Sweet Ninja

Gone Fishin'

Okay…actually crabbing but who’s being technical? I just returned from spending four days down the Jersey shore for our annual fourth of July trip. The weather wasn’t super conducive to hanging on the beach although I did give it try, goose bumps and all. So to fill the time we rode bikes, barbequed, crabbed and played a good number of drinking games. We also watched some non-professional and marginally dangerous fireworks. There were actually people running off the beach and some children who will be forever traumatized but all-in-all they were entertaining!

 And just for entertainment purposes here a pict of my big cat Miles. He's about twice the size of my other cat and still growing, but mostly in the belly area these days. Miles is at least part Maine Coon which means he can keep growing until he's five. Right now he's about three.

No. I'm not stalling. I have been working on things. I Just haven't shown you yet.

Snapping Out of it

It's only been a few days but I'm already seriously missing those laid back Sonoma days....After waking up at a reasonable hour (8ish instead of 6ish) we'd retrieve our baked goods basket from the door (this particular day it was croissants and jam) and brew some fresh coffee. We'd also bust out the home made granola.

You can also see the pretty blueish- greenish eggs we picked up at the farmers market. One morning they turned into omelets made with spinach and organic sage cheese also from the market. Delicious!

Bungalows 313 was such a cozy place to stay. We joked while we were there that we'd just move in. Unfortunately we don't have that kind of cash. Ironically though, Bill just found out that they are up for sale to the tune of 3.3 million. Anyone want to go halves?

I'm Back!

California was awesome! It was actually like two vacations in one. We spent the first three days in San Francisco and the then four in Sonoma.

In San Francisco we...
-had a delicious meal in Chinatown
-walked down Lombard Street
-went to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum (corny but fun)
-took a tour of Alcatraz (awesome with a audio tour narrated by four former guards and four former inmates)
-ate dungeness crab at Fisherman's Wharf
-saw the sea lions at Pier 39 and I was attacked by a seagull that tried to get my ice cream. You can guess who won that battle!
-went to Giardelli Square and ate some chocolate
-took a trip out to Berkley to have dinner at Alice Waters' famous Chez Panisse!
-went to the De Young Museum
-hade tea in the Japanese tea garden

not to mention all the other places we walked through like Haight Ashbury. It was a pretty action packed three days!

In Sonoma we took it a little easier. We:
-wine tasted
- rented bikes to ride from winery to winery to..taste wine
-ate at the my new favorite restaurant The Girl and the Fig
-went to Napa to taste wine, oh yeah and olive oil
-hiked
-ate at Bouchon in Yountville
-sat on our patio and drank wine and ate cheese!

Oh yeah, and on our way from San Fran to Sonoma we stopped in the quaint bay town of Sausilito and then took a two mile walk through the Muir Woods. All-in -all it was an excellent trip! I'll expand on parts of it later. Right now I have to get to bed so that I can re-enter the real world tomorrow. wahhhh!

And send in my taxes....double wahhh!

The Sanfrancisco Treat

Tomorrow morning I'm on my way across this great country to visit San Francisco and Sonoma. I'll fill you in when I get back!

Have a great week!

Happy New Year!

It's been a little while since my last post but with Christmas and New Years time just flew by. My Christmas was awesome (I got a print Gocco...more about that later)!

Then two days later I had a lovely annual get together with some great girl friends. We drank wine, ate plenty of good snacks, gossiped and exchanged small gifts. It was really nice to just chill with friends after the busy-ness of Christmas.

I received two Amy Butler books for Christmas.

Here's a sneak peak inside "Midwest Modern," which is my favorite of the two. It's the more recent one and shows a lot more of Amy's patterns and fabrics. Excuse the glare, they are glossy books!


and Tinkerbell's favorite page

Then for New Years a group of eleven of us went to VT for four days. We had a great house that had a fireplace, wood burning stove and a hot tub. Everyone did a good job of splitting duties such as cooking, cleaning and building a fire.

We got snow dumped on us and went to Stratton two days. I snowboarded (poorly, but it was still fun). Games, both drinking and regular, were played. There was an impromptu dance party, some hot tubbin', karaoke and plenty of good times. This pict may not totally sum it up, but it's one of my favorites from the weekend. Enjoy... and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

One night in Bangkok

I've been MIA for a while...but for good reason. I got married then went to Thailand for two weeks for our honeymoon. Both events were truly awesome.

The wedding from start to finish was exactly what we wanted. I'll post more about that later with picts.

Thailand was phenomenal. We traveled to four different areas: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Trang and Phuket. Going to all these areas allowed to experience a bunch of different things and atmospheres. Instead of doing a lot of explaining I'll just show you.

Sitting Buddha at a temple in Bangkok

street food in Bangkok

elephants do the darnedest things

they weren't kidding when they said we'd be taking
a bamboo raft down the river

temple of the (300 foot long) reclining Buddha

limestone formations off the coast in Trang

paper lanterns floating in the sky in Phuket to
celebrate the end of the rainny season and new
beginnings

This is a good start but doesn't totally sum up the experience. I'll post again later with a montage of all the crazy decorative elements and embellishments we saw.