Russell Creamery

Well, we started our own little ice cream business. Last year, Chase bought me an ice cream maker for my birthday. We’ve experimented with different flavors in the last several months, and somewhere along the way, the idea hatched that we should start a business. This, in large part, is due to the fact that good ice cream is hard to find in Nicaragua. I can’t count the times the  Nica Russells have sat around talking about how much we miss Blue Bell. So we started with Vanilla, Peanut Butter, and Coffee flavored ice creams. This week we are going to add Strawberry in the mix and I have plans to make Mint Chocolate Chip as well. Maybe we’ll venture into the Sherbet or Sorbet realms eventually. Chase made the creative labels pictured above and so far, we are really enjoying our little business venture.

the cats strike back

When we first got our cats, our vet told us that healthy weight gain for kittens should be about a quarter pound per week. We own a Wii Fit Plus, and one of its features is the ability to weigh your pets, and it keeps track of their progress. This is fun for us, but Ralph and Remington kind of hate it.

After several months, we asked our vet when this process should stop. He said that a healthy cat should weigh no more than eight pounds. Anything over that, and our cats would one day be diabetic. Oops. Ours had faithfully gained their quarter pound until they weighed eleven pounds! From the way they always acted like they hadn’t eaten in days each time I fed them, I (Chase) had felt bad and continued to increase the amount of food I gave them. Turns out I was feeding them more than double what they needed. I quickly reduced their food amounts to the correct level.

5 years

A few weeks ago, on April 15th, Chase and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary. In our pre-marital counseling with Bill Brewer, one thing he recommended to us was taking a day or two to go away and celebrate our anniversary every year. In the States, we began this tradition by visiting a different Bed & Breakfast each year, but since moving here, we’ve changed it up a little bit. This year, we went to the Holiday Inn. I know in the States that the Holiday Inn is no big deal, but here, it’s actually a really big deal. Not only are the rooms air-conditioned, but they also have bath tubs, cable TV, and carpeting, all of which are luxuries to us these days. Anyway, we stayed for two nights and had a great time (except for that Chase was having intense back pain the whole time!) We went out for a Steak dinner one night at one of our favorite restaurants here and generally enjoyed celebrating our last 5 years of married life together.