A Quiet Thanksgiving

Scenes from the Weekend

The Hubs and I took a long weekend and went up to the mountains above Palm Springs to visit his parents for a few days.
We gardened. We read. We watched Olympics. We played fetch. We napped. We went to the hardware store in Anza. We ventured out to Dairy Queen. It was lovely.

Off we go! So excited!

Sammi's favorite window. 

To Read. 

Lunch for the hubs. Heart attack on a plate with a side of high cholesterol. 

Moose-ing around.

This dog and his ball are rarely parted. 

Happy Holidays!

We spent Christmas Eve in Long Beach with my family, then dropped them at the airport on Christmas morning and headed up towards Hemet to spend a few days with The Hubs's parents in the mountains. It was relaxing and laid back in all locations and we thoroughly enjoyed having some much needed time off together. The Hubs goes back to work tomorrow but only works two days before a nice three day weekend. Not too shabby! I'm pretending I don't ever have to go back to work, which is why I still haven't cleaned the kitchen counter grout or vacuumed the sunroom. The dirt will be there tomorrow, right?

Here are a few photos from the past week - hope your holidays were just as swell as ours!

Our festivities, before we packed it all up and headed out:

Enjoying the sun and view in Long Beach:

The Hubs is so awesome, he unknowingly coordinated 
his gift wrapping with my outfit!

Great gifts from mom - bicycle wine and homemade snickerdoodles. 
My Christmas is complete.

 Wrapping the cat, as much as she will allow. 

Lumberjacking.

No, seriously. We brought in half a cord for The Hubs's parents! 

Relaxing by the fire (with s'mores!).

Oh, hi! Oh!

I've been kind of quiet this week but that's because the hubs and I have been in Ohio hanging out with his sister, brother-in-law, nephew, and niece. We got back late last night after switching flights and losing our bags... so much fun! It's so nice to be home - but I'm kind of missing this little guy. It was a hot and humid day so he was cooling off his chickens with his water bottle. Wasn't that nice?

Happy Birthday, Lamanda!

My dear older sister! Wish you were here so we could eat cake and be festive. I think of you every day and can't wait to hug you again when you come home this Fall! We'll go to Crystal Cove and Farmer's Market and ride bikes together again! Love you so much!
- emster

Little Rock, Wisconsin, 1980

Crystal Cove, Fall 2009

Crystal Cove, Summer 2009

This is what happens...

...when sister-in-law tells mother-in-law to send a picture of "all of you together" and I suggest using the mirror in the bathroom to capture our reflections. Yes, that's my father-in-law in the shower.  And my mother-in-law taking a picture of my father-in-law in the shower taking a picture of all of us.
I love my in-laws.

P.S. We were working in the yard - starting our new patio! Hence the overalls and coveralls. More details on that to come soon!

Weekend Recap: In which I bake (twice!) and iron something.

Remember that recent incident with Costco and the Kitchenaid? Apparently, the hubs did some research and found that, even without the mail-in rebate, the price was a pretty good one. So he went back and bought me the mixer!! We're calling it an early Valentine's present and the color only makes it more appropriate - it's red! To match our kitchen.
I. Love. It.

To break it in, I decided to start with something quick-and-easy and you just can't argue with a double batch of Ghirardelli Triple-Chocolate Brownies. I know that some people wouldn't really consider this "baking" since it involves a mix but jumping into 'sourdough bread from scratch' with the machine right out of the box seemed a bit over the top.

Don't worry - I'm not about to turn into one of those bloggers who cooks and bakes all the time and then documents it for the world one step at a time. Just thinking about taking a picture of each and every ingredient as you add it to the mixing bowl wears me out. Not to mention the editing and the uploading... I have a lot of respect for those bloggers (and enjoy their recipes!) but I just don't have it in me. 
I'm also far too impatient for a blog post like that. Just ask my mom - I want to jump in, get it done, and enjoy the end result as soon as possible. And lick a beater dripping with brownie batter somewhere in the middle.
All that to say, the brownies are fantastic and I had enough faith in my new mixer to whip up some more banana bread to get me through the week. I'm sending the hubs to work with a plate-full so we don't eat them all. Having them for dinner was bad enough.

Oh, and I went to Disneyland with my mom. Again. I know, I'm spoiled.
Mickey on Small World (one of his favorite rides, I think):

I'm seriously considering creating a topiary like this one in my front yard:

No matter how many times I see them, I'm always excited when the bells chime and these little guys prance around the circle to mark the time:

Then I came home and did productive things. Like, "four loads of laundry and weeding in between rainstorms" kind of productive. And I was forced to iron the sleeves of a shirt because the makers didn't think it was important to sew the cuffs down. They flip inside-out every time. I loathe the iron. But Earnest wasn't about to help - he was too busy getting grey furballs all over the clean laundry.

And that's the weekend!
On to February!!



Images by me. Please don't use without asking first. Thanks!

Skype Love

I just spent an hour on Skype, video-chatting with my sister in Madagascar! I haven't used Skype before because we get a really great international rate on our home VOIP phone but my sister recently figured out how to install it on her laptop so we decided to try it out.
I don't think either of us were prepared for the video feature - I kind of forgot that my laptop does that! We spent the first five minutes giggling at each other and just feeling awkward and funny. Then we figured out how to speak and were on the phone for almost an hour. I even did a little video tour of my house to remind her what it looks like in America. And made her jealous of all my shoes.
I <3 technologies.

Weekend Recap

In which I travel far and wide, play in the yard, and am disappointed by Costco.

Let's start with the traveling, shall we?
My mom and I had a random psychic moment this past week - she emailed me late Thursday night and before I had even read her email, I had texted her early Friday morning. We were almost simultaneously considering a day at Disneyland! After that cosmic moment, we couldn't refuse the calling and headed off early Saturday morning for a day at the park.
Oh, and we took my sister.

Toy Story Ride in 3D - it's all about the glasses.

The Animation Studios in California Adventure has some great activities! Here you can draw your own string of Mickey balloons following a pattern they provide...

Then put it in this spinny thing and watch the Mickey balloon rise and fall!

Me and my pal.

After my little excursion, the hubs and I decided to head to our local Costco on Sunday afternoon. He'd been there the day before and spotted a great deal on a Kitchenaid mixer. It was a Professional series. In red. Be still my heart.
Costco was offering an instant rebate of $40 off plus the hubs had seen a mail-in rebate coupon for an additional $40. This was enough to get us thinking about making the investment. It didn't take long for my little head to start imagining throwing cookie ingredients in the bowl and coming back an hour later to perfectly warm, just out of oven cookie deliciousness. (I know, I know... that's not really how they work...)
Unfortunately, the rebate coupons had expired and, despite the fact that there was a huge sign advertising the rebate and a whole stack of coupons, Costco wouldn't honor them. The manager we spoke with thanked us for pointing them out and then gave us a lame excuse - something about 'the manufacturer is responsible for the coupons on the shelf' and the fact that they've been sitting there for over two weeks after they expired isn't Costco's fault and they refuse to be responsible for them. I worked retail long enough to know that ultimately, you are responsible for what is on your shelf. Whoever does nightly recovery in those aisles should know to take a look every once in a while and update their signage.
Too bad for us - we didn't get a red Kitchenaid mixer.
And too bad for Costco - they could've made a sale over $200 just by honoring a $40 coupon. I'm sure that $200 is nothing to them in the grand scheme of their daily sales but their attitude just left me disappointed. They've always been so good about honoring their prices and overall customer service. I guess I caught them on a bad day.

But the hubs bought me flowers (awwwww!) -

And I got to spend several hours in the yard Sunday afternoon in glorious weather - followed by an amazing sunset. Not too shabby for a weekend in Southern California.

Images by me. Please don't use without asking first.

Weekend Recap: Holiday

It was a long weekend for me and the hubs so we hopped in the truck and headed south to visit my in-laws! They got sick over Christmas so we still had holiday pleasantries to exchange. They live in a house in the mountains where things are simple and quiet. We had waffles and bacon for breakfast (twice!), watched lots of football (mom-in-law is a Steelers fan and was baffled by Sunday's win by the NY Jets), I took two naps, and countless walks with Sammi all around their property.
Our weather here in southern California is on a warm kick lately so the hubs, father-in-law, and I took the truck even further up the mountain on Saturday in search for some snow. We were lucky to find some at the top of Thomas Mountain.s

Isn't he a cutie?

Boys and their sticks...  The piece that broke off there on the left actually flew about 10 yards - we were lucky it didn't hit anyone!

Cute little pinecone.

The trees around their property have all lost their leaves - I love how they collect on the bridge.

After Chris had fun turning the compost pile, he brought a load of firewood up to the house in his dad's tractor. And then taught Sammi how to drive. 

My favorite thing about mountain living is the sunset. We had two gorgeous sunsets in a row - this was Sunday. 

After sleeping in our own bed last night (isn't it amazing how nice that feels?) the hubs and I grabbed breakfast at Allison's and then headed up to the Matilija trail near Ojai for a rousing 8-mile hike. I haven't hiked like that in quite a while and I can tell my legs are going to be punishing me tomorrow.
But tomorrow also means back to work and I'm a bit sad to see this lovely long weekend come to an end.
How was your weekend? Any stories to share?



Image by me. Please don't use them without asking.

Oh, yeah! Christmas!

It was almost perfect. Quiet, relaxing, full of food and family and cheer.

The cat slept under the tree for days, avoiding the dog and enjoying the sunshine.

We have the best stockings, handmade by my mom. They are my favorite part of Christmas morning.

We traumatized the dog by putting things on his head. This one was the hubs:

This one was all me:

My amazing brother sent was super sneaky and sent this to my mom to give to me. A piggybank from Spain! I should save up for a trip somewhere...

My beautiful younger sister. 

Our festive dinner table! My mom adopted a fun tradition from my great-grandmother called a Present Pie. The centerpiece is full of little gifts with long ribbons looped around. Everyone pulls a string, not knowing what present it's attached to! You can cover it with a Christmas cloth to make a pie if you want but we left ours open - it was too cheerful to cover up.

I officially joined the Purple Coat Club as my dad bought me the coat I wanted (I sent him a link the day after Thanksgiving, as the shop was having a 50% off sale and free shipping! Easy shopping for me and the sister... he got things for both of us!). My mom, sister, and I all have purple coats.

Mom made her traditional Christmas bread, ham, vegetables, and two kinds of potatoes followed by molten lava cakes and loads of cookies. We stuffed ourselves full; played Apples to Apples; read our new books and watched our new movies. We missed my sister in Africa and my brother under the sea - hopefully we'll all be together next Christmas.
Until then, have a wonderful rest of your week and a Happy New Year!