This Is It For Awhile

I wanted to share my newest and most favorite Christmas tree ornament. I got it for Christmas last year. I'm excited because this is the first year I'm getting to enjoy and appreciate it.

Kevin Marching in the Band

Here is the Burroughs Marching Band in the Christmas Parade. Kevin is the very tall one in the middle playing the drums.

Space Shuttle Fun

The Sunday after returning from Massachusetts John took me to Edwards Airforce Base to watch the Space Shuttle land. If you look very closely you can see the tail of the thing on the ground. You'll need to blow up the picture first though. I think you can do that by double clicking.
Have fun searching.


The best part about being there in person was the double sonic boom. BOOM! BOOM!

More Early Christmas

More early Christmas goodies.

This is my brand new sewing machine. I've never had my very own brand new sewing machine. This one is extra special because it has an automatic needle threader! Love it.

This is the first project I made with my new toy. It's a Christmas stocking for the newest addition to the immediate family. Nathan Scott Boberg. It seemed to actually take less time to make than the others I made on the "old" machine. Thanks John!

Christmas Came Early to Our House

Thanks Mom!


Glug glug.

Natalie's First Concert

Natalie's first concert. There she is on the right with the saxophone.


Yea Natalie.

It's Really Real

Friday before we left for home we went to the Science Museum to see the new Triceratops exhibit. It's a recent installation of a fully excavated dinosaur found in one of the Dakotas.

Roar!

Thanks for a great visit Rideouts.

Thanksgiving Thursday

Kickball, Boston and Turkey. Oh, and Monopoly.

Thanksgiving morning was spent playing a rousing game of kickball with Robin's neighbors. It was the kids against the adults. I'm not really sure who won. It really doesn't matter since we had so much fun.

After that John and I went into Boston on the train. We did a little more shopping. Even though it was Thanksgiving Thursday we were able to find some bargains in Chinatown.

Here's the honored turkey cooked.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Britt and Beau made yummy yummy pie.

We also spent part of the day playing National Parks Monopoly. The kids let John win. He walked away with all the money, all the tents and all the ranger cabins.

Strategy Pays Off

On Wednesday in Cambridge Robin took us to the schools so we could watch the boys participate in Turkey Trots hosted by the schools. Casey's brilliant plan (adopted from his older brother) was to start out slow, let the other boys burn out then pass them all during the second half of the race. It worked!

Here he is coming around the last corner of the race.

Here's the homestretch.

Casey crossing the finish line.

This clever strategy payed off with a first prized turkey. The second place winner was given a pie and third apple cider. Here's a shot of the winners.
Here's a shot of Beau on his THIRD lap around the school's field. We love you guys.

Wednesday night we went to the ice rink and watched hockey practice. Busy busy family. Oh, we also went out for Himalayan food. Yum.

Harvard Anyone?

John and I visited Robin, Britt, Beau and Casey in Cambridge, MA for Thanksgiving. On Tuesday John and I went into Cambridge to do a little Christmas shopping while the boys were in school. Before the spree we strolled through the old Harvard campus. Here are some pictures to delight your senses. Yes, that's rain. Lovely rain.


Here's the library you must be a student to get into.


Here is looking across Harvard Yard from the Church.


Here is a shot of the ceiling outside the front of the Church.

Hmm.

Kern River Valley Nature Preserve

John and I went on an outing this weekend. He wanted to see some Fall leaves so we headed over to Weldon on the recommendation from someone at work. We visited the Kern River Valley Nature Preserve and went for a short hike. For those of you who know me know I don't love to hike. So to clarify it was more of a walk. Here are some pictures of the day.

The colors are starting to turn a bit. Pretty sky huh?

Here is a shot of what the trail looks like.

Not as pretty as Tahoe, but "Fally" non-the-less.

Driving out through the cow pasture.

The cows are home.

Matzo Ball Soup

It's a special occasion. John and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary today. Last week we were in Los Angeles. We stopped for lunch at Whole Foods Market (we really like the hot food there). Anyway, I got Matzo Ball Soup. I've never had Matzo Ball Soup before that day. It was delicious. So, I found a decent recipe online and recreated it for tonight's dinner. I simmered the chicken practically all day and made my first Matzo Balls from a box. I was surprised they plumped up so much. I'll have to work on that and find a way to make them a little denser. Overall, the dinner was a success. I served the soup with a green salad with a lemon vinaigrette sprinkled with Herbs De Provence. We shared a store bought cupcake for dessert (it was the most weddingy cake we could find). And that's it. Oh, and Ginger was there. He likes Matzo Ball soup too.

Blueberry Ice Cream

I've been getting these really good frozen blueberries at Trader Joe's for my morning smoothie and decided they would make really good ice cream too and they did!

Here are the ingredients to making blueberry ice cream minus the sugar, vanilla and salt. I actually used heavy whipping cream and milk, but this is all I had left in the refrigerator for the picture. I think, though, that next time I might just use half and half because the ice cream using heavy whipping cream and milk was kind of heavy.

Cooking the blueberries and sugar.

Blending the cooled cooked blueberries and cream mixture.

John cooling the blended mixture so we could freeze it faster than waiting for it to cool in the refrigerator.

The freezing step. There is Kevin's hand on the stove top and reflection on the stainless steel bowl. He's anticipating the blueberry goodness. After the freezing step we put it in the freezer to freeze the rest of the way while we all went rock climbing. Upon our return we ate some and then we ate some more.

Ta-da! The final result. Pretty lavender colored ice cream that tastes like blueberry.

My First Blue Box

I'm not much of a jewelry wearer. So when I saw a gift had been sent to me from Tiffany's I was a little perplexed. It all became clear however when I read the letter sent along with the gift; it's a three year commitment appreciation pen from L-3! It took me a while to find it, but there is the logo at the top. Very subtle. I wonder what they'll send for my five year commitment . . .


BTW ~ it was three years in May . . . does that make me a bad blogger?

It's Vegan

I was listening to a radio podcast the other day. It was a food show. The host was interviewing someone who went on a cupcake expedition. It was her goal to find and eat artisan cupcakes on a trip across the country to see where the best one is located. Her favorite was a vegan chocolate cupcake from where I don't remember. Click here if you want to listen or read about Violet Whipps (the girl with the cupcake fetish) and to find out where in the world that coveted vegan cupcake lives. That bit of information about the really great vegan cupcake peaked my interest enough to make my own vegan cupcake right here in my Ridgecrest home kitchen. I found a recipe online and viola! Here it is . . .


The cupcake is delicious. It's not too sweet, but the frosting is GROSS! All I had to use in place of non-hydrogenated shorting was coconut oil which should have worked because it's a solid at room temperature or so I thought . . . It's actually really oily and the taste is too sweet. I think I might add cocoa powder to it to see if that will help. I doubt it.

It's cute though right?

Me and Huell

Here we are at Maddie's Cafe together. I was there for a working dinner with visitors from Virginia and Huell Hauser! walked in shortly after. He was kind of working the room so I obliged by getting up and having my picture taken with him. Jerry Bradley had his iphone so we actually had a camera to follow through with plan. He wouldn't say why he was in town. I'll have to wait and either read it in the paper or watch the show.

Seattle 2008

The weekend after my birthday John took me to Seattle. Our first stop was dinner with Uncle Ron, Aunt Joanie and First Cousin Once Removed Jazzmarilla. We took a land taxi to the restaurant. We had just gotten off the plane and checked into our hotel when it was time to leave. We ate at Salty's across the bay from Downtown. It was a good choice because we had the Downtown Seattle Skyline as a backdrop view instead of sitting in a downtown restaurant looking out.

Here we all are at Salty's.

Downtown Seattle Skyline.


Here is a picture of water taxi we took back to Seattle then walked back to our room. John and I took a taxi from the airport to the hotel and from the hotel to the restaurant, a water taxi back to downtown, the monorail for fun, and a shuttle from the hotel back to the airport and that's it. The rest of the weekend we were able to walk everywhere. Seattle is awesome that way. We even walked to the flagship REI store from our hotel not at all far away.


Infamous Pike's Place Market.

Produce displayed inside the market.

Fresh fish for sale.

Fresh dried pasta. Is that an oxymoron?

Everyone in the market had a bouquet of these fresh flowers. Gorgeous!

The flagship Seattle Starbucks Coffee Shop featuring the original logo which they are migrating back to mainstream.

The main reason John and I were in Seattle that weekend was to see Cake play music at Paramount Theatre. Here is a picure of that theatre.

Here we are after the concert.

John flaunting his concert t-shirt.

We also saw fine art while we were there. We visited SAM (Seattle Art Museum). This tree is part of it's public art installation. Can you tell it's made of metal?

Prom Night

I know . . . these are out of order. What can I say?

Here are Brent and Albert before the prom looking handsome as usual.

Here is a picture of Brent with his date, Albert's sister (can you see the resemblence?) at the prom.