Kathryn turns 18! (And she spends it at the races!)

So my sweet little sister turned the big 18 yesterday. And to celebrate we went to Emerald Downs to watch the races. We had never been there before so it sounded like a good idea. And I have to say it is quite interesting. i am not sure if all horse tracks are like Emerald Downs, but this one sure seemed nice.
We had no idea how the racing and betting thing worked. It seems pretty complicated if you ask me. They parade the horses through this nice looking courtyard, then the riders get on them and they go out onto the track, escorted by their companion horses. (I think they are to quiet the racing horse's nerves but I really don't know.) Then they all go to the starting gate and begin. The whole race probably lasts about a minute at the most. And then its 25 minuets until the next race, giving you time to go collect your mulah and bet on the next race. The winning horse of course gets his picture taken in the winners circle surrounded by his trainers and owners and all their friends. And that is about it. We just stood along the chain link fence to watch. Nothing fancy, unless you wanted to pay more for the rich people seats.
It seems strange to me the sort of people that are attracted to the races. There were a medium amount of elderly people (most of those seemed to be single men), a lot of parents with younger kids, a lot of Hispanics, and a few punks that would fall into the age range of 18-25. Seems like a strange mix to me. Some people looked like they really knew what they were doing others I think were just there for the fun of it.
We tried our luck at gambling and came out with about $12 more than when we came in. Beginners luck probably. I was a little surprised that they never even asked Kathryn for i.d. They would look at her a little funny, but never asked. So any daring 17 or 16 year old could get away with gambling their parents money away. This was a winning jockey, Kathryn made some mulah off of him.
We ended the day at one of the best hamburger places ever, Red Robin. I tried the Whiskey River hamburger and I will have to say it is very delicious. We made sure to have the waiters come sing to her and thoroughly embarass her! Overall, it was a great day. (I got her one of our fav movies - Howl's Moving Castle.) Have fun watching it Kathryn!

Texas trip

These are just some pictures from our trip to Texas to visit Alison. It is a little brief, but you get the idea. I pretty much just wanted to try out the picasa photo thing.

Random sign found in Texas:

Hmmm. That's a deep one.

Sushi, A dream come true

So one of my other goals for this year, besides driving a mini cooper, was to make sushi.*
So on my spring break I hung out with my twin cousins, Carlia ad Tilana. While we were trying to figure out goals for them to write down I showed them mine. When they saw that I had put down make sushi, they said "hey we can make that right now if you want." I'm thinking 'what? my 13 year old cousins know how to make sushi? and they wouldn't mind making some right now with me?' Yeah they are pretty much amazing.

So we decided to bust out some sushi. This is my account of how you make sushi:
1. Make some rice. This can be tricky if you have never made rice before. Be sure to wash the rice until the water is semi clear. We had to defrost the fish eggs in the rice bowl.
2. Get out some fish cake, pickled radishes, avocados, and fish eggs. Cut up the fish cake into strips, the pickled radishes into chunks, and the avocados into slices. The yellow log is the pickled radish.
3. Make sure you have some seaweed paper stuff (I really don't remember the official name.)
4. Once the rice is done, lay out the seaweed paper on a sushi maker (a little bamboo mat thing) and spread on the rice. Don't go all the way to the edges.
5. Pile on the goods and roll er up.

6. Enjoy!!

Me and my cousins also went to the Great Wall Shopping Mall and bought some goods from a Filipino bakery. They were pretty good. The stuff I'm holding is either called something like siopao or humbow. I have no idea what the purple stuff is.

*Some people argue that if you don't have raw fish it isn't really sushi, it's a California roll. When I made the goal I was thinking of what my cousins made so whatever.

And the winner is....

So I am at my cousin's house in Kent for Easter right now. I am on Easter break, finally!!! I would like to give a little shout out to the best roommate ever, Julianna Willey. Happy Birthday Julianna!! Woot Woot!!!
Anyways, last night there was a little competition. It was a classic boys against girls competition. The only unusual thing was that it was a dessert bake-off. All us girls thought "this is going to be good."
We raced to Safeway (my car won) and instantly we were all wandering around looking for those special ingredients, the ones that would sway the judges. We saw the boys looking in the magazines at Safeway and started feeling sorry for them. They looked so pathetic and desperate trying to find ideas. Us girls had a great idea for a recipe, we kind of made up our own. It was a chocolate cake with chocolate pudding, caramel syrup, and Heath topping, with a strawberry garnish. Sounds good huh?
The girls cooked at the Bates and the boys cooked at Chris Moore's house. We had a blast cooking! Kim is working so hard on making sure the caramel is perfectly spread evenly. And MaryBeth is using her crafty talents to arrange the garnish strawberries. And of course we had to have an appetitizer; a yummy strawberry banana smoothie.
At about 10:30 we got the call. The boys were almost ready! The girls were having a few issues with our cake not cooking evenly, but we made it work. Look at that masterpiece! Don't we look cute?
The boys did a nice job though as you can see. WOW! That's all I have to say. It wasn't desperation that drove them to look through the magazines, it was wisdom! They found a recipie called Mountain Dew Apple Turnovers and trust me it was GOOD!!! Here are the two competitors awaiting their fate. Who wil be consumed with vigor and the other with disgust.
Our judges were Jonathan Willey, Ryan Bates, and Pastor Bill. We were judged on creativity, presentation, and taste. The judges deliberated on the creativity and presentation while Whitney, our neutral party, dished up the goods.
The moment we had waited all night for, the big decision, the shining moment. Oh the suspense was making me hungry. Miss Becca made the announcement.
The BOYS won! Even though there is a rumor that the judges knew which one the boys made, I would have picked theirs if I was a judge. It was sooo good! Oh, it just melted in your mouth. Now we hope to have a full course meal cook off some time since the boys now think they are first class chefs. But props to the boys, it sure was yummy.