Goodbye 2005

Andrew and I wish everyone a Happy New Year! Yeah for 2006. I personally enjoy even years better than odd ones. Here are some photos from the holidays spent with friends and family.

Ty'Tiana (my "Little") and I spent an evening baking homemade gingerbread cookies. She enjoyed decorating the huge gingerbread men and ate many on her way home!

Off to Oakhurst we go:

I am now embracing Andrew's Finnish heritage and calling it my own. I decided to bake some Finnish bread for the family. The ring is a sweet bread and I made a dense loaf for dipping in the lutefisk.

Here are the merry carolers. Although Andrew said we were out of tune, we had a great time caroling for the family. On the left is Auntie Shirley, Ellen, Myself, Stewart, and Erin.

The kids.

The adults.

On Christmas day we drove from Oakhurst to Sacramento to spend a few days with my family.

My family.

For Chistmas I made baby Kyle (Aden's brother) a play quilt. It is in the pattern of the town of Livermore. The roads are geographically correct and represent 580, Livermore Blvd., and Concannon (where their house is). I also made the roads intersect to make a "K" for Kyle. There is a fountain in the middle with blue strings to represent the famous Lizzie fountain. The library in the right corner opens and closes so he can stick little books in it when he gets older. The prints represent the parks, local wineries, and the golden hills. The letters are made from jean and will fluff up once washed a few times. Kyle likes it and looks pretty cute on it.

the back:

I hope your New Year is happy and full of peace and love.

Halloween Pics!

Andrew and I have been so busy running around town for the last couple of weeks that we haven't had time to update you on our home projects or current happenings. Here are pictures from Halloween. I still need to put up pictures of our new walkway on the side of our house, but Andrew hasn't taken any pictures of the finished product. He even had last week off!

I am now a Master Teacher at a local home preschool in Discovery Bay. I love teaching 8-9 youngsters about the world. Guiding "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear" has been the biggest hit so far. I made Healthy Halloween treats for the kids to eat at snacktime on Halloween. They were made out of fig newtons, pretzels for hair, and raisins for eyes. They loved them.

Andrew and I dressed up as dodgeball players for a Halloween party the Saturday before Halloween. The dodgeball player idea was Andrew's (NOT MINE) so I had to put a political spin on it to make it somewhat mine. Since I am not a big fan of dodgeball or Bush's "No Child Left Behind," I decided to combine the two. We were team "Some Children Left Behind" sponsored by Halliburton and Chevron gasoline.

Next on my list was the first annual Discovery Bay Downtown Trick or Treat Night. I took my "Little" from Big Bros/Big Sis's to enjoy the candy, haunted house, and pizza parlor. I was brave enough to go through the haunted house with her, but I got so scared at the end of it (I absolutely hate people jumping out at me) that I ended up screaming so loud, throwing my popcorn up into the air, and pushing Ty'Tiana out of the haunted house. I really shoved her a good 20 feet. Andrew went along with us to take pictures of the event and was nice enough to take her back through without any shoving. She thought it was hilarious. She was even nice enough to offer me the rest of her popcorn because she felt bad that I spilled mine.

Finally Halloween came and we carved our pumpkins and handed out candy. Andrew thought I was kind of geeky for handing out raisins to the little kids, but one girl got so excited she took the box of raisins and turned to her mom screaming, "Look Mommy, I got raisins." Aden is such a good influence on me.

P.S. There was a Daddy pumpkin (Andrew's), my skeleton pumpkin, and two little pumpkins for Teenie and LuLu.

Hope you all had a great October. I love this time of year and can't wait for the next holiday.

62 bags

Thats how many bags of cement we poured this weekend.

Our side yard has been dirt & gravel as long as we've owned the house, and I didn't want to go through winter having that mud pit, so we decided to pave it.

We're paving the full side yard where the trashcans are, and a 4' walkway down to the back yard. That leaves about 3.5' on one side for an herb and annual garden, and about 3' on the other for neighbor-blocking plants :)

The area we paved was about 95 square feet. We had to rent a mixer from Home Depot to make it go faster. We poured a 4'x4' section last weekend and mixed it by hand, and that was too much work.

Now for a quick weekend rundown, since I need to go to bed!

Friday PM:
* Pick up magnolia and plum tree from nursery
* Drop them off at home, go to Home Depot for 24 bags of concrete mix to go with the 4 left over from the last pour.
* Pick up concrete mixer and bull float from Home Depot Rentals.

Saturday AM:
* plant magnolia in front yard, and plum in back yard.
* Dig down 5 inches for most of the 95 square feet we paved. It used to be gravel and bark.

Saturday PM:
* Pave one 5' by 6' section (25 bags)
* Go to Home Depot, pick up 30 more bags of concrete (the most my truck will carry).

Sunday AM:
* Go to home depot and buy 12 more bags of concrete.
* Pave another 5'x6' section (25 bags)

Take a nap through lunch and wait for the conrete to dry a bit

Sunday PM:
* Pave the last 4'x6' section, around the air conditioner (12 bags).
* Return rental equipment.
* Eat pizza, post this story, and go to sleep.

And for those keeping count, I have 8 bags of concrete mix left, for the rest of the walkway. I figure its about another 100 square feet or so.

I need to get more mix.

Our mark:

The Magnolia:

Sunday Morning View #1

Sunday Afternoon View #1

Sunday Morning View #2

Sunday Afternoon View #2

Happy Fall

Happy Fall Everyone

Andrew started working on our side yard last weekend. We were able to mix and pour one little square of cement. Unfortunately, as much as we like to see our own elbow grease in our projects, mixing cement one bag at a time is too much for us. We are looking into options for speeding up this process. Anyone have a cement mixer laying around?

Also, we had our first fall time thunder storm. Teenie freaked out so much she climbed up on the kitchen table. I wasn't anywhere near her when she did this herself.

Andrew and I drove out to the Discovery Bay marina so we could watch the lightning over the farm fields in Stockton. Pretty amazing.

Trash in Space

My husband insists we must be part of the first trash heap sent to Pluto. His "Government" status is slowly trying to break my "eco" self into pieces. Here is the first attempt:

Hurst Trash In Space

Our Pre-Anniversary Weekend

Andrew and I decided to celebrate our two year anniversary over the Labor Day weekend. First, we drove through Napa and stopped at Healdsburg to browse the cute shops around town. We hit the Farmer's market first though!!!

After being a little to chi chi for our tastes, we got back on the road and headed towards Ukiah. We were fortunate enough to see a truck like this on the highway:

We then arrived at our destination. We chose Ukiah because Vichy Hot Springs is located a couple of miles NW of town. We had a great time walking around Ukiah's downtown. I loved the fact that most of the food is organically grown. We ate great food and yummy treats.

We spent all day Sunday at Vichy Hot Springs. It was sooooo relaxing and less naked-hippy than Harbin Hot Springs (our first anniversary trip). We went in the mineral pool baths, the hot mineral pool, and played around in the big, cool pool. After soaking for hours, we went on an hour hike to a beautiful waterfall on the property. There were frogs, newts, banana slugs, and bones to keep us interested on our hike. Here are some captured moments:

By the way, my Mom sees the Virgin Mary in this picture! I see a Jamiacan man!

On Monday, we drove over to Bodega Bay to enjoy some surf.

Happy Anniversary Andrew (technically tomorrow). You are the best husband a girl could ever want or have!

I've Been Baking

I think I am ready for Fall to start since I have been baking like mad! I have ventured into the world of bread making (from scratch). Nothing smells better than rising/baking bread.

I offered to make our neighbor's children's birthday cakes and they actually took me up on it! This is my first "kid" cake. It was so much fun to make and it is always fun to lick the spatulas.

P.S. I added Hello Kitty's pink bow after I realized something was missing.