Palm Christmas trees, beach days,Hawaiian shirts, sunblock, and Mai Tais...ahhh, Hawaii for the holidays. What an experience.

As nice as it would have been to visit my family and/or Nick's for the holiday's, our schedules (and wallets) disagreed with us. Thus we were forced to spend our first holiday season as a married couple, stuck (GASP!) here on a tropical island with our two lovable pups.

My awesome non-profit job gave me paid vacation Christmas Eve through through New Year's Eve and Nick's leave began a few days after mine. The only holiday day he was scheduled to work was Christmas Eve, and he was released early in the day since they weren't busy.

On Christmas Eve, we were fortunate enough to have dinner with two of Nick's Naval Academy friends on the Kaneohe Marine Base (one of which is stationed here and the other was visiting- neither of whom we have seen in quite some time) and their wives with whom I am also friends. It was such a nice thought to invite us over! (Thank you, Melissa, Jared, and Gunnar!)

Christmas day we slept in (as late as possible with a yapping beagle puppy), had banana bread and yummy leftovers from dinner with friends the night before. Then for dinner, since I don't eat meat and Nick's not a huge turkey person anyway, we had favorite foods: bacon wrapped bratwursts for him and whole grain spaghetti with roasted garlic spaghetti sauce for the both of us. With mixed drinks! We even decorated our first Christmas tree (Yes! a Christmas palm tree!) that morning.

I was lucky enough to chat with my whole family via Skype on Christmas Eve while I awkwardly was making cheesecake squares and happened to have my computer on the counter- I felt like they were watching me to see if I'd add an ingredient incorrectly! On Christmas morning I opened my presents from my sister over Skype while she watched then she and my niece and brother in law opened the ones I sent/ordered. It was a very technologically inspired holiday.

New Years Eve is a more important holiday to me and Nick than Christmas. We only spent our first Christmas together last year. Three years prior we had met early in December. On New Years Eve I had started to fall for Nick pretty hard and couldn't picture myself kissing anyone else at midnight. To me, it felt important to start the year off with Nick. Nick had been visiting his family in St. Louis, MO at the time on leave from the Naval Academy.

Brave (crazy?) as I was, I wanted to see him so badly I drove 14 hours overnight from Maryland to Missouri to arrive in time for New Years Eve. We had such an amazing time that Nick canceled his plane ticket back to MD and drove back with me. We officially became a couple just a few days afterward and I really believe things wouldn't have progressed the same way had I not made the decision to go (so thank you to my best friend Erin for not thinking I was crazy for wanting to go when I asked her for advice).

Since there's a chance Nick won't be off next year for NYE and for all we know we may not still live in Hawaii two years from now, I thought we should experience Waikiki on New Years Eve at least once.

We booked a hotel for New Years Eve night and the following night so we wouldn't have to rush home. We went to Tiki's Grill for New Years Eve dinner. Tiki's is one of my favorite restaurants on the island. It's fun, light-hearted, and we had our wedding reception there after we got married in March. Well, a dinner of 5 people but still. :)

Although we must be getting old...After an amazing dinner we walked around Waikiki with every intention of returning to Tiki's for a crazy night of drinking and dancing and watching fireworks at midnight. Instead we returned to our waterfront room and chugged lots of water while sitting out on the lanai watching the fireworks in sweatpants and no makeup. I even forgot to open the champagne at midnight! (My 23 year old self would be ashamed.)

We had an amazing mini-vacation/mini-moon. The following night we went on a very enjoyable sunset catamaran cruise in Waikiki with complimentary beverages included (booze cruise). Nick even  bought me a beautiful pearl necklace after the cruise to celebrate our 3 year dating anniversary.

It was so much fun to kick off the new year on this gorgeous island pretending to be tourists. We moved here one year ago in February- I can't believe we have been island bound for nearly a whole year! I'd say it flew by- and it kind of did- other than that whole deployment time. :)

While it was a bit of a bummer not to see my family for the holidays, the 80-something degree weather is very consoling. I hope everyone had an amazing holiday season and a happy new year! Here's to a healthy, happy new year! :)

If you follow my Tweets, you’ll notice that I like to bake. Not just anything- but cupcakes in particular.

Cupcakes. Oh, cupcakes. Who doesn’t love cupcakes? Has anyone ever looked at a plate of cupcakes and groaned, “Oh no. Someone brought cupcakes.” I mean after eating a whole plate of cupcakes I think I could understand that comment, but otherwise I think cupcakes are one of those universally loved objects- like puppies.

I never grew up baking. In fact, some of you may or may not know but I had a pretty strange childhood. I will have to blog about that at some point, but essentially I grew up in a traveling closet. It practically had an Easy Bake Oven as an entire kitchen.


I was a picky child when it came to eating and after years of trying to get me to try various foods, my mother, God bless her, simply gave up. Don’t get me wrong- she made me eat things that were good for me (which most of the time I now ironically prefer eating). But I think she figured it would be silly to teach me cooking or baking since I didn’t like to eat anything anyway.

My first memory of baking came from my middle school home ec’ class with a six foot tall teacher with frizzy hair the color of merlot whom everyone referred to as Big Bird. It was hard to take her seriously. Especially because she also taught the eternally awkward sex education class. In fact, I can’t remember cooking or baking any one thing in particular- just general cooking. Pasta, I guess? Maybe a cake? Hmm.


But then, after moving out on my own (one of the many times) I started experimenting with cooking simple things like chicken and making box cake (Funfetti!).
 

I discovered eBay at age 18 which led me to the discovery of cute little homemade aprons- which truly made any form of cooking or baking automatically a masterpiece because at least I looked the part.

I think I used to watch too much Girls Next Door circa the Holly Madison era. That girl dressed up in costume to do everything- including all those house-wifely activities like baking. I think she made it look cute.  


Enter Charleston, South Carolina a few years later.  


Charleston was like a city of dreams to me. There were so many things to try and discover. I had already begun liking different types of food before coming to Charleston, but Charleston is known for its food. And for good reason.
 

But one of the things I remember most about Charleston was this amazing little shop simply called Cupcake.

Cupcake is the simplest idea for a store ever. It’s not a restaurant. It’s not an elaborate, pretentious bakery. There are no orders of fries on the side. There are no fancy wedding cakes (but they do make giant cupcakes!). Nothing but wonderful, yummy cupcakes.


Cupcake has a variety of flavors of cupcakes, and they bake 9 flavors daily. The cupcakes themselves are just beautiful, with huge mounds of pretty-colored frosting smothering the tops, enough to make a poor lactose intolerant person like me suck it up and pop lactase pills like a maniac just to gobble down. Cupcake also had cute merchandise- aprons (of course), mugs (I bought one! Love it!), and adorable little tees.
 

One of the things I loved about Cupcake is that they had a few little tables inside so you could meet up with a girlfriend and have a cupcake. I think they even rent the shop out for Cupcake parties.
 

They even had little wooden Cupcake voucher coins you could purchase and give to a friend- their version of a giftcard but for exactly the cost of one cupcake each.

 
I loved the whole concept behind Cupcake. That darling store still appears in my dreams and makes me think about owning my own little cupcake store one day. A cute little shop where girlfriends would meet and have cupcakes and some light drinks. I just love the idea.


(If you live near or visit Charleston, SC you MUST check out one of the Cupcake shoppes! Their website is www.freshcupcakes.com. If you can't make it there- check out the Cupcake blog at http://charlestoncupcakes.blogspot.com/.)
 

But until we live somewhere long enough so that I can settle down and realize my latest dream of owning my own cupcake bakery, I will continue my obsession with cupcake baking and apron purchasing in my own home.

I just bought my third cupcake cookbook and my 7th apron- my first actual apron with cupcakes all over it (with matching headband). It will be dedicated solely to baking cupcakes. (From an awesome apron shop on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/sassyapron) I'm already planning my next adorable Etsy cupcake purchase. I've become obsessed with an adorable pair of hand-stamped cupcake stud earrings (from http://www.etsy.com/shop/CatherineMarissa).

I spent some time experimenting with various cupcake recipes this summer. Which was unfortunate since Nick wasn’t here, so it was just me in the house, baking for nobody in particular.


I would bake batches of 12-24 cupcakes then give away most of them to our neighbors. I thought, at least it will hopefully change their minds from calling me “the crazy neighbor who talks to her dog” to “the nice neighbor who bakes things and gives them to us.” (Ah, the joys of being a military wife when your husband is on deployment.)

I’ve baked peanut butter cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes, yellow cupcakes and white cupcakes. The latter had homemade vanilla buttercream icing which I received some compliments for. I made macadamia nut maple cupcakes with maple cream cheese icing. Last week for Thanksgiving I really wanted to bake pumpkin cupcakes since I wasn’t really doing any traditional Thanksgiving food otherwise. Unfortunately everyone at the store the weekend before Thanksgiving wanted to make pumpkin pie, go figure, so of course there was no pumpkin puree or pumpkin spice.


Instead I stuck with the non-traditional “Holidays in Hawaii” theme and made pineapple cupcakes with citrus buttercream frosting. Yum! 

I also recently discovered Cup-A-Cake individual cupcake holders. I only recently learned that cupcakes could be frozen and eaten at a later date. If only I had known about that this summer, also known as “The Summer of Cupcakes.”
 

Anyway, now that I have my nifty cupcake holders, next time I bake  I plan to freeze a few cupcakes and stick them in the freezer for emergencies.


Sometimes, you have a cupcake emergency. It happens.


Basically this blog was a tiny rant on how much I love cupcakes and why you should too. (And puppies!)
Also, I wanted to tell you about this awesome new cupcake book I ordered, which isn’t so much about cupcake recipes as are my other two cupcake books, but more about fun, creative ways to decorate cupcakes. And it has fun pictures. And it’s cheap on Amazon. Check it out and look at the pretty pictures! It’s called What’s New, Cupcake?  

(By the way, if you haven't noticed by now, I am an Amazon.com addict. Just a side note, but they are one of the very few companies that actually have a free shipping deal- $25 or more of qualifying items- that is still applicable to Hawaii. Most companies, even with a "free shipping" option, often still add a surcharge to ship here. Cough-cough-Victoria's Secret-Cough. Also, Amazon tends to be cheaper than a lot of companies- I only go through them for mp3's too. In other words, I link to the items I talk about almost exclusively to Amazon because, frankly, Amazon rocks.)
 

And because I’ve possibly made you hungry and craving small round cakes inside pretty paper wrappers, here’s my Hawaii for the Holidays cupcake recipe from my first cupcake cookbook, Easy Cupcakes.
 

Tropical Pineapple Cupcakes with Citrus Cream Frosting
Makes 12
(Sarah’s note: Unless I used the wrong kind of flour, I found this barely filled 9 cups and didn’t rise much. Came out delicious but you may want to double the recipe!

Ingredients:
2 slices of canned pineapple in natural juice
6 tbsp butter, softened
Generous 3/8 cup superfine sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Scant 5/8 cup self rising flour
1 tbsp juice from the canned pineapple

For the frosting
2 tbsp butter, softened
Generous 3/8 cup soft cream cheese
Grated rind of 1 lemon or lime (I loved the lime!)
Scant 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp lemon juice or lime juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put 12 paper cases in a muffin pan or put 12 double-layer paper cases on a baking sheet.

Finely chop the pineapple slices. Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat together until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the egg. Add the flour and, using a large metal spoon, fold into the mixture. Fold in the chopped pineapple and the pineapple juice. Spoon the batter into the paper cases.

Bake the cupcakes in the preheated over for 20 minutes, or until well risen and golden brown. Transfer to wire rack and let cool.

To make frosting, put the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl and, using an electric handheld mixer, beat together until smooth. Add the rind from the lemon or lime. Sift the confectioners’ sugar into the mixture, then beat together until well mixed. Gradually beat in the juice from the lemon or lime, adding enough to form a spreading consistency. (Sarah’s note: I actually found I needed to add a little more confectioners’ sugar to thicken the mix.)

When the cupcakes are cold, spread the frosting on top of each cake, or fill a pastry bag fitted with a little star tip and pipe the frosting on top. Store the cupcakes in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Meet our new puppy, Lilikoi Cupcake. Lilikoi is Hawaiian passionfruit. It was actually the filling that Nick and I had in our wedding cake when we got married here in Hawaii back in March. Since Lilikoi, who we just call Lili for short, is a purebred beagle, we thought a daintier name would be appropriate.

My absolute favorite name was Charlotte, but we were really hoping for something that would have a Hawaiian influence, but that wouldn’t be hard to pronounce or be weird when we leave Hawaii. I think Lili was a good choice. Oh, and I’m obsessed with cupcakes.

Lili was born on September 2, 2010. We picked her up on Sunday, November 7, when we got back from our honeymoon. She was just under 10 weeks then.

(We also got a new digital SLR camera just days before getting Lili- our slightly used Nikon D40, with which most of these pictures were taken.)

When we got our first dog, our black lab-border collie mix Maggie, she was already about 6 or 7 months old. We missed out on all the really young puppy phases- including crate training, house training, teething…all the fun stuff.

Puppy karma is catching up. We got off WAY too easily the first time. 

Lili is an adorable puppy. She has learned a lot in the last 3 weeks of having her but she is definitely a challenge. House training especially.

But she has already picked up “Sit” and is working really well with “Stay.” When we would walk out of the room or go to bed the first week she would cry and whine and bark and howl. She is doing much better with her vocalization now. We also discovered that turning on a sound machine of waves and soft music keeps her relaxed and quiet the whole night. Thank God.

We do have fun when Lili falls asleep after a lot of playing. It's the equivalent of a drunk person passing out and people writing on his face with Sharpie. One night we took some fun pictures of a passed out Lili. Three pairs of sunglasses, a pair of shoes, a beer bottle, a hat, and even a rose in her mouth. Ahh, fun.

Nick and I have been studying Cesar’s ways. Snagging moments to read his bookHow to Raise the Perfect Dog (perfect puppy training book if you are looking for one!) and watching Dog Whisperer every chance we get, we are definitely making progress. Having a puppy really does make you feel like you have a baby! I had no idea we got off so easily with raising Maggie, who is already a wonderful dog, but in comparison to the new pup is just the most well-behaved dog ever.

Maggie is being a great big sister. She was confused for a while as to what this little critter that kept trying to eat her ears is. We also learned quickly that we can’t give them treats that take a while to eat, like rawhides. Maggie is able to finish hers in minutes and Lili continues to chew them or loses interest, then Maggie goes after her food.

 Maggie is getting much more used to Lili’s antics now. She lets Lili chew on her for a little while now. When playing fetch (Lili is learning to bring us the ball back too!) if Maggie gets to it first, often she will drop it in front of Lili so that Lili can have it or bring it back to us.

It’s definitely been a challenging experience so far. But they do seem to care about each other already. I almost wish we could fast-forward to the already trained days but Lili is so adorable as a puppy and is already growing so quickly. I think she has already gained about 4 pounds since we got her! Wow.

Another great thing about having Lili? If there were any cute fuzzy feelings about having children asap, they have dissipated rapidly. We want to enjoy our time with just our canine family hopefully for at least another 2 years. ;)

PS. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Nick and I did. We stayed low-key, for fear of abadoning the dogs for too long. We spent the morning at the beach with Pineapple Juice/Ice Tea/Rum concoction, the spent the evening watching the puppies wrestle and eating some of our favorite foods: bacon wrapped bratwursts for Nick (his fave thing I make- bratwursts wrapped in bacon and coated with brown sugar and cayenne pepper), spaghetti and 5-cheese Texas Toast (which I never buy!), and pineapple cupcakes with citrus frosting- Yum!

We also got our Christmas tree. I can't wait to show you all pictures after I decorate it. We're not going to be able to go home for the holidays this year, so it should be interesting to spend Christmas on a tropical island. Challenge accepted! Another blog update soon!