Edinburgh, Scotland

We flew into Edinburgh from Amsterdam and I gotta say we were a little concerned at first for a couple reasons: 1) when we asked our taxi driver what the beautiful fields of yellow flowers are he pointed at a dandelion on the side of the road and said that's what is growing in the fields. Um, yeah - we're from Michigan and are pretty sure growing entire fields of dandelions aren't a thing. So we all rolled our eyes behind his back and knew we'd have to ask someone else later (turns out it's "rapeseed" which is grown for cooking oil, from what I can tell it's another name for canola oil; it's a very pretty yellow flower and looks nothing like a dandelion Mr. Taxi driver)...and 2) he had to let us out across the street from our hotel because it was seriously under construction and he couldn't get close. I'm talking totally under construction with scaffolding and plastic the entire front of the huge hotel. Uh oh, I was sure I was going to get in trouble for choosing this one haha. Turned out once we were inside it was beautiful behind the scaffolding and we were not inconvenienced very much at all. Whew. Anyway...

Edinburgh is a great city, probably my favorite of the whole trip. It's big but not too big, safe, tons of things to see (we did an open-air bus tour of the city, I def recommend those to get a good pretty quick overview of any new city you go to time permitting); food was great (check out my pic below of the best fish and chips I've ever had, they used panko breading and it was fabulous!); people very friendly and helpful. At our first Scottish dinner the rest of my group tried Haggis for the first time but I was chicken (no, not chicken - more like just grossed out! do you know what haggis is? look it up and tell me you want to eat that) - they all loved it so there ya go. We did a tour of the Edinburgh Castle which is very impressively set on top of a huge rock mountain in the middle of Old Town, I guess lots of groups tried to overtake it thru the years with not much luck - look at the pic to see why it was a great place to build your castle!

PS: if anyone cares or is wondering (or has a bet with anyone) the proper way to say 'Edinburgh' isn't like we would say it (I said edin-burG) but even though that's totally acceptable and everyone knows what you mean and won't correct you haha, there will be some know-it-all in your party (cough*Dave*cough) that insists you say it in the Scottish way which is more like "edin-burrow" or "edin-burra" and correct you every time. LOL. (yes that made me say it edin-burG just to annoy him hahaha, whatever). Now you know.

Edinburgh Castle

overlooking part of the city towards the ocean. bottom left corner
 of this picture shows the "cemetery for soldier's dogs" at the castle.
the dog cemetery is still in use today.

we hiked up a big hill, oh geez I don't remember what it's called!
We had a great view of the city from up there, lots of monuments and trails...
saw this cute house/castle on our walk up. 

check out the old phone booth turned into an ATM - good thinking.

best fish and chips I've ever had! and now my mouth is watering...

More From Amsterdam...

A few more pics before I move on - these flowers are too gorgeous not to share! These are giving me ideas about planting this year, I love how different kinds and colors are blended together - and no "little soldiers" in sight (I dislike flowers all planted in little rows!), the natural flowing bed shapes are just beautiful...I can't do this in my whole yard like I'd love haha, but maybe in some big containers.

Here's an interesting "craft" idea that I saw in the gardens - wrapping felt pieces around tall thin vases or plant holders and tying them with thin wire. The mixed colors and solid green are both so cool - I'm going to figure out where I can do this at home!

 More pictures from our lunch in the little fishing village:

cheese sticks wrapped in what seemed like egg roll wrappers and fried, served with sweet chili sauce. so good!

2 Days In Amsterdam

Spring in Amsterdam - without even realizing it we happened to book a trip in time to see the tulips! Amazing, and an unexpected treat. It was a quick stop so tried to see as much as possible in a short amount of time - the first day we hired a local tour guide to give us a walking tour of the town. 

A couple things stood out: 1) the city was surprisingly dirty, trash everywhere and that really surprised us. Maybe there's a garbage strike or something? I wonder if that's how it always is? and 2) the architecture is so interesting and unusual - they have buildings that are actually crooked because of the foundations being so old and rotting away (they are built on wooden poles because the soil is so wet). Fortunately most of the houses are touching the house next door so they are sort of holding each other up - but some of them are so so crooked it looks like they should fall over! I wonder how they feel on the inside - if you drop something in one room does it roll to the other side of the house? I'm tippy on a good day so this could mean big trouble for me if I lived there...

The guide did a quick walk thru of the "red light district" - I didn't know what to expect (should have read up on it I guess). There are literally scantily clad women (all ages and sizes!) standing behind full length windows with a red light over each one trying to entice men (and women too I imagine) in. When they get a customer they close a curtain over their window indicating they are "busy". Wow. Just wow. And sad. And super awkward, I didn't know where to look! We ended the day with a canal cruise for a different view of the city which was a pretty cool way to see everything.

there are 7 bridges in a row that you can see thru looking
down this canal

pretty much every street looks the same with canals, boats, bikes, row houses...

Can you see how the house on the left is crooked? And the city's
 narrowest house is the little dark red one in the middle!

wait, I want the best croissant...

the front door of the house that Anne Frank and her family hid in
and where she wrote her diary -
now that I've seen where she lived I really want to re-read her story. 

dinner our first night was one of our favorites the entire trip -
if you get a chance go to the Restaurant Haesje Claes for
traditional Dutch food...especially the pea soup, Stampot (mashed potatoes
mixed with other veggies) and Beef Stew. Yum!


For our second day we hired a driver/guide to take us outside of the city - we went to Kukenof gardens to see the amazing flowers, stopped at a little village to photograph some windmills (don't you think of Dutch windmills along with tulips? apparently most of the windmills are gone now and they just keep a few for "the tourists". I was a little bummed to hear that!) and eat lunch,  and a visit to a touristy shop to see how cheese (my new favorite is a Gouda called "Old Friend") and wooden shoes are made...it was a little cheesy (no pun intended haha) but informative and we sampled lots of different locally made cheese - I didn't try the "hemp cheese" tho! 

my pictures of the gardens really don't do the flowers justice - they were magnificent!

lunch was "Mustard soup" - SO good!!! I have to learn how to make this!  seemed
to be a regular cream soup with the addition of mustard seeds, I will experiment and let you know...

I enjoyed seeing Amsterdam and am happy we had a couple days here, not my all-time favorite city but the food was great, people are nice, and it felt safe...After 2 busy full days we flew to Edinburgh, Scotland - more on that later!

Suitcase Divider

Before I tell you about our latest trip I have to show you what I just made, I'm super excited about this actually because the idea just came to me when I was posting about my packing list yesterday and I was thinking about how helpful a suitcase divider would have been. I googled and can't find anything like what I pictured so I just made it up myself - woohoo, Shark Tank here I come!

 Ok, ok, maybe you aren't finding this as exciting as am I...but I love the idea and it's going to be so helpful on my next trip. I took hollow core cardboard from some leftover packing material that hasn't made it into the recycle bin yet (D had to buy another tabletop grill, don't even get me started about that), measured and cut it to fit in my suitcase (one long piece the width of the suitcase and one shorter piece to divide one half vertically), then because plain old cardboard is boring I hot glued some old fabric around it so it's purdy. Before I take this idea to Shark Tank I will come up with a better way to cover the cardboard cuz I burned the shizzle out of my fingers stretching the fabric around the cardboard! Sigh. Wedged the inserts into the suitcase and now I have 3 separate spaces for organizing my travels - I'm imagining the bottom space will hold my shoes, one top part will have my clothes and maybe one of the packed cubes; the other part will hold toiletries, underthings, and accessories. I'm feeling like going on another trip just to test out my new invention!

As I mentioned, my bag got slapped with a "heavy" label so it was important to not make the divider out of anything that will add weight! This hollow core cardboard worked perfect, but I think regular cardboard will also work. I also chose the lightest fabric I had on hand, initially I was going to use felt but went with this super light cotton that doesn't match very well instead - I am my grandmother's granddaughter after all so just used what I had in the closet for instant craft gratification, when I sell this idea I'll make it out of fabric that matches the inside of the suitcase better ;).

Travel Packing List - Amsterdam, Scotland, and Ireland in Spring

Ok, I've talked before about packing light and really really thought I was doing good this time around...and yet I still took too much! Ugh. When will I learn...? We were very lucky with the weather this trip - I thought we would have lots of rain and it'd be chilly so everything I packed was thin and lightweight to be able to layer as needed, but it only rained a couple times! It was still nice to have the multiple light layering pieces so I did good there, but I just took more than I needed. Nothing like getting up to the baggage drop counter and having them put a "heavy" tag on your bag (I was a little offended on behalf of my bag, that's kind of a rude label if you ask me LOL!). In my defense I didn't have to use the extender zipper to fit it all tho, so there's that.

We were gone 16 days - I googled, researched, and studied other people's suggested packing lists for the areas we were going and they basically all said the same things...layers layers layers and lots of black/gray/white. I pretty much followed suit and took the following (I don't have the fancy app that lets you take organized nice clean pictures of everything you are packing like everyone on Pinterest does, so just use your imagination - "gray long sleeved t-shirt" is not hard to figure out without a photo). I kept the pieces basic so I could wear them multiple ways:

2 jeans (dark-wash straight leg, light-wash skinny)
1 black stretchy jeggings (a cross between black jeans and leggings - they look like jeans though)
1 black leggings
3 button up long sleeved tops (white, jean, black)
2 long sleeved t-shirts (gray, black/white stripe)
2 lightweight hoodies (cream, gray)
2 short sleeved shirts (cream, black)
red pullover light sweater with hood
black pullover light sweater
gray pullover light sweater
black cardigan
multi colored (brown/blue/cream/gray) cardigan
flowy dressy tank
short sleeve black button up dress with a little collar and tie belt
2 thin down vests (silver, cream)
2 scarves (both matched everything)
tall brown boots
black ankle high combat boots
brown/black ballet shoes
hiking tennis shoes
a couple tight tanks for layering
pajamas
swimsuit and coverup shorts
hip length black jacket
long black light rain coat/shell with a hood
knit hat, lightweight gloves

That equals 4 bottoms, 12 outer shirts (not counting short sleeve and tanks that I never wore alone), 1 dress, 1 flowy dressy tank in case we went somewhere "nice". All of the places we went are super casual, or if they were a little nicer no one cared what we wore so we still wore casual clothes. I wore the dress one time under the black pullover top with tights and tall boots - totally didn't need to take it. I wore the dark straight jeans with ballet flats one time, didn't need either of those pieces either. Only wore the multi-colored cardigan once, didn't need it. Did not wear the flowy tank or the short sleeve black t-shirt. The tall brown boots were an extra that I debated packing but I wore them all the time and am so glad I decided to bring. A couple of the hotels had pools but there was never time to swim so didn't need the swimsuit.  I didn't pack anything that was bulky or heavier-weight and didn't need them so that's good. Now that I've been I would pack a little differently if I ever go back to these places around this time of year:

dark wash skinny jeans
black stretchy jeans
black leggings
2 button up long sleeve tops (either white, jean, or black - didn't need all 3)
1 or 2 long sleeved t-shirts in neutral color (I never wore this without a shirt overtop, it's just for layering)
2 lightweight pullovers
1 long cardigan
2 lightweight hoodie/shirts (I wore these a lot!)
2 thin vests (1 down and 1 fleece)
1 lightweight fleece either pullover or zip up
scarves and jewelry to jazz up the neutrals
1 coat that has a hood and is water repellant that can be worn with everything. I took 2 different ones and layered them but one light- to mid-weight would have done it.
tall boots, ankle boots, hiking shoes
2 tight layering tanks
pajamas
knit hat

I could probably pare down even farther, and this amount of clothes will probably still earn me a "heavy" bag tag but there would be less to deal with which would be nice and this amount of clothing would still give me lots of mix and match options - and something I should have remembered is that you are pretty much wearing a jacket or vest over every outfit every day so what you have on underneath is really not seen all that much!

Some packing tips and ideas:
-I rolled all of my shirts and laid them in a single layer in the top part of my suitcase that has a zip around cover in the lid - when I unzipped it the shirts were all in order and functioned almost like a drawer. I could see everything and didn't have to move any shirts to get to another one. That worked great.

-I used 3 cube things to keep my bag in order: 1 big one for tanks, swimsuit, pajamas, etc. 1 medium one for under things and socks. 1 smaller one for hair accessories and jewelry.

-Put a shower cap over the soles of the shoes you are packing so they aren't touching your clothes, and for my boots I put them in a large plastic bag (or a plastic grocery bag). Pack a couple extra plastic grocery bags in case your clothes or shoes get wet from the rain and you need to put them back in your suitcase before drying out.

-If you are traveling someplace that is normally rainy, spray your boots, purse, backpack, etc. with water repellant spray before you go. I did this to my shoes and boots and never had wet feet.

-Bring along a piece of bubble wrap in case you buy anything fragile (I brought home 2 coffee cups and wrapped them up in the bubble wrap and placed between the down vests).

-Print out your name and contact info on a piece of paper and include it in your suitcase in case the outer tag gets ripped off.

Here are some photos so you get an idea of what we wore:

skinny jeans, tall boots, black cardigan, blue button up shirt with tank under, scarf. 

I'm wearing a tank, jean shirt, lightweight hoodie, thin down vest
with my skinny jeans and tall leather boots...too many layers, we were
all peeling off clothes in the warm sunshine!

yep, our guide Scott wore a kilt every day - even when it was cold!

skinny jeans, hiking/tennis shoes, black pullover with long sleeve t-shirt under,  down vest

it was cold and rained pretty hard the day we went to the Cliffs of Moher -
definitely a layering day. I have on my knit hat, and put my jacket under
the hooded rainshell, and wore my waterproof hiking/tennis shoes.
Stayed warm and dry!

If there are any guys reading this post, here is Dave's packing list:

3 jeans (black, gray, blue)
1 chico/khaki dressier pants
2 plaid flannel shirts
2 plaid cotton button up shirts
2 lightweight turtlenecks (tan, black)
1 lightweight pullover (gray)
1 short sleeve polo (black)
Nike lightweight lounge/workout pants and pullover (black)
1 swim shorts
2 short sleeve t-shirts (gray)
1 mid-weight hip length jacket with hood (gray)
2 pairs shoes (hiking/tennis shoes and loafers)

He didn't wear the chinos, black jeans, swim shorts, or the polo shirt. The Nike pants and pullover he wore on travel days. He says he didn't need anything other than what he brought, wouldn't change his packing list other than not needing that many bottoms.

I'm going to do a few travel blog posts for the next couple days if you're interested - stay tuned!

Donut Hole Cake Pops

These turned out so good they deserve a second look - super cute easy dessert for Memorial Day or Fourth of July for sure, but if you just change out the sprinkles they'll be perfect for any time! Check out the colander as a holder idea, I forgot how well that worked. Mmmmmm donuts.

From last June:

Saw this idea here and love it! I haven't tried to make cake pops - I know I know, I'm very behind in the cake pop game...doesn't it seem like they are everywhere? Well I saw this shortcut of dipping donut holes in candy coating with red white and blue sprinkles and said to myself "now there's a genius idea" and wanted to make them. 

Side note: This is a very dangerous thing for me because I have a hard rule that I can only eat donuts on my birthday. I established this rule for myself years ago when I was working in an office and I swear every day someone would bring in donuts and I'd eat one. Every day! So making this rule is the only way I don't go crazy and eat donuts to my hearts content -  I've stuck to this rule for years only breaking it if I'm with someone on their birthday and their treat is donuts. That would be just rude of me to say no ;)

The hardest thing about making these was trying to find plain donut holes! I gave up and bought the ones rolled in powdered sugar and it worked just fine, might make them a little bit sweeter but it's already a donut rolled in candy coating so what's a little more sugar?

As sometimes happens, I didn't read thru the entire directions before starting and this is what happened:

So I read how I was supposed to do it and then - surprise - they worked perfectly and were quite easy to do. The key is to dip the stick in a little melted candy coating and poke it into a donut hole and put them in the freezer for 30 minutes. After that they dipped very easily, didn't break apart or fall off the stick into the coating so I had to fish it out and then have Dave eat the broken ones so I wouldn't...

I couldn't find anything to stand the pops in while they were drying (hmmm, I'm wondering if I missed that part in the directions?) so I fashioned my own stand using the holes in my colander, worked like a charm.

Directions are simple (especially if you actually read thru them before starting!):

1. In a small microwave-safe dish heat 1 ounce of the candy coating, about 1/4 cup, on medium for 60 seconds until melted and smooth, stirring once. Dip one end of each lollipop stick into melted candy coating and poke sticks into doughnut holes. This helps the doughnut holes to stay on the sticks. Freeze for 30 minutes. 
2. Place remaining candy coating in a small saucepan. Heat over medium-low heat until melted and smooth, stirring frequently. Dip doughnut holes, one at a time, into melted candy coating. Allow excess to drip off; sprinkle with assorted sprinkles. Let coating set before serving. Store in covered container.

My sister is going to a party and needs a dish to pass so I'm sending these with her.
She's gonna have to come up with her own way to stand them up or display them tho...