Chicken Enchiladas

Another day of rest. We had stake conference, lunch, were home taught, made dinner, had the missionaries over, then I visit taught, and we went to Karen and Alan's for apple pie.

The tortillas turned out much better this time. The whole time we were making them I kept quoting my YW leader, Kelly, who showed me how to make them. "Just dump that on" and "some of that business." Good memories.

Wilder Ranch

After I finished another beastly paper today, we celebrated with a little trip. John took me to Santa Cruz to an old ranch.

They had a place with tiny tunnels through the plants.

Tiny meaning child-sized. The opening was barely higher than my knee.

We also took advantage of this perfect climbing tree.

Then we hiked --okay, walked-- to the beach. It was a short distance and the destination was gorgeous.

John made me so nervous when he walked near to the edge. The cliff just drops right off!

The misty fog turned to a light drizzle, which did not help calm my hair one bit. We had a lovely time, though. It was nice to have some fresh air, exercise and break from school and work.

We left right after this to have dinner with Brian, Annie, Karen, and Alan before stake conference. Overall, a highly successful day.

Zipadeeay and heighdeeho

Russell, Amanda, John, my mom and I all went out to eat tonight to celebrate my mom's birthday.

Then we came back to our house for devil's food cake with cream cheese frosting.

Taking Steve to the Temple

John's home teachee, Steve, wanted to go see the Oakland Temple, so we took him up there today.

It was a beautiful day in the sixties and so clear we could see even the Golden Gate bridge.

We went through the visitor's center first.

Then walked around the grounds.

Steve seemed to enjoy himself, which is quite a feat.

It's slightly sunnier than the day we were married.

We love coming back here together.

At It Again

Today I went to our friend Jenn Malin's baby shower while John sanded away.

Admiring his handiwork.

One bedroom down, two more to go!

Erika and Apple Crisp

John's buddy Erika is moving to Alaska, so she came over for a last hurrah.

Some Beatles Rock Band was in order.

And a tasty barbecue dinner.

We made some apple crisp for the occasion.

I love this recipe, because it's so simple. Chopped apples, dry ingredients.

Mix and bake. Delicious.

Karen and Alan could smell it from across the neighborhood and stopped by to sample.

Random Phone Pictures

I've been really busy with school lately. And I started a new project at work that is very time consuming. As a result, we have been boring. For excitement we watch The Mentalist, which we borrowed from John's parents. To fill the void in our blogging, here are some more random pictures:

Why does Safeway keep fresh flowers next to the allergy and cold medicines? A conspiracy, I think.

We cleaned out our closet and John found this old shirt. I asked him the last time he wore it and he said he doesn't because it's too big. Big enough for both of us, he said. He was right.

Lastly, we found this black widow on our door mat! Scary!

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Today I had the day off from work. I spent my morning catching up on school work, went to lunch with Karen, then took Bubba to the vet.

He's had a cold for over a week now and he was very snorey. The vet suggested pulling one of his teeth, which I'm not sure how it could be related, but the estimate was $922-1274 so we decided to start with antibiotics and see if he feels better.

Poor boy. He didn't mind the vet one bit, though. And we didn't have to worry about buying appetite stimulants!

Peach No More

While Wendy was here she helped us prep and prime the guest bedroom. The soft yellow color is the one she had at her house: "Milkweed" by Dunn-Edwards.

We decided to take advantage of Karen's absence and enlist Alan's painting skills. He's so accurate he doesn't use tape. Saves us a fortune.

New Sunday

Melissa and I are teaching the CTR 4 class this year. They are more energetic, but very sweet kids.

After church we took down our Christmas decorations and John burned the tree.

Wendy, Bubba and I enjoyed the warmth.

Eleanor

We went to Bethany's daughter's baby blessing today. She was so sweet and it was nice to see all of the family. We didn't take our own pictures there, but Wendy took this one of us at home.

Not the most flattering, but it shows John's new sweater (from his mom) and hair cut (from his sister, Sarah). Smashing.

New Years

We tried out some new recipes from the ebelskiver cookbook we got for Christmas tonight. (Lemon poppy seed and mozerrella marinara)
We had quite the spread. Johns parents helped us with some of the snacks.
Then John, Wendy and I had rootbeer floats and watched movies until midnight. Great way to welcome 2011.