Birthday Weekend in LA

Matt surprised me with a birthday trip to LA and spend the weekend in Torrance at Betsy & Evan's new house. Here are the pics of some of our activities.

NH Vacation Part 3 - Family Reunion

The vacation included a Lawson family reunion of sorts to celebrate Gramps' life. Mom served dinner for the crowd at the Farm where everyone met the newest member, Lilly, caught up and shared stories.

My cousins Mercy, Julia and my second cousin Lilly

Lilly gets to know Betsy

The troops dine al fresco

Betsy & Lilly the next day

NH Vacation Part 2 - The Blueberry Chronicles

There are 6 blueberry bushes behind the house. This has meant numerous years, decades, generations (4 generations at least) of blueberry picking. For my mom, it means August blueberry extravaganzas and year round blueberry baking. For Betsy & me, it means all you can eat free(ish) blueberries during summer visits.


As my mom pointed out, picking blueberries in early August can be overwhelming and even anxiety-inducing. There are just so many to pick. How could anyone possibly pick them all? Even when you spend an hour filling up several vessels (including one's mouth), the bushes still look full of berries. You go back a day later and there are more that have grown and ripened. It's never ending. But it's ok. Blueberry everything (i.e. pie, coffee cake, salsa, sauce, butter, jam, soup, margaritas, muffins - yes, she has a cookbook devoted entirely to blueberries) is worth the stress.

Did I mention the blueberry margaritas and salsa? Yum.

NH Vacation Part 1 - Starting Vacation Mode

To start the New Hampshire vacation, Betsy and I arrived in New London Friday morning, after a short 1 night visit in Boston with Amy and Keri of the Gang. We started the visit right with an afternoon and evening at the cottages on Pleasant Lake. One cottage was vacant so we had a grilled dinner there after enjoying the sunshine on the dock.

I took the opportunity to start a good Summer book

The sun went down but that doesn't stop us from sitting here enjoying the view

The next day we forced it to be a beach day, but to get at least a little exercise before the feasts to come, we biked to Colby Point. The hills seem so insignificant by car.


We spent Sunday night at the Lake Sunapee Yacht Club. It rained but we didn't care because we sat overlooking the water from under the overhang.

New Hampshire Vacation

Rather than post 139 pictures in the blog, here's a slide show of our New Hampshire vacation. They are captioned to give you a guided tour of events, location and sometimes even people. I'll post some highlights individually, too.



If you want to see them at your own speed or larger, click here.

30 Years Ago

Not sure which month these are from, but they're definitely 1978. Hooray for scanners!

Grandma & Grandpa Taber holding Betsy & me

Dad doing the same

27 Years Ago

Early on, my mom set the birthday cake bar pretty high. Not only were her cakes very tasty, they were works of art. I remember two in particular. One cake was in the shape of a hand when I turned 5 and I was excited to be "a whole hand." The other cake was a school bus. I had always thought these cakes came in the same year because I got to start riding the bus at 5. However, sorting through all the photos at the Farm I came across a photo of the school bus cake, dated 1981, and it was in honor of my 3rd birthday. It seems the height of my school bus obsession was when I was 2 and Betsy was 5 and she got to ride the bus to Kindergarten. Yes, I was once so in love with the big yellow bus that a) my mom made me a replica in icing and b) one day I followed Betsy onto the bus. Mr. Bernstein was startled by my presence and just waited patiently until my mom came out, dressed in her nightgown & robe, and also boarded the bus to retrieve me. Sorry Mom!

Five Minute Test

I heard about this from my Daily Candy email:

What: See how many of the most frequently used words you can think of in five minutes.
Where: Online at codebox.no-ip.net.

I pretty much blanked, or just haven't had enough coffee for an 8am quiz, but I'm sure anyone will beat my score of 38.

Kitchen Project: Last Task

While we've been using the new kitchen for quite a while now, there is still one glaringly unfinished piece: the backspash between the range and microwave. It remains an uncovered 18"x30" section of backer board, just waiting for tile. All the tile has finally arrived (we ordered it in May, only 1/4 of our order arrived in late June, the rest a few weeks ago) and now we have to actually tackle this project.

The plan is to use three different color tiles, all hand made in Texas or Tennessee or somewhere, to coordinate with blue/red pendant lights. Unfortunately, being handmade, none of them are exactly 2"x4" as advertised. Mostly, they're 1 7/8" x 3 3/4" which leaves us with a bit of extra cutting & filling to do. Oh, well.

Last night we decided to determine the pattern & see how random we could make the color scheme. Here is the winner:

This is an earlier variation, before some Rummikub-like moves.

And our first attempt - tried a basket weave pattern to be different, but it looked too American flag / quilt-like.

Vacation from the World

Matt and I have just returned from a week's vacation (give or take a few days) in New Hampshire. Up there, at the Farm, it's like a complete unplug from normal life (we watch little TV, just the boys use the internet and cell phone service is spotty at best). We are still getting back into the swing of things. I will blame this vacation on my delinquent blogging. However, I have back-dated some entries to fill in the July gaps. So scroll down!

I'll upload and post the vacation photos soon - including some great pics of my adorable little second cousin Lilly.

Recipe for Tolerable Office Coffee

Mix 5 parts crappy coffee with 1 part hot water. Add packet of no sugar added hot chocolate, 1-2 yellow sweetener packets (or blue if office doesn't have yellow. If office only has pink, fire up the resume) . Stir. Add milk (or milk substitute if you've forgotten to bring in your own milk). Voila! Free or nearly free mocha. Bonus points for shaking your milk and spooning in the foam.

Camping

We went camping this weekend with friends Kevin, Heather and Greg as well as Sunapee and Bridger. This brought us back up North towards Mendocino, only not on the coast so with much nicer weather. We stayed in Hendy Woods (with about 100 other groups) which was pretty nice, especially for a last minute plan.

First order of business (well, second after lunch and a beer), was to bring the dogs to the river for a swim. Then we enjoyed the day setting up camp, cooking some steak, chicken, corn on the cob, playing cards and enjoying each other's company around the fire.

Sunapee is very confident with the river and had more success than he normally does in the ocean.







The hike to the river and the swimming definitely tired out Sunapee.


Kevin cooked and ate with what Heather calls his Crocodile Dundee knife.

Swimming and Diving

We took Sunapee on his first camping trip this weekend. The campsite search hinged on having a place where he could practice his swimming skills without the threat of waves. He is not the most graceful or efficient swimmer, but he swims enthusiastically. Most of the time, he swims almost frantically, making sure his head is out of the water - paws flailing above the surface. His other peculiar stamp on the swim is when he reaches the stick, he dives for it, looking like a very small polar bear.

In some of these videos you can hear us all laughing at his crazy stroke. In others, you can hear his snarfing for air.

Mendocino Weekend

Matt and I spent a long weekend in Mendocino to celebrate our first anniversary. We had a nice drive up, with a pit stop in Mill Valley so Matt could tutor and I played with Sunapee at the dog park. Also along the way, we stopped at the Marin Mazda/Subaru dealership to buy/install a dog gate in the wagon, allowing us to bring Sunapee's travel crate into the hotel and not have to traipse it in & out. Using our guidebook to having a dog in California, we had a burger lunch at an oceanside (and parking lot-side) grill with the Pee at our feet in Bodega Bay.

We stayed at one of the MacCallum House buildings and enjoyed a great room with a private patio and hot tub. Friday in Mendocino was clear and beautiful so we enjoyed a drink on the deck before dinner at the MacCallum House restaurant.

Saturday, Matt unfortunately woke up feeling ill, so he spent the day in bed napping, watching the Yankees and consuming saltines and ginger ale. I spent the day on our private deck reading and hanging out with the Pee.

View from MacCallum House deck Friday

Walking around town Saturday with Sunapee

Jews for Jesus?

Add this to the odd things you see in San Francisco, I just passed 4 people sporting "Jews for Jesus" t-shirts on the Embarcadero Muni station. Too bad they were too busy paying their fare to hand me a flier, as now I'm curious.

One year ago

Here's to the first great year.

Puppy Update

Sunapee is about 4 1/2 months old and growing faster than a weed. The change from when we first brought him home at 9 weeks is amazing. Life at home with puppy has improved and become significantly easier.

• Sunapee successfully completed 2 concurrent Puppy Kindergarten classes (we didn't want to risk under-training him) and is halfway through Puppy II (just one class now). I'm proud to say he is one of the star pupils and learns very quickly. Commands he knows now include:
• Sit (tho he doesn't quite get the command if he's already lying down)
  
• Down
• Stay (ok, this one is still a work in progress, but it's not bad)
• Wait (also new, but he's good at it)
• Let's Go! (walk with me)
• Heel! (walk RIGHT next to me)
• Gentle (take this treat but leave my fingers intact, please)
  
• Come! (They say this is one of the most important and he gets it every time. The key? We use meat based baby food, aka puppy crack, as the reward.)
• Sunapee has graduated from puppy day care to beach trips when we're at work. The fine people who run this program say Sunapee is the only dog in the group they trust off leash because of the aforementioned Come! training.
• Sunapee has had all his shots and can now actually enjoy the parks, so now he gets to play fetch on the grass at Golden Gate Park until the cows come home.
• He has grown from ~18 lbs when we brought him home to over 45 lbs. His ears and paws have grown faster than the rest of him, but really, it makes him extra cute.
• He happily hops in the car to go anywhere and no longer tries to hop out of the crate top if it's open (see pic below). This is new and it cracks me up to look back and see his little head sticking out.
• Cats are still not fond of him but will occasionally get close enough that they sniff each other's noses.
• Sunapee is definitely social. He met his first baby on Sunday (pics to come) and didn't mind her pokes, didn't bring his teeth anywhere near her and just licked her face a few times, prodding her to push him away.
  

Tomorrow we're heading up to Mendocino, puppy in tow, for an anniversary get away. Fingers are crossed he behaves there as well as he does at home! Thankfully someone invented the travel crate.

Sunday Afternoon Shenanigans

Friends Lisa and Preston with baby Olivia came over Sunday 7/13 to catch up and have lunch. They hadn't seen the place yet, and unfortunately the living room walls were still in a state of mismatched test colors. The boys were mostly entertained by Wii Fit as Preston and Matt had quite the Hula-Hoop, Ski Jump and Balance Tables competition going. Lisa, Olivia and I mostly giggled at them, but Lisa and I took a few turns ourselves, of course.

I took the opportunity to make a lamb dish perfected by Betty Ann of "Bloomfield Gang" fame (or infamy, depending on which stories you've heard). It was a hit and I was lucky to have leftovers for a few lunches at work.

Lisa and Preston happily handed Olivia over to the childless to play with and Olivia liked petting the dog - as long as that pesky tongue didn't get her.

July 4th Hiking

To get away from the fog on July 4th, we headed up to Mill Valley with Toby, Steve, Brian and Sunapee for a 6.5 mile hike up in the foothills of Mt. Tam. It was the first hike for "The Pee" and he was a trooper. He did occasionally express his desire to stop and lie down in the shade but he marched on.

Had to see it to believe it

I just about keeled over last Sunday when Toby requested a Bud Light at Taylor's. I have never witnessed her drink anything but red wine or a cosmo. She states that she'll have 5 or 6 every summer when she's more in the mood for a refreshing beverage. I can appreciate that.