Happy Monday morning :)

I may do another post later to share some of the fun things that happened in the VanderHouse this weekend, but for now, just wanted to plug one of my favorite websites, which happens to be celebrating its 3rd birthday today. If you haven't checked out Swagbucks before, now would be an excellent time to do so!

Swagbucks is a search engine (and SO much more) that allows you to earn Swabucks as you browse the web. As you collect these virtual "bucks," you can trade them in for tons of stuff, most notably Amazon gift cards and restaurant.com gift cards. Thus far, through Swagbucks we've gotten probably about 10 restaurant.com gift certificates and TONS of Amazon gift cards - which is now my go-to prize :) With the gift cards, I've gotten books, Jillian Michael's workout DVDs and a pair of boots from Amazon. I'm now stockpiling and saving for a new lens or something along those lines!

Anyways. Check out Swagbucks. If you sign up today (totally free), you'll earn 30 SBs just for registering. Plus, use the code HipBirthday at the time of registration to snag an extra 50 Swagbucks - only if you sign up today. That's 80 Swagbucks just for signing up!

In addition to searching (I recommend installing the toolbar and searching using it), you can also read their blog for codes, check out the Widget for codes (usually worth between 5 and 12 SBs), earn Swagbucks on your birthday, watch movies for Swagbucks, buy Groupons and earn Swagbucks, answer surveys for Swagbucks....There are lots of options. But today, they are releasing lots of codes worth127 Swagbucks, so sign up and start earning!!

Check it out! It makes days in front of the computer more exciting and web browsing a lot more rewarding :)

Thanks to Swagbucks, I have been earning Amazon.com gift cards and stacking them up, waiting to redeem them for this little beauty - a sushi kit of our very own, at NO cost to us! :)


I figured, sushi is delicious, but SO expensive for how little you often get! So, why not get a kit and try to make some at home? So we did. It comes with everything except the fresh fillings and chopsticks!

Saturday afternoon, I started out by cooking the included sushi rice, a semi-confusing process that left me a little worried I'd screw it up big time. However, I finally figured out all it really is is boiling the rice, turning the temp down, turning the burners off, fluffing and re-covering with a towel. After cooking and cooling, the rice gets mixed with some really strong-smelling vinegar. Then, we covered it with a wet cloth and went to worship at our wonderful church.


When we came home - it was on.

A chopped the cucumber and avocado for California Rolls, and some cream cheese for Philadelphia rolls. He's so tough, with that knife and all.

Our first roll didn't look so hot! Here's why. First, the instruction booklet says to "Toast the nori (seaweed sheets) over a medium flame"....Um. We don't have any flames except scented candles. I didn't figure that would be wise. Instead, I put it in the toaster oven on about 200 for a few minutes to warm it up - no idea if it actually helped or not!

Secondly, they tell you to cut the nori in half....however, the "cut in half" dimensions matched the size it already was. So, with our first roll, we cut it in half and rolled it wrong. Thus, we didn't have enough to wrap the rice/fillings. It looked more like a taco shell. We're multi-cultural, even with our sushi.

However, it was delicious!! After watching some ever-helpful YouTube videos and getting frustrated about the mechanics of it all, we finally got some decent looking rolls!

When we finally sat down to eat our feast about an hour and a half later, we had a curious onlooker. Silly dog, sushi's for people.

Maybe he wanted some of our homemade egg-drop soup instead. (Who am I kidding? It wasn't homemade, unless you count dropping an egg into a boiling pot of pre-packaged mix as homemade!)

In the spirit of culture, we mixed some wasabi powder with water and a LOT of soy sauce (that junk is SPICY!) in our honeymoon mug from Mexico! And voile! Our sushi feast!!

We had enough left over rolls for lunch the next day, and enough rice left to make one more roll with some salmon, avocado and cream cheese. That was my favorite.

So, for those of you who have made sushi - tips for next time? Because there WILL be a next time!

"Stuff We All Get." Isn't that what SWAG stands for, in lay-man's terms?

In any case, today SwagBucks is turning 2! Happy birthday to it :) If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'd encourage you to check it out. SwagBucks is an online Search and Win site, meaning, use it as your search engine (whenever you would normally turn to Google or Yahoo or whatever), and periodically, when you search, you'll win SwagBucks.

The SwagBucks can then be redeemed for a number of things - gift cards, movie posters, iTunes downloads, etc. It's a sweet deal. Spend no money and get stuff you'll use for free. Thus far, A and I have used it for a number of tasty meals courtesy of Restaurant.com gift cards.

Anyways, in honor of their birthday, I thought I'd post another referral link so you can check it out! Just click here to go and create your account, and I'll get some SwagBucks from you signing up too! P.S. - Download the toolbar. This will enable you to search for things through SwagBucks without having to go to their website each time. Instead of your little Google G, you'll see an "sb." Trust me, it makes searching and winning that much more convenient!