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!

Two for one -- kind of not by choice

So now that I've told my little secret, I can officially check off the two things on my list that were basically forced by that news.

One.  Nick & I like to have "parties".  I think for most people, it's a pretty lame definition of "party" since it's just to two of us and either World of Warcraft, a deck of cards, or our Wii and a few too many alcoholic beverages.  But we're entertained.  And have been for years.  Probably too often.  For as healthy as we are (try to be) with our eating & exercise, we know that our parties are just a sassy thing we should cut back.  And have tried to, relatively unsuccessfully.  It takes just one of us getting home from work, looking tired, and the other says "Party?" and there we go again.

Well.... now that there's a little Lemon Lopez to look after -- that's not an option.  So, #25 - One month, no parties.  Check!  For Valentine's Day, Nick got me a book called Preggatinis, but non-alcoholic ones don't count. :)

Two.  I think vitamins are good for you.  Especially because there's no way that I'm eating 9 servings of fruits & vegetables per day (or what ever the crazy suggested amount is).  However, I can't remember to take the dumb things.  No matter how prominently I put the (Costco sized) bottle - I still ignore it. 

And again, Lemon Lopez requires additional nutrients, so I'm trying my darnedest darnedest to be good about it.  And I have been.  Mostly.  I do try really hard!  I think I've been successful enough that I'm going to count #22 - take a multi vitamin every day for a month as a success.  And a continued success, ugh.

Kind of cheat checks, but they count!  I'm at just over six months left - gotta keep it up!

Need a world events class

Still chipping away at the documentary movie list... 20 is proving to be an ambitious goal!  I need the Oscars to come around and nominate some new ones for me.  

 
This one was nominated for best Academy Award last year - the first Palestinian to have that honor.  And... he was detained in LAX airport when coming to the awards ceremony because they didn't believe him.  My that's embarrassing.  Your movie, and life, is about being persecuted and you come to "the land of the free" annnd it's the same.  Sorry buddy.

This guy gets a camera when his youngest son is born and becomes an unofficial videographer of the non-violent resistance to Israeli presence & barrier construction in their Palestinian border town of Bil'in.  And his cameras keep getting shot (hence the 5 broken ones).  Unfortunately, I apparently know nothing about Israel and Palestine and the film supposed you would (which, to be fair, if you chose to watch this movie, you probably should have some basic level of understanding).  But we were too busy reading the subtitles to be able to look up any "quick facts" other than to learn this is an ancient feud, not easily digested into "quick facts". 

It does make you appreciate that we live in a peaceful, wealthy country.  And that with as hot-spot as this area of the world is - I should probably learn a little more.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to learn about Israel/Palestine? Or any quick facts?? And 12/20 documentaries - check!

GPG!

I really didn't think we were going to get this one done, but thanks to a last minute invite from the company I buy my braces from - we got to CHECK #56: See a game at Lambeau.  And see a game we did!  The luxury suite we were in was one of only 4 in the stadium that fits 30 people and takes off the windows during the game.  I'm still not sure that I'd chose to do that, but it WAS cool to kind of be a part of the crowd.

 Partial view of the suite

 View of the stadium with the windows closed

We got there 2 hours before kickoff to get the best seats

 Fun memorabilia around the suite

 View with the windows open (and still all our gear on - that's for the green & gold Dad & Uncle Doug!)

By the end of the game, the flurries had really picked up!

Too bad it wasn't a win, but I'm really glad we got this chance.  Thanks American Orthodontics & Go Pack Go!!