Music Festival Week 2 (more food, tennis and beauty)

Apart from being unsatisfied with my blogging frequency, things are going well. In fact, if they hadn't closed all the pools because of thunder, I might not even have done any blogging today! (boo for me)
So let's get started with some great pictures from around the resort:

There are lots and lots of these beautiful lilies around-and in all different colors!

I often see butterflies nestles inside the flowers diving in for a meal.

I snapped a this one right outside our condo. This area also contains a lot of luna moths, which to be honest, are a little freaky. (they like to fly into your face.)

Probably my favorite part of the festival :)

Inside pool and hot tub....

Outside pool (ahh!)

One of FiVe hot tubs.

Karl being a good advertisement for his favorite soda. or pop. or soda pop.

One set of tennis courts.

And a nice little viewing area for anyone who's interested in saving energy.

All right, that's all for now! (don't tell anyone I'm late to the concert because I was blogging ;)  )

More Music Festival (the- surprisingly- nothing- about- music -in- this- post)

Things have been great the last couple days- we've been working on Shostakovich String Quartet No. 10 and Beethoven Op. 95 "Serioso." So far we've got 6 of the 8 movements either polished or somewhere along that line of creative process. That's about all I'll say about the music part... On to more eXciTINg news, we saw "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2" (yes, it was good and you have to see it for yourself) last night with some friends. YAY! Finally! We drove doooooooown the mountain to a the:

Zeus Theaters. They  had the most ridiculous lobby:

Not really sure what the big chair in between the columns are for.

This is what I had for dinner: 

Spicy Chicken and Chorizo Quesadillas with Kettle Chips. 

(Yes, it was yummy)

My first night at the restaurant I had this: Grilled Chicken with Peach and Vegetable Kabobs with a side of rice and cornbread with some dipping sauces.

My YUMMILICIOUS raspberry sorbet dessert. Just my style: fruity, chilled and delicious!

That's all for now-got to practice!

Music Festival

The past week(ish) we've been attending a music festival in the Appalachian Mountains. It's being held at a resort/spa and I LOVE it! They have put us up in a cool condo with all the great appliances that we aren't used to having, like a DISHWASHER(!!!!) and WASHER/DRYER(!!!!!) in addition to stocking our refrigerator with some staples:

Yes, that's right: 3 dozen eggs, 4 lbs. of bacon, 3 lbs. of butter, and a couple gallons of juices.

There was a lot more food they gave us (carrots, celery, yogurt, cream cheese, crackers, snacks and more!) and were so anxious that it wasn't enough and told us to let them know for sure if there we wanted more!  I don't think I've ever been at a festival where there was so much food! They give us great lunches (usually sandwiches or pizza) and then give us restaurant vouchers for dinner. SO nice.

I've forgotten to take pictures of every nice dinner we've eaten, but this will give you an idea of how well we've been eating :) Prepare yourself. Eye candy ahead.

My dinner of the Classic Ruben Sandwich. On marble rye with swiss. 

Karl's Chicken Club.  (notice the removed tomato- neither of us are eating tomatoes this year)

Karl's dessert: Coffee Waffle. Warm waffle, chocolate fudge sauce, strawberry sauce, chocolate sprinkles, 2 scoops of coffee ice cream and whipped cream with a side of sweet butter.

My dessert: Berry Shortcake. Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries with whipped cream strawberry sauce and raspberry sorbet topped with whipped cream and a cherry.

(Karl's dessert on a different night) The Black Rock Sundae. Warm fudge brownies with 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream and fudge sauce with whipped cream, choco sprinkles and almond slices.

My dinner another night: Classic Caesar Salad and... 

Sweet Potato Skins! Sweet potatoes, cheddar, corn black beans, cilantro and sour cream. (I didn't try the sauce in the middle since it looked like it had tomato product)

That's all for now!  More pictures to come :)

4th of JULY! (aka, The Pie Post)

There's no more hiding from me with this post! Now you know how far behind I am! :) The 4th of July is a rather big thing with my husband's family. Everyone goes out to the cabin on the lake and basically eats all day. There's lunch, dessert, watermelon, dinner, dessert (these are each very distinictive and separate eating times) and for activities, well there's a lake, so swimming, tubing, sail-boating, canoeing, water skiing, wake-boarding, rafting, and regular boating. Everyone over 30 usually just sits under the big pine tree outside the back of the cabin. Like this:

(This picture is only a small portion of the family that comes)

The front lawn of the cabin looks much like a parking lot. You might think you are attending a church function or potluck:

But no, truly, you are at a Ronnevik July 4th gathering. I'm not even sure everybody even knows each other, but I was introduced to relatives that were related like this: "Oh this is Hans' (my father-in-law) uncle's cousin on his mother's side, twice-removed." So after about 50 of these introductions, it's safe to assume that I now know who some people are but have no idea how they are related. 

Enough about the people now. What you all really want to see are the pies and desserts. That's pretty much why people attend this thing. There are two sets of desserts: one after the noon meal and one after dinner.

The (lunch) pie table. More were added after I took this picture.

The pies that I tasted were added to the table after the picture. I had the most amazing lemon meringue pie I've ever eaten as well as tastes of Gretchen's Triple Berry Pie and Pumpkin Pie. She has a great blog (which I love reading)  and her 4th of July post can be found here. All the pies I tried were Delicious (notice the capital "D") and frankly, it's unrealistic to try a piece of everything that looks good! 

Snapped this cute picture of Gretchen's daughter Silje surveying the pie table! 

The after dinner dessert table looked like this:

mostly bars, but a couple of the leftover pies.

Layered dessert: brownies, vanilla pudding, strawberries. Repeat (x3) 

The 4th is also a good time to catch up with how quickly the little ones are growing! Here I am with another one of Gretchen's children, Elias, whose chubby cheeks I just cannot get over!

There is also the tradition where father and son (not sure who) do a belly flop into the lake. They've got it choreographed pretty well.

View from the loft in the cabin.

And of course, no 4th is complete without a beautiful lake sunset!

Strawberry Picking!

Since I'm still playing catch-up from traveling so much and not being around internet, I'm going to keep this post fairly short... I had never been strawberry picking before so it was really exciting (as well as delicious)! I love fresh fruit and there's nothing fresher than eating a berry you have plucked off seconds before it's juices burst in your mouth. Yum YUM YUM!!!!  We went to a local farmer who opens up his patch for berry picking and picked quite a few buckets in a short amount of time.

The strawberry patch: it's pretty big!

They had hay between the rows so your knees don't get muddy while picking.

My gallon bucket full of delicious strawberries!

More berries! (3 gallons)

We picked 6 gallons of berries total. They were only $5.50 a gallon (compared to $2.50 a pint in CT) and were soooo much sweeter than any berry you will by in a grocery store. 

The berries were used for jam, pie, shortcake, and eating fresh!

Picking strawberries with my lovely hubs (who is clearly embarrassed to be kissed while his older brother takes the picture ;) ) It was very windy that day. (See below)

I didn't really mind the wind. I've heard that picking in sunny weather is just torture.

Going to pay for the strawberries. 

Strawberry picking was so fun and I wish we had something like that in Connecticut. I'll take fresh summer fruit ANyTimE!