start? I think so. 

The group! Over half of the group had been before, but every single trip has been different, so no one knew what to expect. But that's more fun isn't it?

Money money money, must be funny, in a rich man's world. 

Or rather, pesos. 

coolest chess set ever

While we were there, we did a VBS for the kids, the teachers were dominicans, but the ones who knew a little spanish in our group were helpers. I had the trial, ahem, *pleasure*, of doing the Wordless book lessons, IN SPANISH. God's grace got me through I tell ya, my spanish was full of cobwebs. 

I love their style in shoes. I KNOW that those aren't legit brands, but I wanna know how I can get me some. 

The guys did construction all week, helping the church expand, and occasionally they LET the girls help. We uh, did the best we could ;)

GLORY! I met here down there, and we still keep in touch online. She was so awesome, I can't wait to see her again, whenever that happens. 

That little girl in the middle was named Kendali. She had us and the domincans wrapped around her extremely little finger.

Cool view from Puerto Plata. We had mountains on one side and endless ocean on the other. Breathtaking. 

Also extremely windy,

Extremely

We worked in a large city called Santiago. This is a view from it's capital building. 

This is the view from the TOP of it. Definitely one of my top highlights. 

Lauren found a conk shell!!!!! In the dark! 

We woke up at 5:30 to go see the sunrise, turns out it rose BEHIND the building. Oh well, it was still beautiful. 

Sand pyramids at night with someone else's flash. I thought it looked ancient like this. 

My view in the car. nice huh?

After the mission trip was over, my family stayed afterwards with some of my mom's extended family. We went to a resort. This was me kayaking with the coolest kid ever. Another top moment.

Me, Monica, and Veronica (cousins). We had good taste in shoes. Les is tying to sneak in with her lame sandal. She wishes. 

CAVE OF WONDERS

no, we didn't find aladdin's lamp

These are our coolest cousins ever. Granted, we are barely related, but Dominicans don't pay attention to that sort of thing. Monica (far right), Veronica (middle), and Javier (left), oh and little Gabriel.  

the adventures of guacamole

So far I've made guac three times. Each time it was an adventure.

You know how the first you do something usually does't turn out the best? And thats okay, because everyone knows it.Well, I don't think anyone can beat my first time story on making guacamole. It was just me and Syd and syd's house. I bought all the ingredients, and like a dummy head I forgot to check if the avocados were soft. They were so hard we had to blend them. So I got a system going. Blend, pause, mix with spoon, repeat. It was all going fine until I forgot step two. Thats right, I left the blender going while I stuck a plastic mixing spoon in it. Yes, I know, I'm an idiot. The spoon shot out... with a piece missing. Now I had to look through it to find the piece so we would't die! I mushed through it with my bare hands, not a pleasant feeling, until finally I found what I hoped to be it. We mixed the rest up and Syd made hot chicken wraps and we had a DELISH dinner. There were three avocados in there ladies and gentlemen, we were not going to waste all the good Guac! so we just chewed thoroughly. So either I got the plastic out or one of us has a tiny piece of plastic slowly cutting us up from the inside. We'll find out eventually I suppose. Don't sue me syd, if it turns up in your stomach. 

another guac recipe

GUAC!

I have I mentioned I love guacamole (among other things)? It's a new passion of mine. Unfortunately, the last few times I've made it (with my friend Sydney aka deedee, among others), it was eaten before I could take a picture. So just imagine deliciousness and be jealous. Be very Jealous. 

Anywho, I've realized that my blog is suffering. Why? Because I am suffering with ideas. Why? because I forgot the purpose of my blog!!!!!! FLAVORS! I've been reading a lot of blogs and they seem to revolve around someone's life or something they love. Well I tried to make mine more like the life ones. News Flash. I don't have an interesting life! I do the same thing everyweek. The one thing that is always changing is what I eat. So I'm coming back baby. Back to food and all the deliciousness it brings. Sure, occasionally I may find something besides food that is interesting to share. But we'll get to that if it comes.

So food. Guacamole. Probably the healthiest AND most delicious dip you'll ever eat. Care to know the nutrition facts of an avocado? If you don't. I give you permission to skip ahead. However, your awesomeness level will drop two points.

 "Avocados provide nearly 20 essential nutrients, including fiber, potassium, Vitamin E, B-vitamins and folic acid. They also act as a "nutrient booster" by enabling the body to absorb more fat-soluble nutrients, such as alpha and beta-carotene and lutein, in foods that are eaten with the fruit." (If you want to add awesome points, you can read more HERE)

Pretty awesome huh? PLUS it tastes good. I like em' with just salt. I do understand some of you may not have the same appreciation for the taste as I do, so I have a solution for you. 

GUACAMOLE! (Gue-wak -a- moley)

Here's what we usually do when we make guac:

 2 or 3 small avocados OR one big one

And then add "to taste" as much of the flowing"

tomatoes

onions

cilantro

garlic

lime

sourcream

salt and pepper!!!!!!! (super important)

Anything else your little heart desires. 

Chop and combine it up ! for more awesome flavor, put it in the fridge for an hour or so before eating:

 Don't know what to look for when buying them Avocados? It's okay, my momma told me. (p.s. my mom might come up a lot, she is the queen of cooking in my opinion) 

Small avocados are more buttery (in the delicious texture sense, not fattening sense), and are good when they look black and you can gently press them. So, firm but soft. I have had the the unfortunate experience of buying hard avocados. We had to put them in a blender, and broke a plastic spoon in the process. It was still delicious, just chunky. A big avocado will be more watery, its better for slicing and eating as is really, than it is for guacamole, it'll just be more soupy, but still delicious! And those you also buy firm but soft, but not black, usually if there is black, its from bruising.

So there you have it, all and more than you ever wanted to know about Avocados.