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      It seems like travel is in the air for our family this time of year!  My husband and I are taking a jaunt in the next few weeks to visit family and to see some of our kids graduate by way of California, Utah and Kansas!  Maddy just got back from Toronto.  Lindsey and her husband are going to Paris soon.  My DIL and my grandchildren are coming here soon while my son studies for the Bar.  My SIL and grandson are going to visit family in Ecuador for a couple of weeks!  All of this has inspired today's Friday Fave:

Where is your favorite travel destination?

     Since I am writing today's Friday Fave, I made the executive decision to be able to give you two destinations that I love.  
      When Glen and I were first married, he was in the army and we lived in Germany for 2 years.  What a beautiful country with such friendly people.  I wanted to be able to put some of our pictures from that time on here for you to see, but I am having technical difficulties with that.  Also, some of our photos have been in those old types of albums for so long that I can't even peel them out without damaging them.  Be sure to use acid free albums and pages for your memories. These by We R Memory Keepers are simple and affordable. I still need to change some of mine in order to keep them safe.  
       When we lived in Germany some of our favorite places to go were to the old castle ruins that are scattered all over the country.  We also love the old city of Rothenburg with it's Meistertrank Clock.  One vacation, we drove along the Neckar River to Heidelberg.  We even hiked up a mountain in the Alps, Glen had our first born son on his back in a pack.  There are just too many wonderful memories to enumerate!
      After we were married a few years, my Sister and her husband took us on a trip to Tahiti! It was so beautiful!  My husband had served as a missionary there 20 years before and it was so great for him to be able to show me the place he loved.  We stayed on the Island of Moorea and ended on the big island of Tahiti.  The people were wonderful and everything was gorgeous.  We snorkeled and ate tons of seafood.  It was amazing!   

       Madalynn just returned from a trip to Toronto to visit her boyfriend.  She really enjoys that city and the politeness of the Canadians.  She got to visit the Royal Ontario Museum this time which she said was really big and awesome.  On another trip, she visited a shoe museum! (If you knew how much my girls love shoes, you would understand.)  It looks like a beautiful city in pictures! Look at this one with the skinny building:

      We have mentioned before that Alicia's husband Adrian is from Ecuador.  A couple of years ago they took a trip back there and were able to go visit the Galapagos Island.  She told me she chose Galapagos as her Friday Fave because there's so many things to do. You can go to the beach, jungle and even the desert, all on one small island. There's not only so much biological diversity but there's interesting geological stuff too. "We were able to see the giant tortoises, iguanas, countless birds, and cool sea life. like rays, sharks, crabs, fish, and sea lions. The blue footed boobies were really cool because their feet are really bright blue!The food is good. And there's also a lot of history."  That is my Son-in-law up there inside a giant turtle shell!

      Lindsey had a difficult time choosing between Hawaii and France, because she has lived in both places,  But, since we were already touching on 2 tropical places and because she served a mission in France and loves the people there so much and is about to go back for a visit, she chose France.
       Lindsey lived there twice.  During Law School, she lived in Cergy, near Paris for a semester.  Then, she served a mission after Law School for 18 months in the southern part of France, including Lyon and Bordeaux and other beautiful cities.  In Lindsey's words, "​France has everything, big cities, small villages nestled in green countryside, forests, beaches, Europe's largest sand dune. Everywhere you go there is history and culture and delicious food. I am in love with France."  That is Lindsey and her missionary companion in the pictures above, snow shoeing! 

       Well, those are our choices.  Pretty diverse, and we haven't even touched on the places we absolutely love in the USA!  That may have to be another Friday Fave! Tell us about some of your favorite destinations!  We would love to hear about them.

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What do you do when you go on a banana bread frenzy but you just keep ending up with a couple spare bananas? Well eventually you have to go to a different recipe to finish the bananas off.
That is what has been happening to me. When I made that banana bread a few weeks ago for this blog I had a couple bananas left so I went out and bought more. Then I made more banana bread, and then I had a couple of bananas left. 

This last Saturday morning I was reflecting on what I could do with the rest of those bananas without getting banana bread burnout (this is a real thing.) With the beautiful weather and the busy day PH and I had before us I thought that banana pancakes would be the perfect way to start our day.

It turns out, I thought right. These banana pancakes are so perfect and fluffy and wonderful.
I just want to give you a few pancakes tips. People always wonder, how do you keep your first pancake from going bad?
Well, tip #1 is to buy a griddle. It is a seriously great investment and your pancakes will all turn out beautiful every time.
Tip #2. Whether you use a griddle or not don't make your pan too hot. Cook your pancakes over medium heat and just be patient before you flip! When the edges of your pancake are dry flip it over. Then they will be a beautiful golden brown.

The pancakes were a hit, they were delicious and tasty and they were the perfect start to our busy Saturday morning. The other great part of this recipe? I whipped all the ingredients up in my Ninja, resulting in very little clean up afterwards. Who could ask for anything more from a Saturday morning breakfast? Enjoy!

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      Here in Phoenix, Summer is arriving!  You know what that means.  I am close to not turning on my oven for a number of months and to finding the coolest ways to feed my family.  Not only do we not want to heat up the house, we also don't want to heat up ourselves! 

     A couple of months ago, I purchased this new blender.

     One of the main reasons I purchased this Oster Pro 1200 blender was to make smoothies that wouldn't have little chunks of ice left in them.  This blender has lived up to my standards!  I have been making smoothies quite a bit!  I am really going to click into high gear and go crazy with the smoothie making now that the weather is getting hot.

     Up in the collage, I included this picture of my son-in-laws cheese bread with the delicious yogurt drink he makes.   

     I love the tangy, creamy, deliciousness of the yogurt in the smoothie, so now I try to add it all of the time. (Unless I have to do a dairy free smoothie, but that will be another post.)

     My first test smoothie in my  Oster Pro 1200 was the classic strawberry smoothie.  

    I used:  8 cubes of ice, 1 c. vanilla yogurt, 10 strawberries, 1 T. sugar, 1/2 c. milk
Then, I just blended it on the smoothie setting and it was delicious without a bit of ice chips or chunks in it.
     I was out of bananas that day or I would have made it strawberry-banana by adding 1 banana.

     I hardly ever make a smoothie without a banana.  They add such a creamy richness to the texture of the smoothie that they seem like a must.  
     One of my favorite smoothie combos is 1/2 a can of mango chunks with banana.  I went to make myself one this morning and found that I was all out of mangoes!  So, I gave a can of peaches a try and it was really good, too.

     Ingredients:  6 ice cubes, 1-15 oz. can peaches (packed in juice), 1 banana, 1 c. vanilla yogurt, 1/2 c. milk, 1 T. sugar.
     Blend it all together on the smoothie setting.
     You can leave out the sugar, of course, it just cuts back on a bit of the tartness of some fruit.
     Of course, a little whipped topping on the top is fun, but I mostly did it for the photos!

      If you feel like you need to add some veggies, like kale or something to your smoothie, but you are like me and the idea of a green smoothie isn't appetizing to you, here is something I have done with great success! Yellow squash is very mildly flavored and adds that veggie element to your banana-mango smoothie without changing the flavor at all.  You won't even know it is there!  I have also added a few beets to a red smoothie.  They are a little more noticeable than the squash, but not bad!  This would be an especially good way to add some veggies to your kids diets this summer! 

     Finally, you know if there are blackberries in the house, I am going to use them in whatever recipes I can.  I don't like the seeds in my smoothie though, so I pushed them through a wire sieve to strain out the seeds.

    Ingredients:  1/2 pint blackberries pushed through a sieve, 1 banana, 6 ice cubes, 1 c. vanilla yogurt, 1/2 c. milk, 2 T. sugar.
     Blend all together on smoothie setting! 
     The banana is the more dominant flavor in this recipe with the blackberries coming through subtly.  You can add more blackberries if you want a stronger blackberry flavor.

     All of these recipes will serve 2-3 people, depending on your glass size or if you like seconds!
    I have more ideas for different flavors, including dairy free that I will try out and share with you later.  In the meantime, give these a try! 
     Look, there is a great price on the Oster Pro 1200 going on right now! 

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     It is amazing how many people love owls.  Back in September, I wrote an Ode to Owls that was very popular.  You can check it out here.  Because so many people have begun to recognize that our brand, 3 Winks Design, has owls in the logo, I have been receiving some little thoughtful gifts of owls in various forms!  I love it! I thought I would share a few with you, and I realized that I haven't shared the recipe for the owl cookies yet!  So, I will include that today as well. They are super tasty and fun!
     First, here are the new things that I have been gifted for my collection!  I will try to show you where you can find similar items, but some of mine are pretty unique!  Click on these pictures to find out more about them.

     Here are a few similar things I've found if you are interested in owls like these for your own collection or as a gift to an owl lover that you know.  Just click on the picture to order.

     I couldn't resist showing you these 3 pewter owls sitting on an amethyst base.  Such a statement piece.

Now!  On to the cookies!  
    I found these cute owl cookies on the Whoot and thought they were adorable.  The only thing was that they made theirs with a peanut butter cookie and I decided to make mine with a sugar cookie.  I used this recipe:

     Chill the dough before you do your decorating.  Here is what you will need

•  Chocolate chips
•  Sliced and slivered almonds
• cocoa powder
• round cookie cutter, about 3-4 inches in diameter.

     Click on the pictures in the gallery to see how to decorate them.

     These would go so well with the mug full of milk that I mentioned earlier!
​     Hope your day's a "HOOT", 
     Helen