Christmas Checklist

Happy Christmas Adam! (This year’s the first time I’ve heard that phrase but Mary said her family has used it forever.) Today was for going and seeing and crafting and baking. 

The Colorado branch drove over to CSUCI to check out the campus. Everything was closed but Cyrus got to see where she will be attending come August. She’ll come back in the spring for the official “tour”.

She also went to Leia’s house to play with snakes and check out all the lizards. Big hit! 

Pop, the littles and the Coloradians went to Ventura Harbor for lunch at Andria’s, 

then walked down to Channel Islands National Park headquarters for educational purposes. 

Not. Rachel wanted a park sticker while Jac and Donovan talked Uncle John into augmenting their stuffie collection. 

They’re pretty pleased with their new friends.

At least 4 of these stuffies were acquired in the last 2 days. 

The button snowflakes were a big hit and easy enough that Jac and Donovan had fun making them too. 

Leo and Cyrus were still working on their masterpieces when I went to bed, so more pictures tomorrow.

Craft #2, macrame gnomes, takes more concentration so we’ll try them tomorrow or Thursday when I’m not jumping up every few minutes to check whatever’s baking. (So far we have cookies, two kinds of cake, zucchini bread, brownies, German chocolate bars… Cyrus still wants to make focaccia so that’s on the agenda for tomorrow.) Can’t believe Christmas is almost here and then everyone will be leaving. We gotta pack even more fun into these days! 

First Day of Christmas

Forget partridges and pear trees, we’ve got all the grandkids in the house so Christmas starts today. 

Pop picked up the Colorado crew from LAX at 8:30 am.

Then the Idaho crew, including Iddy the Cat,

rolled in around 2:30 this afternoon.

I don’t think Jaclyn and Donovan have stopped talking (seriously, 8 straight hours of chatter and giggles 😍)

and playing together, since Jac walked in the door.

I’m so happy to have that soundtrack in the house again. So much joy and silliness.

Gotta make the most of it before they (almost) all vanish again on Friday.

Pie Day

 I've never really gotten into making pies.  

If we had a big family event, my MIL made the pies. She enjoyed it and they were very, very good. 

Hubby loves pie, it’s probably his favorite dessert. He was also a fan of Marie Callender’s, so over the years, when we wanted pie, that’s where we went. (Most of the restaurants are gone now, at least in our area. We have one here in town - probably a franchise? - but it is awful. Such a shame.)

So once I got my fancy schmancy pie dish, and discovered Sally’s Baking Addiction (such great recipes and instructions), I had to try my hand at his second favorite- apple pie. 

It’s not especially pretty but it is delicious. Not bad at all for a first effort. 

Disaster Averted

Bad news: My faithful hand mixer died yesterday, with one week left til Christmas, and me with 12 different recipes (maybe more…) I want to bake starting this weekend. 

Good news: K0hl’s had a newer model of the same mixer in stock and the out-the-door cost, with the sale price, K0hl’s cash and a discount code,  was…. drum roll… $8.07. For a $40+ mixer. I love K0hl’s holiday sales.

 Bright pink poinsettia from Matt & Mary

Bad news: My car’s check engine light came on, and stayed on. Hubby is making at least one run to LAX on Monday to pick up kids and grandkids, it’s 7-ish days before Christmas and we have important grandkid things to do this week. 

Old, cute pic from when we first got the car

Good news: service guy says, “Great timing!” They just got the software fix for the recalled back-up camera and they can do that, the 10,000 mile maintenance, fix the check engine problem and get it back to us the same afternoon. For free-ish since we have a maintenance contract. Whoop!

Bad news: it’s fridge cleaning time. I always do it at Christmas because then I can remember when I did it last. Doesn’t matter when I do it in the middle of the year because, come December, I’m doing it again. Good news: it’s done, was less of a hassle than expected and looks so pretty!

Good news: my ‘full-fat real cheese is its own food group’ diet is healthy! At least right now and according to this study. Who knows what it will be in 6 months. But I’ll take it! 

‘Enchanted’ Descanso Gardens

We spent Monday evening at Descanso Garden’s ‘Enchanted’. 

It was pretty much a spur of the moment thing - Sunday we said “how about…” and Monday we were there. 

We talked Donovan into going by reminding him they had light up swords for sale… 

and then he had absolutely no interest in them, 

choosing instead a snow leopard (that he named Cracker) and a blue penguin (named Icy to go with his snow owl, “Snowy”.)

My favorite things were the intricate, fascinating HYBYCOZO sculptures. 

So beautiful.

Second favorite was the stained glass houses, especially the water tower.

Who plans a water tower in an art installation?? So fun.

Photo by Donovan 

I thought Enchanted was going to be the Christmas version of ‘Carved’ (which was Awesome! Here) 

but it was more of a light show, with no holiday theme. 

Very pretty - but a bit of a let down after the artistry and excitement of Carved.

 Still a great way to spend an evening with family.

Donovan’s invisible…

…or maybe not

Part of the glass house installation 

They were making their own ‘fog’ - very spooky!

Hundreds of laser dots, constantly dancing, moving from ground to treetop. Pretty sure this was Donovan’s favorite.

Looking back at the glass houses