Turkey Menorah

 

Turkey Menorah

 

                                                       Yummy Yummy

                                                      Christmas Snake

Happy Happy to you! whichever holiday you are celebrating another Happy Happy to you!
We had a great time at the post thanksgiving and current Hanukah celebration last night. My favorite Oyster Rockefeller along with tons of caviar and a memory of didn't my doctor say to stay away from tons of bread and cheese?

I must back up though to Thanksgiving morning at my house where Mark and Morgan built a Fab gingerbread house with our newest member Christmas snake and all morning we ate homemade pumpkin spice muffins while I cooked.

Tonight as I sat down to write this Mark had the rack of lamb on the BBQ and I have to say the lamb with the stuffing and sweet potatoes and green beans was DeLish! Happy too that all the leftovers are gone!

Amazing that on December 1st we could still walk down ok drive down to Blackie's Pasture and

Mark and Morgan could play football. My Fitbit just popped up and said overachiever 12,640 steps today 5.19 miles walked which is for sure making me feel better about eating that yogurt ice-cream sandwich after dinner.

Halloween was actually fun

Ok I actually had a lot of fun trick or treating last night.
Next year I might even drop off Morgan at the corner of Trick or Treat (Safe) street and wait for her at the corner and let her her walk the 30 houses all by her self.
It was not cold and I didn't have to ask someone "Thanks for the candy and can I use your restroom"
We were home at 8:15 and Morgan brushed her teeth and we sat down to watch a recorded Mad and then I saw her sorting her candy and eating a skittle "What" after just brushing your teeth!
Anyway we all in bed at 9:00 reading. Just my kind of night.

In Your Strangeness You Are Perfect

Ok I forgot to post a September blog.
I am still perfect.
In my own strangeness I am still perfect.
My 30 year High School Reunion was cancelled due to low sign ups and that was perfect, yet kind of strange, yet perfect.
All my worrying about it was also perfect.
Why? Because I learned that all my worrying was a BIG waste of my time.
Even when I cannot step/think far enough to see outside the picture, it all ends up perfect.
I am happy because in looking at the bigger picture, sometimes it happens years later, I see it all ended up being perfect.

Happy October

Sweaty Men and Jackhammer Noise

Ok so normally I am not sitting at home listening to the sound of a jack hammer all day long.Due to a tree root lifting up the old concrete patio and heading toward our foundation and it was time to pull it up- the tree-the concrete a total makeover for the backyard.

                                                          Mark in the orange shirt

                                       Lots of hard work has been done and plenty more to do.                          

Annual Trip to Mendocino

Morgan's white feet and tan legs.

Plenty of kayaking

Lots of fried green tomatoes and abalone

Plenty of beer

 

Great foot ball playing and falling down

Yummy Yummy

Sand Castles

Beautiful green thing for me to look at

My Plate

One Great Day had by all

 

Montana Vacation

I cannot say enough about how cool Montana was.
In Yellowstone the geysers were interesting as walking thru them the steam was warm and yet it was super cold outside.
Chico Spa and Resort in Pray, Montana and our little cabin was right by the horse stable and Morgan was so excited to pet the horses and didn't mind the horse poop smell.
I loved it because the restaurant had all my favorites: Lamb rack, crème brule, great wine and the little café/gift shop had mocha espresso!
I guess I should mention on our way to Mark's brother's ranch we stopped in Virginia City and went horse back riding. Well for me in was more Panic Attack Riding. I refused to go up  the side of a hill and told our guide to take us a different way. I was seeing myself dropping out of the saddle. I felt like I was up so high on the horses back and if I fell it would be a long way down. Of course after the ride everyone was making fun of me and Morgan was calling it the PAR ride. At 10 she still has the notion that everything is funny. Looking back maybe it was a little funny, sort of.
Greg's ranch Western Star Ranch was great (top picture) and houses 6 horses that Morgan can't stop talking about. Ruby, Sadie, Dexter, Anita, Chanel, Carter. She was the first one up most days and grabbed my camera to take pictures. Greg bought Morgan some boots (you can see her in her boots in the above picture standing next to Ruby) and Montana doesn't have sales tax so when something has a price that's the price, no math necessary to add the tax. We saw a Golden Eagle standing in the middle of the high way, a Yellow-bellied Marmot under a porch, a Bison and Elks in Yellowstone, Pronghorn's along street where Greg lives. Montana is a place where you better have a full tank of gas as you can drive miles and miles and miles with out seeing a gas station or another car. We all had a relaxing time, enjoyed the wild life and big beautiful fluffy clouds. Happy June :)

Mirror Front

As May is approaching its end I am getting excited for Chef Tom to arrive and cook us dinner for our 11th anniversary. No idea of what to get Mark for a present. In a waiting for great idea to come zone.

The crayon drawing above is "Crayon drawing on paper by Gaelen"

I love restaurants where there is a big piece of paper over the table and crayons. Mark and Morgan used most of it playing dot art, then Morgan un screwed the parmesan cheese top and didn't quite screw it on tight and it spilled on most of my half of the table while I was trying to put some on my pizza slice. You can see the cheese stains below my drawing are not my messing eating stains.
The Butterscotch pudding desert relieved my feelings of  why didn't I check the top after I saw Morgan messing with it? 

I also love buildings that have a giant mirror in front of them. Hence the picture above. Notice Mark is using his phone as a gps to find the pizza place.

Happy May!

Wait a minute April's almost over?

Yes, we went on a hike at the beach today. Actually it was at Fort Chronkhite and now I will post a picture of that

my car is down there in the parking lot and you can see people trying to surf in the ocean but growing up in So. Cal I don't know if you can consider these waves. If the H2O wasn't so, so, so , COLD I would swim in it and not be scared of getting crashed on the head. Anyway the hike was great with ocean views

and as ever I am always looking for a heart either in the form of a rock or cloud but today leaving I looked down and saw this

Well time to watch our Saturday night movie with Morgan "Clone Wars" with our new surround sound.

Happy end of  April

24 Hrs till Easter

Happy to say we are having Easter Dinner/Late Lunch at out house and my sister and her family are coming here.

Having family for Dinner though takes a lot of work.

1st- Buy the Lamb Rack, Honey Goat Cheese, Point Reys Blue Cheese (Mark's Pick), Brie (Sinfully Creamy) Cheese (My Pick), Lobster Soup, and more $ of other stuff.

2nd- Install new Skylight (see above picture of Mark) 10 minutes before it started raining.

3rd- Install new smoke detector in kitchen since I by accident pulled the cover off the old one when alarm was going off. Easy to do with all the ringing in my ear, though I could never get it back on hence why we had to but the new one.

4th- Ask Morgan 100 times to put all of the Legos, Books, Misc. junk in her room away.

5th- Admit to myself I need 24 Hour Allergy (ALLER-TEC) medicine when I realized the back yard was covered in Acacia Pollen, I was sneezing, had a sore throat was really crabby with a runny nose type of person.

6th- Say a prayer + add some gratitude that I have time while Morgan's mac n cheese is cooking to do this late March blog.

Happy Spring!

New laptop and I sitting in bed

Ok this is the first picture taken with my new laptop. "Wow you got a new lap top you ask" and I reply  "Why yes Mark and Morgan gave me a laptop for my birthday yesterday" We had a great time and even got to watch Twilight -the movie- on regular T.V. Now its 10:30 and me and my laptop have to go to bed. Very happy that I can sit in bed and write my blog.

Happy New Year 2013

As I sit here and think about wishing everyone  Happy New Year the reminder from my high school for my 30 year Reunion is blowing my mind. Is it even possible 30 years has passed? Looking at the pictures from the 20 year reunion tells me its true. Ugh.

I don't even want to let my mind wander to the "What Should I" about the Reunion. 9 months away.

I just took a mini break to stare at my mandala. Feeling better, slightly.

Thinking about this post earlier I had so many ideas about what I was going to say. Now they have gone away just like the 30 years.

I keep telling myself I am 34 but I guess I'm not.

Ugh.

Anyway wishing you a Happy New Year and a great journey on your travels this year.

Gaelen