Its so cute how she drinks her cup that we had to make a lil video of it and ofcourse I wont keep it from my visitors. So go watch the below video starring our little baby girl Anarosa.

It has been a while that I checked where my visitors came from and today I decided to bring Redmond, Washington into the spotlights. Again please let me repeat from a former post, I’m by no means a stalker, I just take the opportunity to virtualy visit some places and learn more about them. Lets see what Wikipedia has to say about Redmond, Washington.

Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, in the United States. Redmond is best known as the home of Microsoft (for which Redmond has become a metonym) and Nintendo of America. Redmond is also known as “the bicycle capital of the Northwest”. Due to its large population of highly paid technology workers, especially those of Microsoft, Redmond is an affluent community. Based on per capita income, Redmond ranks 20th of the 522 areas in the state of Washington to be ranked.

Native Americans had settled in the Redmond area 400 years ago, and the first European settlers arrived in the 1870s. Luke McRedmond filed a Homestead Act claim for land next to the Sammamish Slough on September 9, 1870, and the following year Warren Perrigo took up land adjacent to him. The rivers and streams had so many salmon that the settlement was initially named Salmonberg. More settlers came, and with the establishment of the first post office in 1881, the name of the community was changed to Melrose. The new name was taken from the Perrigos’ successful inn, Melrose House, which upset McRedmond. After becoming postmaster, he successfully petitioned to have the name changed to Redmond in 1883.

Ofcourse a City like Redmond has its own website too: http://www.redmond.gov/ . You will find information there about the population, recreation, plans and projects and anythign else related to Redmond. All together it looks  like a cute city worth paying a visit when you are in the neighbourhood. 🙂

Yes, I know I have been slacking, but I don’t have photoshop on my new laptop and  I am so used to  the speed of my new laptop that I really dont like sitting at my old destop anymore. My old desktop is now in use by my oldest daughter who is going to need one when she goes to her new school next year.

I am so proud of her! shes such a smart girl, very intelligent and creative. Ofcourse like every teenager she has her off-days but, dont we all? even when not teenager anymore? Excactly we cant be awesome all of the time :). And being her mom, i be the first one to know when somethign is up with her. Usualy ofcourse its me to blame for her mood because i had asked her to do somethign for me, or to clean up her  mess in her bedroom or I talked to her because she was late at school or forgot somethign or whatever.. So yeah its usualy me to blame  XD. And thats ok, thats what I’m mommy for :).

Now back to the topic, pictures well I will see to it that I get Photoshop installed this week and with some luck and loss of my lazyness I might start uploading and posting new pictures again. What I Can do right now is post a little video of our sweet  princess Anarosa, the youngest of the family :).

She makes me laugh all the time even when she  has been keeping me awake last few nights, every day she brings a smile to my face. I’m pretty sure she will be walking free soon, without  me holding her. We are learning her little things that are fun to do and she picks up on them really fast, like clapping her hands :).  She is sooooooo cute :).

Its so cute how she drinks her cup that we had to make a lil video of it and ofcourse I wont keep it from my visitors. So go watch the below video starring our little baby girl Anarosa.

With Christmas when my mom was here I had asked her to make some carrotsoup like she used to make  as long as I remember. I just love that soup and we had bought our selfs a new refridgerator with a freezer with 3 drawers so I wanted to  put some in the freezer too.  And ofcourse my mom made a load of soup and it was delicious as always. We froze in a few liter soup that she had made extra. But all that soup.. well… its all gone.. we ate it all in January and February allrdy and  a few weeks ago it started itching again.. I wanted to have carrotsoup.. Now our normal grocerystore where we always go was doing a redecorating that would last till half april so I was going to wait till then… And this week it was reopened.

So I bought  all the Ingredients I needed and today I made that famous carrotsoup myself.. for the first time.. And it was delicious, just like my mom makes it. Good job eh? Thank goodness I made a lot of extra so next time when I want  some carrotsoup again, all I need to do is open my fridge n get myself a pack of frozen carrotsoup out. Since that soup turned out so well when I tried to make it by myself, I wanted to share the recipe here. So you guys can try it for yourself :). I am using European/Dutch measurements so you might want to google up to converse to your own country.

Carrotsoup  (+/- 8 portions)

• 500 gram Wintercarrots (those are like the biggest carrots u can find XD) fresh ofcourse.
• 1 onion
• 2 toes of garlic (I used garlic paste thats rdy to use)
• 4 beef bouillon blocks (make sure its for 2 liter bouillon)
• 40 grams margarine (butter)
• 40 grams flour (all purpose)
• 2 liter water
• 3/4 teaspoon curry powder
• 150 gram grounded beef)
• 1 thin leek
• parsley hacked in small pieces for finishing touch.
• salt and pepper

Clean the carrots and cut them in  big slices. Peel the onion and cut it in tiny pieces. peel the garlic and  use a garlic press to make 2  toes into paste.

Use a BIG soup pan thats large enough for  all ingredients to fit when the soup is finished.  Put in the pan: 2 liter water, the carrot slices, the cut onion, the pressed garlic and the bouillon blocks. Bring it to boiling and let it boil for 15 minutes.

Take a large bowl (or 2) and a sieve and pour the soup  thru the sieve into the bowl(s) so u have a clear bouillon left over. The carrot and onion and garlic that u catched in the sieve you going to have to mash completely (I used my kitchen machine with blades for this) U can put all the bouillon back together in the big pan and keep the mashed carrotmix seperated for now.

In another pan you melt the butter and stir the flour through it when its melted. Then little by little you add some bouillon as you keep stirring till you have a lightly bound soup.  Add this lightly bound soup back with the rest of the bouillon int the large pan and add the mashed carrotmix aswell. Now its time to test the taste of your soup first time. add a lil bit of the currypowder and try again.. then add  a little more if neccesary and some salt and pepper just the way you like it.

From the ground beef you gonna have to make tiny lil balls. Bring your soup back to boiling and add the lil meatballs. let that boil for about 10 minutes. In  that time  you can cut the leek into  small/thin slices (rings) and let those boil aswell for 5 minutes in the soup. (If you want to freeze in the soup then seperate what you going to use right away and add the leek to that so the part you going to freeze dont have the leek. You will have to add that when you going to use the soup.) Last but not least, when serving the soup sprinkle a little bit of the  hacked parsley after pouring the soup into bowls/plates.

Make sure the soup has cooled down before you freeze it. enjoy 🙂