Category Archives: Travel

First Family Trip to Europe

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If you’ve noticed I haven’t posted lately it’s for good reason, I’ve been in survival mode. We had a 12 day trip to Germany, Austria and Switzerland.  Yes, we’ve been home for two weeks now but the time since we arrived home has been consumed with the end of swim season and running the concession stand for City Meet.  That and of course surviving the boys.  Ever since we returned home they are at each other all the time.  Maybe it’s getting over the jet lag, or maybe it’s just because summer break is too long.

In a perfect world I planned to have several posts ready for  while I was gone, but planning this trip took it out of me.  So here you are getting a summary of our trip.  Just picture the Dalrymple boys eating their way across German speaking Europe.  They LOVED it!!

Like I said before, the planning was crazy. We were going to Germany for Jens’ wedding.  He lived with my family for a few months the same year I went to Germany for a year of high school.  We’ve been in touch and visited over the years. A bonus is that we would see my parents on part of the trip, the boys were excited to share their European adventures with Oma and Opa.

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Dinner By Camp Fire

We recently enjoyed some time in the mountains. It was wonderful to enjoy the fresh air, hike and during the week send the boys to art camp in the afternoon. Coming home to a heat wave of 100+ degrees was not so pleasant!

While we up in the mountains we enjoyed (well mostly enjoyed) a camping trip. This was a first for the boys and me. Sure, I went to Girl Scout camp when I was younger, but we slept in tents and had bathrooms.

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What we’re eating now….

There hasn’t been a post lately since we unexpectedly left town last Thursday. Josh’s brother died suddenly and we were off to be with family. The boys certainly had tons of fun with their cousins, hopefully they provided comedic relief during the grief filled days.

I find one of the hardest parts of traveling and being away from home to be eating well. I tire quickly of eating out. It is difficult to maintain my necessary high fiber diet when eating out. There are only so many times I want chili or bean burritos! Restaurant veggies are also usually small servings compared to my usual veggie serving sizes at home.

We did manage to find a couple great local restaurants which was nice. We also visited some of Josh’s favorites, not exactly health food places. The boys LOVED the hotel breakfast buffets. They can certainly pack it in, eating everything they don’t get at home like donuts, sugar cereals, chocolate muffins, Belgian waffles, yogurt, fruit, eggs and sausage. Yes, Ewan really did eat all that in ONE meal!

One thing that also surprised me was that my sister in law didn’t receive any homemade food. Don’t get me wrong, she had many friends being food by, it was just all store bought or take out. Every other time I’ve been to somebody’s house after a death they usually are overwhelmed with casseroles, desserts etc. Everyone brings their best. Is this a change of the times, people don’t cook anymore? Just an observation that puzzled me.

We got home late Tuesday night so Wednesday morning it was yogurt for breakfast and leftovers for lunches. I managed to scare up some sausage and veggies over polenta for dinner so I didn’t need to go to the store that day. I even had bread dough in the fridge to make some fresh bread.

This morning was a little trickier. I still hadn’t been to the store. The boys where thrilled to discover the leftover homemade bread with Nutella. Not our usual so it was a treat for them. The mangoes I bought before we left town were ripe so we at least had fruit to go with it.

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It is good to enjoy home cooked food again. I missed it! The best part is that the boys still enjoy good food. You never know what will happen when they eat junk food for an extended period of time. Here is Sean eating the Brussels sprouts as I cut them! I love it when they enjoy fruits and veggies without any prompting!

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Tomorrow we have another blip in our better eating plan. It’s Father Son Fun Night at school which includes a pizza dinner, store bought cookies and lemonade. Detox again on Saturday! Oh well, you win some you lose some. All in moderation.

So that sums up what we’ve been eating and doing. More recipe posts to come next week, assuming life returns to “normal”.

Sorry about the photo quality. Lighting isn’t exactly good at 6:15 in the morning or 6 in the evening this time of year!

White Squirrel Festival Food Finds

White Squirrel Festival

Over Memorial Weekend we went to Brevard, North Carolina to enjoy the White Squirrel Festival.  It is a family tradition now as we have been several years in a row.  We stay with my parents at their house in the mountains and have so much fun.

White Squirrel Festival

This year we had some fun new food finds over the weekend, unfortunately I didn’t capture them all.  I forgot to get pictures from the taco food truck or the food we ate from there.  What can I say, I was too busy enjoying it to bother!

Our big dessert find was Sunshine Sammies. They make heavenly ice cream sandwiches. The ice cream is homemade as are the cookies. This is a food truck based out of Asheville, I plan on hunting it down again!

White Squirrel Festival

We tried only two of the flavors, but they were wonderful. The cookies and cream ice cream on chocolate cookies was easier to eat as the cookies were not frozen rock solid. The cookie dough ice cream on chocolate chip cookies was also great, but the cookies were very frozen and a little trickier to eat, not that it stopped us!

Sunshine Sammies

We also finally got to Oskar Blues Brewery. It is only a couple of  miles from the house, almost stumbling distance if not for the busy road! Josh and my dad had a wonderful time tasting beers here.

Oskar Blues

Oskar Blues

Oskar Blues

It is a great place, both child and dog friendly! The boys enjoyed riding big wheels and playing games while the grown ups enjoyed drinking beer. They don’t serve food, so if you go plan to bring something along. You are more than welcome to bring in any outside food you wish.

Oskar Blues

So if you are in the Asheville/Brevard area give these places a try. They were a hit with our family!

 

Weekend Getaway

We recently went to Brevard, North Carolina for a long weekend. I forgot that I took some pictures there to post. Maybe it was my husband breaking his hand the day we were to come home that distracted me!

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I love the area because they have so many places that sell local products. We love to go to the farmer’s market there. This time we had the vegetable hash with fried egg and bacon. It was super yummy. The addition of butternut squash was unexpected and oh so good.

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While the boys were doing their scavenger hunt at the market (a super cute idea by the way) I went back to Wild Indigo and got a blackberry cobbler bar or some other name, whatever it was called it was heavenly. We ate it later when the guys went fishing. By the way, the boys each got a peach for finishing their scavenger hunt!

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Even better than going to the market was enjoying a quiet date night dinner. My parents took the boys to their favorite place, Big Mike’s for pizza. Josh and I went next door to The Phoenix.

The restaurant is a farm to table establishment, meaning they use local food supplies. They have tapas which is a great way to try many things. We had shrimp with a tomato sauce, artichokes provencal and calamari. It was all so good. And to finish it all off we had a poached pear in a vanilla cream sauce and a broiled peach with goat cheese (similar to the one I HAD to make again and recently posted).

To finish off our date night we headed to Food Matters Market. I love to go to offbeat local markets and this one is great! They have local products and a wide array of natural and organic goods. We stocked up on beer, cocoa nibs, pretzels and a few other things.

Saturday night we cooked the trout the boys caught that morning. I am not a huge trout fan, but it actually was pretty good!

A trip to Brevard is not complete without a trip to Dolly’s Dairy Bar. They have the BEST homemade ice cream. Sean and Ewan went with my parents while Josh, Jack and I were at the ER. We had to take Jack before he would let us leave town since we promised him some ice cream earlier!

So there you have it, the family ate well in the mountains. If you ever get a chance, you must visit Brevard (just don’t break your hand going down Sliding Rock)!