Pumpkin Cheesecake

One thing I like about the holidays is the extra time you get to catch up on things. Now one of the things that I like to do when I'm bored on the internet is browse through food blogs and recipe sites. As you can imagine, I come across a lot of different recipes that I wanna try, but getting the time to do them is a lot harder than you think it is. This pumpkin cheesecake that I made for Thanksgiving just happens to be one of them. I've been meaning to make this one for a while, so I figured what better time than the biggest feast of the year.

The funny thing about this cheesecake is that I've never made it before and I kinda tinkered with the recipe, which I usually only do on the second go. And since it is a cake that's to be served at Thanksgiving lunch (my family has always done a lunch, then we have more leftovers for dinner) I couldn't cut into to get a taste, so my first try will be along with everyone else's. As long as it tastes half as good as it looks, I think I'll be ok though.

Christmas Creep

So i usually have very strong feelings against Christmas creep. And in case you're unfamiliar with the term, Christmas Creep is used to describe any situation in which Christmas is celebrated prematurely, namely before other holidays, and includes acts such as putting up a Christmas tree before Thanksgiving, stores displaying Christmas related decorations, and the sale of Christmas related items. But since I am going back to Oahu for Christmas break, I figured that it would be ok for me to break my own rule. I wanted to celebrate Christmas with my new friends from pharmacy school and since we're all leaving on about December 17th, I decided that it would make sense to start a little earlier so that we would have to time to enjoy everything.

We also decided to do secret santa this year. I can't quite say who I've gotten cause it would ruin the whole point of secret santa, but I can say that I am happy with who I got since the person is pretty easy to please. Here are some pictures of what we've done so far:



So there's the Christmas tree. Almost finished. And we each did our own stocking. Justin's is still a work in progress (hopefully!).




And I thought it would be funny to put our pictures in ornaments so I got some pictures from everyone's facebook page. And I figured that since I put some funny ones of other people, mine had to be the worst so here's mine (bottom right):

:)

This time I mean it

I'm gonna start blogging again, even if I really don't feel like it that day. Well at the very least I'm gonna try and post anything that I think is interesting whether it be on the internet or something going on in my life.

Quick updates: I'm currently living in Hilo, attending pharmacy school. I have to say that I've really been enjoying living on the Big Island. There's a great farmer's market twice a week, no traffic to deal with, and everything within a 15 minute drive. I have been cooking more that I used to, but I still find that I'm eating out a lot more often than I'd like. I've made a lot of great new friends in Hilo whom I've been able to study, chill, and party with. That's about it for now.