A Walk Down Pole Vault Memory Lane

Ok, in my obsession to all things Pinterest I wanted to pin my favorite picture I have ever taken of my husband pole vaulting.  I, in full disclosure, have absolutely no photography skill what-so-ever, but I really like one particular picture I took years ago with my little point-and-shoot camera.  I learned, however, to my dismay that I can't pin pictures directly from Facebook (which makes sense, but I never actually knew this was a "rule" prior to trying this).  So, I decided to use it in a blog post.  The picture inspired a walk down memory lane and I decided to post a few of my favorite pictures from some of our pole vault adventures.  I lost many photos in the great hard drive crash of '06, but these are a few that I still have and that hold special memories for me. You will notice a lot of these photos are not actually of anyone vaulting, but rather the amusing things that surround the events.  Let's face it, you can look online and find great pictures of people pole vaulting that actual photographers took.  You can't find these pictures anywhere else!  Enjoy....

The first set of photos is from Indoor Nationals in Boston, MA.  Our friends, Rosemary and Aren live in Brookline, MA and were gracious enough to be our hosts.  They did not, however, realize they were getting a lesson in using mass transit whilst carrying 18' long pole vault poles.  Here, Aren helps Jeremy load pole vault poles through the window of a bus.

You go through the window!

Ever wondered how you get pole vault poles on a bus?

The next photo is from the Olympic Trials in 2008.  It seems like a million years ago now as we are approaching the 2012 Olympic Trials in June.  This sign was posted outside the stadium and listed the "prohibited items."  You will notice the fourth item down lists "poles" as a prohibited item and I remember musing over the irony of hosting the pole vault Olympic Trials.  I realize now that no one else might find this as entertaining as I did.

Prohibited: poles

Leaving Eugene, OR after the Olympic Trials

These last two pictures are from a beach vault in Michigan (holy cow--can't remember what year this was!).  Jeremy and I met in Wilmington, NC when he was in town for a beach vault.  My very first meet ever seeing Jeremy jump was on a beach.  Even though I am hesitant to call anything a beach that is found on a lake, not an ocean, this meet was pretty cool.  The first picture is just a picture of poles lined up against the runway as the high school kids were warming up.  The second picture is my favorite pole vault picture I have taken to date.  If I could photoshop people out of the background it would be perfect.

Pole vault poles on the "beach"

Ha, I made it extra large to enjoy the awesome-ness! 

Hope you enjoyed just a couple of my random favorite pole vault pics.  I am hoping to ransack Jeremy's computer soon to find more that I lost on my old hard drive, so you may be seeing my favorite pole vault pics, volume II soon! 

Gluten Free Appetizers

I recently tried two different appetizer recipes I found on Pinterest.  Nothing fancy, just good ole' classics done with a twist.  I am not going to lie--I love bar food type appetizers like potato skins or nachos, so when I saw these recipes for sausage balls and mozzarella sticks I had to try them.  One success and one epic fail later here are my results...

I found this recipe for Sausage Balls on Pinterest.   The difference between these sausage balls and many traditional recipes is that this recipe uses cream cheese.  I, of course, also altered the recipe to make it gluten free.  I used Gluten Free Bisquick in place of traditional Bisquick in the recipe.  I have tried sausage balls with Gluten Free Bisquick in the past and found them to be dry, so I thought the cream cheese addition would be helpful.

My ingredients pre-mixing

Results:  Fantastic!  I used regular sausage instead of hot since I thought my son might try one; he barely got to taste any because I ate the entire batch within the first 12 hours!  The cream cheese gave the sausage balls a nice texture and helped with the Gluten Free Bisquick.

Mixing my ingredients--I used a plastic bag on my hand because I ran out of gloves!

What I would change:  Even though these were great, I felt like the regular sausage lacked a lot of flavor.  I would either use the hot sausage like the recipe recommended or cut back on the amount of cream cheese used (maybe 4-6oz rather than 8oz).  But overall, I would definitely make these again.  In fact, I am thinking about it right now....

The second recipe I tried was for these Baked Mozzarella Sticks.  These were a disaster.  I used gluten free panko-style bread crumbs to make this recipe gluten free.  Other than this substitution I followed the directions verbatim.

Results:  These were not tasty and not crispy which I am not sure is a result of the baking or using the gluten free panko crumbs rather than "normal" panko crumbs.

What I would do differently:  I would use the tortilla-style gluten free crumbs I have used previously when making mozzarella sticks (see the previous blog post here).  I would also fry instead of bake them! :)  I understand the reason for baked mozzarella sticks, but these did not hit the spot.  Despite the fact I ate the entire batch, I would not make these again.