Pretty lil places

Couple new pretty places we've visited recently:

McNee Ranch State Park (with Lucer) - just outside Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco

Starting the pretty hike

Watching the beautiful fog roll in

 

Lucer's never tired! 

Nick's holding her to keep her still for the picture!

Roatan & Cayos Cochinos, Honduras

 The SMOOTHIES there were amaaaazing - fresh fruit and super duper smooth.  Very much appreciated on those hot days!

Those weird little shots are "noni" - a super, medicinal fruit that tastes like grossness.  Nick was very into "When in Roatan...".  Only after the fact did I say "Hm, I wonder what my unborn child's development thought of that??"

 Crystal clear water and snorkeling (hi random guy!) just steps off the beach - what gorgeous coral!

The bay we moored in for two nights - this picture in no way does justice for how remote and beautiful it was. The snorkeling was great: we saw lobster & a ray (along with hundreds of colorful fish & coral) - other than the stinging nettles.  Those sucked!

Our bedroom for two days - the skylight went up on the deck.  Capt Hank has lived on a boat for 40 years (25 of them on THIS boat).  Nick & I quickly decided that life's not for us :P

We've done well with the travel checks!  #47 & 53 - subcheck/overcheck!

Only one more travel destination left in this list period - any guesses where we're going??

More axes

I don't like lists without things checked off -- even if they're checked off fails!

#37. Go through volunteer training at Pets Lifeline.  

You may have heard:  I really like animals.  And Pets Lifeline is our local animal shelter - where they have a super fun kitty room you can go play in.  Or walk the animals or I'm not sure what all you can do because I never went through volunteer training!  Anyway, you're really not supposed to introduce yourself to new cats during pregnancy due to the risk of toxoplasmosis for unborn babies.  Oops. 

#48.  Go on Nicholson Ranch Chapel Hike

There is a little chapel on the hill behind Nicholson Ranch Winery that every spring they arrange a hike to and at the top you get a lunch, catered by our wedding caterers Broadway Catering.  What doesn't sound great about that??  Very unfortunately, it appears they stopped doing that in 2012!  Bummer.

#79.  Photograph the same place in all four seasons

I don't take pictures.  Of anything: vacations, fun events, life in general.  So anyway, I had good suggestions of where to do this - even "Hey, this would be a good day to go do it" - and yet, I didn't get it done.  Now I'm out of the four seasons, so: fail.

#99.  Do three pullups. 

Right, so the fact that this is #99 shows how much I was scrounging for ideas.  I HAVE been working on pullups with the P90X3 that we're doing, but my increasing strength has not kept pace with my increasing weight. I'm not crying over this fail.

Thank you for the help, pull up assist bands, but I can't do three on my own.

#101.  Pass a blind taste test of three wines.

I should have put something "better" as the last item!  Well, Mango Lopez has preventing me from brushing up on my wine varietals and I won't get a taste test in before the end of this adventure.  But I will do this one some day!

I think that's enough failure admitting for one day!

Fixin' it up

We've had a few things on the to-do-around-the-house list for some time. (Uh, as long as I've had this list, which is in the multiple YEARS at this point.) They weren't difficult to get done, but weren't affecting every day life either - so the urgency was low.

 Here's our home improvement version of PhotoHunt!

Can you spot the differences??

Haha, creepy Olivia.

Wowie, zowie - this was a huge change - the floor pan was dropping (see the back left corner), the bottom was stained, that tile was HORRIBLE.  (The green tape was just showing us how big the cubbies would be in the new shower.)  OMG it's sooo much better - come check it out in real life!

So the answers are: no more punch hole in the bedroom door (#96), second AWESOME light in the living room that makes SUCH a difference (#35), and huh, I would have sworn "fix the shower" was one -- but it's not.  Oh well, it needed to be done!

Now that these are (finally) done, we can focus on the big home rearrangement - guest room/nursery/office.  Here's to the next 3 months of moving furniture!

Say paneeeeer!

I'm a cheeseball, I know.  (Is that two puns in the first 5 words of the blog post??)

With my vegetarian sister in town, we decided to make a meal even my carnivorous husband would eat.  Tops on the list - Indian food!

 This is what it looks like after you boil milk and add lemon juice

 This is what a half gallon of milk turns into after you squish it in the fridge for a half hour

Final product!  I was so excited about the naan that I didn't even wait to take the picture before taking a bite!  A tikka masala sauce, a saag sauce, naan, marinated fried paneer, brown rice (the least exciting part).  Yummo yum yum.  A grand success - and the fact that the paneer is kind of ricotta-y early on (& therefore eatable during pregnancy is even better!).  I'm glad I put this one on the list & am even happier it worked out.

Yay for cheese - any others easy to make??  And #84 CHECK!

Finally!

Another "I'm-not-sure-how-this-ended-up-on-the-list" item was French Onion Soup. I guess I like it, I can't remember ordering it in a restaurant more than... twice?  But on the list it is... so here I go!!

Does this even look good?  I guess kind of...

I found a really yummy looking recipe on Brown Eyed Baker, but after trying twice and failing miserably (I decreased the number of onions/serving sign, but not the cook time which resulted in very burned onions)... I looked for something a little easier.  "User friendly" let's call it.  Nick got me a really nice cookbook for Christmas, one where you do some cooking on Sunday then easy cooking all week - and lo & behold one week there was a recipe for french onion soup!  Here we go:

 Pile o' onions -- all for two bowls of soup!

Can you see HOW MUCH mascara is running down my face after chopping those onions??

Um, yum?

So, the toast was not a success.  I might have forgotten it was in the toaster oven.  We played the "too burned to eat? Maybe this bite is ok?" game.  They were burned, period.

So after two fails with the first recipe, I'd consider the soup a success - at least enough for a check!  And I've also decided, it's not my favorite soup -- and one that I'll be happy to just order at a restaurant when the mood strikes.

Any suggestions for chopping onions that doesn't result in fully ruined makeup?? And #6 - CHECK!

Sugar balls

I saw "TRUFFLES" on my "Cooking" sub list and it seems random -- I'm not sure I really like truffles all that much, I mean, enough to put them on here, but why not? 

 Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles (without eggs, nice)

And when you see a recipe like this?? C'mon....

 

Pretty simple ingredients -- low cal, of course (no, they're not)

 Patience... patience... you have to make sure they're really cold to work with properly.  And avoid temptation to eat them early!  (Esp knowing there's no raw eggs!)

So.... I wasn't the PRETTIEST truffle maker, I didn't realize the chocolate on the bottom wouldn't clean off as well as I'd hoped.  But hoooooly mooooly - these are tasty little nuggets.  Luckily, Nick works today, so we packed up all but 6 and sent them to fatten up his co-workers. :)

Overall, pretty easy!  I wish I had been more patient with the dipping.  I didn't have quite enough chocolate, so it was shallow which was tough and I should have refrozen the second half (they melted by the time I got to them, so they weren't as pretty).  But something I'd try again.

Any other suggestions/requests for truffles to try??  #9 Make truffles -- CHECK!

A couple not-gonna-happens

Well, the last post said things Lemon Lopez has forced, here are some things that won't happen because of that life change.

#19.  2014 Half Marathon -- I take the winter off from running, and can't imagine dragging a belly for a 2 hr jog.  And you need 8 weeks (? I think) after delivery to start again, soooo that calendar isn't going to work out.  2015 though, I'm looking at you!

Can you imagine?  I just kind of ... can't.  Maybe 1-3 miles, but 13-26??

#20.  Full Marathon -- I wasn't even sure I really ever WANTED to do another one of these, but I needed 101 items!  See, reasons above for how the calendar's just not going to work out.

Turtle!  I'd totally spaz out (I always do.)

#52.  Get SCUBA certified.  We hemmed and hawed on this one, we like snorkeling and SCUBA certification is like a 6 step/day process (book work, pool training, then open water at a destination).  We wanted to do it near a time we'd be going on a vacation to use it and... just never got it together.  SCUBA messes w/ your blood oxygen which is a no go for growing baybays, so... not gonna happen this year.  Some day still though. :)

#69.  They don't have blood drives here, darn it!  Ok, well, I'm sure they do, but in the past 800 days (or however many it's been), I saw ONE and it was two days before a race - not a good idea.  And now, a no go.  I WILL find a way to do this in the future, but a lame no check.  However, my initial blood work was 11 vials!  The tech didn't even have enough spots in her test tube rack for me!  So that almost counts...

#70.  Play blackjack in Vegas.  Oops.  I'm a chicken.  We've been like 5 times in the past 3 years and have talked about it when we're there, but I'm scared.  I admit it.  I don't think I'll ever do this one.  I'll throw my money away on alcohol & shopping rather than handing it straight to the casino!

Couple others look unlikely, but I won't X them just yet -- that seems like a long list of no-go's!  I'll focus on the positive: less to check off in the next few months!