The weekend, briefly

We skipped the traditional Easter this year because we had plans with friends, but neither of us could resist a bit of crafting at the last minute. On Saturday D made his usual cascarones (confetti eggs) while I made a double batch of Deb's pecan sticky buns (verdict - very good but very messy) and on Sunday morning we put together and delivered some little Easter packages for a few of the toddlers in our life (only the ones living within a 5 mile radius - sorry to all the other babies we love, but you can take it up with LA traffic).













It was one of those weekends where I cleaned the kitchen about five times each day and by Sunday night I was DONE. We'll probably be eating veggie burgers all week because I'm not sure I'm willing to make a mess again, but it was definitely worth it.

The weekend, briefly

We drove up north last weekend to see family and friends and leaving my niece and nephew on Sunday broke my heart - it gets harder every time. I did a terrible job of pulling out the real camera so I have very few decent photos but the trip was wonderful.





My niece got a new play kitchen and kept carefully presenting Circe with offerings of wooden fruit, which Circe ignored. We got to see a few friends and eat some good food and the Bay Area was being particularly show-offy this weekend. The weather was amazing, there were flowers popping up everywhere, we went to our favorite brewery plus a new one we hadn't visited before and of course, Berkeley Bowl was full of the best citrus. By Sunday afternoon I was pretty much ready to move in. I do love LA, but northern California is fairly spectacular in spring.

P.S. - During our drive we listened to all of S-town and then started on Missing Richard Simmons, which made the 12 hour round trip much more bearable.

P.P.S - Because I haven't been writing regularly I have all these random things to talk about and none of them feel like full blog posts so I'm struggling with that a bit. Hopefully I'll have some bits and pieces up around here soon in some form.

Mini Christmas

I took a three day weekend and went up to the Bay for some niece/nephew time. It was such a great trip and we tried to cram in our favorite holiday activities since we won't see each other for Christmas. We watched Prancer, made our grandmother's pecan ball cookies, and even tried to get my niece to decorate her first gingerbread house. Turns out 21 months is not quite old enough to understand the concept, although she quickly got on board with shoving as much frosting into her mouth as possible. These kids are the sweetest and coming home gets harder every time.










The adults ended up taking over the decorating duties when it became clear the kids weren't going to step up. Our candy supply was pretty limited this year because we were trying to stick with toddler friendly candy (we got snow caps, mini M&Ms, yogurt pretzels, mini marshmallows, mini candy canes, cereal and gummies) but we had a lot of fun anyways. I baked all the gingerbread pieces at home and added the stained glass windows, then wrapped them up carefully and packed them in a box in my suitcase so we could assemble them up north. In case you're wondering, yes, I totally got flagged for secondary screening at the airport because the scanner couldn't figure out what was going on, but it was worth it.

Sycamore Canyon Campground - beach camping!

Last weekend we had a one night stay in Sycamore Canyon campground, in Point Magu state park. It's a small campground with amazing beach access and I think we'll put this place on regular rotation. I can be a little grinch-y about the beach in summer (crowded, hot, hard to park, high risk of sunburn) but I love, love, love going in the off season. The goal was to hang out on the beach on Saturday afternoon, then get up early on Sunday so D could surf, but Sunday ended up being rainy so we slept in and read and made breakfast between rain showers instead. This sounds wimpy, but it isn't the rain itself that's the problem, but rather the contaminated runoff that results from the rain. I know, lovely. Here are some nice, non-contaminated photos.







Sycamore Canyon details - This is a great little beach campground. My standards are a little lower for beach adjacent campgrounds because you know what you're getting into when you reserve one - you're paying for amazing beach access, and the campground itself is often beside the point (San Onofre is a great example of this). This campground is pretty nice, though. There is running (potable!) water, with hot showers (bring cash for the shower tokens) and flushing toilets. Sites are arranged in a little loop and several of them are nestled into nooks that feel semi-private. You can't reserve your site ahead of time, but check-in is at 2 pm and you can show up and see what's still available. We ended up with site 23, which would be an amazing group site because it has plenty of space, although it doesn't have any tree cover (totally fine for this time of year, would suck in summer). Sites 33 and 42 looked nice and shady, but smaller. You can have three cars per site, and this would be a fun place for group camping. Sites are relatively pricey at $55/night ($45 + $10 for reserving online), but totally worth it. You can buy firewood from the camp host on site ($7/bundle while we were there).

We didn't have time for hiking this weekend, but there is a trail that leads right out of the campground. Since this is a state park, dogs aren't allowed on the trails (sad). In the opposite direction, you can access the beach through a pedestrian tunnel that goes under PCH. The beach allows dogs, which is a huge plus because dog friendly beaches are few and far between around here. Circe was in heaven and kept breaking into a sprint out of sheer joy. Seeing her bounding across the beach almost makes up for the 10 lbs of sand that she managed to bring home with her.

Berkeley birthday weekend

We made a quick trip up to Berkeley for my niece's first birthday last week. I know it's such a cliche, but I can't believe it's been a year! She's so firmly embedded in our hearts. I can even get over the fact that D is her absolute favorite because it's so sweet to see her light up as soon as she sees him. I'm just hoping I can edge Circe out for second place in her affections (it's a tight contest).

{gentle}

{engrossed in the toy bin}

{flowers}

{dustin is in demand - two dogs, one baby}

{birthday treats}

{berkeley bowl}

It cracks me up to see how well Circe does with Casey. They have the exact same taste in toys and Circe patiently accepts Casey's pets/slaps. I think a big part of it is that Circe has learned that babies drop a lot of food on the floor. Whatever it takes, right? Terriers aren't always known for their stellar behavior around small children, so I'm just grateful that she's warmed up to kids.

We spent most of the weekend hanging out with Casey, but we did manage multiple trips to Berkeley Bowl, aka - one of my favorite places on the planet. Since we were going camping right after we left town I finally had the perfect excuse to go to town on the snack selection in their bulk bins. We also picked up a bunch of produce and a pretty amazing pack of mixed beer. And marshmallows. My favorite thing about this store is that you can choose from 20 different types of local honey but still pick up normal groceries, like regular sugar. Whole Foods will never measure up.

We hit the road on Sunday afternoon and headed for Yosemite. I'll share some pictures tomorrow from our super quick camping trip.

Lately

Spending a lot of time around the house, specifically, in the kitchen.















Last week was the anniversary of my dad's death, and I just felt quiet and deeply sad. It seems unbelievable to me that we have been living without him for an entire year. I have a million things to say about it but there don't seem to be any words that are right. I just miss him, so much.

I've been taking it easy, self soothing in the kitchen and spending time with people I love and keeping the house full of flowers. Having a larger space makes it a million times easier to have people over for dinner or drinks or no reason at all and it's already been pretty wonderful.

I'm sticking to our monthly meal plan pretty well (monthly updates coming soon) and I like that the weekends are left up for grabs so I can cook something fun if I feel like it. We haven't been going out much but I have been cooking and baking (it feels so glorious to have a full sized oven!), which means I went waaaay over on our grocery budget this month but we hardly touched our entertainment/eating out fund. It'll balance out in the end?

I made the butternut squash and caramelized onion galette from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook last weekend and it was pretty dang good. I used an aged Gouda which might have made it a touch salty and I honestly think in the future I'd cut the pastry dough recipe in half, because it felt like a very high dough:filling ratio. But we did devour it, so I'm not complaining. (Actually, the version on her website looks like it is similar but might be better balanced?)

I'm experimenting to try to find the best cocktail for all the blood oranges that pour into the market right now. So far this margarita recipe has been the biggest hit, although I'm still tweaking it a bit.

The weekend, briefly

It's been a while since I did one of these posts!











We're still getting settled into the new place, and I'm deep in nesting mode, but we're really loving it. We haven't had much time to explore the neighborhood yet, but we took a walk on Saturday and then I went for a run with a friend on Sunday. My favorite way to check out any new place is on foot, of course. I also got a lot of kitchen time in, which was lovely (feels nice to get back to a full size oven). I treated myself to flowers and then got a ton of meal prep done for the week. Which I ended up being very grateful for when the week got off to a crazy start and left me feeling frazzled. Life, right?

Thanksgiving camping in Ojai

Thank you for the sweet comments on my last post - I really, truly appreciate all your well wishes and my heart goes out to all of you who are negotiating a holiday season in the midst of loss. Getting away for Thanksgiving was the right choice this year. Our campground was far enough out that it had zero cell service, which made it easy to disconnect completely (I usually put keep my phone on airplane mode anyways during camping trips but fully admit I'm guilty of turning it on briefly to upload Instagram pictures). We had a bit of a lazy trip and spent almost all of Friday afternoon napping instead of hiking, but it was a nice change of pace.















We splurged last month and got ourselves a fancy tent. Our old backpacking tent is starting to show its age and we decided that it would be nice to have a bigger one for car camping trips. I have to say, being able to stand up while changing your clothes is pretty amazing. And we had room to put Circe's food and water out at night without kicking it over in our sleep.

Speaking of Circe, we forgot her backpack and tried to make do with this simple drawstring one we happened to have in the car. I wouldn't call it an utter failure, but it definitely curtailed our hiking a bit and we won't make that mistake again.

We're working on streamlining our camping prep so that we'll mostly just have to toss a couple bins of equipment in the car and make a quick stop at the grocery store on the way out of town. Right now we have things sort of organized, but sort of means that we forget something important almost every time.

Campground details: We stayed at Wheeler Gorge campground, about 7 miles outside Ojai. It was beautiful and remote but I'm undecided on whether we'd go back. Our campsite was pretty good (67) and we were able to put our tent on a little bluff above the picnic area, which made it feel more private. The campsites in general are close together and not too well shielded, so you definitely feel like you are hanging out with your neighbors. There are a couple that seem more private (61 in particular looked great). This campground is privately operated, which means it's a little more pricey than some ($20/night). There is no running water, so pack accordingly! The main downside in my opinion is that there aren't many trails that you can easily walk to from the campground, so you will have to drive in order to hike. Not a huge deal, but I really love a campground with more walking access. This one is right off the 33, which is a beautiful, windy highway and very popular with motorcyclists and cars alike (i.e. didn't feel super safe to walk on, even though I did see people doing it). Because we couldn't walk much outside the campground I felt a little claustrophobic. We drove further out to Rose Valley for a bit of hiking but next time I think we'd try the Cozy Dell trail and D really wants to do some backpacking on the Matilija Canyon trail at some point, which I'm excited about in theory, although uncertain about how we would go backpacking with our aging dog (front carrier for her?).

Around here

I finally pulled pictures off my camera for the first time in months. Here's a little bit of what we've been up to lately.

{blueberry scones}

{sunday brunch}

{mother's day 2015}

{organizing}

{garden roses}

{projecting}

{drinks}

{new chair}

{picnic aftermath}

:: We had a few people over for brunch on Mother's Day and I made blueberry scones using Deb's recipe. Delicious, but I had to add extra cream because the dough was still very, very dry after I stirred in the amount the recipe called for. It doesn't seem like other people had issues with this, so I think it was just me but I'll probably go back to my old recipe next time. I used the dried wild blueberries from Trader Joe's for the first time and they were amazing. Perfect for pastry because they don't bleed all over the place as they bake.

:: We've been spending a lot of our free time around the house these days. We have three beautiful rose bushes that have been producing like crazy so I cut flowers every few days. D is usually building furniture (so far he's made two nightstands, a liquor cabinet, under the bed storage boxes and a picnic table - his productivity puts me to shame) and I'm usually sorting through my dad's paperwork and making to do lists for myself and then taking a nap to try to avoid the lists. There is so much to take care of when someone passes away and I'm being really slow so it's taking me forever. I should probably make a master list and then assign myself a couple tasks each week instead of fumbling through it as things come up.

:: We had our first dinner party in the new place last weekend! We're gradually getting the yard set up as an entertaining area, since we don't have a dining table in the house. On Saturday D built the picnic table and we splurged on a couple of butterfly chairs. Having the outdoor space set up makes our space feel so much bigger and I love it. I foresee a lot of evenings on the patio in our future.