Ice Cream Pudding

I mentioned ice cream pudding in the meme. I forgot that most people don't know what ice cream pudding is - and you are definatly missing out! It sort of started once we came back to Australia and wanted another thing for desert that wasn't full of dried fruit (Josh and I aren't fans). Basically it's ice cream full of chocolate in a pudding shape.

You need 2 liters good quality vanilla ice cream. It needs to be the good stuff so that it survives being melted and refrozen ok.

Lots of different chocolates, the best are Cherry ripe, Honey comb and some choc chips. 1 of each bar.

A bag of marshmallows

Pull the ice cream out of the freezer and chop up all the chocolate and marshmallows into little pieces. About 1cm squared but it's better rough.

The ice cream will be just starting to soften now so add the chopped up chocolate and marshmallows in a big bowl and mix it all together. Do it quickly so that it doesn't start to go liquid, just soft.

Line another bowl with plastic wrap and pour in the mixture, press it down and cover. Put back into the freezer at least over night.

When your ready to eat, chill a plate in the freezer and then upend the ice cream pudding onto the plate. If it sticks just run the outside of the bowl under hot water for a few seconds. Remove the plastic wrap.

Chop the pudding into segments and enjoy.

Christmas Meme

(Hat tip Kacie)

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper. If I got more than one thing for someone I use to like wrapping each thing individually so that it prolonged the experience :)

2. Real tree or artificial? Fake

3. When do you put up the tree? Generally around 1st December

4. When do you take the tree down? My brothers birthday is early January so we always took it down before then. I think we generally do it on New Years Day.

5. Do you like eggnog? Never had it

6. Favorite gift received as a child? I keep getting confused between birthday and Christmas presents. I think it was a Christmas when Mum and Dad finally relented and bought me my first Barbie (she had been banned on philosophical grounds before this). It was a gymnastic Barbie which had double joints on her knees and elbows so could do crazy gymnastic poses. Possibly the most surprised I have ever been by a present in my life.

7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Still trying to find the perfect one

8. Hardest person to buy for? I always find Christmas really hard because I'm always so sure that I'll get the wrong thing and people won't like the gift. Being an obsessive people pleaser makes gift giving stressful. A couple of years ago I broke down in the shopping center because the pressure was too much. I'm a bit better now.
But I'd have to say the hardest is my brother - it's so hard to judge his tastes.

9. Easiest person to buy for? Kids, I love how excited they get about everything (and anything)

10. Worst Christmas Gift you ever received? Can't really remember. I'm sure there was a pack of hankies at some point from an elderly relative.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Don't really have one

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Mid December. I always start planning way before that but it always takes me forever to decide.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Maybe for a Kris Kringle?

15 Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Our Ice cream pudding, soooo good.

16. Clear lights or coloured on the tree? both :)

17. Favorite Christmas song? I LOVE traditional Christmas Carols. All of them.
From a purely musical point of view I like 'What child is this', Greensleeves sends shivers up my spine.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Since we've been back in Australia we always had to stay where we were for Christmas because of Christmas day service. People came to us. Except that we now don't live with Mum and Dad so we have to travel.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? No

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning. A few years ago Mum and Dad started the tradition of waiting until after Church which I love. It's good to remind us what's the real meaning of Christmas and I'm the kind of person where the anticipation is half of the fun.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? People thinking Christmas equals Winter. In the Southern hemisphere Christmas has nothing to do with winter! Look around, it's the middle of summer! Just because part of the world (not here) has snow at Christmas does not mean that Christmas is in anyway connected to Christmas! A snow flake is NOT a Christmas decoration!
I could go on, but I'll spare you :)

Frangipani Flower

Two little white frangipanis, on my new tree :)

Marley and Me and Marriage

A little while ago I rented Marley and Me. I had read and enjoyed the book and so knew it was more than a 'dog movie'.

What I hadn't expected was such a lovely, realistic and positive depiction of a marriage through many years. Basically it's the story of a couple as they move from being happy-go-lucky newly married, to stressed new parents and then a mature middle age couple. And all their experiences are punctuated by a crazy mischievous dog.

This movie doesn't gloss over the messiness of life, and the couple defiantly have their problems. It's a movie about finding that their life didn't turn out the way they wanted, but maybe this was better than they expected.

Even when the world around them says they'd be happier if they broke up (and they sometimes wonder it themselves), But they are committed to each other and their family. They decide that things will happen, but they can get through them if they meet them together.

Or as Owen Wilson's character says; "Mend it, don't end it"

Our First Christmas

(This is part of an ongoing series chronicling memories of my life growing up as a missionary kid in Vanuatu. For a quick overview and links to previous posts you can go here)

Seeing as how it's less than 2 weeks til Christmas, I thought I'd do a Growing up Island post on Christmas.

Christmas time at Talua was always a little weird. All the students go home, and most of the staff too. For about a week the truck would be piled high several times a day with people and bags on the way into town to catch boats or planes to their respective islands and villages. There is much crying and shaking of hands and waving goodbye.

Then you wake up and the place is eerily quiet. There may be 3 staff families left to keep the collage in order. That year we were the only little kids left so Josh and I play together and the whole collage is our playground.

With less people wanting to go into town when Mum and Dad go in to do the weekly shop we are allowed to come too. Our first Christmas in Vanuatu we go into the bank and they have a TV showing a video of Carols in the Domain. I remember wondering why Mum was crying over a show with singing and fireworks and Humphrey B Bear. I obviously did not know what homesickness was.

We then went to the local grocery store and were greeted by a large Ni-Vanuatu man dressed in a red suit, dripping sweat. Yep, Santa had made it all the way to Santo. He was delighted to see some western kids who would actually know who Santa was. Unfortunately for him our parents were in the ignoring Santa camp (much easier to do when on a tropical island than in a western city, by the way) and to top it off Joshua was terrified of any large men with fake beards and big red suits.

It must have looked funny; a Ni-Vanuatu Santa chasing two white kids around the store. Once we realised that he just wanted to give us lollies we stopped and accepted them from behind Mum's skirt (poor guy!).

Each trip to the post office produced parcels from friends and family back in Australia, and they were secreted to the top of Mum and Dads wardrobe the minute we came home.

Mum and Dad tried to give us a Christmas we were use to. We had a little tree and the parcels held presents which we opened Christmas morning. Being the first Christmas of our missionary life we were sent more that year than any other. After the first year people get use to you being away and only those really close to you send something.

On actual Christmas day we had planned to go to a village for church because there wasn't enough people to have a service at Talua. But a storm was near and the rain was coming down so heavily you couldn't see out the window. The principal sent over his son to say we wouldn't try to drive in this weather so we had Christmas just the four of us; in our little house on a tropical Island.

My very own Frangipani

What do we have here?


My very own frangipani tree (it's a little tree, but a tree none the less) given to me by my brother - and it looks like it will flower any day now :).

Sale (or 'another post about the store')

After another unsuccessful market I was more than a little disheartened. I was ready to give up the idea of trying to have a small business and that devastated me because I love creating all my bits and pieces.

Two things stopped me;

1. I have a market in February which I had already booked and paid for.
2. I have several hundred dollars worth of stock hanging in my room.

I'm still not exactly sure if I will/should continue with Purple Frangipani store, but I know I have a big decision to make after February.

There are some designs I won't be selling at the market and so they are in my store at low prices - almost cost price because I just want to move them and not make a loss if at all possible.

If you are at all interested or know anyone who might be (hint, hint, it's Christmas soon) then get in quick, cos I have no idea how long things will stay around, or how long it will be before I give up entirely and my friends kids will get a new wardrobe :).