Apple Pie...

My Dad LOVED apple pie, I think I get my addiction from him. I remember we used to buy the frozen dutch apple or deep dish apple pies quite a bit and bake them at home in the oven. We could barely wait for them to cool enough to make it edible, often times we'd just dig into it and bear the consequence of a burnt mouth, at least we had vanilla bean ice cream to cool it off a bit.

One time my parents were gone for the day and I decided I wanted to attempt to make an apple pie from scratch (for the first time ever, mind you). We had a bunch of random apples (I don't remember what kind they were, now I know it definitely makes a difference!), pie crusts in the fridge, and most of the spices (I think I had to omit some we didn't have if I remember right). I peeled, cored, and sliced the apples, followed the directions in mixing the spices, poured all the ingredients into the pie dish, baked and cooled it all before they got home. When they got home and my Dad saw there was an apple pie on the counter his face lit up (I think he even giggled a little). "Well, let's crack it open!," he said. Not knowing what to expect, we all took our first bites of my very first homemade apple pie, and surprisingly it wasn't half bad! I remember my Dad saying it reminded him of being a kid, someone had made pies that tasted like the one I made when he was younger and it took him back.

So today, I decided to try my apple pie luck once again (only the second time in all my 26 years, which bewilders me as I LOVE APPLE PIE)...I'm happy to say my Dad would have been in taste bud heaven. I used 5 different kinds of apples (2 Granny Smith, 1 Braeburn, 1 Fuji, 1 Honey Crisp, 1 Pink Lady) and the results were above and beyond my expectations, especially since I pieced together a few recipes I had seen online and added flavors I love in pies like vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

Daddy, here's to you! For your 50th birthday in a week, you get a homemade Apple Pie...feel free to come down and have a bite or two when I'm not looking!

The Million Dollar Superbowl...

The first year we moved from Portland to live in Crooked River Ranch, Oregon, we lived in a rental house while our custom home was being built on some property my parent's had bought. We hadn't lived there for long when we got a letter in the mail from Publishers Clearing House. The letter was stating that my parents were finalists for the Million + dollar sweepstakes that was being given away on Superbowl Sunday. Not only was this hefty payday being given away, but it was being given away live on TV during a commercial break. My Dad was convinced that God was behind this letter, that there was no way on earth that the Publishers Clearing House could have found our address so soon after having moved, and that we were destined to win that jackpot. We sent in our official entry and we waited patiently for Superbowl Sunday to come.

I remember it snowed that Sunday and I had studied the area around my house to make sure I'd know when I saw them driving towards our house on the television. The moment came and I saw the people with the massive check on the TV...there was snow...THERE WAS SNOW...I thought, "Maybe there IS a chance! They're REALLY coming to OUR house!"...and as I watched them pull up to a house that clearly wasn't ours, surprising a family that obviously wasn't mine...I felt a massive disappointment come over me.

So yesterday, 14 years later, the Superbowl came around...and now that my Dad is gone I remembered that moment again for the first time since it happened, and I decided to protest the Superbowl, which I don't really enjoy watching anyway. Instead, a few of my closest girl friends and I spent the day at beautiful Arrington Vineyards, next to a warm fire and we drank a few bottles of their delicious Tennessee wine and made what could have been a bad day a GREAT DAY.

What I found interesting was what I found after I got home. I read through my Facebook newsfeed...and it turns out I'm not the only one who feels this way...the Superbowl is actually a massive disappointment for most of us. Whether it be Publishers Clearing house giving away your millions to someone else, your favorite team was robbed and didn't make the cut, the commercials weren't as funny as last year, the halftime entertainment was boring and off-tune...for the majority of us, it doesn't live up to the hype. Actually, nothing ever does. We build it up in our minds and the truth is that the reality never lives up to the dreams we create in our heads. And that's okay...just as long as you're willing to accept it for what it is...or make it something different. It didn't have to be my Superbowl Sunday yesterday, and it wasn't...it was something much better. Just like the day that Publishers Clearing House didn't come to our house, the important part wasn't that we didn't win millions of dollars, the important part was that I spent the whole day with my family. At that time we were building a U.S.S. Constitution model ship together, and I remember my Dad wasn't even standing at the TV when they announced the winner, he was standing at the kitchen counter gluing a piece of that ship together. He didn't care that we didn't win, he had already turned that day into something far more valuable than a million dollars, he spent that day investing in his family.