Yeah, It's Still Winter

As you can tell, I am getting pretty darn tired of this season. The once peacefully bright white snow from our week of blizzards is now black, covered in mud, and causing the entire state of Maryland to be a soggy, wet mess. I live in constant fear of puddles, since I basically live in my Uggs. To try and make the best of a bad situation, Antonio and I decided to partake in some winter activities today. We originally were going to go snowboarding/skiing but decided the forecasted wind gusts of 20 MPH would make us miserable, so we went ICE SKATING!

We had been talking about ice skating for awhile but never found a time to actually go and do it. When I was younger, I used to take ice skating lessons but I was by no means all that good. I hadn't been on the ice in a few years, but it came back pretty quickly. The place was pretty packed with lots of little girls in sparkly outfits, trying to be the next Olympic figure skating super star. The tiny ones were really cute.

Antonio and I had a good time skating in circles and showing off our respective "tricks" (Antonio's included saving himself from falling and mine were skating backwards and on one foot for approximately 1.3 seconds) We were pretty cheesy about holding hands and pulling each other around. After our feet and ankles were screaming so loudly that we couldn't ignore them any longer, we headed over to Panera for lunch. We shared my most favorite, cinnamon crunch bagel and it was delicious.

All in all, it was a fun, fairly inexpensive and seasonly appropriate Saturday afternoon date!

Gobble Gobble Gobble...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!

As I'm sure you will all hear throughout the rest of this unbearable winter season, I'm not a huge fan of cold weather or wintertime in general. Those feelings, however, take a vacation on days like today. I love Thanksgiving! It's the beginning of the holiday season (which I also have mixed feelings about), you get to eat as much creamy fattening food as you want and no one can say anything about it, and it's a time for my family, who doesn't get together too too often, to spend some time with each other. I'm going to take the day today to reflect on what I'm thankful for this year and do a post on that tomorrow. But, I will leave you with some of the preparation pics and a delicious Carrot Cheesecake Muffin recipe that one of my sorority sisters sent to me!

Mixing up the batter - isn't her little hat so cute?!?!

Before going in the oven...

...and after! All ready to take to Antonio's family's house for Thanksgiving!!!

Carrot Cheesecake Muffins

Muffins:

1 pkg Pillbury Carrot Cake Mix (should make about 24 muffins)

1 cup Water (or 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup Milk)

1/2 cup of oil

3 eggs

Fillings:

1 pkg of cream cheese (Reg works welll/taste better than non fat)

1 egg

*grated lemon peel and sugar to taste

Topping:

3-4 tbsps of melted butter

1/4 cup of chopped nut of your choice (I used Pecans)

Directions:

1. Heat the over to 350. Spray the muffin cups with no-sticks spray or use cupcake shelves.

2. Cut the cream cheese into squares, and beat in a bowl on medium until soft. Add egg, sugar and lemon peel, beat until smooth. Set aside.

3. Empty cake mix into a large bowl, then remove 3/4 cup of dry mix into a small bowl to make topping later.

4. Add Water (or combination of water, milk), oil, and eggs to the remaining mix in the large bowl. Blend until it's smooth and no longer lumpy.

5. Fill each muffin cup 1/2 full.

6. Put 1 full tbsp of cream cheese mix in the center of each muffin.

7. Add chopped nut then butter to the reserved dry mix in the small bowl. Stir with fork until crumbly. (It's okay if some of the dry mix doesn't mix with the melted butter.)

8. Crumble about 1 tbsp over each muffin.

9. Bake for 25 mins. Cool 10 mins in the pan, then remove and place on the baking rack to finish cooling.