Christmas 2009

Well, all is well in our house. The boys are still sleeping off the excitement of yesterday. The weather has changed from sunny, warm, blue skies to what looks like rain clouds making it easy to just chill here at home. I'm thinking about all of our friends and family and hoping that they too enjoyed yesterday. Ian got what he asked for, a new Sony Cybershot digital camera which he took full advantage of yesterday documenting the days activities and Evan got the "Long board" skateboard he'd hoped for. The rest of the day was spent eating and playing games, walking to the beach and opening more gifts at Grandma and Grandpa's house. We are now looking forward to Grandma Jean's birthday on New year's eve and celebrating yet another Christmas in Sonora.
PS: The huge TV that has been sitting on the end table for a year was suppose to be replaced with a new flat screen but Santa decided to wait for some after Christmas sales.

Photo A Day

I'm going to try and participate in my friend Moriah's Photo A Day project. I posted Day #2 on Facebook and my wonderful son "flagged" it for removal, so I'm posting here!
December 2, 2009- Evan got his lower braces.

20 on the 20th

Stole this idea from my friend Moriah :)
Here are 20 things that are on my mind this 20th day of November:

1) Evan is getting another black strip on his black-brown belt from Kuk Sool Won. One year from now he will test for his Black Belt. I'm very proud of him for choosing such a great form of martial arts.

2) Ian and I joined Snap fitness this week. They ( Snap Fitness) asked Ian to work for them already! That kid is so likable.

3) I'm sore from working out. I hope Wayne will want to join Snap too.

4) Spent last Sunday at the Harvest Festival with my mom and sister and Evan. I loved it.

5) Really happy our new tenants are working out. The husband can't say enough nice things about the house. Make me feel good especially after the last people.

6) Think about my friend Moriah all the time and wonder when were going to have a fun day?

7) I spent some time looking into a mini vacation to San Antonio TX. The River Walk and the Alamo look amazing and I'm ready to get away.

8) I'm actually looking forward to Thanksgiving this year.

9) Coming up with 20 things may be harder than I though. I knew I should have done this last Sunday!

10) I'm taking Evan and his friend Kevin to see 2012 tomorrow after Evan's testing. I have absolutely no interest in see it.

11) Tried a new barbecued chicken recipe today, it was yummy. The kids really liked it.

12) I think my niece Hannah is adorable, she went to see the "New Moon" movie! She's beautiful and funny and smart.

13) Got a raise at work and more responsibility. I wanted to tell him to keep his money but thought I could use the challenge. I'm now in charge of ordering all the inventory for our office. Oh Joy!

14) We're not going to KFOG'S concert for kids this year, we didn't love the artists that are playing and they moved it to a Saturday night.

15) We decided to get a "family" gift this year for Christmas. A new flat screen TV. Evan's not very happy about it. Of course we will still have a visit from Santa and stockings too.

16) Ian's football finally ended. He was really ready to start riding is dirt bike again, they told him he couldn't ride during the football season. He wants to play again next year.

17) Speaking of Ian riding. He entered his first race of the season last weekend. He placed 21st and was happy with that. It was his first time back on his bike since August. He also said he felt really strong from the football conditioning.

18) Wayne's job is winding down, but it's actually more hectic. Trying to finish up and fix things that the other carpenters messed up. Maybe a couple of more weeks that's it.

19) I want to clean out Evan's room and make it more age appropriate for him. He still has a lot of kid junk in there even though I clean it out regularly.

20) Wow , I'm feeling such pressure to make #20 good. But honestly, I think the fact that I was able to come up with 19 things is good enough. Well it was actually only 18 because of #9. Thanks for reading hope it wasn't too painful :)

Oink-Oink

Here is Ian getting his H1N1 flu shot. Hopefully Evan will be getting his on Friday.

Another Outing

My title sounds a bit like I outed someone doesn't it! But no, just another outing with my sister a couple of weeks ago. The plan, you've gotta love that we actually had a plan, was to take a drive to the Walgreen's store that my sister manages in San Francisco and for me to get one of their last remaining flu shots and for her to pick up her hot water kettle. One of out two isn't bad for us. I got my "preservative free" flu shot for an "extra fee" because that was all they had left and she forgot to pick up her kettle. We left the store and headed for the mall because when I was there the day before specifically to get more of my foundation makeup I, of course, walked out of the make up store w/ $80.00 worth of new eye color but no foundation! So lickity split the foundation was in the bag and strait ahead of us was Godiva. A brief pit stop there and we were off to nowhere. This is the place where everyone gets into trouble right?. Nowhere. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking..........

When we saw there beauties we reminisced about going to Macy's in San Francisco's union Square and trying on all the fancy gowns just for fun..........we would laugh so hard.

Pumpkin festival

Well, If your from Half Moon Bay or have ever been to the Pumpkin Festival you know it is all about the Orange Gourd, the big pumpkin itself. This past weekend was the 39th annual in all it's glory. 300k people over the course of two days cram our little town to enjoy shopping, eating, music and my personal favorite.........people watching. For many of us it's a time to raise much needed funds for our schools and misc other non-profits and also to catch up with old and new friends. Here are some photo highlights from my day at the Pumpkin festival.
PS: I have no idea who these people are, just thought they had alot of pumpkin spirit!

Calm before the storm?

Wayne, Evan and I walked down to see the ocean last night before the rain started. I love the smell and the power of the ocean on days like this. This is what it looked.

Sunday Project

A friend of ours had a baby sometime in the last two weeks, a boy. I can't remember the date exact, Wayne has been working with the guy off and on so when his wife had the baby the guys all took up a collection and had flowers sent. OK, first of all you have to imagine a bunch of carpenters on a job site with no women around somehow figuring this out. What the thought process must have been on this, well it's just funny! So I don't know what possesses me sometimes but I said "Oh, I should make a pumpkin hat" Figuring if I do great, if not, well she got flowers right? So the other day Wayne says to me, "I told John you were making a pumpkin hat for the baby, where is it"? OMG! I guess I really did say that out loud. I don't knit much anymore, but I found my orange and green "Lambs pride cotton" and went to work. I had forgotten how quickly a little baby had knits up and how much I miss knitting. I worked on thought out the day Sunday and finished before Wayne and the boys returned home from Fleet Week celebration in SF.

Cooking Inspiration

Yesterday while I was surfing new food blogs, a current obsession of mine, I ran across this blog http://food-forthought.blogspot.com/. Scrolling down the site I discovered he/she had posted a recipe for Cannellini beans and kale. Seeing that I had all the ingredients on hand and It sounded wonderful, I went to work.
I used:
1 can of Cannellini beans (Trader Joe's brand)
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
Red Pepper flakes to taste
Diced pancetta
One whole bunch of purple kale, washed and roughly chopped
Sm lemon wedge maybe a teaspoon
Extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
Saute the onion, garlic, pancetta and red pepper flakes in a pan w/ olive oil. Add kale and a little water. Cover and cook until leaves are tender at this point I also added a little squirt of fresh lemon.
After the kale is cooked , add the cannellini beans and salt and pepper. Cook until heated through then mash the beans. Plate the dish and drizzle with more olive oil and Parmesan cheese. Serve with sourdough bread. This is how it looked.




The beauty of this recipe is that you can alter it in so many ways. I thought about adding some chopped tomatoes or even a small diced potato. Jazz it up how ever you like!

Home Sweet Home

A funny story about us is that until now we have never lived in a house long enough to have to do any type of maintenance, like painting or replacing a roof or re-landscape. And because Wayne is a contractor and we have built all but two of our houses, they really don't need anything done to them for a few years. So now, here we are going on year 8 in our lovely home and finding the exterior and interior could use some freshening up and even the landscaping is looking a bit tired. Wayne has had to replace the garbage disposal and repair the dishwasher this month. He even had to repair a broken slate tile in the kitchen. I don't even want to think about the fact that one day we might need to remodel! Moving does have it's advantages, like every couple of years I was able to purge. Now It's an ongoing process of purging. I constantly have items in the back of my car to go to goodwill. Our catch line was always, we'll just build another house. Until now, because we love it here. So let the maintenance begin!

We share a brain

My sister and I are cut from the same cloth, or as her husband so graciously put it, we share a brain. We often suffer from indecision and forgetfulness. Take yesterday for example, my sister needed to drop her car off in San Mateo for repair. Our plan, as of the night before, was that I was going to pick her up, we would do some shopping and have lunch and I would take her back to her car when it was finished at the repair shop. Sounds simple right? Well, right from the get go our plans went out the window. I called her on her cell phone at 9:00am to tell her I was going to the bank and would head over the hill to meet her after that. When I called she said "Oh, I decided to have Mike (her husband) follow me over and bring me back home because I didn't want to you have to leave so early to meet me. Just pick me up at the house later". This, I am positive put a tail spin on our day. I was dressed and ready to go but I'm good at killing time, I could find something to do for a bit right? So about 10:30ish, after going to the bank and visiting my Mom for a while I picked up my sister at her house and we headed over to the BMW dealer to get a part for my car, by the time we were done with that it was close to lunch time so off we went to our favorite restaurant for our favorite meal of Pho. After devouring our delicious lunch and a trip to Whole foods and Trader Joe's we headed home in a food coma, talking (gossiping) and whatnot. It wasn't until we were all the way back home (corner of hwy 1 & 92) that my sister's phone rang and she was telling her friend how we had gone over the hill to have lunch and pick up her car ........drum roll please...........Yes, one small detail, HER CAR! After all, wasn't "her car" the excuse we were using to have lunch together? With a trunk full of grocery's we couldn't drive all the way back over the hill , we needed to unload, so off to her house first, we pull into the driveway and she realizes she has no key to get in. OMG! At this point we are just bewildered with ourselves! We had to drive to my house, unload, get the key to her house that I luckily had and back to her house to unload her stuff, then back over the hill! But after all was said and done, the bottom line is we got to spend time together, just me and my brain sharing sister! It was a good day and I did still had time last night to make these delicious scones too!

The Real Minerva

My friend Lynn had recently given me two different books to read. She's a avid reader devouring books as she works out on the treadmill! But unlike Lynn, I don't make the time to read and I most likely won't finish reading a book if I don't like. Which brings me to the first book she gave me. It happened to be by the author of a book I really love, Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. A wonderfully written book that really transports you right into the hard life of a 1930's circus hand, a must read if you haven't already. Riding Lesson's on the other hand was far less enjoyable for me. Looking back, I think it's because of the modern day setting. A story that could be about the middle aged woman living next door (I'm sure that was her point) and I only kept reading it because I thought she was going to have some sort of breakthrough moment in the book, but she never did and in the end I still didn't like the character or her story. I would have been much more interested if the story had been about her mom and dad, I think they had a much more interesting life. But this was not the case with the second book Lynn gave to me. The Real Minerva, written by Mary Sharratt. Lynn said that she had read it in one sitting and that I had better prepare myself for a late night. But what I found myself doing with this book was savoring it. I didn't want to read it in one sitting, honestly I didn't want it to end. I loved the setting of the book, the late 1920's and on. The author tells the harrowing story of three women, their individual struggles, how their lives intertwine and ultimately the outcome of their bravery. I like reading about this time in history. It makes me appreciate what I have and think about what my Grandmother and her generation had lived through not so long ago. I may have to probe a little deeper to find out why I'm so fascinated with this era. I just ordered Mary Sharratt's 1st novel Summit Avenue from the library. It's set in the early 1900's, a coming of age story of a 16 year old German girl sent to live in America. I hope I like it.

Photo collage

I have a Google Picasa account. A place to store and organize photos and occasionally share them online or through email to family. The problem is I don't spend enough time (any really) on learning how to use the site. The other day I was fooling around and somehow I ended up on my Picasa page and noticed a tab for a collage. What the heck right? It immediately started adding in photos and this is what I ended up with. I liked it so much I put it as my desktop. Most of these pictures are from my friend Lisa, you can see more of her here www.lisadamrosch.com, who took pictures of the boys for her new photography business. I think she did a fabulous job.

First Timer

There is a first time for everything right? Well , this first time for me was one I thought would never happen. Honestly, I never wanted it to happen until.............my son joined the High School football team,Yikes! Up until last night I could proudly say, I had never watched a football game in my life, not on TV or in person. Sometimes it was hard to avoid in the house I grew up in (big football fans). The honest truth is that it was fun, even if Ian didn't get to play, it was still fun being at the game and cheering on the team. I don't think I would willingly attend a pro or collage game but I will certainly be there to cheer on the Half Moon Bay Cougar football team and Ian.

Sometimes you just gotta laugh................

The other day I went to see my mom at her work, we had a nice chat and when I was getting ready to leave she stood up onto a stool to reach for something. I said, "Mom, those are cute pants". She said, "Oh, Thanks. I have to take the hem out a little though". I said "oh yeah, it looks like you hemmed them too much". And she said "No, they're capri pants" . You see my mom is only about 4'11'' and the pants were barely above her ankle. We both got a chuckle out of it!

Bitter Sweet and what a treat!

The First day of school is always so bitter sweet. And this year more so than others as both the boys have moved on to new schools. My days at Hatch elementary are over for good! Actually both Evan and Mom (grandma Jean) have moved on to Cunha middle school across the highway from Hatch. I think the significance here is that after some 30 odd years at Hatch school Jean decided to take the librarian position at the middle school. Her hours had been slashed at Hatch so she's now working a full 8 hours a day! Good luck mom! Evan has a great school schedule and has a good friend in every one of his classes. Not as important for boys as girls but still a nice thing. Ian started at Half Moon Bay High School today, again great schedule. I had to go up today just to change him out of biology and into Earth science his counselor was very supportive and helpful :) Ian is also playing HS football this year (his first time ever) so he has had the advantage of being at school the last week in July for a football camp and everyday in August so no real butterflies about getting around campus. Me? Back to my routine, today I took Evan to school, dropped my car for service, went to Costco and Trader Joe's, meet with Ian's counselor and came home and made baked ribs w/ spicy blackberry sauce and mashed potato's for dinner and Blackberry and plum turnovers w/ cardamon for dessert! If you noticed a theme here your right. I had picked berries at my friends and needed to use them up. But I'll tell you, the spicy blackberry sauce for the ribs? TO DIE FOR! I hope I can wait for everyone to get home!

Where'd the summer go?

I've been so busy with some fun and not so fun things that I haven't posted for a while. I'm not going to post any of the bad stuff and just stick to the good times. The super fun things are that my Brother David and his family, Wife Megan and kids Paul (14), Hannah(12) and Mark(9) have been here visiting from NC since the 5th of August. We've managed a trip to Malibu miniature golf and go-cart racing where Hannah started out driving like Miss Daisy and ended up like Danica! A trip to San Francisco for Dim Sum and a tour through China Town, They loved the dim sum and looking at all the cheap stuff in the stores and a first for me was a trip to the Fortune cookie factory, it smelled so yummy! They had plenty of beach time boogie boarding and skim boarding and a family portrait at the beach. Paul played in a tennis tournament in Santa Cruz over the weekend and won the 14 singles and is taking home a beautiful trophy! We all went to watch him play, It was great!
Ian had his High School orientation on Friday the 14th , he got his schedule and had a tour of the school. He's also been practicing football for the last couple of weeks, going to 7AM work outs and is now into what they call double sessions (two practices a day). School starts on the 24th. Evan took a brake from Kuk Sool Won for the summer and will get back to it starting in September.
As a special treat us girls,Mom, Rae, Me ,Megan and Hannah went to lunch and had Mani/Pedi's for my birthday! I'm really going to miss my family when they leave to go home, but I'm sure with the start of school and all that is involved with Fall will distract me from missing them.

Camp adventure

So this weekend we camped in the Eldorado National Forest with a few of our friends. But this was no "sit around the fire telling ghost stories roasting smores" type camping! Oh No. This was a dirt bike camp trip. We had 8 families with about 18 kids and more loud dirty fun than you could imagine. Only one person in our group had been to this area before so we really didn't know what to expect. It turned out to be perfect, a big open area where we could all park our trailers together. There were trees to keep us cool and we could even have fires (which we needed to keep the mosquitoes away)! There was one bummer of the trip when one of our families broke down just a mile from camp and had to be towed in. It was there transmission, ugh. They have a fifth wheel trailer and no one else has one so they had to call someone from home to come and get them. They only stayed the night and left the next afternoon. A couple of the kids were able to stay with us which was nice. The trails were long and very dusty and hot so we made a few trips to the river to cool off. This will be a repeat trip for sure!

Good friends & Good music

On Saturday night we went to see Death Cab for Cutie at The Greek Theater in Berkeley. The line up was great. Ra Ra Riot from Syracuse NY and Andrew Byrd (from idk) were the warm up bands. Ra Ra Riot was great. They all looked like they were about 16, but turns out after talking to their sound guy they are between 22 and 26 years old. Good entertainers and the singer has a really nice voice. Death Cab was great. The sound was fantastic due to the fact that they have an awesome sound engineer, our friend Will Markwell. It's always a treat to see him and of course we get the special seats right with the mixer and we get to watch him work and visit too. Will's Mom Lynn and Dad Mike were there as well as Will's Girlfriend Nadine. We enjoyed a scrumptious carrot cake that Lynn made for Will. It was strange to have a little rain though, very unexpected for us. Luckily, there were tarps for the sound equipment that we snagged LOL! Will was completely unfazed saying "this is nothing" apparently they've played in wind, rain, sleet and who knows what else!



Pictured: Lynn and Nadine cutting the cake. Mike Markwell, Wayne and Ian. Ian, Will Markwell, Wayne and Evan. Jill (me), Lynn Markwell and Nadine under the tarp.
On Friday I took the boys over to our friend's house so they could ride their dirt bikes. They had fun and I hiked almost to the top of their property. I got a little lost so about 3/4 of the way up I turned around and came back down. Here are a couple of pictures from Friday.