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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Tip Junkie Giveaway!

This is the final day of Tip Junkies Birthday Bash!! You have to go check her out!!



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Our Super Jack is the Kiwanis 2nd grade Super Student of the Year!

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Calling All Stepmoms and Parents of Tweens

The Mr recently posted this list of "11 Things I don't do with The Children anymore, and why" on facebook. It's all true, and sadly accurate. The Mr thought it would be a good idea to post it here and elicit advice.

11 Things I don't do with The Children anymore, and why

1) Skiing: The Girl had a crying meltdown the second day, after a very good day in lessons. Had to threaten to fireman's carry her down the mountain before she'd stand up. Left the slopes at 10:30am. Killed a bottle of Stoli afterwards.

2) Geocaching: No specific incident, but neither The Girl nor The Boy have any interest in doing anything that involves being outside, walking, or looking for stuff...so geocaching is right out.

3) Bike Riding: Last ride to the park (less than a mile) resulted in The Boy crying the entire way there.

4) Hiking: Last trip (3 mile roundtrip) resulted in The Girl wailing the entire time... about 2 hours total. Nonstop. Wailing.

5) Concerts/Theater: The Girl slept through Riverdance, Blue Man Group, and Stomp.

6) The Wild Animal Park: Too many hills, too much walking, animals too far away.

7) The Zoo: Too many hills, too much walking, animals too close.

8) Del Mar Fair: The Boy & The Girl were so grounded from the car ride there that they couldn't play outside their rooms for a week afterwards. The Boy then alternately cried and tried to bargain the entire time we were there.

9) Museums: Took them to the USS Midway, phenomenal museum combining aircraft, the sea, and recent US history. Tied to our family...parents did arrested landing & catapult shot on the Midway. Also, we rented it for their 50th. Took kids. Went to flight deck. Surrounded by planes. Girl found a bench, sat down, started texting. Never got up till we left.

10) Movies: We planned to see Happy Feet with Nana & Papa in Minnesota. We spent the day at the Children's Museum in Minneapolis, then stopped at McDonald's for dinner. On the way to the theater, they started fighting over the happy meal toy...the one that they both had. It escalated. As we approached the intersection where "straight" was the theater and "left" was Nana & Papa's. About 2 minutes early, I warned them that they needed to get it under control because, if they didn't, we're going to skip the movie. The escalation continued, and we turned left. We still haven't seen Happy Feet.

11) Red Bull Air Races: My personal, saddest favorite. The Air Races were on San Diego Harbor. We found a spot on a pier where we had a great view of 300 mph airplanes pulling 9g's around pylons, flying 25 ft above the water. Neither The Boy nor The Girl would look up. Read that again. They wouldn't look up. Stared at the pier. For a half hour. I'm not exaggerating.

These are all true stories. The Girl is 11, The Boy 8. They are both generally good kids. Their relationship with each other is terrible (she loathes him, he adores her - this is another blog) but when they are not together they are generally good to have around. Unless we want to actually DO anything. Then, all bets are off.

I think it may be a thing of the times... kids today seem to be pretty scheduled, so maybe they don't want to do anything because they are always so busy. Maybe we are choosing the wrong things to do. So far, we have been unable to determine how we can fix it. Any ideas on what we can do to help The Children be interested in DOing things?


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Random Thursday Stuff

Lots of random thoughts in my head today...

• Thanks for your prayers for The Mr's uncle Blue.  They are still trying to figure out what needs to be done for him, and he is sedated and restrained today so that he cannot do any damage to his sutures.  His wife (The Boy calls her Aunt Charlie) is doing a lot better today though, and continues to be so strong.
• The Boy had his karate test tonight - he needs to retest on one small item next week, but otherwise had a great test!  He'll likely move to Orange Belt 2nd Degree next week!
• We're planning for retirement - I'm hoping our hobby job will involve a seaplane and living in Kaua'i.
• Some fun news - I applied to Weight Watchers several months ago.  My meeting leader thought I would make a good leader, so I sent in an application.  A few weeks ago, they called me and offered me a job as an At-Work leader!  It's a very part-time job, but I'm so exicted to help people learn what I've learned.  What a great opportunity for me to give back!
• I've been reviewing my google analytics.  If anyone knows anyone in Delaware or Montana, could you send them over?  I'm missing visitors from those two states!  :-)
• Looking forward to a relaxing weekend.  Just have to get through Friday.

And in my never-ending quest to become a better photographer, I was playing with my camera settings today.  Here's a sample of what came out:

Hope your Thursday was wonderful!

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