Happy New Years!

Happy New Year's everyone! Say goodbye to 2011 and hello to 2012. Today will be mellow yet busy for me. Sean's working so I'm going to go to the Laker game with my parents- I'm bringing my friend Kaylin as my date since the hubs can't come. Then since today is also my brother's birthday, I'm going to stop by his place in Long Beach and say hi, Happy Birthday and eat some food. It will be a relatively early night for me- I'll probably celebrate the East Coast NYE but most likely wont make it to midnight here on the West Coast.

Yesterday Sean took a break from his new found love of spearfishing and decided to go free diving for lobster instead. He brought back a good sized lobster as well as some scallops.

I cooked them up for him and he had a lunch of fresh lobster tail and pan seared scallops. I'm not much of a seafood person (although I do enjoy the fish he brings home), so I didn't eat any of it, but did cook it up for him.

Hope you have a Happy and safe New Years Eve, and see you in 2012!

Merry Christmas

This weekend was pretty mellow yet eventful at the same time.  Sean worked a 72 from Thurs thru Sat so I got some of my last minute shopping done, had dinner with a cousin in town from Colorado and cleaned the house and got it ready for Christmas Day. Christmas Eve I went and had dinner with my Grandma. My brother went to his future in laws to celebrate and my parents were in Cabo, so I decided to make the short trek up to Culver City so that my Grandma didn't have to spend Christmas Eve by herself. We had pea soup and tamales (her neighbors dropped some off just as we were sitting down to eat so we had to give them a try!). I was in charge of bringing dessert so I made some lemon bars that my Grandma gave me a recipe for years ago which were delish! Christmas Day we spent part of the morning with Sean's mom, then came home, made breakfast, exchanged our own gifts and took a nap and had an overall lazy afternoon. Around 4 Sean's dad, his fiance, my brother and Nicki came by and we had dinner- pulled chicken tacos. It was a great night- all that was missing from this Christmas was my parents, but they were sitting on a beach in Cabo, enjoying a Christmas margarita I'm sure! It was a great little Christmas- only one hiccup- at around 10pm, Sean and I came down with some food poisoning till about 4:30 that morning, so needless to say, the day after Christmas was a lazy one. Hopefully everyone had a great day with their family and friends. Next up, New Year's!

Luscious Lemon Bars

Luscious Lemon Bars

Crust
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 up Kretschmer Wheat Germ (if you can't find this, crumbed graham crackers work as well)
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup (5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon) margarine, softened

Filling
2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose four
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1 3/4 teaspoons grated lemon peel
Powdered sugar for dusting

Heat oven to 350. Lightly spray bottom of 13x9 inch baking pan with no-stick cooking spray. Combine crust ingredients in large bowl. Mix on low speed of electric mixer until well blended (mixture will be crumbly). Firmly press crumbs onto bottom of pan. Bake 15 min.

*note: make sure the butter is softened and well distributed in the crust or you will end up with dry patches in your crust and it will fall apart when you cut the lemon bars*

For filling, combine sugar, flour, and baking powder in large bowl. Add eggs, blend well. Gently stir in lemon juice and peel. Carefully pour over hot crust, and bake 25-30 minutes or until edges are light golden brown and filling is set.

Cool completely. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, and cut into squares. (if not cooled completely, it will not cut well).

Enjoy!

Hide and Seek

So I decided a couple days ago to keep my camera ready to go on my desk should anything fun and interesting come quickly along that I want to be sure I capture. Well, since we don't have children yet, this usually involves my dogs. Most of time when things happen, I don't have my camera ready, so this should solve that!

Well, Ace and Summer are very spoiled by their dad by both of us. This often includes getting giant bones and raw hides from the pet store. If you wondered whether or not they miss them when they're gone, ask Ace. The second Sean gets home, he goes straight to the cabinet where we keep the treats out of reach. It usually goes like this... *whining* "Ace no" *more whining*, "Ace not now"... eye contact.... *sits down with smug look on face saying- I know they're in there* Sometime I ignore him, sometimes Sean we cave and give them their bones. Both take them and try to get as far away from the other. Summer is a little more food dominant, and doesn't like when Ace gets near her with her bone. On the other hand, Ace is the least food dominant dog I know and will let Summer stare him down. he'll move because he hears something and she'll promptly jump at the chance to steal his bone and hoard it in her spot.

Today, I think Ace had enough and was searching for a spot to hide while eating, without the threat of our little sneaky one. Today, as I sit at my desk, I've realized he's set up camp in my office behind the papizan chair.

Still keeping a watchful eye of course

Later when he decided he was done with the bone, he decided to find  a new hiding spot.

How bout in their play tunnel?...

decided against that fast.... can you see the look of contemplation on his face?

The final resting place? Well, I'd tell you then I'd have to kill you, he decided that under my desk by my feet would be the best bet. With mama guarding, Summer won't steal it there!

Eat Your Veggies...

This weekend was a fun, eventful, busy weekend. But not busy in the way where you feel exhausted, busy where you feel like you did a bunch of amazing things, and look back on Monday thinking, I wish that weekend could have lasted longer! Friday night was an impromptu date night. We decided last minute to get tickets to see Shrek the Musical at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. We ate dinner first a delicious little gourmet pizza place nearby called Pizza Ortica. We experimented with some Bruschetta that had ground lamb, white beans, and tomatoes- delish! I had some yummy raviolis and Sean a pizza. After dinner we walked over to the Performing Arts Center.

excuse the crappy phone quality and bald head in front of us, it was the only picture I had of the night

I love anything live- musicals, dance performances, music, anything. Shrek was too cute and kept the audience laughing the whole time- kids and adults alike!

Saturday my mom and I did a quick stop at the fire department's open house to say hi to Sean who spent the day cooking up a boatload of hot dogs for the kiddos and families that came out to see the station. Then, my mom and I explored a nearby home goods store, and went to see my cousin Elise's soccer game. It was great to hang out with my mom and Aunt Kathleen whom I adore, but don't see enough! Then I whipped us up a yummy dinner of halibut in a tomato and artichoke broth with a side of onion potatoes and salad.

Sunday we tried to go to church but got all discombobulated with the service times (they recently added a service, and this weekend was baptism weekend, so times got all switched up and changed up again). So we came home, Sean went surfing and I went and bought some veggies for our at home veggie garden I'm going to attempt. Sean built these awesome planters for me, so we'll see if my green thumb kicks in! I bought strawberries, lavender, red and orange bell peppers, scallions, chives, and seeds for carrots and mixed baby greens. A little herb garden portion and more veggies to come.

strawberry jar

lavender and red bell

Orange Bell and Chives and Scallions

That night we went to a friend's 30th birthday and had a great time with friends, eating some delicious carne asada steak tacos and too many desserts including cookies, avalanche bars, and Sprinkles cupcakes. Sunday ended with happy memories and full bellies! Here's to another week.

Pistols, Pizza, and Pumpkins

This weekend was fun, mellow, but still eventful. Thursday afternoon after work I had done a little cleaning in my office- went through our bills and organized them on a due date calendar, went through my "accounting" for my business, and went through a little bag we had of random gift cards. Some of these gift cards are years old, and have just accumulated from Christmas Gifts, birthdays etc. Normally we grab them and put them straight to our wallets, especially if we know we want to use them right away, but sometimes we will forget to put them away and I'll just grab them and put them in this bag. We had a TON of $$ worth of gift cards in this stash- movies, food, shopping, gas, you name it! Being dorky and trying to be organized, I created a little spreadsheet that I'll keep on my desk with an inventory of these gift cards, along with certificates from discount sites that we've purchased. By organizing them, and then keeping them in their own separate wallet in my purse, I think we'll be more likely to use them. I decided Friday would be the perfect date night to put these to use. We went to the Himalayan Grill (one of our favorite Indian Restaurants, and used a certificate that we had purchased through Living Social. Our friends Jeremy and Sheen joined us, and after dinner, we went to the movies using a certificate for 2 free tickets that we had gotten. We saw Machine Gun Preacher- which was pretty good, but not exactly a feel good movie. We all walked away feeling conflicted on how we felt about the movie's main character, but it was still a nice night.

Sunday when Sean was off again, we went to church in the morning and then met Jeremy and Sheena, along with Jer's brother and sister-in-law for brunch. Then we took a nice lazy nap and cleaned a little before my brother and his fiance came over. The four of us headed down to the gun range for a bit.

Then while the boys cleaned out our pumpkins, Nicki and I prepped everything for dinner. We made Bobolis' which were delish! I haven't had one of those in a LONG time! Then once we were done eating, we all carved out pumpkins. Nicki and I opted for more traditional Jack-O-Lanterns, while Josh was feeling patriotic, and Sean got super fancy and whipped out the power tools to create his octopus. 

I did a Stash on mine in honor of Stashtober!

After the proud unveiling of our handwork, we ate some homemade ice cream sandwiches with chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream and watched Scream 4. It was a great night, and I even made us some pumpkin seeds this morning! A couple of the seeds were sprouting, so I saved them, wrapped them in some wet paper towels, and am trying to find a place to experiment planting them. Maybe next year we'll have pumpkins from our own yard :) We had such a fun time, that I think we're going to make a tradition out of it- can't wait for our second annual pistols, pizza, and pumpkins!

Rainy Days....

This happens to be my favorite time of year- and days like today are my favorite- especially now that I can work from home on days like today. 

Outside it looked like this... 

Inside it looked like this...

Side note- summer isnt much of a model- no posing for pictures.... she would much rather be sticking her face in the lens, hence the only shot of her I could get was munching on her bone- nothing will take her away from that!

Dear Santa...

Source: pdffun.com via Christie on Pinterest

Is it weird that I've already started my Christmas List? I'd be lying if I didn't have a sticky on my computer already tallying up my selfish desires since September (or maybe August). Don't judge....