I miss you guys

Domesticity

Peggy and I are making Thanksgiving dinner for 8 tomorrow and I'm getting nervous. Since its the first Thanksgiving dinner either one of us has cooked we are looking to the pros for direction.


All of our recipes are coming from these fine ladies. Last night I marinated olives, made cranberry relish and baked chocolate glazed pumpkin cookies. It was pretty intense.

Wish me luck!

movie love realized

I know why they are called the Swell Season, cause they made my heart swell up 23 times its normal size. We saw them last saturday and it was honestly the sweetest show i have ever seen. it was warm and intimate and to quote my friend peggy, it made you love the person you were sitting next to a little bit more. it's movie love... only in real life. i was the only one out of our group who cried at the end of 'once' cause i really wanted them to be together and i cried when i saw them sneak a kiss on stage at the show. it was perfect...it makes me all swirly just thinking about it.

Our new best friend

As if Jerms wasn't enamored enough with Natalia upon first meeting but then she brought the magical new self-cleaning coffee maker into his life.

My posse

I run with a pretty tough crowd.

move here and i will make this for you

vegetarian posole. good and good for you.

Check out my skills

these are the professional guys cause we're pretty intense with the carving:

this is our artistic interpretation of chunk from the goonies:

don't be jealous.

I'm a professional

check out my new fancy food processer. i plan on processing everything from now on.

i made tapenade for our Top Chef finale party. i still have some left if you wanna come over.

Day of Fanciness

so i'm putting these up for 2 reasons, one on the freak chance that zach looks at this- i thought he might like to see me all fancy and two, i may be feeling a touch sentimental.
seriously one of my favorites, i make that face at him all the time.

Addict

we got our first wedding present in the mail. having a gift registry is like being on a constant high. only instead of drugs its crate and barrel boxes.

What? Phoenix is exotic...

we went to phoenix to visit my friend jill. i lured jerms into the 110 degree heat with braves/diamondbacks tickets. as you can see the braves stomped them, i think i saw a tear of pure joy in jeremy's eye.

then off to family weekend in morro bay:

don't worry, no one was scratched on my watch.

Childhood schmilhood

As a child, my mom and i rented a beach house every summer in cayucos. I have very fond memories of these times...many of them revolving around my favorite restaurant as an 8-year-old: The Sea Shanty

Oh, it gets even better...check out the interiors...So this weekend I am revisiting the old beach haunts with my mom. I have a feeling its going to be just as rad as it was back then.
Don't even act like you don't want to go there to drink pbr, eat mud pie and try on 762 hats.
We both know you do.

Its tradition

So every Friday is 'Signature Drink Friday' in the Van-Martin house. We research cocktails neither one of us have tried (and magically have all the ingredients for that day) and then see if its disgusting.
Worst drink so far, hands down, was the 'Barbarella': Sambuca mixed with Cointreau...it was terrifying, only drink i have not been able to finish.
Last week was the 'Hot Southern Night': Beer, Peach Schapps and Coke. Not as bad as it sounds, I swear.
Its our favorite weekly tradition.

Birthday Smores

Tuesday was Jacqui's birthday...she was dreading it but how can you be grumpy when you have birthday smores and smoldering eyebrows? Seriously.

Houseguests!

Joy and Jaelynn came to visit this past weekend. We had a very full itinerary.

Park:
Beach:

La Brea Tar Pits (kinda scary for a 3 1/2 year old, oops):

Its hard.

I had to geek out on flowers for a second...the above arrangements perfect or perfectly awful? not with the tin things though.

Grandmas, like Jesus, are magic.

My last weekend in Fresno my grandma asked me if I had ever been drunk . I said "Hmmm, excellent question Gram. Let me get back to you"