Merry Cookiemas

Brian and I had a blast today icing cookies! We iced big cookies, small cookies, weird cookies (sheep for Christmas???) and had lots of fun doing it. I remembered all the fun I had doing this as a child!

I tried out another cookie recipe as well called Chocolate Crinkles. They were VERY rich and chocolaty. I sent them to Brian's workplace and one of his coworkers stated that he was vibrating from the sugar for the rest of the day...I aim to please! I must state though for the record that there isn't that much sugar in them...mainly just chocolate, the way all cookies should be. Here are some pictures of today's fun and the chocolate crinkles.




In the lower right corner where there is a couple blobs of pink on a cookie...this is Brian's rendition of a poodle sheep...hmmm!


Cute snowman...one of them has Bouncer's weird eyes!

Merry Cookiemas to All, and to all a Full tummy!

Philippines Trip

We got back a couple days ago and I still can't get up at a decent time. Going over to the Philippines was fine, I was able to do two dives on the day we arrived. Coming back has been totally different, I can't seem to get enough sleep, it is all I want to do. Anyways, enough complaining. The trip was amazing, we saw so much in the ocean. The ocean is so full of fun things to discover! I did 14 dives and Brian did 16 dives in three different areas: at the Balai resort, Apo reef, and Puerto Galera.

I enjoyed the area off of the Balai resort the most. There were tons of these critters called Nudibranchs, they were all colors of the rainbow and so cute. Here is a picture by Walsy.



Along with the nudibranchs we saw octopus, giant clams (these were HUGE), tons of little Nemo of different varieties, and so much more!! Here is a picture taken by Almier of Brian trying to get to make friends with little Nemo.



Here is a picture of me feeding the fishies.


If anyone is interested they can check out other images of our trip on: http://philippinesdiving06.ning.com

It was an amazing trip and I HIGHLY recommend getting certified in scuba diving, it brings a whole new world to your doorstep!!

Since you've been gone

I admit, I'm horrible at keeping new things on the blog. It's more time consuming than I had thought. Anyways, a good friend of mine from Pennsylvania came to visit a couple weeks back. I had lots of fun with her, cooking (I learned to make pesto!!), learning some new knitting techniques, warp painting, and going to visit Solvang, a cute town near Santa Barbara.

Here is my friend...exhausted from all the shopping we did at the Weaving and Spinning shop in Solvang.



And here is the beautiful scenery we saw going to Solvang. Also, on the way down we saw a tarantula crossing the road...it was HUGE.



On another note, I finally finished the pillows I was weaving. I think they turned out great...especally since my sewing skills are very rusty!

Doubleweave

This is my first attempt at doubleweave and yes, I did mess it up, but somehow I managed to selvage it and I think it is pretty successful so far. It had more ends than I ever, ever, want to deal with again...I threaded 1,089 ends!!!! It will be made into two pillows.

Visit with the Papa

Dad and his wife Eva came to Cali for a couple days to visit. It was fun taking them around the area and to San Francisco. We visited the Botanical Gardens and the Conservatory in San Francisco. Here is Dad being his silly self.

Monterey Relaxation

We rented a beach house for Brian's birthday and for our own relaxation. We had a lot of fun, visiting the aquarium, strolling along the beach, watching sea otters play in the waves, and RELAX!!

Brian making a delicious breakfast!!


The view out of the beach house.


Brian playing in the waves.


The beautiful flowers growing in the sand dunes.



Me playing in the ocean...it was too cold to go in (Brian was the brave (or just plain stupid) one!)



And finally...our cheesy photo...got to have at least one of these.

Scuba-dooing

This weekend we FINALLY completed our diving certification! We had started in in Bryn Mawr but then Brian got the job out in Cali. We had thought we would just go to the Carribean to finish but um...we are much farther away now from the Carribean. So, the closest and quickest was to go to Monterey. We went through the Califonia Dive Center in San Bruno. It turned out to be a great choice.

Friday Brian and I drove down to Monterey and got a good night sleep as we had to get up WAY too early...7:00! Saturday morning we went to Breakwater, a dive site where a lot of beginners do their open water dives. We got briefed on our first dive by our instructor Tom. Here we are, all suited up, looking like penguins!!





The water was about 55 degrees....VERY cold!!!! We survived and got to see some amazing things like tons of starfish, a baby octapus, a flounder and other fish, different sea cucumbers and lots of kelp. The kelp is actually pretty! After our first day of diving we had a barbecue all together.



Abeit being very cold, we had a lot of fun, made some friends...and we're REALLY looking forward to the dive trip to the Phillipines (with 90 degree water)!!

Pink

Bouncer and Biener love their pillows. This is Bouncer's way of convincing Bien to give up the pillow.



I finally finished the scarf I showed in a previous post.

Yummiest Cookies Ever (but then again ever is a long time)

A few months ago a courier from the Victoria and Albert Museum came to work on an exhibit at the DeYoung and brought some Chocolate Ginger cookies made by the Prince of Wales (and no he doesn't sit in his kitchen baking everyday just so that we can have yummy cookies). A very epicures colleague, Jean, found a similar recipe from a William Sonoma catalog. This recipe is so good...even without the chocolate...but please use chocolate, and don't insult the cookie by using cheap milk chocolate :)
ENJOY!!

1 1/2 c of Flour
1/2 TSP of Baking Soda
4 oz (1 stick o butta) unsalted
3/4 c Sugar
1 Egg
1 TBSP Lemon Juice
1/2 c of Finely chopped Crystallized Ginger

Mix together flour and baking soda.
Cream butter and sugar together in a mixer for 4-5 minutes til light and fluffy.
Add egg and beat another 3-4 minutes
Gradually add flour mixture slowly and then lemon juice
Mix in chopped ginger
Drop by teaspoon onto parchment paper about 1 1/2" apart.

Bake in 375 degree oven for 13-15 minutes
Cool on rack

Chocolate:
Melt chocolate (bittersweet) in a double broiler and then dip half of the cookie in the wonderful bath o chocolate and place on aluminum foil and place in the refrigerator til the chocolate solidifies.

Earth-please read

Brian and I went to see the movie "Inconvienent Truth" over the weekend. Now I was never an Al Gore fan...I am embarrassed to admit it that I didn't vote in that Gore/Bush election (and quite frankly quite mad at myself for not doing so even though my one vote probably couldn't have kept that Texas idiot out of the government). But I digress...the movie was quite the eye-opener for me. As a kid I was all into the environmental movement but I like everyone else on this planet have strayed from the save-the-planet mentality. I don't recycle, I drive WAY too much, I use the regular light bulb and SO much more! When we moved to Cali some of this changed, just because it was EASY to change...Brian bikes to work, I can take the train or carpool on somedays, there are recylcing containers right outside our door. Well the movie struck me...hardcore. It scared the living bujezzus out of me. Many people don't think that Global warming is happening and I need to please ask them kindly to "WAKE-UP!!!", the facts are not just Al Gore's that he just made up. When I look around, people are constantly saying, this is not the weather we are used to...the planet is changing and not for the better! Some people refuse to see this movie because it is Al Gore and they don't like him or believe him. He has many extremely VALID points in this movie!! One example that just horrifyed me, I found also in a TIME article.

He is not making this stuff up, his info is based on facts, the world is not flat...it's round (even though they believed it was flat just as people believe that global warming is not happening...it is round and it IS happening)
I ask...no I beg, please see this movie, please make changes in your lives that will make this planet better....for my future children, for everyone's future children.

This weekend I flew to Dallas for my friend Kristin's wedding! I finally got to meet her family and all her friends. I felt very overwhelmed for the first couple days with the amount of people always all around but by Saturday night I felt more relaxed and had lots of fun. The ceremony was very beautiful and of course Kristin was a very beautiful bride.

I took some picture of my container garden on our deck. I know, this is pretty boring but I wanted to take pictures of it because taking pictures is fun and it would be un-Gamble of me not too do so. This is my largest garden yet...someday maybe I'll actually have ground instead of containers to grow stuff in. Brian should be pretty proud too because he is the who usually waters as I'm always in such a hurry in the morning.






This is what I'm now working on on my loom. It's just a plain-weave scarf using tencel and pearle cotton with rayon weft. I just wanted to play with color a bit. I don't love it and am ready to move on to something else!

Testing

This is a test.