The Best in the House!

To celebrate Martin Luther King weekend Molly decided to pay us a visit from Sacramento. Ok, so that really isn't the reason why, but it sounded good right?

We had a really mellow weekend which consisted of a lot of wii and eating tasty food. One thing that is awesome with Molly is that we have fun doing anything...or nothing.

I asked John to bake up some tasty bread for us and he totally did. It was kind of like an apple crisp bread.

I also made a torta rustica, which was so good. The more I have this dish the more I like it. John complained once again that there was too much spinach, but I swear you can't even taste it!

John had the great idea that we should head down to Grover Beach to check out the migrating monarch butterflies. Since we were heading to south county he had another great idea (shocking I know) that we should eat at Cacho's in Oceano. We have heard nothing but rave reviews about Cachos and how authentic their food is, so we were pumped.

The place was totally sketchy, (John's #1 characteristic of a good burrito shop), but I must say I was a little disappointed with the food. The worker there said they were known for their homemade tortillas, but let me say that it was nothing like the one I had in S.F. Maybe there wasn't enough lard? Who knows. At least Molly and I still looked cute while eating.

Next we headed to the butterflies. They were everywhere and seemed to be more active then the last time I was there. You can still see them in the sky even though the photo is out of focus. (Click to enlarge).

Here are two more photos:
John really wanted to go to the local teppanyaki grill while Molly was in town...just because he's obsessed with their fried rice. Seriously. Molly had the great idea to invite the Drexlers to join us which was fun, and also adding to the fun was our awesome chef. You could tell he enjoyed his job and was cracking some sweet jokes. Or maybe it was just Molly's cleavage that was making the difference. Whatever it was I didn't care, and either did John as long as he got extra fried rice.

It is truly absurd at how much food they give you during that meal...soup, salad, rice, veggies, and meat. As much as I like to eat, it's just way too much. After I was done stuffing my face I got to play with Lucas. As you can tell we are having a lot of fun:

Family shot!

Three amigos:

One shot of the ladies before we parted ways:

The next morning we slept in again, due to late night vid playing, and then went and had a late breakfast at one of our favorite places, Blue Sky, in Morro Bay. This was the first time I had EVER decided to branch out and I learned the hard way to stick with what I know. I ordered a BLTA with a fried egg, and someone forgot to put the egg on it. Not really the best sando I've ever had. The seafood omelet is WAY better.

Before we left we took a couple of photos of with the Rock in the background. I was surprised that Morro Bay was one of the few places we had yet to take Molly.
Overall it was a great weekend and I can't wait for Molly to visit again!

Christmas Montage

Greetings! Did you never think I was going to post again? Really? Well I started to feel that way. I blame John for my lack of posting. Ok, so it's isn't really his fault, just partially.

I knew I wanted to post about Christmas before I made any other posts, however John always likes to look at the photos with me before I post them. So...I have been waiting for 3 weeks for him to have the time to look at them with me, and so far he hasn't. I feel like I need to blog about our trip North before I can blog about anything else, and since both of my parents have been harassing me about updating I knew any sort of post would do.

With that being said I am taking the lazy way out. Below are a handful of my favorite photos from the holiday season which I will comment on rather than type out a novel. (More photos to come on ofoto).

I must say that I received a ton of great gifts even before we headed north for the big celebration. My friend Sam gave me some pineapple coconut waffle mix as well as some passion fruit jelly. Let me just say that it was SO good!
See for yourself. Here is my plate:
I like everything to be separate, (syrup, jelly, and powdered sugar). I also like to have my waffles on a paper towel so it absorbs any condensation. I'm a texture eater, what I can I say?

Here is John's plate. As you can see he goes for the gusto.
Another good friend of mine, Jen, gave me homemade lumpia! I was so impressed that she and her hubby spent the time to make their friends such a unique and tasty gift. Does it mean something that they both gave me food gifts?
Here they are frying up. (Jen, I know you said we needed to deep fry them, but they were still really good this way). John added honey and soy sauce which really crisped them up as well. YUM!

Before we left town John and I had our Christmas and below is a mini still life of some of the gifts I got.
John got me a new Domo calendar, the Harajuku purse, digital picture frame and the flute playing gnome. I was totally impressed! I've wanted a digital picture frame for a long time, but it's a totally unnecessary expense. So John used our credit card points to buy it! Such a smart man. I also needed another gnome for my collection, as I have the hardest time finding cute ones. Some can look so scary!

My friend Jen also got me the Rob and Big DVD's and John and laughed so much watching them. I always forget how much I love that show. Bobby Light always does me right.

The other black purse looking item is a cosmetic bag that I got from Maggie. It's not any cosmetic bag, but a Kat Von D designer bag! (Ok, it's not a designer bag, but you know it sounds better that way). What is crazy is that I totally needed a new one, and even asked John for one for Christmas. The poor dude did get me a purse that could have been used as a cosmetic bag, but the Kat Von D bag was better. I mean it was made for cosmetics. John was a bit disappointed, so I told him to suck it up and make it up to me for my birthday.

Since I had ample time during this holiday season I wanted to make some homemade gifts. Nothing too elaborate though. I saw this tutorial on How About Orange and thought it was perfect for my level of crafting skills! My initial plan was to make about 10 frames, but after cutting a few templates I realized it was a little tougher than I thought. So I decided to make 3...however once I finished the first frame and saw how cute it was I had to make them all! Here is a photo of the different fabrics I used:
I was so pleased with how they turned out, but the magnets I used were a bit too strong. I wanted to make sure they wouldn't side down on the fridge, which I achieved, but I ripped off the magnets after I took this photo! Real nice.

For the most part we had really nice visits with both families, but man did it tire us out! We were so exhausted by the time our 4 days were up. The only real exciting thing that happened was that my sister's dog attacked one of my parents dogs. I guess if it's not humans fighting it's dogs? At least no blood was shed.

We always spend Christmas eve with my family which is nice. My mom made a great meal and then we topped it off with opening a ton of gifts. Here is John and I in our traditional holiday matching sweaters. These aren't that hideous but I had to put the kibosh on the camo/argyle sweaters John wanted to buy, as camo is not seen as hideous in Fortuna. (I'm not sure why I'm striking a model pose either).
Christmas day was spent with John's family. It was great to see the kids again, but man was it hectic! I've realized that if you aren't normally around kids, it can be kind of like a culture shock! Here is the whole clan:
We had another great meal and received many wonderful gifts. I got a much needed computer bag, and we also got a kitchen aid mixer!!!!
After all the baking I did for Christmas I was coming to the realization how much I wanted one, and the bam! Santa delivered. I know it looks white in this photo, but the color is actually ice. A 50's teal. (Since we've been home John has been a baking fool making all sorts of breads. I've been documenting so don't worry. Your mouth will be watering soon.)

Here is John and the twins:

We even headed up to Monument to check out the snow. Unfortunately most of it had melted away by the time we got there. Bow was still able to make a GIANT snowball though.
I was also lucky enough that the families let me spend some time with my old high school friends. I had the best time catching up with them. It's amazing that after all these years when we get back together it seems like no time has passed. I am so thankful for my relationships with them as I'm realizing how special they are. We have all known each other for so long it's amazing that we can still remain close without seeing each other often.

I have the feeling that they all felt the same as we've now organized a girl's weekend for March. I can't wait!

Beware of Bejeweled

Wondering why I haven't posted in 11 days? Well it's partially due to laziness, and I blame the other part on Bejeweled 2. I knew it was bad when my parents started harassing me about my lack of blogging, but over the past few days all I have been doing is playing this stinkin' game!

What is Bejeweled you ask? Well you probably shouldn't find out as you will probably become as addicted as I am! Just so you know, it's a Tetris like game where you match up colored jewels. That's it.

I discovered it on Facebook, and probably played it for 2+ hours this past Friday night. The one thing I didn't like about the game, is that it gave me a minute time limit. So off to Google I searched and found a site where I could download it free for an hour. AWESOME! Well the awesomeness lasted until my hour ran out.

I finally decided to pay $9.99 to purchase it, and it has been one of my best decisions of 2009! How sad is that? I've played it almost all day today, and have yet to shower...at least I made it to the grocery store so my hardworking husband won't starve tonight.

I do have somethings to post about, as well as photos, so hopefully I can get my act in gear this week and entertain you all. If you are lucky that is.

Why don't you have a web cam yet?

Oh my way home to SLO, I was able to stop off in Ukiah and visit my good friend Rebekkah for a few days. I recently helped convert her to a MAC user, (YEAH!), and tried to give her a MAC 101 lesson. I think I did OK, but let me say she was an awesome student. It was great that she really wanted to learn the helpful tips I was teaching her.

One key thing I helped her with was to set up her Gmail video chat, and tonight we had our first official chat! She is camping on a friend of theirs property, and was hanging out in their home while one of her daughters slept and the other one watched a video. The home was on a generator though because she was not able to turn on any lights, so I chatted with her about 85% of the time in the pitch dark! So it was more like a voice chat on my part, but it was still awesome. She's lucky I'm so lenient.

Once she put a new log on the fire, I was then able to see her a little bit...although she was ALL RED and looked like the devil.
She asked me while we were chatting how to take a screenshot again so I told her. Not thinking that she was going to take one of us chatting! So I had to get her back. She's the one in trouble though because I have a blog and she doesn't. I did set one of her bookmarks in her new Firefox browser to this blog, but will she ever check it? Only time will tell.

Happy New Year!!