Weekend Fun

We had a great weekend!

We took advantage of "Free Museum Day" and visited the San Diego Air and Space Museum. I'd never been - and it was fantastic! We saw the command module from Apollo 9 (on loan from the Smithsonian) and am again amazed that we ever made it to the moon, both from a technological standpoint AND from a pure competitive drive perspective. I doubt we still have that drive in this country today (that soapbox is for another day though).

We also spent some time at Paradise Point, where we were married 6 years ago (last weekend). In our annual tradition, we took photos so we can see ourselves through the years in the same place. Here's a few...

This is the site where our ceremony was performed...

Where these pictures were taken (just a different angle - and our reception site is right behind us)...

And you might recognize this structure from last year...

Did you have a wonderful weekend too? What did you do?

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100 Days of holiday cookies

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Vacation? Check!

The Mr convinced me that we needed a nice relaxing vacation... so we booked a cruise for the end of next month! Less than 30 days and we will be sailing to Mexico for 7 days of fun in the sun!

This is our itinerary:

Sound like fun? The ship still has some space.....

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The Joys of Home Ownership?

Last evening we came home to a wet floor and wetter ceiling and found that a pipe had burst in the attic!

This is the pipe that broke.

The leak was easy for the plumber to access through the hole in the ceiling....

Seeing a fire extinguisher makes me a little nervous!

And here's why we might have needed the fire extinguisher (we didn't, of course)!

Now we're left with a plastic covered hole for a few days.

All said and done, the whole thing could have been much worse. The plumber was very reasonable, even at overtime prices. The leak was slow and the water did really minimal damage considering what it could have done. We have friends in the construction industry who have recommended a good drywaller to fix the ceiling.

Here's hoping we have a dry floor when we get homne tonight!

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First Day of Fall?

Though the calendar clearly says "September 22" we would not know it by looking outside.

We've got some crazy fog obscuring our mountain view...



... and do these temperatures say fall to you?

Hope there is a bit of chill in the air to usher in autumn where you are!

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I Heart Faces - Completely Candid

One of my favorite photos - my brother-in-law and sister-in-law as they watch their youngest daughter dance her first dance with her new husband. The quality of the photo is not great - low lighting, handheld camera... but the feeling is there.

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This Week's Theme Dinner

We celebrated "National Talk Like a Pirate Day" this weekend.

Here's what we made for dinner...

This is The Mr in his Pirate gear...
... and my own Pirate gear...




That's what we call dedication to a gag.

First person who saw our costumes was The Girl (12) who rolled her eyes, clearly embarrassed to be in the same family. Then The Boy (8) who mostly didn't notice. Then The Children's mom (The Mr's ex) who came in the house when she dropped off The Children. You can't invent comedy like that.

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Six Years Ago Today....

And I could not ask for more.

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Chasing the Perfect Recipe

Six years ago today, we had our wedding rehearsal. We had a beautiful day for it, and everything went smoothly. I really enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere after all the stress of pre-wedding errands!

We had our rehearsal dinner at a local Italian restaurant, Filippi's Pizza Grotto. They have the absolute best fettucine alfredo and really incredible pizza.

I'm half Italian and I love pasta. My new (Weight Watchers) lifestyle makes it hard for me to eat pasta covered in a cream/butter/cheese sauce... at least more than a bite or two. So I have set out to create an alfredo sauce that tastes like and has the texture of real alfredo sauce, but without all the fat and calories.

Here's a classic original recipe -

1/2 c. butter

1 c. Parmesan cheese, grated

1 c. heavy cream

Melt butter in saucepan; add cream and cheese. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly. Do Not Boil. Serve over hot fettuccine noodles. Serves 4.

This is about 15 WW points - without counting the pasta!

I've tried several variations of light sauce. Something is always a bit off - wrong texture, not quite the right flavor, sometimes both. I think, however, after a number of tries, I may have a decent (2 WW pt) recipe.

1 c. fat-free evaporated milk

1 c. fat-free milk

4 oz. fat-free cream cheese

3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Stir milks and cream cheese together in a saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the cream cheese is melted. Do not boil! Add the grated Parmesan cheese and stir until incorporated - do not boil! Serve over fresh fettucine noodles (pts. not included).

The keys to this recipe are 1) the method - do not boil! and 2) using high quality and very flavorful Parmesan cheese.

Hope you try this and enjoy it. I'm also working on lightening up some other decadent recipes - keep an eye out!

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Saying Goodbye to Summer

We had a really fabulous summer! I enjoyed a blogging hiatus, and look forward to the start of fall and blogging again.

Now that summer is nearly officially over (though here in San Diego summer lingers for a bit longer and in fact the record high temperature ever here was recorded on September 26, 1963) I thought I would reflect on some of the fun things we did...

Spent the 4th of July aboard the USS Midway

Visited the world famous San Diego Zoo

And the Wild Animal Park!

Saw Topol in his farewell tour of "Fiddler on the Roof" - fantastic!

Ate tons of fresh strawberries

Built a beautiful bird bath fountain

Celebrated The Girl's 12th birthday (heaven help us - the teen years are looming)

Took a day off to play at a water park

Saw Spamalot!

Had fun with light and photography

Spent many evenings strolling through our neighborhood

Bought Guitar Hero World Tour (and spent many evenings playing it!)

Fed gallons of hummingbird food to our little friends

Saw Star Trek, The Terminator and Harry Potter in the theater

Read a ton of books and magazines

Watched Evita, Cloverfield, Hotel Rwanda, Seven Pounds, Crash, 88 Minutes, Apocolypto, Hitch and We Are Marshall (thanks to NetFlix) among others

Enjoyed time with friends and family

Celebrated with the family at our 40th Annual Family Reunion!

And last, and by no means least - celebrated THE END OF CANCER TREATMENTS with my sister!



She's in the middle -doesn't she look great?!


Hope you all had wonderful summers too!

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remembering

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