Toronto Zoo

It has been almost a month since we went to Canada for Isabella's 2nd birthday (she's the adorable little nose-picker from a few posts back). We were terrible about taking pictures but we did get some at the zoo. For more pictures from Canada, check Gina's parents' blog here.
Hi Steffi and Dietmar!

Gina's favorite animal at the zoo

This one's for you Erika!

Rhino

Zebra

A very rare Canadian bird

Some other kind of Canadian bird

Snake

Petting stingrays. They are so soft!

Easiest Bread

Maybe it's wierd that we post so much about bread. But this new recipe that Gina found is so easy! You cook the bread in a dutch oven.
Almost No-Knead Bread from Cook's Illustrated

3 cups (15 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons table salt

generous 3/4 cup (7 oz) water, room temperature

generous 1/4 cup (3 oz) mild flavored lager *we used Yuengling! or you can use fake beer!

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1. Whisk flour, yeast, and salt together. Add water, beer, and vinegar. Stir with a rubber spatula until a shaggy dough forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 8-18 hours. *or 20... Gina forgot about it while she was out shopping

2. Lay a sheet of parchment paper in a 10 inch skillet and spray the paper with cooking spray. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface 10-15 times *that's like 30 seconds yall, this is so easy! Shape into a ball and place it on the parchment in the skillet. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 2 hours. It will rise into a nice shape because of the shape of the skillet underneath.

3. About 30 minutes before baking move your oven rack to the very bottom, place your cast iron dutch oven pot and lid in there to preheat, and heat the oven to 500. Flour the top of the dough and make one slice in the top.

4. When the oven is ready, pick up the dough using the parchment paper and lower it in to your hot dutch oven. Put the lid on the pot (let excess parchment hang over the pot edge) and lower the oven temperature to 425. Bake for 30 minutes.

5. Remove the lid from the pot and continue baking for 20-30 minutes. Then remove from oven, lifting the bread out by the edges of the parchment paper, and let it cool on a wire rack for 2 hours.

Look!

I picka my nose.

You know what today is....

Gina fixed this for dinner.But Thomas had something else in mind!!! June is OVER!

Thomas' First of July feast. It was a long time coming.

There was a nice combination of flavors and textures. The more colors on the plate, the healthier!

Thomas really did it! He went the whole month of June without eating a single piece of candy. He also estimates he ran between 80-90 miles this month.

Gina on the other hand only worked out on the Wii fit 3 times and she also ate a whole roll of Butter Rum lifesavers. She kept those in her purse because they are more like eating a mint, not candy really.

Since we are admitting everything, we both ate cupcakes at Heidi's shower, a Klondike bar and some pie at Gina's parents' house, and we shared an entire chocolate cake too. And 24 snickerdoodles, 11 of which Thomas ate straight out of the oven. None of that was candy and it was all baked with love. Except for the Klondike bar but that was low sugar.

Boom!