Claire turns TWENTY years old today- and Paul was 24 yesterday- this hardly seems possible!! We actually celebrated Claire's b-day when we took her out to lunch yesterday (on Paul's b-day, to add to the confusion). In the photo above, a woman walking by offered to take a picture of the three of us. Note the two mystery people walking behind us- it turns out that my dad and Deb were in town at the same time!! We had noticed them shortly after this photo was taken- but I had no idea they ended up in the picture. Pretty funny! We celebrated the New Year's Eve day in true Lazy Vegan style...first, we woke up early (well, that's something I do EVERY DAY- but this time the foreman of The Lazy Vegan joined me) to make the deadline for bidding on an online auction as part of our credit card rewards- we bid on a 42-inch plasma t.v. and we won!! So then we got to work on creating the new "media room" upstairs- Randy dismantled the twin bed and we brought the desk downstairs. Forgot to take a photo of that- but it should make tomorrow's blog posting. Then we went out and bought a beautiful orange (just like the orange robes worn by Buddist monks) futon to replace the twin bed. While Randy assembled it upstairs, I made chocolate cupcakes from a recipe that belonged to my grandma that my aunt sent- that happened to be VEGAN! I've read that a lot of baking recipes from the Depression era were vegan because the price of eggs and milk and butter were just too much. And then I rented a DVD and ordered pizza without cheese to complete the day- I doubt we'll stay up to see the new year in, but we'll have fun anyhow- and I have a really good feeling about 2009!!!!
Gone is the little Claire! Now we have no kids left in their teens...all are twenty-somethings!!
Most pizza without cheese is vegan- I double checked that this one was. It was yummy.
New Year's Eve birdie.
New Year's Eve donkeys!
Paco's great mug.
Sunshine streaming through the trees.
It was super foggy this morning but turned out to be a beautiful day.
Randy with Bravo on the new futon couch! The photo doesn't do the brilliant orange color justice.
Randy pretends to watch the non-existent t.v. We're not sure when it will be shipped.
Bravo is putting his request in for an animal movie!
The chocolate cupcakes!
Grandma's Vegan Chocolate Cupcake Recipe (from Aunt Barbara):
1 1/2 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp. vinegar
blend it all together
Bake at 350 till done
I then made vegan cream cheese frosting:
1 8 oz. package Tofutti cream cheese
1/4 cup soy milk
3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 tbsp. Earth Balance "butter"
blend until smooth
Randy assembles the futon. It is never as easy as they say.
Lunch on the terrace.
The early morning online auction- our winning bid!
