Christmas Adventures

This year there were only two things that we were missing. 1-Nativity set and 2-Angel tree topper. Peter's mom bought us a nativity set while we were in Utah and we kept it when we got home so we could set it up. Then all we needed was an angel. We went to Canterbury Gardens in Escondido which is a totally Christmas exploded inside the shop type of place. They had a Santa tree and an everything purple tree, angel tree, star tree, green tree, red tree, basically you name it they had a tree with everything. We looked at the angel tree and really didn't like anything that we saw, so sadly we left empty handed. Then Peter did a search on the Internet and found this, showed it to me and we decided it was perfect. So no, we don't need an angel we have Tigger and that is so much better. :)
Before Christmas Peter got this urge to try a couple of fun recipes. We made peanut brittle and English toffee (pictured below). Both went very fast! We made a second batch of brittle and have yet to make more toffee, but it is on the list. We also made a ton of peppermint fudge.

For Christmas Peter and I gave each other a Wii! Peter convinced me that we needed one. Now after playing Mario Brothers I agree it was a good purchase. It's also a ton more fun to have multiple people playing...we need to get another remote. Some of our other gifts include a Bugzooka pictured here.

This thing was so fun to play with. Basically what you do is push the bottom part in, aim the top at a bug and then push a button and it sucks in the bug into the top part. The bug becomes stuck inside the top and then you can either let it go outside or you can put it in the freezer to kill it and then throw it out. Last night I found a spider and Peter got to try out the Bugzooka...it worked! He chose to put it in the freezer as quite frankly neither one of us wanted the spider back in our house, and nobody wanted to be that close to a live spider. This thing is really cool, but even with a 2 foot reach pole, once the spider was inside, it still seemed like it was really close, so of course Peter was jumping around and doing a spider dance. :) I was just glad it wasn't me.
In the above picture you can see the live spider at the bottom of the metal part. Sorry we had the smokey film on. It also came with a clear tube for observing the live creature...like seriously who would want to watch a live spider? Crazy people!
Last night we had Chris, Mary and the girls over for Pizza. The girls each made their own mini pizza. They had fun.
Not to worry, the pizzas for the adults (not pictured) were more elaborate and tasty.

Other fun gifts include:
Peter-A yodeling pickle, dress pants, the most annoying sponge bob puzzle (only 100 pieces, but seriously gave you a headache), pajamas, A Bug's Life-blu ray, apple slicer/corer in one and a video game.
Mandy- Two video games, pajamas, Topsy Turvy plant holder, puzzle, build a bear gift certificate, Pooh/Eeyore/Piglet/Tigger antenna balls, a book and a desktop calendar.
Together we got the Bugzooka, a book about how to avoid bug stings and a bottle of sting eeze in case we get stung by a bug. We also got a jelly bean dispenser too.

We had a great time hanging out with family and friends...it's sad that our vacation time is quickly coming to an end. 2 weeks seem to have flown by. (1 week for Peter...he's so bummed.)

The Getty Museum

This morning Peter and I drove David and Laurel to the Los Angeles Airport (LAX). On the slightly over 2 hour drive I slept (that's what you're supposed to do on a car ride), David fell asleep at one point and Laurel kept Peter company. We arrived at LAX around 10:15 for a 1:15 international flight. Laurel was panicked that we would be late on the way up...we made it in plenty of time even with a quick stop to Walmart on the way so David could pick up deoderant and shaving cream. While at Walmart there was police crime scene tape around some poles and several police officers in the same area. Laurel and Peter were speculating what was going on. The famous axe murderer was one possibility. We drove around in circles waiting and realized that it was a recruiting area, they had a table and everything set up. It gave us a good laugh.

After we dropped David and Laurel off at the airport we decided to head to the Getty Museum for a couple of hours. It was a spur of the moment decision. On our way to the Museum Peter asks, "Did you bring the camera?" "Nope." I didn't know I was supposed to bring the camera to drop people off at the airport...I'll remember that next time. :)

We were at the museum until about 2:30. In the medieval manuscript room, I learned how to draw a castle in three easy steps. They had tables, papers and crayons set up to use and step by step instructions to draw castles, boats, borders and something else. While we were in that room a ton of little children came in and started grabbing for everything, so we decided to head out to the next gallery.

We visited van Gogh's Irises, saw the illuminated manuscripts collection from the 800's-1500's, saw how sculptures were made, looked at the most interesting works of wood possible and much more. Peter's favorite words, "This one is really famous." He said it so often and at basically every painting he recognized. I was like, "Really, no way."

We saw lots and lots of paintings and we saw them all in chronological order. Another Peter funny-He enjoyed pointing out that most of the museum was made out of travertine and he kept asking if we should put travertine in a bathroom of ours. I kid you not he said it a ton of times. They even sold little chunks of it in the gift shop and he wanted to take it home.

We also liked the tram. It's like a ride and a show. I really enjoyed walking around the garden and looking at the different fountains. Now Peter wants to go to the Getty Villa in Malibu. Better bring the camera for that trip. :)

Christmas Cooking

So last week we started our holiday culinary adventures. We made pumpkin bread and several batches of sugar cookies. This week we've moved on to something more sought after by friends, family and co-workers.

You know it's Christmas when you take these

And you mix butter, sour cream and sugar together to get this. Then you wait until it gets to the soft ball stage on the thermometer....which feels like forever!

Then you take it off the heat and add marshmallow cream, crushed peppermints, peppermint extract and white chocolate chips and work it all together as fast as you can and then pour into a dish. This is a double batch....TaDa Peppermint Fudge!

It looks a little funny, but it sure does taste good and it's addictive. We will be making numerous batches.

Chased by a 500 pound Milk Dud!

Say Hello to Milk Dud! As you can see he's a cow...He's a milking cow, but he's a boy and you can't milk a boy cow, hence the name Milk Dud. Isn't he cute? He's extra friendly. So there I was in Utah for Thanksgiving. One of Peter's uncles has two cows. This one and the black one behind it. That's the momma cow, she's expecting a baby in January. Unfortunately poor Milk Dud here is being raised for meat, but he sure is cute.

So Peter heard that his uncle had a cow and he really wanted to go and see the cow. So we went over Thursday evening and saw the cow. I was happy with staying on the other side of the fence, but then they all went next to the cow so I figured it would be okay (I'm not a huge fan of large animals). Blaine (Peter's uncle) goes into a shed and pulls out some food to feed the cows. He hands a large bowl to Peter and immediately Milk Dud starts pushing Peter around to get to the food. The big Momma cow wanted some too. Peter dropped the bowl on the ground and the cows helped themselves to what was left. When they were done we all started walking back to the gate. Blaine was in the front, then Peter then me. As we walk back I hear footsteps coming closer to me. I look back and Milk Dud is chasing after me. I SCREAMED and took off running. My dear hubby heard me scream and he took off running :) Blaine turned around and by the time we got to the gate Milk Dud stopped running. We got inside the gate and shut it and then Milk Dud came bounding up to the gate and wanted to be loved.

The next day we went and talked to Milk Dud again. This time we stayed on the opposite side of the fence. He came bounding up to the fence and then wanted to smooch.

Just so darn cute! So yes I got chased by a 500 pound Milk Dud!

On our drive up to Utah we took a scenic detour and enjoyed Kolob Canyon. Isn't it pretty...by the way it was freezing up there!

So we drove up Wednesday morning and arrived at 10pm. Thursday was Thanksgiving. We rent a church gym and have a big Thanksgiving party. There were about 46 people there. Then on Friday Peter's family always does a big Oktoberfest party on the day after Thanksgiving. People make all kinds of yummy German food. Peter's grandpa made homemade root beer, it was great! We made Chicken Schnitzel. After dinner there was a lot of dancing.

Peter and Laurel participated in the Hat Dance. Basically musical chairs with hats.

We all participated in the Chicken Dance and the Hamburger dance.

The hats are funny. I had a pizza on my head at one point too.

Peter's dad called for him to do a dance. They were slapping the legs a lot. I grabbed the camera and started filming the dance. Peter was hooting and hollering, but by the time I filmed it he had stopped. Everyone was laughing and he felt stupid so he stopped. When the dance was done he came up to me and said, "You didn't just film that did you?" I said yes and then he handed the camera to Laurel and told her to tape both of us doing the next dance. So here are two of the dances we did that were caught on tape.





On our way to Utah we stopped in St. George for Frozen Custard....it was delicious!!!! We shared a strawberry flavored one. It was so good that on our way home on Saturday we stopped by again and each got our own. Peter got Oreo and I got raspberry. They were soo good!

We had a great time in Utah though our visit was very short. We have decided that we'll have to go up in the spring and we'll be flying. We hit massive traffic between Vegas and Barstow...we got home really late Saturday night. At one point on our drive home we're listening to a song that said, "There was a flash of light..." and right on the flash of light part the person behind us shone their brights at us. It was spooky how totally in tune with the music it was. We then got into the slower lane and let the car pass us. Each time the traffic came to a stand still Peter would say how we're totally flying next time. Then the traffic would pick up and he said, "Well this isn't too bad, we could totally drive next time." I kid you not, right after he said that we could see a ton of break lights ahead of us and then we came to a stand still. Peter changed his mind about the driving part. Once the traffic lightened up again he made the comment to drive again and I told him to be quiet since he jinxed us the first time. We were in traffic for about 1 1/2 hours....it was awful!

However, the highlight besides the frozen custard on Saturday was that we met up for breakfast with a couple of Peter's friends from BYU. It was way cool to finally meet Melissa and Vince and Linda. I read their blogs all the time and comment, and now I've finally met them. I'm just bummed that we didn't get a picture...I suppose there's always next time....we're still planning on coming again in the spring.

Oh yes and I have to say that we came home and it had rained, but then today was in the 70's....yes I love living here and visiting the snow once in a while.

How did that happen?

Peter had made us fresh smoothies right after dinner. We each devoured our glass and he went back for seconds and somehow this happened. He's still wondering how it happened. Not only that but it fell off the counter onto the hard floor and the glass didn't break! There's raspberry smoothie all over the oven, cupboards, floor, his sock and the arm of his shirt and the glass is still in one piece. Hmmmm that one has got me wondering, that's a pretty big drop.

Fire Alarm

So today was a fun little adventure. It started out rather normal though for some crazy reason we were both awake at 7am this morning....mind you it's the one day we get to sleep in and we're up at 7am!!!!! Okay so I guess it didn't start totally normal. We ran some errands. Went to Costco, Henry's and Vons. On our way home from shopping we started to pull up close to our building when we noticed that a lot of people were out in the street. I rolled the window down and could hear the fire alarm going off. We turned around and pulled into our own parking spot and started to unload the trunk. While walking to our place we could tell that our building was the only one with the fire alarm going off. We continued on our way, unlocked our door and walked in and there's an extremely high pitched alarm going off in our house. Our immediate thought was that our alarm triggered the alarm for the entire complex. Peter ran upstairs to check the smoke detectors. I stood still wondering how on earth our alarm could have gone off. We had cereal for breakfast so really nothing could've triggered our alarm. Peter comes back downstairs and we go outside and continue unpacking the car. We ran into our neighbors. I asked if their alarm was going off inside too and they said yes. Then a couple people were like "I heard the alarm going off and figured I needed to change the batteries in my alarm so I did, and that didn't help. Then I went outside and heard the alarm for the entire building." Two people did the same exact thing it was funny. Our neighbor said they called 911 after the alarm had been going off for about 5-10 minutes. The fire truck pulled up. They climbed out and opened the fire panel and looked around the building. They turned the alarm off and we were all thrilled. We could finally go back into our homes. I don't know if they ever figured out what triggered the alarm...it was definitely an adventure for today.

The Lion King

We went and saw The Lion King last night. It was AMAZING! Totally worth it. If we did it again I would totally buy the more expensive tickets to sit up closer. At one point this giant elephant and other animals walk down the aisle and up to the stage....the costumes are all amazing. We were sitting in the balcony and still could see everything, but totally worth the price to sit up closer for this one. At the end they did have birds flying over our heads which was pretty cool too. Definitely go see this if it's in your area.

Oktoberfest

A few weekends ago we went to The German American Oktoberfest. We went with our friends Greg, Ellen, Ethan, Leina, Derek and Cora. We also met up with Peter's parents, Laurel, Chris and his kids and another little girl that was Camille's age. Chris had four little girls to watch over, so we found them at one point and went out on the dance floor. Camille and her friend twirled in circles. Claire danced with David and Ellie was tired so she stayed in her daddy's arms. Laurel and Diana checked out the little booths that were filled with all sorts of stuff. Cora got a flowery head band from one of the booths. She was adorable wearing it.

This is where Claire kept trying to take David's hat, so he put it on her head and she decided to give it right back. They were playing the famous hat game.
At one point the musicians left the stage so we thought they were switching people or taking a break and then all of a sudden the trumpet player stands on the table next to us and starts playing. Shortly there after the tuba guy comes over and plays with him. It was pretty cool. It's not every day you see a grown man standing on top of a table where people are eating.

Here's Greg, Ellen and Ethan having a great time at the Oktoberfest.

Right before we left we picked up these yummy treats to share. We all stood around snacking from the load we picked out. My favorite was the fruit tart. Peter liked the chocolate cake with cherry filling. They were all very good.
After ward we went to Peter's parents' house and looked at photo albums. They had pictures of Derek wearing a Polish dance costume and makeup. We had to show him the black mail we have on him. :)

Then we went to Greg and Ellen's for more treats and to watch Monsters vs. Aliens...it was a really cute movie. We had a great time with our friends and family.

Bay Area Fun!

We just got back from a really fun trip to the Bay Area! Friday morning at 4:30 our alarm went off. We got up, packed, got ready and were in the road by 5:30am. We drove straight to Monterey and arrived around 1:30pm. We then enjoyed the Monterey Aquarium which has the only Great White Shark in captivity. We took a ton of pictures, though the shark didn't like to hold still so most of our pictures are a bit blurry. Here's the best one we took though.
We thought this sign was just a bit too funny to not take a picture of...There was the same thing over the octopus tank. Apparently visitors are more likely to be obscene in front of a shark and an octopus :)
We watched the sea otters during feeding time. We also watched critters in a big tank being fed, it was pretty cool.

This little critter is called a Sea Dragon. It's a sea horse that looks like a bunch of swimming leaves. He was clearly one of our favorites.
We stayed at the aquarium for a couple of hours and then visited a few of the little shops along the same street. We picked up a ton of salt water taffy, which we enjoyed in the car.

Then we got back in the car and drove another two hours to my sister and brother-in-law's house. We slept on a L shaped couch so Peter and I were head to head. At some point in the night Slippers (one of the cats) jumped on me and scared me half to death and then continued to walk up to my chest and lay down. His purring woke Peter up who then got extremely jealous that I (not a cat person) had a cat on my chest and he (the totally cat person) didn't have one. Slippers stayed with me for awhile and then left. In the morning Peter found Slippers and carried him over to the couch so that he too could have a sleeping cat on him. Abbie and Rafe have also have Wiggles (another cat). He's much more shy than Slippers is and he is quite a bit fatter too. Our pictures didn't turn out well, so Abbie said she would send a couple good pictures of her cats so we can post them and show you her two cats that enjoyed playing with us while we were there.

On Saturday morning Peter and I drove to Fairfield to the Jelly Belly Factory. We went on the factory tour again and then bought a case of Belly Flops as well as a few other specific flavored beans. We went there for the first time a little over two years ago. It was totally worth the drive to go back again. Here's a bean mosaic that of course I really liked.

Outside in the parking lot

Where we parked there was this fun little dog run. I thought it just was too cute.

After that we drove to Muir Woods which is a Redwoods Park. We really enjoyed our time there. Here are a few funny pictures that Peter took.

Then we headed back to Abbie and Rafe's house where my dad, Scott, Norla and the kids had arrived. We enjoyed the evening and then Sunday morning we got ready for the whole reason for our trip up to the Bay Area. Abbie and Rafe were having an open house party. They bought their house recently and were having a big family gathering on Sunday, so we had to go (we took extra time off of work so we could make a mini vacation out of it too). At noon people arrived and we had a great time. Aunts, Uncles and cousins came...it was so much fun to see everyone. Here's Peter and me and my aunt Patty.

And here's the whole gang that attended the party.

Abbie and Rafe have this amazing view out their front windows. Peter and I went to sleep each night looking at the San Francisco and Bay skyline. On a clear day you can see everything. You could easily see the Oakland Bay Bridge and the San Mateo Bridge. This particular day was not very clear. Though on the left side you can see a rainbow.
This is a picture of part of their backyard. The focus is on the Japanese Maple and it's beautiful changing colors. Now something totally unique about their yard is that when you go up to the top of the fence you could see deer passing by. They came out early in the morning and again around 5 or 6 in the evening. We saw 4 different ones. We saw two Bucks and two Does.

Here's a picture from this morning. It's a little Doe.

We had an amazing time!

On the drive home a couple funny things happened. At 4:30 Peter announces that he needs to go to the bathroom. I suggest we pull off the freeway and find the next fast food place. He says he's fine. Not long later he says it again. I suggest the same thing. He refuses. Then we get stuck in stop and go traffic (more stop than go), he complains again. You can all guess what I suggest, but alas the answer is no. The traffic finally lets up and we're moving again. He makes the comment again and again and I sit there biting my lip. Then he complains that his back hurts from driving so much. I make the same comment again adding that while we are stopped we can switch places and I'll drive the rest of the way home. He says no. An hour and 45 minutes goes by and he finally takes an exit. We switched places and I drove the last hour and 15 minutes home.

At an early part in our driving home adventure I looked out the window and pulled a partial blonde moment. "What kind of car has a ja... oh wait never mind I figured it out." Peter-"figured what out." Me-"Oh just figured out the type of the car that's all." Peter-"So what were you going to say?" Me-"What kind of car has a jaguar on the side of it? Was what I was going to say but as soon as I thought of the animal I realized what it was." Just a partial blonde moment.

The Results Are In

Alright I know you've all been anxiously awaiting the results....and well the bathroom was finally put back together tonight and then pictures were taken. Followed by a few more touch ups.

Here is the Before picture-all the walls in our house are the same color.

We bought the primer and had it tinted to nearly the same color. The wall on the left has the primer on it. The wall on the right has one coat of plaster on top of the primer.Wall on left has one coat of plaster, wall on the right has two coats of plaster.

TADA! The bathroom is complete! So you want to know if we would recommend venetian plaster to anyone??? Well Peter did all the work and though he has a few blisters...he said, "If you just want a new color, don't bother, but if you want the look, it's worth it." He plans on doing a venetian plaster in our guest bathroom (the one we were originally going to do) next month. He said he learned from this experience a few things he would do differently next time.

1-When applying the first coat of plaster, make sure you completely cover the whole wall (don't leave spaces as the instructions suggest).
2- When taping-cover everything and leave some slack in the tarps-so you don't have to paint the baseboards too :)
3-Make sure you really love the room that you are painting...at a minimum there's four coats to apply with a trowel, not a brush.
4-Keep the plaster thin or else it cracks as it dries, thus creating more touch up work.
5-Remember this is supposed to be a relatively smooth surface when you're done...though ours didn't turn out that way...but we like it anyway.

The Painting Has Begun!

Woohooo the painting has begun and it looks so cool! We ended up deciding to start with our upstairs master bathroom in our bedroom (we have two small master bedrooms upstairs). We decided to start with our bathroom so if we didn't like the outcome, we would be the only ones to really see it. If we started with the downstairs bathroom then everyone who comes to visit would see it.

Through the week we gathered items that we would need. We decided to go with a Venetian Plaster-it's light blue, called Roman Bath. In order to do the plaster we needed a rounded trowel, sand the walls down, and put on some primer. We got the primer tinted to nearly the same color as the plaster. We also picked up the topcoat for the plaster as well (since it's a bathroom, we use a topcoat instead of some other steps on the instruction manual-the topcoat is supposed to give the same effect as a couple of other steps while keeping the moisture out.)

On Thursday night we dismantled all the hardware in the bathroom, and Peter took the tank off of the toilet. (Peter hates touching toilets, but he figured it would be easier to plaster behind if the tank wasn't there....so he grinned and bore the burden of touching a toilet...he washed thoroughly afterward.)

On Friday Peter had the day off of work, so he prepped the room-taped and hung plastic, sanded the walls and put the primer on. He also made another trip to Home Depot for drywall patch (we keep finding really crummy craftmanship in the way this place was built...so he fixed a gigantic hole behind our light fixture.) Friday night he put the first coat of plaster on. It looked pretty cool.

Saturday he put a second coat of plaster on and then a touch-up in a few areas. Then we had to wait. The top coat can't be put on until the plaster has dried for 24 hours...so the painting adventure will conclude Monday after work. In the meantime we keep going and staring at the bathroom....it looks great!

Before, during and after pictures will be posted as soon as the bathroom is complete!

Too Cute!

As part of my birthday present Peter ordered these cute outfits for me online. Every time we went to a build a bear workshop they never had these, but we found them online once and thought that would be a fun gift for Peter's dad as he is so into German folk dancing and such. After more consideration we decided it wouldn't be a great gift for him, but we really thought we needed it for my collection. The topic was dropped awhile ago. Then on my birthday Peter said he ordered something for me but it didn't arrive on time so he would probably save it for Christmas. After all he did say it was probably something more that we would both like than just me. I was a bit curious, but was fine with waiting until Christmas. Then last week we were looking at our credit card bill and I asked what he bought at build a bear. He was like, "ah man you weren't supposed to see that." The funny thing about it all is he can't hide gifts from me well so I figured I would find out before Christmas anyway. So back to the story...I am now trying to figure out what he could've bought at build a bear and then it hits me. "Did you buy the folk dance bear?" His response (he runs upstairs, comes back with the package) "uh well Happy Birthday." He pulls out the two outfits and aren't they adorable? I ran upstairs and found two naked bears and clothed them. They've been sitting on our couch for awhile.

A funny thing-I took a few pictures today, like 7 of them and finally got one right. I said that it was hard to get their eyes just right. Peter's response-"Well I don't think they're blinking." :)

Too Many Choices!

How do the guys on HGTV do this? Peter wants to paint...he thinks starting with our downstairs guest bathroom will be first. Here are the paint samples that we picked up, what do you think?
The above samples are from Frazee, the ones below are from Behr.
These are the Venetian Plaster and Bellagio Faux samples. We're seriously thinking about trying a Venetian plaster in a neutral color...but we're keeping our options open.

So what do you think?