The catch-up binge of snack boxes is behind us, and I was relieved that there were only 3 more boxes to go through, to be fully caught up. Imagine my relief when the next box I opened was a duplicate of one we had just tried (South America)! I didn’t even want to complain to Universal Yums about getting a duplicate…I was just glad we were now down to only 2 more boxes to review. Oh the pressure I had been feeling, seeing those boxes pile up!
The next box I opened (the October box, I believe) takes us to Spain.
Contents of the Spain box
Once again, Donna hosted for this box devouring sampling, and we even had an Extra Special Guest Judge on hand. I will reveal who later in the post!
Also, this rascal joined us (but did not get to sample anything):
Bowser: ready for my walkies!
First up:
The writeup says that these are Spain’s famous caramel candies. Think extra special Smarties.
Next up were corn puffs, but with a sweet instead of savoury twist:
Honey butter flavoured corn puffs.
Forgot to take a picture of this before it got unwrapped:
Pistachio-flavoured Toffee.
This next one was, well, something else.
The sulphurous fumes hitting the roof of the mouth as you tried one of these fried-egg flavour chips was quite the experience. Very eggy and not in a good way, we all agreed. Supposed to be indicative of the “classic Spanish huevo frito“. Esto no sabe bien. Pass.
Next up: a peanut flavoured confection.
Spain’s favourite treat for over 400 years, apparently. Delicious, even though I was still getting hints of egg in my mouth from those damn chips.
From sweet to sour:
Another winner. Who doesn’t love a sour gummie? One of us, apparently 😉.
And finally:
Pardon the out-of-focus shot of this chocolate pine nut candy. Made from an 80 year old recipe, apparently. A man had a surplus of pine nuts and gave them to his neighbour, who mixed them with sugar, milk and coffee to make this delightful candy.
After all of those rich treats, Donna treated us to some fresh fruit and veggies.
Post-judging nibblies.
Have you guessed the extra judge yet?
Our esteemed judging panel (ignore Bowser), including guest judge hubby Richard – who was born for the role!
And here is our scoring:
One more box to go (I think?) and the gift subscription is complete. Any guesses as to where that box is from?
We had some snow this week. Early and atypical for Vancouver Island. Bowser had not seen snow before now, and I think he kinda liked it 😉.
Wheeeeeee!Gotta check out every puddle.Bowser hears a noise.Gotta shake off the snow after a romp through the bushes.Is it fall? Is it winter? Let’s call it Flinter. It’s beautiful no matter what you call it. Leaping through the leaves.Blue skies emerging as the clouds dissipate. Soon the snow will all disappear.
We hope you are having a fabulous weekend no matter the weather.
Bowser was pretty excited for his first Halloween Howl’oween. He wanted to get into costume right away!
But it was such a beautiful morning, we just had to get out for a romp.
Followed by this:
Finally it was time to get things ready for the kiddos. I got to use my new firebowl for the first time.
Waiting not-so-patiently for the kids.
Our street was pretty dark and scary. We are surrounded by 3 mobile home parks so that’s where the bulk of the kids went (higher efficiency in candy scrounging 😉). We could hear them laughing and screaming but only 4 intrepid souls came to our yard all night.
Still, we enjoyed a pleasant Howl’oween by the fire.
Whoo boy! It has been a time since Donna and I reviewed a Universal Yum box, hasn’t it? Between my summer of endless moving/renovating and Donna’s summer of endlessly being away from home, I think we saw each other once in 3 months. The Universal Yum boxes continued to keep coming of course, and I managed not to lose any in all the upheaval. When Donna and I finally got together in August (briefly), we cracked open the May (yes, May!!!) box, which happened to be from the UK.
UK box contents
Now, I usually show pictures and writeups of each individual item when I do a box but not this time. Because I would be at my computer all day creating this post, and you would be on your devices all day reading this post and no one wants that to happen! Because gentle reader, there are 3 more boxes to come!!!
Our scoring of the UK snack box.After all of hard work, we walked to my new “local”, for a pint (and a curry). In keeping with the theme, ya know 😉.
So, due to all the craziness of the past couple of months (moving, helping my sister move, more moving, hosting a friend for a week, still more moving…) I never did get around to posting the May in August box. Until now that is. Last week Donna and I were able to get together again for the first time since August, and I brought over the June, July and August boxes (and I still have September and October in my closet, with a notice to pick up November at the post office!).
Thailand, India and South America (June, July, and August).Ready to begin! Thailand scorecard. Me: The box only has 2 things in it! Also Me: Thank gawd…India scorecard. Also several items missing in action.South America scorecard. A complete box, at last.Donna whipped up a delicious board for us to nosh on, afterwards. To balance all of the sugar. We forgot to take a selfie for the 3 boxes. Blame it on the snack overload. I did.
Four boxes down and 3 more to go. I’m actually glad the subscription is coming to an end, even though I’ve enjoyed it, enjoyed sharing it, and enjoyed blogging about it. Seeing all those boxes pile up though…overwhelming!
If you’re dying to know about a particular snack, please let me know in the Comments and I’ll give you the deets. Otherwise, please accept this half-assed offering for this month’s WOYPBC!
Please share with Donna and/or myself what’s on your plate this month! I’ve cheated with this month’s post, and Donna has done the same (yet differently). Please check her out here! And here’s the Link Party, if you are so inclined.
Oma says to ignore the big X through the “build it alone” cartoon. Where is the dog helper in these instructions, I wonders…Are you trying to read something, Oma?Hmmm, I needs to read this too.Deep in doggy thought…Oma won’t stop working even when I know it’s time for a break.Finally! Oma joins me on the couch after bed frame is completed.I try to sit on Oma’s head to get more comfy. Oma gets up after this and starts building the drawers for the bed.I supervises the drawer building.Oma has the drawer building mastered by Drawer 2, so I moves on to other projects.New bed is complete.Oma did a good job, with my help of course.We deserve another rest.
I get to do this again when Oma’s desk comes (in boxes). Yippee!!!
I hope you are having a good weekend and maybe helping too.
Hi everybody! Bowser here. Oma is really tired from all of her moving and renovating stuff and she said I could write another blog post. Yippeee! And she got me a cute little bed for when I am visiting. I jumped into it right away, as soon as I saw it. Oma didn’t even have to explain it was for me…that’s how smart of a dog I can be am!
I had to bring one of Oma’s old trail shoes into my new bed with me. I don’t know why.Oh yeah! I remember why now. It smells very interesting!And it’s kinda chewy too.I feel like Oma is watching me with disapproval.Please don’t take my precious away from me (again), Oma!
And of course, she did take it away. She always takes away certain things from me. Luckily I have a den full of other things to chew the shit out of play with.
I hope you have lots of toys to keep you busy this weekend.
A few days before I was set to leave for the mainland to help my sister move, Bowser and I hit the trails. It was going to be such a gorgeous fall day, I was tempted to try him out on the longest walk yet in his young life: the Cable Bay Trail and Dodd’s Narrows. It ended up being about a 6K walk (and of course it was more like 8 – 10K for Bowz because I let him off-leash when there was no one around). He loved it!
What a gorgeous morning to be out!Remember this photo, from the first time I visited this trail?This time: Battle of the Mustaches. Who wore it better? 😜View of the NarrowsNow with less trees…😄. Tide is rushing in.Looking for sea life. We did see one sea lion, on the way back from the Narrows. Bowser was intensely interested, but thankfully did not run into the water after it, like he does for sea birds. 🤦♀️Bowser demonstrating his nose grooming ability/agility.View with Nanaimo in the distance.A well-deserved nap on the couch afterwards (for both of us LOL!).
We hope you are enjoying a fabulous fall (if in the Northern Hemisphere – otherwise, Happy Spring!).
Hi everybody! Bowser here. Oma is super busy tired and cranky so she said I could write this post. Lucky me!
First I want to show you my new haircut. Yup, I got my first “grooming” right before I went to the Vet for something? I don’t know what it was because I was so sleepy but I went home with a funny thing tied to my head. Anyways, that is gone now and I hope I never have to wear it again.
I look all grown up now. The groomer lady said I had the perfect coat for stripping. Whatever that means. I already know I am perfect. Huh!I like to gather my favourite toys around me when I am playing outside.Sticks too. One is not usually enough.Ready for my closeup, Oma!Oh yeah, baby!That really hits the spot!Chewing is still my favourite thing.
I hope you find some favourite things to do this weekend. Happy Thanksgiving Long Weekend to my Canadian pack!
For those of you not up to date on/following my Sunday Schnauzer posts: right now I am in Grand Forks, British Columbia (a 2 hr ferry and 7 hr drive from where I live) helping my sister move to a new abode. My other sister flew in from Ontario to help as well, and this is the first time we three have been together since our mom died in December 2015!
Moving is chaotic and tiring but you still gotta eat, and lucky for us Grand Forks has a wonderful Japanese restaurant: Sushi Ocean Dream. Definitely stop there if you are in the area.
We were pretty tired after a productive first day of all 3 of us schlepping stuff from the old place to the new, but not too tired to have some fun with the menu.
Can you guess which rolls we picked?We started with some tempura.From top left, going clockwise: Rock n’ Roll, Crazy Girl, Party Roll, and Gangster Roll. 😜Diving in…
Us crazy girls went full-on gangster and had us a rock n’ roll sushi party! And then we went to our respective beds and rested up for the rest of the moving yet to come.
And now it’s Day 5 and we are coming to the end – the old place is empty and we are concentrating on making the new place “home” for my sister. Tomorrow is going to be a shopping day for some necessities so we need to leave town in search of some big box stores.
Please let Donna and myself know what’s on your plate this month! I may be late at getting to the Comments but I am definitely looking forward to reading and responding to them!
I’m just too brain dead tired to fiddle with the InLinkz thing this month (sorry, Donna) but Donna will have it on her blog if you want to join the WOYPBC party that way.
When this post goes live I will be on the mainland (and Bowser-less), helping my sister move house. My other sister will already be there, also to help with the move. This is going to be the first time the 3 siblings have been together under one roof since 2015! Hopefully we survive the experience.
That makes the summer/fall of 2022 officially the “moving season”. I have been moving carloads of stuff and helping renovate my daughter’s side since July 1, and renovating my own place since August (still in progress). And now, gladly helping my sister as well. And when I return to the island, I will hopefully have my flooring finished so that I can finally officially move my furniture out of storage and into my new place. Just in time to pick up my first houseguest from the airport for a week of adventuring! (My kitchen won’t be finished but we will just muddle through.) Whew…I am getting tired just typing all of this. 😂
Anywho, more in upcoming posts (including before and after photos) once the dust settles (Novemberish, perhaps).
Bowser is completely healed from his recent surgery and fun and feisty as ever. I can’t stop myself from sharing some shots of the Dog Wonder (aka canine flashlight) in his headgear. Enjoy!
Sleeping off the drugs…Finally up and somewhat alert.Seriously, people?!? Must I?
