"Apple"Cake

It was Rob's birthday recently and I couldn't help but make my Mac loving hubby an apple cake to celebrate....



... it's a Victoria Sponge inside (his favourite) so no edible apples unfortunately.

What a difference a day makes....

.... 24 little hours....

On Sunday night I was packing clothes and suncream for going on our long awaited holiday to Cuba on Tuesday morning. Monday night came and so did a phone call from our travel agent saying the holiday was canceled because of Hurricane Ike working its way through Cuba - more specifically the resort we were heading to.

We were gutted - we had been looking forward to this for so long. We spent the rest of the evening trying to find a holiday we could take the next day from Gatwick seeing as we had booked flights with sleasy jet to London and back that we couldn't get refunded. We ended up missing the flight this morning because we didn't find anything, so if anyone needs a flight from Gatwick to Belfast on 24th September give me a shout... otherwise it looks like we're loosing it too.

So right now we're in the middle of trying to get another holiday sorted that will leave over the next week.

It's amazing the difference a day can make.


Image from sxc.hu

Our first anniversary celebrations

I've been really bad and not blogged this sooner, but I hope you'll forgive me for the tardiness of this!

It all kind of started on the 19th April (day before our anniversary) when we took a bit of a road trip with Stewie and his belongings up to Conlig because he was going to stay with friends for the weekend.

We traveled home via Belfast and decided to stop into the Odyssey to get some food from the Indian Ocean. It was delicious (as usual) but the dish I ordered reminded me more of Chinese than Indian food, besides the point though, because we had a lovely meal then headed home to get tucked up in bed to watch a movie and eventually fell asleep.

We got up the next morning after a long lie in, which is very strange for me seeing as it was a Sunday and that's usually the busiest day in my week. We got up and packed our overnight bag and headed down to Newcastle for our overnight stay in the Slieve Donard Hotel. Neither of us had been before (at least as far as we can remember) and as we drove towards the building I think both our jaws dropped. It's a stunning hotel built right beside the sea with a beautiful view of the Slieve Donard, so it was a great place to go away to and relax.

The Slieve Donard Hotel


We walked up to the door and were greeted by a doorman holding open the door for us... I felt all posh already! We walked in and I was breathless at the beautiful reception hall. We got all checked in and headed to our room - we dumped our bags and headed straight for the spa to enjoy the swimming pool with an incredible view and the heat experiences. This was sooooo relaxing! We hadn't booked any treatments but this seemed to be enough on its own.

When you visit Newcastle, it seems like a law that you have to get some ice cream - after all you are beside the sea! So we headed into Newcastle to get some Maud's and couldn't help but get their top selling flavour known as "poor bear" but used to be (and still is in my eyes) "Pooh Bear" because it's ice cream with honeycomb through it. It's such a delicious treat and something we try to make ourselves at home but it's never as good as Maud's version.

We walked back to the hotel and up to our room, then watched a little tv while we waited for the time to head downstairs for our evening meal. A very posh affair indeed!!! As soon as we were seated the wine waiter introduced himself and took our order, as soon as he left a waitress offered us some bread rolls, then shortly after that we were asked for our order from the menu. And what a menu it was!



I ordered the barberry duck with rhubarb chutney and potato gratin and Rob ordered the fillet of beef. Both very delicious dishes! And came to the table looking rather classy too....



Then for dessert I went for the hot dessert of the day - sponge pudding with custard.



We had brought our top tier of wedding cake with us so Rob skipped dessert and had some of the cake where as I was a pie and had both!



I can't believe it has been a year where we've gone from this:



to this:


And it's a shame we didn't get to have any of the cake a year ago at the wedding because I would imagine (well I hope so anyway) that it was tastier than the top tier was after being frozen for a year and defrosted. The marzipan kind of "sweated" through the cake making it all taste of marzipan and it was also quite a hard cake (and yes it was defrosted fully!) so we didn't eat very much of it at all. Still we had a beautiful meal and were well looked after.

After what I thought was a great night's sleep on a really comfy bed (Rob wasn't fond of it and thought he was getting a sore back) we woke up and headed for breakfast with almost everything you could want for breakfast, the option of a cooked one, cereals, fruit, cheeses, hams, toast, bagels, croissants... and much more. It was a lovely relaxing breakfast in a dining room while some guests read the morning paper and sipped their tea.

I was sad to be going home so soon after this but we had an incredible time there and I'm pretty sure we'll be back, if not for the night at least for the spa!!!! We had a fantastic time celebrating our first full year of marriage and we had a fantastic first year together. I'm excited to see what the future will bring for us and what other things we will be celebrating together.

Our First Anniversary

Today Rob and I are celebrating our first wedding anniversary! It's a year to the day when we stood in front of all our family and friends and became husband and wife, then went off and started cooking for them all!!!!



Only kidding, but it's one of my favourite photos from the day.

It's been a fantastic year! I've really loved being married and making a home with Rob. I'll share more tomorrow about our celebrations and what we did to mark the occasion.

Spray tan

This time last year (almost to the minute) I was standing in a booth getting a spray tan done.... my sister was treating me to this in preparation for mine and Rob's wedding 2 days later. I remember my sister and I feeling wet and sticky, I remember going into Debenhams to pick up the guys suits, I remember the Bible Study I led that night where I was surprised with a mini party and was also bashed for being so orange. I also remember the shower the next morning with the orange water running down the plug hole and how clean I felt after it!

This Sunday is our first wedding anniversary and I'll not advertise what we're doing to celebrate but I promise to tell all afterwards.



Picture from Online Tan Shop

Ed's Bar & Grill

Rob suggested going out for dinner last night and I jumped at the chance. We decided to try the newest restaurant in Banbridge: Ed's Bar and Grill I've held a few meetings in there with some of my volunteer youth leaders and so on but was excited to go for a proper meal and with Rob too because we usually get takeout instead of going out for food.



I was also excited because they have a great mix of a menu but not so mixed that it overwhelms you.... OK I did struggle a little to narrow down my choices to what I was actually going to have, but it gives me more reason to go back and try all the other dishes I like the sound of!

It's a fantastic atmosphere, perfect for families, parties, couples and lots more. The staff were very friendly and in fact while we were having our order taken a customer interrupted and handed our server the bill, he looked at us with that look of "I'm sorry" mixed with "What was that about?", but he was very professional and carried on with our order after that.



We were served quite quickly and everything was hot, fresh from the kitchen... in fact so hot that when I ate one of the chips I burnt my throat swallowing it meaning that today has been a struggle swallowing. But they were good chips!

I had some delicious "sweet and sticky chicken" described as marinated and seared chicken, in a sticky mild whole grain mustard and honey glaze....... how good does that sound?!?!?!?! And it was, absolutely delicious, but I would have like a little more of the marinade for some of the chicken that had none underneath... or even just for having as a dressing on the salad bed it came on.



My dear plain eating hubby had a plain burger and chips... that he says were very good, he was well happy with it.



I was very impressed with the friendliness of the staff, the great atmosphere, great menu, quick service, very tasty food... however there is one thing that has bothered me each time I've been there, which I'm sure some think is an excellent idea. They have nintendo DS and mini DVD players along with a selection of games and movies for entertaining your children during the meal. It makes me sad that families can't sit down to a nice meal together without distractions or having to be entertained, but then again I'm not a parent so I shouldn't judge. But a great place to go for a meal, I highly recommend it... but if you can't get to Ed's Banbridge, check out their Lisburn branch.

Zombie attack plans revisited

After blogging about preparation for a zombie attack i've unleashed further discussion on the matter.....

Rob and I had friends over on Saturday for some dinner and then what turned into watching Family Guy: Blue Harvest (Great by the way!!!) while looking at maps discussing potential rendezvous and hideout points in the event of a zombie attack.

Paul had even brought a book: Max Brook's Zombie Survival guide and maps of the Sperrins and the Mournes to think through where we would hide out and then move onto after hiding out for a while. We discussed what kind of vehicle we'd need to get, what supplies we'd need and much more. it was all rather surreal! But I'm reassured to have a man who's looking out for me!



(Excuse the washing in the background!!!)

Where in the world is Mr E?

I got this photo emailed to me from Rob today....


Can you tell where he was?

Lucky duck.... I'll just have to beat him to the new one in Belfast tomorrow!

On my own again

Rob has gone and left me..........








..... to go to London for 3 days!

He finally got away on his course for work that he was meant to go on last October. And check this out... the lucky sod is in a real fancy hotel with a great view of Tower Bridge!



Lucky boy!

Preparation for a zombie attack

Recently we've been watching a few zombie movies.... not on purpose, they either happen to be on TV or are what Lovefilm has sent out to us, e.g. 28 weeks later, Shaun of the Dead, Resident Evil and can I include I am Legend? (Wikipedia's listing of Zombie films does anyway).

All this recently led to a discussion between Rob and I on what we would do in the event of a zombie attack (I cannot stress enough that Rob was the one to bring it up). I just had to laugh, it sounds so ridiculous! He brought up the fact that we'd need to plan somewhere safe to escape to, that it would need to be well stored with tinned food (and then highlighted the lack of tinned food in our kitchen) and lots of ammunition. Hmmmm it's times like these I really wish he blogged, because as weird as this topic is, it would make a really great post!

For now though you may have to make do with what others have said about it all.

2007 Review

Many blogs have done a review of 2007, mostly using the format of "highlights" or the "best blog posts" or "my tops tens of x, y and z for 2007" etc. However I was reading fellow April 07  bride Chris Cool's blog and loved how she reviewed the year by what happened month by month and have decided to do the same seeing as the last year has been very eventful for me too!

January
We spent New Year's Eve in 2006 with some of Rob's classmates and their significant others by having dinner at our new house. We had just got the keys to our house a few days before Christmas and I had insisted on having a tree put up, my first ever Christmas tree and it was a real tree. Mum and Dad have always had artificial trees so this was a real treat, but soon after the turn of the new year we had to remove the decorations and say goodbye to our first tree.
On the 2nd and 3rd of the month I starred in a play put on by the church called, "Don't Tell the Wife", where I played Hilda, a girlfriend of Cyril who was a little odd.

And a lot of wedding planning took place, as well as Rob and I going to a marriage preparation course run by Christian Guidelines

February
Wedding invites were sent out, replies started coming in as well as some wedding presents!
I went go karting with the BB as the only girl!
Tried my wedding dress on for the first time, it was rather big and was taken to the seamstress for alterations.

March
Had my first wedding - in a play, not a real wedding - a short sequel to "Don't tell the wife" was written where my character got married and was performed exactly a month before my own wedding at the church annual review. Like my dress?

I also went for hair and make up trials for the actual wedding - it was so much fun being pampered - and did lots more wedding prep.
And more wedding presents came!

April
The first Bannside Youth Retreat in my time being there was held in the first week of the month. There were about a dozen of us altogether and we had a great time.
A few days later I had my hen night at Fat Buddha which was great! Gorgeous food! Fantastic company! And great craic!

I had wedding dress finally altered and picked up just 3 days before the wedding!!!!
And on the 20th Rob and I became Mr and Mrs Ruth! lol We had an amazing day, it was so much more fun than I had ever imagined it would be! I'm a very forunate girl to have married the love of my life.

After the wedding we had our "minimoon" as I called it. We weren't able to go away on our honeymoon straight away seeing as Rob had his final exams to do for his degree, so we spent a few nights in the bridal suite of the Malone Lodge Hotel which was fantastic! Recommend it if you can afford it!
We came home and I started living with my new hubby.
About a week later I turned 24!!! and I got birthday presents!!!!!
And we had lots more wedding presents!!!!

May
Rob took part in the Megaw Memorial Lectures and came second. In my humble (and unbiased lol) opinion I think he should have won, but I was so proud of him!

We got our wedding photos, and i added loads on flickr and bebo. I was so happy with how they all turned out. Our photographer, Michael Taylor was amazing and did so much for us, he really understood what we wanted. We would recommend him to anyone! And he doesn't just do weddings, so if you're after a good photographer check him out.
On the 10th we got our wee puppy Stewie. And here he is the first day we got him:

He was so scared and still is a little scared of things but he's come out of his shell now and become a cheeky spoilt pup lol. But we love him lots.

June
The first 3 days of the month saw a huge fundraising event for the church that had took the best part of 2 years to plan. The Bannside flower festival where we served over 2000 meals as well as serve a huge amount of tea, coffee and scones. We had thousands of people come to see the beautiful flower arrangements. But the biggest success was having members of the church all working together, getting to know each other, involving new people and having fun together!


This year was the first ever Kid's Praise Party held by PCI. It was a fantastic event, I can't wait to see what happens at this year's party.
On the same day, straight after the Kid's Praise Party was Youth night, another great year, however as usual it ran over time a little.
The last few days of the month were spent at Summer Madness which was known as SBSUSM07 (meaning "stand by or stand up, summer madness 07) for the year and was the last year of the StreetReach outreach project, with over 2000 (if memory serves me right) people (mostly teenagers) hitting the streets, to clean up, serve, play with kids and much more.

July
The first few days of the month saw the second half of Summer Madness with Rob's Graduation in the middle

Another day where I was all proud of him!
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out at the cinema. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released.

August
August saw the start of this blog. which has been going very well if I say so myself.
And soon after that I started "Just add eggs" which is now "ruth's kitchen experiments"
We booked our honeymoon.
And I went to the second PCI Youth Ministry Summer School

September
We cut the grass for the first time
Rob and I headed down to Kilkenny to see his mum and brother.

October
We went on our Honeymoon in Menorca and while away got to finish reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Then about a week later I took a crowd of 16 to the MAD weekend and we had a great time

November
November was a challenge for my blogging because I signed up to do NaBloPoMo and decided to post about things I learnt everyday.
I also had my annual review this month and was offered permanent contract which was rather exciting!
My lovely hubby bought me an iPhone
I had also made my 100th post

December
December was it's usual self - extremely busy but lots of fun. Especially seeing as this was our first Christmas together married and New Years was celebrated in style, just the 3 of us on the sofa watching TV.


What a fantastic year!!! I'm looking forward to the next one! Happy new year everyone!

Christmas catch up

I've been bad and neglected my blog the past few days, however I did post 4 times on Christmas Eve! Well I'm back on this blog now, however I did post the following on ruth's kitchen experiments:

This year, Rob and I celebrated our first Christmas as a married couple and had fun cooking our own Christmas dinner.


For starters we had crispy duck with Chinese pancakes, hoi sin sauce and spring onions.


And for our main course we made Turkey, Ginger Glazed Gammon, Stuffing and roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips and had cocktail sausages and Yorkshire pudding along with it all.



I even made doggie treats for Stewie
What a fantastic feed! We had a great day!

We also spent Christmas evening at my parent's house playing on my sister's Wii. On boxing day Rob was working and i headed up to my parent's with Stewie to have another Christmas dinner. The following day Rob and I headed up with his 2 brothers to Donegal to see his Dad and almost Step mum, while Stewie spent the night with my Mum and Dad. We had yet another Christmas dinner in Donegal, swapped more presents, played beetle and did a mini pub quiz. We stayed overnight and spent the day, went out for dinner in the evening to a local pub and headed back home, picking up Stewie on the way.

Now today has been relaxing, Rob has lit the fire, I cooked lunch from leftover turkey and ham, made some Baked Alaska and am now updating my blog while watching the West Wing with Rob. Tonight I'll be heading out to see some old school friends for Chinese and a catchup with them too!

I am woman, hear me roar!

Yesterday Rob noticed that our downstairs toilet was leaking a little, we said we'd keep an eye on it and hope it could wait until Monday to get sorted when it's easier to get a plumber. However today when I came home from work/church we noticed that instead of just leaking it was dripping now. We decided to call our home insurance company to see if this would be classed as an emergency and if they would cover the cost of getting a plumber out. They weren't able to get anybody off their contact list of 24 hour plumbers so they told us to get someone to look at it and send the receipt to them. Rob headed off for the gym leaving me to call round people from Bannside who might know a plumber who could come out and have a look. One of the people I called gave me a few instructions over the phone from what he thought it might be. So I went off, got some tools and set to work and it's fixed!!!!!! I feel so proud of myself now.

NaBloPoMo 30

My darling dearest Stewie has a fascination with shoes, and has got his teeth into my wedding shoes thus ruining them and making them unwearable.

They were like this just before the wedding:


And are now like this:



He did all this a while ago but I loved the shoes because they could be worn everyday and went with lots of outfits, as well as the fact they were the shoes I got married in.

Recently I have been looking in the stores for these shoes and had no luck, so decided to look up the Faith website and call the headquarters and see if maybe there were some there.... it was a small chance but I thought what the heck it's only a phone call and if I don't ask I'll never know. So I called and asked and what I learned for today was that there was only one available pair of these shoes in my size left and that they were in Milton Keynes. I called the store in Milton Keynes and they told me that I would need to come into the store to buy them, they can't accept payment over the phone or transfer the shoes to a more local store. I was really bummed by this, one pair left in my size! I was thinking God was just teasing me with this! I was texting Rob about it and he suggested asking about us posting the money instead. So I called the store back and asked, even saying I'd pay double for them, the girl called her manager to speak to me who said that she would send the shoes to me for the price they were and not have to pay postage, however I couldn't send cash it would need to be vouchers bought from a local store. I bought some vouchers, as well as a box of chocolates and a thank you card to send them.

It's not often that retailers take such good care of their customers, but I'm really appreciative and recommend to any of the ladies out there to go have a shop in Faith sometime!


Well this is the end of NaBloPoMo folks, I know it's been a bumpy ride with some really really REALLY dodgy posts but it's been fun at the same time!

Now back to our regular programming.....

Personal questions....

Sundays are my busiest days and usually on Sunday mornings after Bible Class I'm running around the church trying to find people before the service for various reasons because as soon as it's over everyone rushes home for their Sunday roast.

Today while I was rushing around someone stopped me for a quick chat and asked, "have you put weight on recently?" I didn't know what to say, I was really caught off guard! Like there was no "how are you?" or anything before hand! In truth yes, I have, not much, so little that I didn't think it would be that noticeable to other people. Well I kind of laughed and said "well sure everyone does around Christmas". The next question was "are you pregnant?" The phrase "none of your business" came to mind but I laughed again and said no.

I walked away sucking my stomach in and thinking do i look fat?. I don't think I'm all that paranoid about how I look, in general I'm quite happy with it - like most people there are a few things I would change if I could - but these two questions left me feeling very paranoid and self conscious. When I got home poor Rob had to hear all about it.

I've posted before about the campaign for real beauty - why don't I get it into my head that beauty is more than what's on the outside?

Tonight at the local youth rally the speaker was talking about all sorts of things but a little sentence was in there about how we are a unique and beautiful creation, individually crafted by the Maker and unconditionally loved by him. Why should I, or anyone for that matter, be seeking approval from others? I'm not saying I shouldn't take pride in my appearance and want to look my best, but that really I need to find assurance from my Heavenly Father.

I have the best hubby!

My hubby doesn't surprise me often, no flowers or chocolates etc, but when he does, he does it in style!

Tonight as I was waiting for Rob to call home to say he had left work so I could start cooking dinner, I was starting to worry because he's supposed to finish work at 9, doesn't usually get to leave until about 9.15ish but tonight the clock was nearing 9.45 and I hadn't heard anything yet - I was starting to worry. I txted asking if he was leaving soon, he replied saying he was leaving. Then he called a few minutes later and said he was on his way and to make up for being late that he'd get me something pretty.

So I got on with making the dinner (which i'll blog about here tomorrow) and when he got home he told me to close his eyes because he got me something already. I closed my eyes and got excited, when he told me to open them again there I saw a fantastic little box that contained a brand new iPhone! All for me! Isn't he the greatest?!?!?!? He bought one for himself as well so we'll be all like a weird couple with matchin phones, but who cares! We have funky cool iPhones!

He's now having fun getting the 2 of them set up and ready for use.... he's like a kid in a candy shop and I love him to bits!

NaBloPoMo 12 - part 2

I just learnt a second new thing for today.

Last night as everyone was leaving youth group to go home someone mentioned something about the Queen doing nothing and thinking about it today led me to looking up the British Monarchy website to see what all the Queen is up to and what exactly she is responsible for.

On the homepage I couldn't help but notice the lastest news item saying:
THE DIAMOND WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh will celebrate 60 years of marriage on 20 November 2007.


And elsewhere on the page was a link to a page where you can send a congratulatory message to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip if you're interested.

60 years married? I'm impressed and inspired as a newlywed (can I still call myself that? and if so for how much longer?). I only hope and pray that Rob and I have anywhere near as long as that together.

Congratulations to them both and many happy years to come.

Honeymoon Report and Photos

Well as requested: a report on our late honeymoon........

It all kicked off in London. Rob arrived ahead of me and checked in to our hotel, then when I arrived he met me at the tube station near the hotel. We were quite shocked at the size of the room for what we were paying for it - quite abit smaller than we had expected from a 4* hotel but was decent for a night's sleep and rather handy to the tube station that was on the circle line so it was pretty easy to get anywhere in London from there. We ended up in McD's for a quick bite cos we were both hungry from our travelling, then headed for the Regent Street Apple Store for Rob to get excited about the new iPhone.




After all that we headed to a fancy chinese (or as my uncle called it "Asian Fusion") restaurant called Hakkasan to meet my Uncle for dinner. He had told us it was near Tottenham Court Road Station and what road it was on. Seeing as we didn't know roads in London we looked up google maps while we were at the apple store then headed to meet him. We found the road he told us it was on and it looked like a bit of a back alley and started to wonder if we were in the right place, then we spotted it at the end of the alley just off the road a little and beside a pile of scaffolding. It was a black door with a little sign of the restaurants name and a group of 3 or 4 "bouncers" with clipboards. They asked our name and let us in. We walked through the door and down a long set of black stairs surrounded by black walls - was a rather scary intimidating experience. We arrived at the bottom of the stairs and were greeted by some very fancily dressed people asking our name again and one led us through the restaurant around lots of tables and through lots of doorways around the place to the table where my uncle was sitting waiting. It was a great evening in a very fancy restaurant - definitely not something I would get to experience at home! We had starters that I'd never had before, we had cocktails, we had wine, we had scandanavian water, we had pork, we had chicken, we had fish, we had pak choi, we had rice, we had ice cream and we had sorbet and lots and lots of fun chatting!
After all that eating and drinking, we headed down to the Thames for a walk across it beside the London Eye and had more chat and drinks by the river. It was a fantastic night and great to hang out with my uncle who I don't see so much.

The next day we headed to Gatwick, checked in our bags and got lunch there before we flew to Mahon, Menorca. When we had booked our flight we were told we wouldn't get a meal on the flight but we ended up having one set in front of us, which we weren't hungry for but it turned out to be pasta which Rob doesn't like anyways so it turned out fine.

We arrived safe and sound, got our bags and picked up our rental car.

Then drove across the island to our villa.

And after all that travelling we put the bags in the villa and headed out to eat

It was a great meal, so good after all the junk you eat when you travel.

During the rest of our time in Menorca we did a lot of chilling out and relaxing. We hung out at the pool, read books, watched some tv (we were able to get some english channels) and did a few sudoku (Rob learnt how to do them while we were away!!!) We mostly cooked in the villa due to food being quite expensive out there but we wnet out a for a few meals and ocassionally some desserts.


One night while we were out we got some indian food (our favourite) and it was terrible! The rice was barely cooked the sauces were bland and the naan bread wasn't the greatest either, another indian disappointment. Mostly though any food we had when we ate out was great and the restaurants all looked out onto this lovely harbour.


We had a little misfortune with the weather when we had a storm that lasted 3 or 4 days along with a few other rainy cold days - rain, wind, thunder, lightning - not what we were expecting, but we appreciated the sunshine when it did show.

After 2 weeks in Menorca we headed back to the other side of the island, left the car where we were told, headed into the airport, waited a few hours and then got our flight to London. When we arrived we got a taxi to our hotel and were very impressed with Copthorne Hotel Gatwick. It was beautiful! A spacious gorgeous room with a big and very comfortable bed, and a big tv. We ordered room service for dinner and enjoyed sitting on the bed watching some tv, eating dinner and generally being back in the UK.



We left the following morning and flew home to Belfast ready to get back into everyday life again and to see wee Stewie again who was incredibly excited to see us after his own holiday staying with friends of ours.