Good Health!

My favorite holiday drink is Wassail. It's a traditional English hot cider. I like to think the recipe has been handed down through the generations from my ancestors who immigrated from England but really I have no idea. Here is the recipe. It's delicious.

2 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp whole all spice
1 whole nutmeg
Simmer in:
4 qts apple juice
1 can frozen orange juice
1/3 c lemon juice
1/3 c brown sugar

I usually half the juices and sugar because we don't have a pot big enough and it turns out great.

Part of the reason why it is my favorite is because it brings back good memories of my Christmas Tea Party my mom threw for me when I was little. Everyone got dressed up in their best dresses and we used the nice, fancy tea cups from my Mom's tea cup collection. I spent weeks deciding which friends would use which cups (they were all different). We had Wassail and yummy treats. It was a good day.

I also crave Wassail every time I get sick. It always leaves me feeling healthy and strong. Perhaps it's the orange juice in it. How approriate then that Wassail means "Good Health".

Enjoy!

Danny gets lost at the airport (Thanksgiving)

Thanksgiving was a real blast this year. The Saturday before Thanksgiving my family flew into SFO, and my Mom and I spent the day seeing the Post Impressionist exhibit at the De Young and shopping in the city. Despite the pouring rain the stores were packed and we didn't really do much shopping. Sunday we had a early Thanksgiving meal that took way longer to prepare than expected. Cooking for Thanksgiving is hard!! For a good laugh ask Danny what a white yam looks like. Monday we drove up to Sacramento to stay with my Aunt and Uncle. On the way my Mom and I stopped at the outlets in Vacaville and went crazy. Then we went to my favorite shopping mall, The Galleria, in Roseville. By the end of the day I was getting worried Danny was freaking out at getting "Large Transaction" notices from Mint. haha. Merry Christmas to me! The next day we woke up early and endure the cold weather and rain to find bargains at the flea market. We are definitely die hards. Tuesday night I drove back to Palo Alto to pack my bags for our flight to SLC the next day.

Wednesday started at 2:45 am. Why did we even go to bed? We got to the airport at 4:45am for our 6:05am flight. It was the craziest I have ever seen an airport. It took 45 minutes to check our bags which ended up giving us 15 minutes to get through security before our flight left. Too bad the security line was all the way around the whole baggage claim. TSA showed us no sympathy. Danny was freaking out about missing our flight. I finally decided to suck it up and ask someone to let us cut in front of them. Danny and I got split up trying to get through security the quickest. With 5 minutes till our flight was to depart I got through and sprinted full speed (shoes in hand...not on feet) and made it on the airplane. I explained to the flight attendant that my husband was just behind me and asked if they would wait for him. She said he had 4 minutes till they had to push off from the gate. Four minutes went by and no Danny. I was calling and calling and no answer. WTF. I was panicked that he gave up and stopped to use the bathroom or something. Finally he called me back and said the monitor had sent him to the wrong gate at the other end of the terminal. A minute after our flight was supposed to depart he got on the plane. Thank goodness they waited! Never again. Next time we will be at the airport 2 hours in advance!

We spent the rest of the week in UT having fun with Danny's family. We had a super yummy Thanksgiving meal. I convinced Danny to go with us to the Park City outlets at midnight for Black Friday sales only to have him go on a huge shopping spree to get back at me. And we went to see Harry Potter. It was a great week!

Body Scanners

Is anyone else bothered by these body scanners we're now going to have to go threw at airport security? Has anyone been through one? I'm not a fan.

Call me crazy but the idea of some person getting paid to sit all day and look at pictures of people without their clothes is creepy. Who came up with this idea? Why aren't we scanning cargo instead? Maybe it doesn't give enough thrills.

I'm currently stressing over my upcoming flight and trying to determine which option I will take if asked to use the body scanner.

A. Be scanned and let some creepy person look at a pic of me without clothes and have this image possibly stored somewhere

B. Be patted down by palms with under bra inspection


Neither option is appealing and I honestly don't know which is worst. Ick! What happened to personal space and privacy!!

TRON. The Party is on. 1982 style.

A couple weeks ago I got an evite in my inbox from Danny inviting me to his TRON party. If you don't know what the original TRON movie is about please watch is trailer.

One great thing about living in Silicon Valley is that you can feel free to be your nerdy self. You can't really escape computer talk here.

I thought I was going to have to work that Friday night but by some miracle I got off work early. In two hours Danny and I were able to really go all out.

Russ graciously offered to help model my microchip art.

Danny made all these treats! We had Identity Disks (sugar cookies), Power (vitamin water), Packets (flavored popcorn), and Protocols (muddy buddies).

It was a hilarious night.

End of line.

Sailing Away

Tony, Danny and I took an introductory sailing class out of Berkeley Marina today and it was amazing. We missed you Beau!

Danny all ready to go in his life vest. No need for spray gear today. It was 90 degrees on the bay!!

Turns out it was the last race of some sailboat World Championship

On your mark. Get set. Go!

Just enjoying the ride.

Everyone put out their spinnakers to come back after turning around the half way marker. So pretty.

Upon approaching the buoys they take down their spinnakers and make a quick pass around the buoys. Some boats almost ran into each other. It was intense!

The bay bridge and city. It was such a nice day!

Captain Liz brought the boat back into the marina! Seriously, I did. I was a little scared by how unconcerned Captain Eric was about having me bring her (our J-105) in. How did he know I have previous boating experience?


It was awesome! I highly recommend sailing! Next time hopefully there will be a little more "action" for the boys and less sleepiness from Dramamine. :)

Labor Day Weekend -- Yosemite

Bridalveil Falls

Half Dome from Tunnel View

Coyote

Danny's one with nature

Mirror Lake

Our tent cabin

Getting cool

Vernal Falls

Wishing we had worn our bathing suits

The view

Why didn't we wear our bathing suits again?

Awesome

Rainbow

This is a horrible picture

Edward at the top

Emerald Pool at the top


It was a blast! I'm so glad we went!!

Summer 2010

We spent the 4th of July with my family at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Sacramento. On the drive up we were able to meet up with one of Danny's friends from college and see his new baby. It was really fun to catch up with Jeff and Kailynn and do a little shopping.

Jeff, Izzy and Danny (he's been doing P90x can you tell?)

We had lots of fun in Sacramento. We spent the holiday weekend swimming, shopping, eating yummy food and even went to see Toy Story 3. It was a blast!

The family in our matching patriotic wear. In case you're wondering...my sister and I had matching shirts.

The weekend after the 4th we flew to Vegas for Danny's little brother's farewell. It was a super quick trip but a good time none the less. We celebrated Abbie's birthday on Saturday with a pool party and enjoyed time with the family. I wish it could have been a longer trip!

Me and Elder Maxfield

Last weekend Danny and I spent Saturday in style. We went to the Birth of Impressionism exhibit at the de Young Museum in San Francisco and then went to tea at the Fairmount. The exhibit was really crowded which was a disappointed since it has been here awhile and we had reservations. The paintings were amazing and as always the de Young did an excellent job with the arrangement, section of paintings and the audio tour.

Danny as Manet's subject in The Fifer

Me as Renoir's subject in Dancing in the Country

The Laurel Court at the Fairmount

Danny likes his peppermint tea

The chicken curry on herb roll tea sandwich was my favorite!

My family went to Oahu with my Aunt and Uncle in May and brought back all sorts of fun things.
This has been my go to necklace as of late. Thanks Mom for the pearl necklaces!!

Danny and I have rediscovered a farmer's market like place near our apartment. Everything is so much cheaper and fresher there I don't know why we stopped going. Danny was so excited about this Yellow Watermelon and Hamy Melon he asked me to take a picture.

That's it!

Happy Summer 2010!

To live would be an awfully big adventure

It was my birthday last week. I had to work which is always such a bummer. Danny must really love me because, bless his heart, he worked so hard to make my birthday special. Danny had to work a ton last week but he still managed to get donuts for my birthday breakfast and stayed up super late and woke up super early to make me Cafe Rio Pork for my birthday dinner. He was so tired but he did it anyways. Loves.

Birthday dinner. Mmmm...home cooked Cafe Rio

Saturday we went to the city to celebrate. We went to Mimi's (my favorite) for breakfast. Then we went shopping all day. Danny was such a sweetheart and was so patient. He never complained about waiting in super crowded stores while I tried on clothes. He carried all my shopping bags. He offered to buy me treats and chocolates and told me to buy everything I wanted. We went to my favorite sandwich place in the city for dinner (Boudin) and finished off the perfect day by seeing Peter Pan. It was totally awesome. The play was in this tent and the back drops were projected on the inside of the tent. For example, when all the kids are flying to Neverland, they really are flying up in the air and the inside of the tent looks like it's flying above London. So cool.

Waiting to go into the tent for Peter Pan

It was a fabulous birthday!

Three Strikes

I flew back from Kennewick and Danny and I drove to Vegas the next day to go through the temple with Dougie, celebrate Grandpa's 75th, see Lindsey, and enjoy Mother's Day. I always enjoy a good road trip with Danny. In the middle of the desert I got a phone call from my work telling me I was getting laid off. Ouch! Strike one. I can't really complain. They paid me for a year to be "on call". The trip was quick but fun. I'm really glad we went.

The night we got back we were hurrying to unpack so we could chill in front of the TV and I stubbed my toe on our bed post. We heard a loud snap but I just brushed it off. The next morning my foot was purple and blue. Crap! After a visit to the doctor it was confirmed. I totally broke my toe. Strike two.

The next day we got a letter in the mail from our landlord telling us we are going to have to leave our apartment for the month of August! Strike three. I was freaking out. After a phone call to our landlord we got everything figured out and hopefully we only have to leave for a week. Fingers crossed. Those people are crazy.

Finally after 3 bad days I had a good day. Five days after being laid off I got a call from a recruiter I know offering me a job with a client. I didn't even have to interview or submit a resume. It was so crazy. I started the next day. Danny was VERY surprised. And so am I. Still.

Russ and Kirsten finally got married!

We've been waiting 2 years for the big day and it did not disappoint. It was a great day. Mill Valley is beautiful!

Moi

Chase and Mary

Becca's Birthday!

I decided last minute to go to Kennewick for Becca's birthday. She was so surprised! When we got home from the airport Becca went upstairs to listen to her music and this is what I found.

A shrine to Danny. Melts my heart.

Becca was hilarious about her birthday. She made everyone get dressed up. She even made my dad wear a tie to work and people do not wear ties at his work. She cracks me up. I spent two fabulous weeks with the family and I'm so glad I went when I did. It was so fun to just hangout, go shopping, and check some things off the to-do list.

I'm the most popular person when I go to Home Depot

In April I decided to build shelves in our walk in coat closet to make way for a bookcase to hold food.

I got in my civic coupe and headed on down to Home Depot to pick up some lumber. Everyone was so nice. The workers in the lumber department carried the sheets of wood for me, cut the wood, and even pushed my cart. Then another random guy told me all about shelves and screws and dry wall anchors. Then a second guy joined in on the conversation to make sure I had the right brackets. Next I was waiting in a long line and a worker pulled me out of line to ring me up right there. In the parking lot another nice man offered to load my car for me. It was amazing. I felt like a princess. Maybe I should build things more often.

Well once I got home I thought it was going to be so easy to use my new electric drill to drill holes. Here's the picture of all the holes in the wall I made trying to get the dry wall anchors in. Opps! I'll fix that later.

I'm so handy!

All that stuff used to be on the floor!

All that food used to be on our kitchen counters and stove!
It's like Christmas every time I see my clean kitchen or open the closet to get food out. I'm such a nerd but having a pantry is a dream come true!

This is my new dolly. I love it. It makes going to Costco and bringing up all the food so much easier. However, we have been stopped TWICE bringing up Costco loads to our apartment by people who thought we were refilling the vending machines. haha. We must buy a lot of soda.

If you use that word, you're talking about him

I don't normally watch Glee but this episode was really fantastic.



Danny and I are constantly shocked by how often we hear these words out of the mouths of church members. It's totally inappropriate and offensive. In my book you might as well be saying the f word (the cuss word) in church (or worse).

I. Rock.

So no one really liked the Bloody Olive video. A little too violent for this crowd? I thought so. Video games have desensitized Danny. I must admit...I did enjoy the video....once I watched it ALL THE WAY THROUGH.

Moving on.

A random bit of info to put out there.

In January I was asked to be on a decorating committee for our Stake Relief Society Conference. I went to the planning meeting and with fabric hunting, center piece creation, flower arranging, and artwork selection all available as assignments, I for some reason walked out of the meeting with the assignment to make a giant rock. What?!?!?

Behold my glorious rock.

I wish I could say I made the awesome lighthouse but no. I only made the kick-a$$ rock.

Need a papier-mache rock for your next celebration? Feel free to give me a ring.

The Bloody Olive

This beautiful, intriguing little short reminds me of Liz's and my relationship (but then who is Sam?). I think my moustache is coming back in honor of this swanky fellow.

I can laugh about this now

Today I had to make caramels for the YW Bake Sale. Nobody else would make them so I volunteered. Bad idea. I've never made caramels before and had no idea what was involved. After 2 failed batches (and lots of calls to family) I called my friend Susie who is a caramel pro and went to her house to have her supervise/make the caramels. On the way home the pan of hot caramel spilled all over the seat of my car and purse. I parked my car and had a complete emotional breakdown. Danny got a phone call with a hysterical crying wife on the other end of the line. Danny thought someone in my family had died. Instead he heard, "The caramel just spilled all over my car. (more hysterical crying) Can you come home?" And he did.

Who knew caramel could cause emotional breakdowns? Now I know. Beware.

I want. I need.

It seems whenever a holiday rolls around and Danny asks me what I want I can never think of anything. Well right now there are lots of things I want so pay attention Danny!

*Staple Gun
*Saw
*Grill
*Computer
*Cricut
*Penguin Classics Hardback Series by Coralie Bickford-Smith (both sets)
*Stereo for ipod
*NikonD70
*Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
*Graphic Design and Photography classes
*Vacation to tropical place or Europe
*Napkins from Anthropologie that match our new plates

Many of these things are needs more than wants. For example, I'm in charge of the bulletin board for YW's and its a major pain. The other ward's board always looks so neat while mine has wrinkles and bent staples. I need a staple gun. And whenever I want to change it I have to go to my friend's house to use her Cricut which is great that she lets me use it...but it takes forever to cut out that many letters. It would be nice to be able to do other things while it cuts away. It would also be nice to have some graphic design skills so I could make cute handouts for YW's.

Our apartment gets super hot in the summer and we can't use our oven or stove so it would be nice to be able to cook meat on a grill instead of going out to eat every meal.

I have some pieces of wood in our apartment that I use with our A/C unit (we don't have windows so I had to build something custom to accomodate our sliding glass doors) but since our doors where replaced last summer the pieces of wood no longer fit. I need a saw to cut them down to size. I also need a saw to cut the poles I bought a year ago to put in our sliding doors for safety when we use our A/C unit. I also want to build some shelves in our closet.

What's on your want/need list right now?

On Danny's list is a Le Creuset dutch oven. Surprised?

Another for Becca...yes she "reads" my blog

Like??

by loviesformybabies on Etsy

This one's for you Becca

For President's Day Weekend my family came into town and we all went to Disneyland. We went to Rainforest Cafe and Build-a-Bear as an early Valentine's celebration for Becca.

Becca and Patches helping "fluff" Princess Kitty

Valentine's Day started off with a knock at our door and Becca delivering a valentine! That night we had a fabulous dinner at Cafe Orleans where we ate Monte Cristo sandwiches to our hearts content. I only wish they still had their Chocolate Crepe on the dessert menu. What were they thinking when they took it off?!?! We got valentines (and a princes barrette) from my dad (yes I wore it in my hair) and my mom spoiled me with a light up light saber that I had secretly (or not so secretly) been wanting but Danny had banned me from buying. (Pictures and video from my Jedi training coming soon)

Unusual events from this trip include

• Patches surprising us all with an unexpected decision to move to Splash Mountain and change his name to Brer Patches.
• Becca screaming on Indian Jones...I don't know if I've ever heard her truly scream from fear before.
  
• Seeing Kelly from "The Office".
• Liz getting soaked like a person's never been soaked before on Grizzly River Run. Literally our raft got stuck where the water shoots up and the water just kept coming down on Liz. Danny laughed so hard he cried.
• Mom didn't make us sit for 2 hours before the parade to make sure we had good seats. In fact, we didn't even see the parade.
• Danny stating that the skewers from the Bengal BBQ are his absolute favorite food and he could eat 50. Maybe next time.
  
• Starting the "Toys stay in the backpack" rule

If Becca could talk, what do you think she's saying in these two photos?

And to think....this is Becca's favorite ride.

We took a break from Disneyland one day and went to San Diego's Wild Animal Kingdom. I give it 3 stars. It was hard to get around...the map was horrible and confusing, and the paths were very steep and sometimes unpaved. My dad did take Becca into the Parakeet cage and the birds LOVED her. She freaked out when they landed on her but I was impressed by how brave she was. I hate birds and would not go in the exhibit.

Where did the bird land on you Becca?

On your head!

On your shoulder too!

"mmmmcheese"

"I love this ride!"

Lucky for us our tickets included a ride on the carousel. The park had a two-day old baby elephant that was super cute so of course Becca HAD to ride on the elephant. Unfortunately at the end of the ride the elephant ended up about 6 ft in the air and I had to get 5'10" Becca down. I almost died.


Becca let some of toys have a slumber party at our house and this is how the night played out.

Danny was NOT happy about sharing his salsa with Sally Mae (who thought our apartment was cold and decided to put on her snowsuit).

Danielle (named after her Uncle Danny) checked her email and surfed the web.

Everyone watched the Olympics.

Princess Kitty read us a story before bed.

Thanks for visiting us and including us on your vacation!! I miss my Becca-boo!