Under Construction

Loving, lately

Hmm, all the good intentions and desire to document yet it's been pretty quiet on ye olde blog. I'm loving using Instagram to mark memories I want to keep. I print all the photos in books using Chatbooks. They arrive every 60 photos and it's the most perfect scrapbooking system I've ever found.

Other stuff I've loved lately:

• Staying up late embroidering and hand quilting a gift for my new nephew.
• MY NEW NEPHEW (who apparently looks like a baby me. Which is only fair since Biscuit looked just like my sister). I need to go snuggle him some more!
• Oscar's delight in Christmas ornaments. He's honestly a bit greedy about it but as someone who loves to pull out ornaments each year and remember who gave them to me, who made them or what trip they commemorate I am all in on supporting his greedy love. We made little wood trains/cars/boats, salt and cinnamon dough cut outs and still need to make some walnut babies. He is also now taking over my/my mom's giant collection of Hallmark's Frosty Friends ornament series.
• Biscuit's developing skills as a chef. This is her current career of choice. I really need to find a restaurant that will take on a 12 year old dishwasher/host/whatever. Anyone know anyone?
• Watching TV while staying up late. I loved the movies Arrival and The Big Sick and binged on Designated Survivor (don't judge). I'm not usually a TV person so this is fun
• Getting back into shape with Biscuit as my coach. In October she coached me through what amounted to a couch to 5K work out. Very humbling since going out and running three miles used to be pretty easy even if it had been a while. Then I got sick for a lot of December and now it's once again humbling to get back to where I was this time last month. Still, 12 year old coaches are very encouraging.
• Cadette Girl Scouts. Honestly, so much better than the cute little daisies and brownies. You make a suggestion or two and they're off. No leader needed.
• My book club with no assigned reading. Another member recommended "Untangled" about parenting pre-teen and teenage girls and I'm finding it very insightful.
• Our new coffee maker. We splurged and gave each other a Miele espresso maker thing for Christmas. Mr. H did a lot of carpentry to build it into our kitchen and it looks perfect. Any coffee beverage you can think of at the press of a button. So fun. Come over for coffee.

Ok, I think the broke the ice. Maybe I'll be around more often. Happy 2018!

Surprise!

Biscuit is 12! Those of you following along for a while may recall she was once a few months old. She's in 7th grade and Mr. H and I agreed that it was time she got a real phone. She's had an iPod touch for several years but that only works on wifi and it's super convenient for us to be able to reach her and everyone else has a phone. So a few weeks ago we surprised her with an iPhone (lucky girl!) and told her that was it from us for her birthday. She was totally cool with that. We'll have a little joint family party later in the month and her Grammy was going to take her to to mall to buy a few clothes so she was set.

But then we decided to go for it and throw a surprise party. She's wanted one for a while and timing seemed good so we went for it.

The cover story with Grammy was already set. Grammy would pick her up for a shopping spree but, unknown to Biscuit, when they went to grab lunch in the food court her friends would be there. I spent weeks casually quizzing her about who she had lunch with and any new friends. Junior high brings a lot of new people/friendships which is great but made it hard to know who to invite. She tells me I did okay ;) For the parents I knew, I sent them an evite. For the new friends, I stole their cell numbers off Biscuit's phone and texted them myself asking for their parents' contact info to send the evites. And it worked! The 'fancy' mall is about 20ish minutes from our house so we offered to drive the girls there and back or they could meet us there. Here's how it went down.

After bedtime Saturday night: make and frost cake, hide it on top of the washing machine. I made the coconut cake from Barefoot Contessa. It was great but less almond extract next time.

9:30: I went to run 'errands' and picked up balloons and some party hats, plates and candles. Hid them in the garage.

10:30: Biscuit gets picked up by Grammy. In an added wrinkle/surprise/lucky situation my parents spent Saturday night at our place having been evacuated from the horrible fires in Santa Rosa. Fortunately it appears their home is going to be okay! As far as Biscuit knew, shopping was still a go and off she went with Grammy while the rest of us finished breakfast.

10:30-11 Run around packing the car (don't forget a knife for the cake or forks, found some crepe paper etc)

11-11:20 Five girls arrived. A few panicked texts to connect with parents (one cancellation, one person unexpectedly meeting at the mall not our house)

11:30 Pile into the suburban with Oscar left at home with his other grandparents (very convenient!)

11:35 Realize Suburban has an exhaust leak, return home, switch cars, text Grammy that surprise is moved back to 12:15. Text friends meeting at mall to grab a table.

Noon: arrive at mall. Twist crepe paper, hand out hats, candles in cake, text Grammy we're ready

12:15 Biscuit walks up, is totally surprised and instantly bursts into tears. Success!

12:20 Hand out money to each girl (we settled on $20 per girl which my cheap self was sort of dying over, $10 seemed better but lunch with a drink would have been close to $10 and $15 was hard to get change and $20/girl--$160-- was still cheaper than renting a bounce house or a party at a place so I rolled with it). Every single girl got Panda Express and scarfed it down. So much for all the options of the food court. They kept their change to shop with.

1 pm Girls head out to shop being too full for cake. We tell them to be back at 2. Grammy, Mr. H and I hang out, keep the table, eat our lunches and catch up.

2 pm Girls return having bought bath bombs from Lush and cheap stuff from Daiso. Many complaints that it wasn't nearly enough time (it wasn't) but we move on to singing and cake

2;25 Depart mall despite sadness about shortness of visit

3ish Return girls to their homes at promised time.

Notes: We really should have allowed more time at the mall--probably two hours. Evite worked great (you can text or email the invite). Biscuit has really sweet friends. It was great to have a surprise party not at home as we didn't need to really clean/decorate thus arousing suspicion. And it was totally easy as we didn't have to plan any activities! Despite saying "no gifts" most girls brought a little something so then it got a bit awkward. But everyone played it cool. No gifts is definitely the way to go for the modern, well off pre-teen. 

A few photos. The "surprise" photos were totally back lit due to windows. Bummer. But the girls were nice and let me take a few group shots.

Happy Birthday, Biscuit!

T-shirt quilt for Biscuit's elementary school years (plus a taste of 6th grade promotion)

Biscuit (and now Oscar) have attended a really wonderful elementary school with a focus on experiential learning and tons of field trips. There is a great parent volunteer structure which allows for tons of extras including lots of t-shirts for trips and programs. And of course she's been in Girl Scouts since kindergarten and has enjoyed being a part of school plays, running club, music and all sorts of stuff. I made this quilt (top) as a surprise for 6th grade graduation and finally finished up the binding last week. The quilting and backing are awful but overall I really love this. Unfortunately Biscuit is still pretty much so annoyed that I cut up her (nearly too small!) 4th grade shirt that she doesn't love it as much as I was hoping but I'm still glad I made it. (and I saved her still beloved 5th grade shirt!). Incorporating the scouting sashes makes it a bit lumpy and perhaps less washable but I totally love how it looks.

Isn't her third grade Pioneer Days embroidery cute? I love these kind of details!

Here is the pile of shirts I started with. After hemming and hawing I just cut into them and made them whatever size they wanted to be. Then I started sewing and filled in the gaps with green and gray shirts (their school color is green). And it worked! I fit all the shirts I really wanted and it's almost exactly twin bed size!

 

 

Lake Topaz 2017

I just had a pleasant walk down memory lane looking at posts from Lake Topaz in 2008,  2009, 2013 (Oscar was such a baby!), 2014

Not always the best documenting and a serious lack of photos but I had totally forgotten that Biscuit potty trained at Topaz and Oscar used to call his best buddy cousin "Mimi".

So, this year's lake report so far.

• We are +1 and -2 (Biscuit brought a friend for the week and my sister and brother in law could only stay the weekend--luckily they left their kids)
• Food continues to be excellent. Taco Tuesday last night. Also did a baked potato bar that was a hit and are trying Bahn Mi sandwiches tomorrow.
• I continue to hike everyday. I used to jog every day but I'm too out of shape so now I hike. But in a new twist my niece and father in law have each accompanied me.
• Biscuit is great at wakeboarding! 
• Oscar (and a few other kids) are really into fishing. He caught a 6 inch long bass off the dock and ran it up to the trailer with it dangling from the hook nearly overcome with excitement. We threw it back but he's been telling everyone he caught a fish. 
• Biscuit has been making custom breakfasts and she and her friend cleaned the trailer. Eleven year olds can be really awesome.
• We're trying to bribe Oscar to get him up on double skis. Not sure yet if this will work.
• Switched up the usual wine tasting and did a beer tasting with American style lagers (Bud, Coors, PBR and Miller). The last three were fine. Light, refreshing, about what you'd think but the Bud was really not good at all. I was surprised.
• There is still plenty of wine tasting.

Picnic Day 2017

Another year, another Picnic Day. I continue to love it. Mr. H continues to not be a fan and not attend but he was happy this year because I brought home seven grapevines for our new vineyard. The Department of Viticulture and Enology gives away vines every Picnic Day so our entire family waited in line and got vines which are planted and thriving in the front yard.

It was so fun to have my two-year-old niece at Picnic Day this year. Of course I didn't get any photos but she was there along with my sister, brother-in-law, mom and dad. The weather was perfect and it was a lovely day.

We continued our random tradition of going to the fire station at lunchtime and seeing the medivac helicopter take off. We started what may be a new tradition of participating in art at the new Shrem Museum. We missed the farm animals (my niece saw them) but hit up the entomology exhibit hard and I was surprised how long Oscar spent looking at bugs, dead and alive. We also saw an amazing display featuring live bats and a volunteer feeding them mealworms with tweezers! The day always ends with Battle of the (Marching) Bands which is so fun but less so when everyone is worn out so we cut it short and headed home knowing that there will be another Picnic Day in 2018.

Oh look, here's a photo from Picnic Day 2007! What a difference a decade makes.

Orange you glad it's October?

Can you tell the birthday party theme? We do a joint birthday party in the Spring for the boys so this Fall we started a joint party for the fall babies: Biscuit (11), my mom and my brother-in-law. I couldn't come up with a theme so I went with a color. If you're planning an Orange theme party October is the time to do it--orange is everywhere and there are plenty of orange foods available.

In addition to the fruit (cantaloupe, persimmon, tangerine, mango and canned peach) and vegetable (carrots, orange peppers, orange cauliflower and orange cherry tomatoes) we served orange cheeses and orange snack foods (cheezits and some sort of snack mix). The main dish was butternut squash soup (so good!), grilled cheese and orange chicken straight from Panda Express.

Finally, dessert was cake three ways. An ice cream sandwich cake inspired by this but not following those directions. The cake was the chocolate cake filled with Biscuit's homemade vanilla ice cream. My mom had the most delicious chocolate peanut butter cake ever. Biscuit had carrot cake. Because you have to have carrot cake for an orange party!

The only game was an orange peeling contest and watching my niece chase the cat around. Let's be honest, the party was mostly about eating (with a side of presents). It's so fun to think about these joint parties and do the decor and make the food. I'm pretty sure birthday cakes are my love language.

Oh, and that great polka dot paper I put on the table and wrapped around the lampshade is from the dollar store. And all those orange veggies in the centerpiece were fun to buy. We grew the pumpkins! And that centerpiece is moving nicely into fall.

 

Small Victories

Last Wednesday (on a school night) I took off work early, picked up Biscuit (but not Oscar) after school and we drove to San Francisco (two three hours away) for a book signing. I had listened to Julia Turshen interviewed on the Design Matters podcast and was struck by her descriptions of herself as a child. She sounded just. like. Biscuit. So we had to go meet her and get a signed book.

And we did!

And the cookbook is good! We have made the merguez (with beef and served with pitas). We also made the chicken pelau which was different but tasty. The book is perfect for someone just getting into cooking--it's filled with tips and straightforward recipes. And Julia was just delightful at the signing. Seriously seems like the nicest lady.

I kind of love the "small victories" concept. It's about all I can muster these days. Small projects, quick to finish. Like this Halloween costume that Oscar and I finished up tonight.

Tasting the bulk bin chocolate from Winco Foods

There is a new Winco Foods in our neighborhood. To be honest, I thought it would be like another Walmart moving in (we already have a Walmart quite close) so I was skeptical. But this morning Biscuit and I stopped by based on the encouragement of my co-worker who said the bulk bins were really awesome and cheap. She was right! There were many (many!) bins devoted to chocolate chips, chunks and discs. I make a lot of chocolate chip cookies and chip prices are so high I was motivated to find a cheap solution.

A friendly customer let us know that we could look up the bulk bin codes online so we put the numbers on the twist ties and went to town buying about 1/4 cup of each of the chocolates.

Then we laid them out, poured red wine for grown ups and milk for kids and got to tasting and note taking.

Want to know what to buy?

1594--white "chocolate" discs are awful. Unless you have nostalgia for pretzels dipped in white candy coating. Which I kind of do. In which case, this is your product.

The white chips, 1825 are almost acceptable but are not chocolate and are not great. White chocolate (with actual cocoa butter), as far as I can tell, can only be found at Whole Foods for one zillion dollars per pound.

Onward to other flavors.

I pretty much loved the peanut butter chips, 1815. My mother-in-law did not but she is not a flavored chip lady. The butterscotch, 1814, were too sweet for everyone.

CHOCOLATE.

One taster--my MIL-likes only dark chocolate. One taster, Biscuit, likes milk. I like both, milk for eating, semi sweet or dark for baking.

1568 is a really good dark chocolate chip. I initially liked 1821 which seemed very fruity and flavorful but 1568 is solid. And, I think, cheaper.

For milk, Biscuit loved 1824 for chips and 2456, the chunks of bulk chocolate, was her favorite.

On the chocolate discs, 2965 was listed as "super good" by Biscuit and was a very good dark chocolate. I think it was the Guittard 62% cacao one. I would definitely buy this again. 1599 was a gross fake chocolate disc. Biscuit loved 1337, the milk chocolate disc.

Overall, I was impressed.

Tomorrow we'll be making "garbage" cookies with all the various chips plus nuts, oats and coconut. Yum!

::

Unrelated: I tried this baba ganoush recipe with grilled, Japanese eggplant. It was super easy and quite tasty with pita.

 

Camping

(Biscuit created this swim suit cover up meets superhero cape thing)

Last week I got a bee in my bonnet that we had to go camping. We think of ourselves as a family that camps. Except that we haven't gone camping in over a year. A glance at the calendar revealed this would be the last free weekend for a while so despite Oscar having a stomach flu thing most of Thursday we packed up and headed out after work and school on Friday. It was a great decision. No crowds, perfect weather, cheerful children, no cell service (ie no distractions). It was a lovely weekend.

We went to Malakoff Diggins State Park, a location found via googling "camping close to the South Yuba River" and googling "places with available camping sites three days before you want to show up." After reading Ashley's posts about the swimming holes on the Yuba I really wanted to check them out. It was crowded on a perfect Saturday afternoon but were well worth the visit. Because we were at the River we missed the daytime programs at the park--a tour of the historic, near ghost town and a chance to pan for gold. But we did catch the evening ranger program where the kids pet native animal pelts and roasted marshmallows.

We also went on a little hike into town and cooked over an open fire and got really, really dusty so I think we checked all the camping boxes. Hopefully we can go again soon!

An afternoon in Sacramento

Yesterday was one of those days that made me so grateful to work part time. Oscar and I hung out for a few hours between kindergarten ending and 6th grade ending so by the time we picked up Biscuit we had a plan. We surprised her by driving to the local lightrail (commuter train) station and hopping on the train to ride downtown. The train was empty except for the helpful man we met at the station who explained lightrail to us ;). The kids were thrilled.

My theoretical destination was Kechmara which I've now read about on two blogs so wanted to check out since it seemed hip and happening. I also wanted to see the cobbler next door. The website was vague but it appeared they were open Mondays. Spoiler alert, appointment only for Kechmara!

But, back to the train. It goes right down K street and we saw Vampire Penguin out the window so hopped off at the next stop and walked back. The kids got flavors that sounded gross to me (cookies and cream and smoreo) but Biscuit loved hers. Oscar wasn't convinced. They are basically shave ices but instead of shaving plain ice and putting flavor on top they shave a frozen flavored thing. I loved the texture and lightness but would recommend fruit flavors.

We started walking toward the WAL building (home of Kechmara) and Oscar insisted we look inside the Capitol. So we did. It appeared there was a lot of important state business going on but we wandered around checking out exhibits and then wandered back out. It's a lovely building!

Finally, we got to the WAL building and, duh, duh, duh, most everything was closed. The rugs and shoes looked cool through the windows. And Old Gold was open so the kids tried on sunglasses and I tried to be sure we weren't too obnoxious for the clerk before we headed out to have a snack at Fish Face. It's a Poke Bar (that's Poke, rhymes with Okay, not Poke, rhymes with Spoke). I learned that. I also learned their sushi rolls require an engineering degree to assemble but the very friendly employee helped us out and the sushi roll was delicious!

By then we had to start thinking about catching the train home while it was still commute hours. The schedule was confusing but it looked like it might get tough to get home after 6 so we didn't risk it and caught the 5:30 train. It was a perfect three hour mini adventure and we were home in time for dinner!