Something Sweet!

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Meara organized an impromptu youth and government get together at Something Sweet. It was so much fun! And their cheesecake is so delicious! I got the black forest cheesecake.

 Y&G peeps. Now you can see everybody!! (Well, not quite everybody.) The boys had a game of Uno goin at one end of the table and we played Spot it in the middle... (Thank you Aunt Colleen! We love it!)

And on this end of the table, the guys were just being goofy! I am not sure what they are doing in this picture...

Another picture of my cheesecake before I ate it. The server was so good to us (there were 13 of us!) Even when Logan spilled a giant pitcher of Mountain Dew all over and they didn't tell our server about it... We cleaned it up as best as we could. But I kind of expected them to at least tell our server that there was a spill.. Idk. Apparently, they thought he saw the whole thing... Who knows. It was a nice evening of games, cheesecake, and friends. Maybe we'll do it again sometime.

San Francisco!

So the trip to San Francisco was pretty fun! A little bittersweet because of the circumstances, but still a fun trip.


The first day, we spent most of the day in the city. To kill time until the Wake, we went to Golden Gate Park!

Flute Man I thought was interesting!

We visited the Japanese Tea Garden.

Nick and I at the top of a tall bridge. It was quite difficult to get down.

a fountain

 

And there's that gorgeous Golden Gate Bridge!

Despite the bitterness of the funeral, it was a fun trip! We got a lot of business taken care of, saw a lot of people (as much as can fit in four days, which isn't very much when you consider that our entire lives are there...)

So much happened, and it was so long ago (like a month) that I don't know how to capture it all. But I'm going to write an essay of the experience (idea courtesy of Aunt Colleen) and it will be called, "Flowers for Grandfather." See? Doesn't that sound good already? And I haven't even begun to write it yet! It's amazing what a title can do.

San Francisco!!

So this post is a long time in coming...

Buuuut.. Me and Mom flew to San Francisco for four days for my great grandpa's funeral.

It was a sombre occasion but we also had lots of fun as evidenced by the following pictures:

Golden Gate Bridge as the sun was setting.

Flute man outside in Golden Gate Park. I thought he was pretty cool.

 Japanese Tea Garden Pictures!

and me and Mom indulged ourselves in a visit to our favorite sushi place:

Oh it was so good!!! >.<

And I know this is kind of a short and lame post but that's what I got for now. I'm thinking about writing an essay of the experience (idea courtesy of Aunt Colleen). It will be called, "Flowers for Grandfather." see? Doesn't that sound good already? And I haven't even begun writing it! =)

Seven Falls Hike

Our homeschool group went on a hike to a place called Seven Falls.

It was a lovely hike- about two miles there and back. We ate lunch at the falls and splashed around in the water (believe it or not, there was water and it was freezing!!! I dunked my head under.)

We had two groups: a fast-paced group and a slow-paced group. Cam was at the head of the fast-paced group for most of the way. 

We had interesting conversations along the way. Jim's dad is a lawyer and he started talking to us about the difference between the various charges of manslaughter. Interesting stuff!!

In this picture, if you look really hard, you can see Cam. He is the one with the orange hat (Thank you Grandma Kaaren!) and blue backpack. He's almost dead center of the photo.

The falls were so beautiful!! I should've taken more pictures, I really should have. At least I got some. I will try to see if my friends got any pictures.

It was a truly wonderful hike!! I'm gonna try to lead my family back there at some point. ;)

New Prom Dress!

What do you think of the dress?

Yesterday, on a whim, we decided to go to the Tucson book festival!! It was super fun! There was a whole avenue full of tents and demonstrations. Different bands played and there was food and workshops and of course, books!!

This was along the National Parks row and they had some real chainmail! It was actually quite heavy-- about 25-30 pounds and weighed the person down quite a bit. It looked like a dress on me so I posed for the camera. I also did a super manly muscle-y pose too but I like this picture better. :) What do you think?

Squid Fries

My family knows how to eat, you guys. Seriously. When Mom and Dad went on their anniversary trip to Sandy Aygo, they discovered this great thing: spicy fried calamari with garlic and jalapenos!! (disclaimer: not actual name of dish they ordered)

They were sooo delicious that they had to recreate them for us!! Lucky us!!! You eat them like french fries. And squid is actually nice and cheap if you buy it at the Asian market.

I will now show you the process:

STEP ONE: dip the squid in egg wash

STEP TWO: coat in bread crumbs

STEP THREE & FOUR: Fry and toss with garlic, salt, and jalepenos.

And serve.

They were so tasty, we made them two nights in a row!! And yes, those are squid tentacles that you see. We got squid strips the first night (which was good because Christian was over and I think the whole squids would've been a little too much weirdness-factor) and we ate the whole (baby) squids the second night. And they were so good... You don't even know. Pictures can't even describe.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, I hate to break it to ya, but it ain't. You have to taste these things to believe how good they are!!

Puppies!

The lady who does mom's hair has a litter of puppies!!! Aren't they cute?

They were such squirrely things and it was so hard to take pictures of them!

Cam romping with them.

It's not a Monkey! It's an Ape!

Here is a fast an easy guide to discerning monkeys from apes and everything in between! (quite appropriate, looking at the title of this blog.)

I thought this was so funny! Sydney and Adrienne told me about it. I ♥ Veggie tales so much!!! ^-^

Tamale Making Party!!!

Tamales!!!

Okay, so it wasn't really a party but Mom was getting a hankerin' for tamales. So we made some!! And it wasn't a whole day escapade. It only took up the afternoon. And they were tasty! And! We now have a freezer with tasty tamales! Yay!!

The fixin's. You have no idea how much I had to do to clear off the windowsill behind all of it, just so it looked presentable for the camera! And then it took eight shots to get it right. This (I think) is the best one.

Look at that goodness!!

And my lovely mommy, smiling for the camera!! It took so long for me to convince her to let me take a picture of her!! And then when she finally consented, it took six tries to get a good one because I was laughing and a bunch turned out blurry! (In case you were wondering, this shot took a lot of work to make our kitchen presentable too. You can't see it, but that corner by the toaster? It's crammed with random junk. And you should've seen the laundry room!! O_o But no more on the state of our house!)

The tamales were so good!!! I decided that I like them. Last time, I didn't like them. While we were making them, mom told me a story about how she and dad went on a "culinary adventure" once. They decided that they were going to make tamales together! Well, it turned out to be an all day process!! And then, their tiny little freezer was full to the brim with tamales!! 

Good stuff, them tamales!



P.S. Have you noticed that the quality of my pictures is going up?? Yay!!! ^-^

Don't Touch My Mustache!!

In Japanese, to say "you're welcome," it sounds an awful lot like, "don't touch my mustache." (it's like doy toy mustafa or something like that... but don't ask google translate because google translate has something completely different...)

So I thought I'd have a little fun and I made this postcard for Stephanie!!! I looked up how to write "don't touch my mustache" (the actual words) in Japanese. That's at the bottom of the card. At the top, it says "thank you" in Japanese. I had so much fun making the card.

I drew that mustache!!! It's a little lopsided/not symmetrical but that's okay. I hope she likes it.

Birthday Party Time!!!

It's official now: we are bad at remembering to take photographs!! We got zero pictures of my party, this last weekend and a small handful of pictures at the restaurant on my proper birthday. (which is a real shame because I was wearing a beautiful skirt that day, if I may say so.)

On my actual birthday, Kerri took me out to lunch and we went shopping at the mall. It was great fun. We didn't really end up buying anything but that's okay. It was still fun.

I spent the afternoon chillin' at home working on my novel. (it is editing time!!) Then, after dad got home, we went out for

SUSHI!!!

Oh my gosh, it was so lovely. That is $80 worth of sushi right there. But since we went at 1/2 price hour, we got it for $40. Gotta love that!!!

The few pictures of me at the restaurant:

I feel so non-photogenic sometimes. But there ya go. The sushi place is called Sushi Ten. :) I like it. The food was soooo delicous. They messed up our order in a few places but it was still very good. And some of it was spicy!!

Then, for my party on Friday, I invited a handful of my friends over for dinner and we all went out to a lovely dessert place downtown (actually, more midtown) called Something Sweet. It's kind of an upscale college hang-out place; they're open really late and it's by the university. We played games there for about three hours. It was so much fun!! Then I had two of my girlfriends spend the night and we watched "Ever After." Kind of a small party but still really fun! Next year, I'm having a square dance. Yeehaw!!

Piroshkis!!

Don't they look beautiful? Half of them are gone by now but we still have more filling to use up.

I got a really nice camera for my birthday so I can promise that the pictures now will be a little (if not many times) better! :)