Traveling the world

You've all seen my FB pictures about this trip (and probably half of you were ON the trip with me) - but I figured I'd put up a few "non-published" photos.  This was a tough trip: early days, lots of hard exercise, challenging weather - but definitely once in a lifetime.  I'm glad we went and K&A - I'm glad you came with us.  Even if you're not. :)

 Sure, I'll stand in this important site that I don't understand (and won't remember) and take a picture.  Why not?

 

I hated (hate hate hated) how cute all the little guinea pigs were.  These guys were in this like guinea pig doll house - right next to the oven that they were about to go into!!

 

 

So naive on Day 1:  "Oh look, a rest! This is kind of hard!"

We had no idea...

 

 

There were so many cute stray dogs.  Why aren't rescue dogs that cute (or well behaved) in this country??  Except for you, Lucer, you're adorable.

 

 Very scared to be hiking up to that mountain pass.  I said several times "Just to the brown part, right?" and the answer was always the same "Nope, the white.  Still the white part."

Peacefully gazing at the path ahead.

Not posed at all.  

One of the totally stable, secure (wet) bridges we crossed over.

Can't see the valley at all - the ruins do look cool enveloped in fog.

Thanks Peru (New country: CHECK!) We're headed to see Moni next, but after Italy...

Where should we go next??

Red & White all over!

There are a million-and-two things to do in Sonoma - various festivals and "weekends" for different things.  Many are just not that big of a deal or not that well organized or really very expensive.  We've wanted to get more involved in our community though, so we are trying to find some good ones.  One we heard good things about was the Red & White Ball.

Perfect event to re-wear a red bridesmaid's dress!

They decorated the north side of Sonoma Square and jam packed it with red and white decorations and a dance floor.  We got to eat some really yummy BBQ (from Big Jim - this is his second appearance on the blog!) and sat with some of our (incredibly super duper old) Sonoma Greens neighbors. 

We were pretty tired because we had been out the night before too (and might possibly have enjoyed a bit too much wine) and it was the same exact band!  But we were glad to have supported Sonoma schools (the beneficiary of the fundraiser), got to see Ben & Courteney again (still haven't talked to them), and be out in Sonoma.

Number 68: half CHECK!

Have you ever been to a color themed party before?

Snip snip cut cut

I've had a subscription to Cooking Light since at least 2006, maybe longer (that was just the oldest magazine the I had in my pile).  I've moved old magazines from Boston to San Francisco to Sonoma - and collected quite a pile.  I tried various versions of organization (sorting the magazines by month and turning down corners, taking out one magazine per month and trying to use it as an inspiration) but basically I had a huge pile of old magazines in my kitchen.

So very ambitiously, I made goal #72:  Finish organizing Cooking Light magazines.

I was going to go through EVERY LAST DADGUM magazine, cut out the good parts and recycle the rest. 

Let me tell you.  This takes forever.  For. Ever.  And ever.

And looks professional and awesome.  Mhm.

And at first, my organization was just snip snip glue tape just in "chronological" order.  I thought it would be *fun* to just glance through the binder to look for food ideas.  And then I saw how much volume we were talking.  So I got to re-cut and re-tape midway through to organize by category (breakfast, type of meat, soup, etc.) which was super fun.

That's a big folder.

I'd like to thank NCIS, The Closer, L&O (all versions), The Mentalist, the Food Network, and Lucy for keeping me company these many hours.

Now, each weekend when I'm planning our meals for the week - I go to the section that we have meat for and pop out a page.  I WILL make good use of this binder, darn it!  This was seriously so much work, but I'm glad to have it organized and do feel very accomplished.  Number 72: you get a resounding CHECK!!

Any other folks with giant recipe binders?? We could trade pages!!

Moar food again

Not the most exciting posts -  I know - but we've been waiting forevvvver to check this place out.

There's a little Mexican restaurant near our house, El Molino Central, that looks like a little piece of nothing - but apparently even people from the east (read: cool) side of Sonoma come to eat here.  So one lunch, we forsook our typical Subway and headed here.

Well, first of all, we basically didn't do anything right.  We didn't get drinks like we were supposed to, we sat in a pile of yellow jackets, we didn't give our name to get our food, when it finally came is was the wrong food some how - but holy moly was it some good Mexican food!  I don't typically like tamales but gobbled this the heck up.  Unfortunately, it's gringo priced - not taqueria priced - but I can say I'm sorry it took us three years to check it out and we'll definitely be back!

Any tamale fans out there?  If so, we're going here on your next visit!