Yogurt Smoothies -- The Recipe

Afternoon, everybody! 

Do you remember that I wrote "Make yogurt smoothies" in the last post, where I made a list of what I would like to do before summer ends?

Well, we have made countless smoothies through the summer, so I decided to give you the recipe. 

Zebulun's Birthday, Daddy's Return, etc

Hello! I hope you are having a beautiful day! :)

First off, I want to thank everybody who wished me a happy birthday. It made me really happy and was very special. Thank you! :)

Last Sunday was Zebulun's birthday. He could not wait to open his presents. :D Victoria made him a vanilla cake.

Week of Pictures, Four: Tea parties, Coziness, and Comfort Foods

I don't have very many pictures this time, I'm afraid, but there are some. :) They're also not the best... many taken with an ipad, lots of strange slants etc. But at least I'm still taking pictures, right! :) 

Week of Pictures, 3

Howdy, you all! Sorry it took me so long to get this up! First it was my computer acting up, then my camera decided to be a bit cranky and not load onto my computer. Sometimes, I wish everything wasn't so technological, but then after pondering that a minute or so, I change my mind. I am thankful for technology and how we can use it to keep in touch with friends, and (hopefully) be a blessing to others, through blogs, emails, etc! 

Happy New Years, and a Beginning of the Year Survey!

Hello everybody and a Happy New Year to you all! :)

I hope this finds you all in good health and happy. 

We decided to have a "Beginning of the Year" survey, so we can have a better understanding of our reader's thoughts. It's only 8 questions, and will only take a minute or two, so if you would go ahead and answer the questions for us that would be a big help! :) 

Recipe Testing--Hot Vanilla

Hot Vanilla

Hello everybody! 

Last week, Abigail and I decided to test out a new recipe of something we never tried before. We picked Hot Vanilla, which sounded intriguing-- something different, for sure! 

Campfire, missionary style!

The day before my birthday, Daddy got this rather spur of the moment idea to have a cookout. He took the legs off our little grill and the boys put rocks around it so we could have a quick "fire pit" type thing. It made the grill look a lot more campfire ish that's for sure!
Our neighbors probably wondered why we didn't get out more than a couple times this summer and now that it could snow any time we're out there all evening in coats cooking marshmallows, lol!

Spaghetti Ice Cream....

How about a little peek into Japanese culture? :) Today we are showcasing the novelty item, Spaghetti ice cream.
Now, spaghetti is one of my favorite foods...and ice cream is also one of my favorite foods....but together? When we first saw this several days ago at a convenience store (we call them conbini (ko-nn-bean-ee) here.) Mama was so turned off by the idea she told us not even to talk about it! Lol!
Yesterday however, Malachi, Minks Kid number three, oldest Minks boy at thirteen, got permission to buy it with his own money.
I thought it would be perfect for a blog post. ;) I mean, who else does an entire post on spaghetti ice cream?? :D It's ridiculously novel.
Well....I'm afraid however this rating will not be very high. Malachi brought it out last night....
Here he is with his happy face before he tries it! He was pretty pleased to have something new to put on our "strange foods we've eaten" list.



This is the package. I'm afraid that with a package looking like that and advertising how yummy the tomato gelatin chunks in the ice cream are, we probably should be considered forewarned. Lol


Two bites later...Malachi stopped eating it. We started to tease him a little. His first announcement was..."it's SALTY!" ....Well naturally I guess spaghetti wouldn't be sweet. But it is still odd for our American minds to wrap around.


I asked to try it so I could give my opinion too. I tried a bite. If it was anything but a dessert it would probably have tasted good. But I'm not too keen on the idea of salty tomato ice cream with tomato gelatin chunks. Soo...it wasn't bad tasting, just too strange to swallow. Haha, get it? Swallow? Ok that pun was half on purpose. Lol.
Zebulun (number six, age five) also decided to try it. His first reaction was a thumbs up...then he really tasted it, and his expression changed so quick it was absolutely hilarious! Josiah also tried it, but pretty calmly handed it back. No one else wanted a taste. :P
Daddy wanted Malachi to pose with it, wearing funny expression, but Malachi, probably wondering why he spent 100 yen (one dollar) on it, didn't really want to.
Haha, big sister in for the rescue. I made this face, but right when Daddy took the picture I couldn't hold it any longer, and I burst out laughing! So, it's a rather strange picture. In fact, I think I'm being pretty brave putting it on our blog! Lol! But we all thought it was pretty funny so I thought maybe others would like a good laugh too. :)


Well, I hope this post didn't make your stomach turn somersaults. :D Japan has a lot of really amazing food, and so when we see something unusual, we like to try it. We do have a pretty good list going on too. ;) It's kind of silly, but maybe it's almost a hobby :D We always like to try things though...not only is it fun, but it also expands our minds to other cultures and our tastes to learn to appreciate other countries' food. And honestly, I think every country I've tried food from I've liked at least one of the things from that country! :)
Anyways, have a very good day!
God bless,
Victoria, the funny MK ;)

Gone green

It just makes sense that Malachi, number three kid in our family, likes the color green best. After all, his birthday is on St.Patrick's day!
We always wear green for those two reasons. :) It's fun!
He is one of our comedians, a tech-geek, and cruncher of numbers and facts. He says it's fun. He wants to fly...as a missionary pilot, someday. He thinks space is awesome. And he has been surrendered to preach since five years old.
We girls are kind of proud of him :D





Flashback two years ago. ;) Victoria's "pride and joy" cake. It was really fun to make :P with the most delicious bugs we have ever eaten. :)





Speaking of bugs, some random news.... We just finished our last meeting, which happened to be a missions conference. At their international dinner, we girls ate some silk worms from Vietnam! Victoria thought it tasted kind of like dirt inside of a sausage casing... pretty bland, but claimed it was not bad. She says she could eat them easily as long as she had water to kind of moisten it but told the people they would be good with ketchup :D I, Abigail, liked them very well! I said if I lived in Vietnam and had them often I would like it a lot.
There was a lot of other interesting things there, too. In fact, many countries were represented that we had never tasted food from! Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, Germany, Scandinavia, Greece...as well as Chinese and Mexican. We also brought Japanese. ;)
Another miscellaneous snip of information...did you know Patrick of Ireland was really a Baptist? He held to all the Baptist distinctives, although with one of them there is a little question on for lack of information. At any rate, he definitely wasn't Catholic!! :)
Well, I warned you it would be random. :)
Have a good day!
Abigail and Victoria