Christmas Day Brunch

Mike and I took his grandmother, Enid, out for a Christmas brunch at the La Valencia hotel in La Jolla.

Mimosas.

The buffet

They had carolers

Enid loves her dessert.

Christmas Eve Dinner

Mike and I decided to make a Christmas Eve dinner for ourselves.

The ham

The sweet potatoes

The wine

The apple pie

Our Christmas Tree

We collect Christmas ornaments when we travel.  We share memories of our trips when we decorate our tree every year, which is fun.  Sometimes we have a hard time finding ornaments, but we usually find something last minute or even at the airport.  Here's our tree this year and some of our fun ornaments.

San Francisco Chinatown

Venice, Italy

Syndey, Australia

Big Island of Hawaii

Belize

Alaska Cruise

Wine, Bikes, and Mud

All these things go together in Calistoga, a town in Napa Valley.  Calistoga is located on the northern end of the valley and has a small town feel.  They just had a Christmas Tractor Parade the weekend prior to our visit and people were still talking about it.  We planned this trip to celebrate our anniversary last month.  I'd found a cottage rental on VRBO that was nice and quiet for our stay.  We took a self guided biking wine tour on Saturday and experienced a Calistoga mud bath on Sunday.

Start of the 20 mile bike tour visiting 5 wineries.

We had an unexpected warm, sunny day.  Fog was all around the mountains.

We tried and bought a wine that was served at the White House from August Briggs winery.

We experienced our first mud bath.  "The combination of clay, peat and hot springs mineral waters in the mud bath relaxes muscles and joints, detoxifies, and leaves the skin soft and renewed."

More photos on our online album:  Calistoga Dec 2010

New Blog Followings

Besides following some of our friends' blogs about their lives and happenings, I also follow some other interesting blogs that showcase art and skills.  I've been following our wedding photographer, Kelly Photo, and a food blog, Phoo-D, for a while.  The newest blogs I'm following include:

Marci Schwartz - Marci was in 4H with my best friend, Nicki.  I used to go to a lot of fairs in the summertime to watch them all show cattle.  Now, Marci is a great artist and also makes the most adorable hats for kids.
She says she's updating her blog, but she also has a shop on etsy.com.

Zen Glass Blog - One of my good friends from high school started this glass company in 2002.  It's amazing the kind of things they can make with glass.  You can also find more of their products on their website, zenglass.com.  Josh's page shows some of the cool things he has made.  Of course, they are on facebook too!

Then, there's Jethro and Shannon's blog.  Jethro and I have been really good friends since we met at K-State.  We were lab partners in Physics.  He studies birds and migration patterns for a living.  He sets up nets and catches birds and then measures them and tags them before setting them free.  He leads an interesting life, always living in different parts of the U.S. throughout the year.  His job is seasonal, so recently he was in Alaska for Spring, Idaho for Spring/Summer, and Maine for Fall.  His girlfriend and he finally started a blog tracking their studies and they have some really cool pictures of nature and birds and other animals.

I just came across Circle S Ranch's blog, which is the place we got married.  It's been fun seeing what they've been up to as well.  I just learned they have chicken's now and will be providing eggs.  I'm not sure where or how they will be selling them exactly.

Operation "Wildflower Hill" Begins Tonight!

We have this small hill on the side of our condos that we have a view of from our condo.  It used to be lush with bushes and small tress, but then it started getting sprayed with chemicals.  We first saw the sprayer in March 2009 and asked our HOA to do something about it.  They said they didn't own the hill, so there wasn't anything they could do.

The sprayer came back this Spring and Mike ran out to talk to the guy to ask why he was spraying and killing everything.  The guy said that it was a fire hazard area, so he had to spray it.  He said he used to have someone helping him and they would just pull the weeds, but due to budget cuts, he just sprays everything.  He also said the chemicals were a safe "salt mixture" although he was covered in protective gear and a mask and we could smell it through our open windows.  He did mention to Mike that he wouldn't spray any flowers that he came across.  This gave Mike a great idea.  He ordered 5 pounds of wildflower seeds online and made a plan to spread them all over the hill and hope they would be growing in this coming Spring.  We are hoping to make the hill pretty and keep the guy from spraying again.

View from our condo, picture of the hill taken when we first moved in May 06.

The hill today

The sprayer

The hill after being sprayed in March 09

Let the experiement begin!  It's supposed to rain this weekend, so we are spreading the seeds tonight in the dark.

Tonight's Sunset

One of the best parts of living in San Diego are the amazing sunsets.

More CSA photos

We are still going strong with our CSA boxes.  It's fun to get our new box every other Sunday and then find recipes to use all the items.  Sometimes it takes a while to figure out a menu and sometimes we make some pretty interesting things.  We recently had tons of grapefruit and decided to just juice them since neither of us like grapefruit much and I couldn't find anything to make with them besides salsa.  I think it is actually growing on me now.  Currently, I have a lot of lemons and am trying to find ways to use them up.  That's how it goes, you get a lot of the same stuff and you eat a lot of the same stuff.  Then, the season changes and you start to get a lot and eat a lot of the same of something different.  I think Anthony Bourdain said that once on one of his shows regarding how Italians always eat what's in season.

Here are some more great pictures of what we've been getting and eating since my last CSA post.

Spaghetti with Swiss Chard

Albondigas Soup

Fish Tacos with Avocado Grapefruit Salad and Mango Margaritas

One of our boxes

We had never had passion fruit (the wrinkly looking things) before now.

Another box had an eggplant and sweet potato in it.

Something new, a Feijoa or Pineapple Guava, which we used in a Thai dish.

We've been getting lots of these pattypan (or scallop) squashes lately.

I can't wait to see what winter season bring us...

It's Our 4th Anniversary!

More wedding photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/mikeandtheresa06/WeddingPictures#

Desert Hiking

We made a last minute trip out to the desert over the weekend to go camping and hiking.  There are a lot of great trails at Anza Borrego Desert State Park.  We hiked the Slot Trail on Saturday and tried to get to the Wind Caves, but our Prius had a heard time getting through with all the ruts and deep sand.  We ended up hiking  a Nature Trail by our campground instead.  On Sunday, we explored the trails of Blair Valley.  They have a lot of historical significance.  The Ghost Mountain trail climbs a small mountain and houses the ruins of where a family lived in the 1930s.  We also hiked the Morteros and Pictograph Trail that show some history of the Kumeyaay Indians.

Hiking thru the Slot Trail

Looking out to the Borrego Badlands

Teddy Bear Cholla

Ruins of South Family house on Ghost Mountain

Groves where Indians ground nuts into meal

A Pictograph

Vallecitos Valley Lookout

A Roadrunner...Meep Meep