National Pancake Day

Today is National Pancake Day and if you're near an IHOP, you can get free pancakes today! Unfortunately, we can't make it to IHOP, so in honor of this great holiday, we decided to have pancakes for dinner. That's right, dinner...we don't get up early enough to make an ambitious breakfast like pancakes. Luckily, my sister gave me Pancake Mix for christmas so we whipped up a delicious dinner in no time! Yummy pancakes to celebrate National Pancake Day. I hope your day was equally tasty!

Sicily

Last weekend we went to Sicily. It was a long weekend because of President's Day and I took that Friday off so we had 4 days to explore the beautiful island of Sicily. We flew in to Palermo at a ridiculously early hour of the morning. We rented a car and started driving east. (The car we ended up with was a convertible - not what I wanted...I was imagining a small little Italian car, but oh well.)

We started driving on the motorway but it was rather uneventful. After about an hour, we decided to explore the small town of Cefalu. We parked and walked to the beach. It was a cold and windy day, but we still walked in the sand. As we sat and ate snacks, we could see the dark wall of rain clouds approaching. We decided to get back in the car and drive along the coast instead of the motorway. Even though we drove really fast but the rain cloud caught up with us. We drove along the coast for a while and it was really pretty. It was a lot of fun for Bill to drive on the curvy roads too.

After more driving, we ended up in Taormina, on the east coast of Sicily. We used a GPS to find our hotel and it worked surprisingly well. We navigated narrow streets and arrived at our hotel. We spent the afternoon walking around Taormina and finding a cute (empty) restaurant for dinner.

The next day, we were picked up in the morning for a guided tour of the area and a trip up to Mt. Etna - an active volcano. Our guide drove us around and enlightened us before heading up to the volcano. It was a long trip because it was snowing and we drove VERY slowly. At the top, we got out and explored a few of the craters in the snow. Yup, it was snowing on the volcano...I'm glad we were prepared with warm clothes! I was surprised to find a ski lift and a bunch of skiers up there too. It really was beautiful. We also visited a winery and we tasted flavored honey and olive oil (very delicious). After driving down to the coast and to an overlook outside Taormina, our tour was over. We spent the afternoon walking around the ruins of an old Greek amphitheater.

For dinner (it was Valentine's Day after all) we tried to go to a slightly fancy restaurant...but they didn't have room for us. It was kind of funny - we walked in and asked to be seated and they looked around their nearly empty dining room and told us they didn't have room. We think it was because we were under-dressed. But, it didn't matter...we wandered around and found Ristorante Mamma Rosa...which turned out to be excellent. Bill raved about his swordfish!

The following day, we left Taormina and headed down the east coast to Siracusa...we didn't stay long though because we had to make across the island that day. We got out and walked around for a few minutes and then we went to McDonald's. Yup - we can't seem to go on vacation without visiting McD's. It was quick and tasty. We continued driving across the middle of the island on our way to Agrigento. It was some of the most beautiful scenery I've seen in Italy so far. We drove through green, rolling hills with snow-capped peaks in the distance - very pretty!

We arrived in Agrigento and the Valley of the Temples. Here, there are a bunch of old ruins and temples from when the Greeks inhabited the island. We wandered around the ruins for a while and then went to our hotel. For dinner, we walked down to the coast to find a good seafood restaurant. Unfortunately, San Leone is a summer, beach town and it is completely dead in the winter. Practically nothing was open and it was all a bit creepy. Anyway, we found a small restaurant and ate an OK meal...nothing spectacular.

The next day, our last in Sicily, we slept in and took our time driving back up to Palermo. We drove through more of the beautiful countryside and even stopped by the ocean again, just to see it before leaving. We made it back to the airport in time to eat lunch and catch our flight. It was a fun trip to Sicily and we enjoyed seeing the sights. We are glad we took the time to visit Italy's southern island! I'm sure it is very different in the summer, when the sun is oppressive and the beaches are crowded, but we enjoyed our time very much!

pretty rainbow

the dark clouds are chasing us

on top of snowy Mt. Etna

the ski lift at the top of Mt. Etna

lava - our free souvenir

the sun shining on Taormina

the Greek amphitheater

McDonald's!

beautiful green, rolling hills in Sicily

Greek temple

enjoying the Valley of the Temples

the beach in Palermo

Peanut Butter Buttercream Frosting

I've had a couple people ask about the recipe for the cake I made last weekend. It was a Chocolate Peanut Butter cake modeled after the Peanut Butter Chocolate Cream Torte we had at our wedding. I cheated a little bit and used a regular chocolate cake mix for the cake part. So, really, the only recipe someone would need is the frosting. I decided I would go ahead and put the recipe here since it is one of my favorites. I think that peanut butter-chocolate is the best combination in the world...it just doesn't get any better than that. So, after making a chocolate cake, you should use this frosting:

Peanut Butter Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:
10 oz. Cream Cheese (at room temperature)
1/2 cup Butter (at room temperature)
4 cups Powdered Sugar
2/3 cup Peanut Butter

Directions:
Beat cream cheese and butter together until creamy. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time and continue beating until smooth. Add peanut butter and beat some more...until creamy and smooth. Enjoy!

Pub Quiz

On Monday night, we went to the Pub Quiz. I've heard about them and I've been wanting to go so I finally convinced other people to go with me. Its basically a trivia night at a pub. A bunch of teams compete in 10 rounds with various categories and win prizes. We certainly didn't win, but we had a lot of fun and we got some chocolates too. I love trivia...I like to feel smart when I know the answer and learn something when I don't know the answer. All in all, its loads of fun. Emma was our fearless leader...she attends the Pub Quiz more regularly so she knew the rules and the "in's and out's" of the Quiz. Thankfully, she agreed to show us the way. Rachael and Alex were willing to join us for this excitement so we had our team of 5. We were not the smartest team, but we certainly weren't the worst. Basically, it was lots of fun and we're planning to do it again sometime.

our table was reserved

we diligently write our answerswe're having fun

perfect brain food = french friesI'm very proud of our answers

the questions must be too easy!

Emma must keep Rachael from yelling out the answer

everyone had fun

Thanks again for the pictures, Rachael!

Wedding Repeat

We got married last night! Wait, let me explain. We actually got married last June (the 14th to be exact). But, several of my friends here in Rome were not able to attend (understandably) and they wanted to be a part of it. So, we recreated the event last night. We watched the DVD of our wedding and we had pizza and cake, just like at the real wedding. It was a lot of fun - mostly because my friends were so excited about it. I think we all enjoyed it and it was fun to share our special day with them. They took it very seriously and we tried our best to make it as authentic as possible. We had Chicken Pesto Pizza, Pepperoni Pizza, Chicken Wings, Cheesy Bread, and Salad. We also had Chocolate Peanut-Butter cake and Pink Lemonade jumbo cupcakes. It was really good. So, now we have two anniversaries and, as Emma said, Bill has to buy me a present for both!!

(Thanks to Rachael for some of the pictures!)

Super Bowl Party

I'm normally a big fan of the Super Bowl and I enjoy a good Super Bowl party. But, this year, I'm wasn't that excited. First, I don't care that much about the teams playing. Who really cares about the Steelers and the Cardinals anyway? Second, because of the time difference, kickoff isn't until 12:30 AM. Its hard to stay up that late to watch a game when the teams don't really matter to me. But, what I didn't want to miss out on this year was the Super Bowl Party food. We didn't have a proper Super Bowl Party, but we did snack on some tasty treats. All kinds of finger foods and goodies. Of course, we weren't watching football, so I don't know if it counts, but it was good. I hope everyone else had a wonderful Super Bowl Party too!