'Tis the Season

The month of December is jam packed with excitement. Well, every year it starts off with a glorious day. A day in which I inherit another year's worth of wisdom and maturity. This year, my sis (the one from the previous post who absolutely rocks) made me a gorgeous cake. It was poppyseed cake with two filling layers of freshly sliced strawberries. YUM.

The first weekend after my birthday, we celebrated Festivus with some of my best college pals. It was a great reunion and welcoming back to the west coast. We thoroughly enjoyed the tradition we started in college of a potluck thanksgiving dinner with friends. Mikey has perfected the turkey roasting and was a gracious host to us all. Happy Festivus!!

Sis hosted a holiday party the following weekend. I have mentioned the profiteroles. YUM.

Dad took us to a local holiday play in San Jose to help enjoy the spirit of Christmas. I greatly enjoyed the production and the experience of the very small playhouse. The entire play was acted with two actors. I laughed. I cried. It was a good show.

At home, in Jack London Square, we are relishing in the California style holiday decorations. The palm tree grove is covered in christmas lights. They flash in all different patterns and colors. You can even text your color/pattern requests. First requested, first played. Holidy Buy Night in the Jack London Square Farmer's Market Building was the perfect opportunity for me to get all my christmas shopping done. And I did. It was wonderful to meet the local vendors and buy locally made products for my loved ones.

Merry Christmas!

Pumpkin Profiteroles

You may know that my sis is professionally trained in baking goodness. She hosted a holiday party this past weekend and served many scrumptious treats. The most scrumptious of all were the pumpkin profiteroles. YUMM!

Imagine a poppable (bit-size) profiterole (usually served with ice cream in the middle) with pumpkin cream inside topped with a maple caramel sauce and sprinkled with toasted walnuts. You're imagining goodness, right? The pumpkin cream she made from scratch by whipping up whipped cream and adding her own spices to mimic the pumpkin pie flavor, then she folded in real pumpkin. It was delightful. She also made the maple caramel sauce from scratch, on the stove, right in front of me. I was happy to be the taste tester for all components and proud to say that I toasted and chopped the nuts. What else are sisters for?

I apologize for not having a picture to share. I was too busy popping the profiteroles in my mouth. Did I mention YUMM?

Is it eavesdropping when you can't help it?

"I thought I was going to have to beat you over the thumb."

This is what I thought I heard the sweet girl with a southern accent say over her cell phone just a few seats down from me on Amtrak. She's talking to a loved one and thought they were crying about how they missed each other. In retrospect, she probably said "phone" not thumb.

What gets you out of bed in the morning?

For me, today, it's the banana and fresh strawberries in the kitchen. They are calling my name.

What is this falling from the sky?

Rain? I thought I moved to sunny California.

In seriousness, the rain is good. We're apparently in year three of a drought. I saw the most convoluted sentence on the State's Department of Water Resources website saying that the recent major rainstorms did not significantly reduce our accumulated water supply deficit.

Several sunny days this week allowed is to use the pool, the hot tub, and the wogging path. Life is good.

Happy Weekending!

Phew!

We are home. Our travels were splendid, fun, awesome, and a tad tiring. We have a busy weekend of unloading Fred and unpacking, but we are so glad that we aren't travelling anymore, it doesn't seem like a chore.

I think I just made a rhyme. You be the judge.

Happy Halloween!

Scrumptious Autumn

A and I are driving 95 in CT and appreciating the beautiful fall colors of New England. We are on our way from Eastham, MA on Cape Cod to the District of Columbia. We've been on the move since October 8th.

After a quick stop to get our new apartment in Oakland we headed down to Los Angeles for a few days. The traffic there hasn't changed. The freeways are still massive and filled with plenty of people. I think some double decker highways are in order down there.

We lived the So Cal life in Long Beach for a few days. Sis and A had fun while I was working and we all enjoyed dinner with Grandma, a tour of the St. Mary, and a trip to Universal Studios. The new Simpsons ride was GREAT! The absence of a crowd meant we could re-live the wonderful days of childhood where we ran from the exit of a rollercoaster right back around to the entrance over and over again. We'll always be kids at heart. The Jurassic Park ride soaked us many times. We screamed and laughed a lot! That's the American dream, right? Churros, screams, roller coasters, and bad jokes. We had a blast and were scrumptiously entertained. I was particularly impressed with the larger than life Whoopi Goldberg cut out welcoming us to the tram ride. Instead of a lion or mouse, Universal has an Oscar Winning Whoopi as their mascot.

From Universal Studios we said "see you later" to Sis at the airport and took a red eye to Boston. Didn't we just leave there? Amazingly, it felt great to be back, even though we weren't really. A recognized the landmarks of the region from the airplane as we approached in the morning sun. The fall colors were abundant and gleefully gorgeous.

We hopped in a bright blue 2010 VW Beetle at the Rental Car lot and headed for Cape Cod. We joined up with A's family in a super relaxing house in Eastham and attended a beautiful wedding at the Orleans Inn. The bride and groom had their names printed on Hershey's chocolate bars! It poured rain during the whole wedding, but we hardly noticed. It was a sunny day inside.

We worked hard to finish the 1000 piece puzzle that was started before we arrived and went for a lovely walk on the Cape Cod Rail Trail. It was the most relaxing two days I've had since .... hmmm... I don't remember.

Today is beautiful and sunny. I understand we missed some snow in New England while we were gone. We are grateful for the good weather for our glorious drive in the blue beetle to DC.