Lack of any humidity

Coupled with a leather sofa can lead to some seriously static-ey "nap hair"

Pigeon survival kit

Steve also got a Pigeon survival kit for Christmas. For those of you who haven't heard my tirades, we have a slight pigeon problem. It ebbs and flows, but basically, their favorite place in all of Las Vegas seems to be the window sills surrounding our front door. Makes for a goopy, stinky, disaster of a front walk. Steve got an air pellet pistol, AND a slingshot, along with a trap to practice in the back yard. Or, you know, the stairway....

Thank goodness he's a good shot!

And hot apple cider

(for those of us who can't partake in the Christmas Port tradition...)

Christmas Quiches

And calmari...

TWO Christmas trees?!

So, Steve made me swear an oath that I wouldn't post any pictures of him from this morning, since his hair was a little "tufty" BUT, when we saw this picture, and how much he looked just like the Christmas tree in profile, we thought it was too hysterical not to share!

ready for Christmas Roast Beast!

tentacles

The mug's handle is an octopus tentacle, complete with little raised suckers :-)

Ahoy!

So, my big present from Steve was a set of china I've been literally drooling over at Anthropologie for the past 2 or 3 years. The whole set looks like it came from a ship's galley, has a victorian looking stamp on it, and each piece has a different maritime theme - and looks like it came straight out of a Jules Verne novel. This salad plate is my favorite - the octopus' tentacles reach all the way around the plate and onto the backside. I love it!!

Spud likes it!

Steve got me a really nice sweater dress to show off the Spud, and he apparently really liked it! I got a good little kick right when I opened it :-)

Different techniques

Steve still refuses to rip into the Christmas mayhem, preferring instead to carefully slit the tape, rendering each piece of wrapping paper reusable for next year.

We both cracked up when we looked at this picture; he looks like he's about 3 sizes too big for everything! The barstool, the knife, even the kitchen, lol!

Halfway through the unwrapping,

Steve deemed it was time to open the Christmas bottle of port.

Smells like something pretty!

Santa's elves were quite practical this year

However, perhaps not so good at being secretive. Steve was in Alaska all last week, so I was the only one around to receive all the packages. The first two black-plastic wrapped packages I signed for with return addresses from "Breasts Are Best" and "Breasts-R-Us" made me blush and explain that Santa clearly delegated some of this year's duties to Hugh Heffner. When this box arrived, I stopped making eye contact with the mailman. Lol!

Steve decided there was no point in wrapping this one :-)

Chimney to girth ratio...

And seeing as how this is what our chimney now looks like, I'm kind of amazed that Santa did as good a job as he did shimmying down!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Santa Came!!! Even in a new house, he still managed to find us

Awesome clouds today!

It actually rained really hard a couple of times this morning. Clear now, but the clouds hanging around the mountains are still beautiful!

After dinner tall tales.

A congregating kitchen

Angie, Luis, Lourdes, Leslie, and me. In the cheesecake.

Evening's entertainment.

Little Ethan. I'm jot sure which was funnier, watching Ethan laugh at Molina, or watching Molina imitate every looney tunes cartoon character to win those giggles. His Speedy Gonzales would put Warner Brothers to shame

In celebration of "no more boxes downstairs"

We had our first dinner party in the new house last night! As always, the food prep stayed one half step ahead of total disaster. Our main dish was prosciutto and fontina cheese stuffed chicken breasts. Since we've been doing lots of cooking lately, there was no room in the fridge to buy the meat ahead of time. So, yesterday morning, we went to Costco to get the chicken. Forgetting that it was effectively the last weekend before Christmas. Even on a Friday morning, the place was insane. Once we battled our way back to the meat section, we found the chicken we typically buy, prosciutto, and tossed them in the cart with a few other supplies, and then headed to WalMart, against all better judgment, to pick up the remaining items. Wow. WalMart. Just. Wow. Made it home after a few hours, and set to work in a flurry of food prep. The chicken had to be brined, and the first thing we discovered was that, after emptying the cans and every last shaker, we were just short of salt, and there were still all the sides to make. So, steve ran to the grocery, while I tackled wrapping the cheese stuffing. Got it all finished, and opened the first of the pounds of chicken... Only to find that we'd accidentally bought about 78 lbs of TENDErLOINS. Can't exactly stuff those puppies. That was when Steve walked in the door. And then back out the door. To go back to the store and buy actual breasts. You can see in the picture what he came home with. I'm not sure what they've been doping those chickens on, but if the size of each breast is any indication, a drumstick would feed a mastadon. Anyways, we prepped them, and they turned out pretty amazing, even if it did take 2 hours on the grill...Lol! There were, um. Leftovers.

Who's got the best lookin buns out there?

Honey whole wheat bread - YUM.

I love finally having a kitchen that's not only conducive to bread-making, but that makes it enjoyable. Not having to climb on top of a counter to haul a 30 lb mixer down from the cobwebby cabinet tops is a beautiful thing. As is having enough countertop to knead, rather than having to put a board over the stove eyes and hope that no dough falls into their depths.... Or that I forgot to turn off an eye...

And fuzziest...

Cutest, fattest little burro

Steve's wolf buddy

The last time we came here, this wolf took a serious shine to steve and wouldn't let him out of his sight. He kept pawing and wanting to play. This visit, it took him a few minutes to warm up, but then he got his stick and brought it over to lay down in front of Steve.

Fuzzy dwarf burro

I loved those fuzzy little ears!

A few more pics from Bonnie Springs

I forgot these pictures were on steve's phone. This one totally cracks me up - not only is the goat grinning, but we look shockingly similar... At least in profile with our little round bellies...

Spud's first Christmas Tree

Steve couldn't resist. And, technically, this is the Spud's first year decorating the tree...

Icicling up the Christmas tree

This morning has been delightfully lazy

Lazy enough that I baked us coffee cakes for breakfast, and started building the little Erector Set decorations we've had for years and never had time to get out of the box. Here's the fruits of my labors, in a steam shovel for moving icicles

Finding just the right spot

Crowning the tree

This is the first time in YEARS that we've been able to put up a Christmaas tree, and I was as excited as I was at 7! Especially nice to have both Steve and Mom around to help decorate this year

Whatcha got in there?!

wooly baby!

Mom's burrow snuzzlin

Big pets

While Mom was here, we went to Red Rock and Bonnie Springs, which is always good for getting some "wild" burrow lovin. I love the grin on this one's face as he comes for some Steve nuzzling

Crazy weather last week

All up until last week, we've had truly spectacular weather - with afternoon temps in the 70s. Then, 65 knot winds blew in some crazy weather, and the temps have been pretty chilly since. This was taken from the FedEx parking lot. It's hard to get a good shot from my phone camera, but the sky everywhere was just spectacular. The hills in the background are tiered; the one in front is totally in the dark clouds, the one behind it is bathed in sunlight, and the one in the far distance is covered in snow and getting more. I love stormy days out here!

Window washing aint as easy as it used to be

Of COURSE the windows don't tilt in or come out in any way to be washed. On the bright side, this was the first Thanksgiving day weekend ever that I remember it being warm enough outside to clean windows with a hose and a 40-foot long squeegee.

The world's last

remaining wood-grain clothes dryer

Commemorating the world's oldest dryer

Finally, after 39 years, the old trusty washer and dryer bit the dust. I couldn't get rid of them without first taking pictures, however. This is the switch that Dad added to the back of the dryer to either add more heat settings, or adjust the buzzer sound, I can't remember which. Either way, the story, as I recall, was that he added it knowing that I was on the way. One was to sterilize my diapers, the other was to make sure that the new baby wasn't woken. Of course, we saved the switch and the labels :-)

One upstairs room DONE!!

After 2 weeks of moving out boxes and another week of painting and moving in furniture... Mom's room is DONE! Yeah!

Here's celebrating the first of the upstairs rooms to NOT be painted the color of dust, and to actually finishing the room. Exactly 3 hours before she arrives...

Steve's reaction to Christmas decorating....

He's such a sport :-)

We need a little Christmas

Right this very minute....

I had to make a Lowe's run last week, and much to Steve's dismay, I came home with more Christmas decorations. Before we even started putting up Christmas decorations, mind you. But, really. It can't be December without some kind of garland around the fireplace...

Break time

There has been LOTS of movin and shakin going on around here. Namely, trying to figure out which room should really house which piece of furniture. This chair happens to be both the ugliest, and the most comfortable piece of furniture on the planet. So comfy as a reading chair that neither of us can get rid of it, but since our renter apparently decided to throw out our slipcover, there was no way that I was going to let it stay downstairs in our movie room. It was relegated to the upstairs "junk" room. No small feat for poor Steve to try to get it up our unwieldy staircase... especially since his wife is now off heavy lifting. After some 12 hours of working, this is how far he made it up the stairs before a nap was needed.

Thanksgiving

Yeah,I know, I know. We're WAAAAAY behind in updating this blog. Things have been crazy around here for quite some time now. But, we're finally getting kinda sorta caught up.... or at least to a bit of a resting spot before the next wave of setting up house commences.

At any rate, it's a slowish morning, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to post a few pictures from the past few weeks.

This is Thanksgiving - Angie and Luis cooked a wonderful meal and we had a nice time getting together with them, Dennis, Elba, and Pearl. We had to commemorate Angie's turkey - don't think Julia Child could have made a more beautiful bird. It was yummy too!

Entrapment

Check out the conflicting markings we found in last night's parking garage. And they wonder why there are so many fender-benders around here....

The Baker is back in town

Yesterday was spent hosting the claims adjuster from our PR move. Since I was tied to the house all afternoon, I decided it was the perfect excuse to make my crusty french bread again. This time, it turned out much better than the first couple of attempts in the arid desert. I still made it with 1/2 cup less flour than the recipe that worked like a million bucks in PR, but I guess that's just the difference in climates and maybe altitude? At any rate, it made for some great bruschetta last night, and since Widmer Farms keeps sending us free tomatoes, we have them out the yin yang that need to be eaten. Win/win all the way around.

And, since the cat's pretty much out of the bag anyways, YES. That is indeed our little Spud propped up on the countertop. And that really is what my hair looks like when it hasn't seen any dye to wash that grey out in over 4 months. Yikes.

Winder Farms

Here's the recipe that came attached to the "kit box" we got this morning. I just have to supply chicken and flour for the cake :-)

Perfect timing too, cause I was laying in bed this morning trying to figure out what in the world I would fix for supper tonight. And now I don't have to go to the grocery!!!

I think I'm in love

We've been doing a lot of reading about Winder Farms lately, and have liked everything we've seen. They are a food delivery company that operates out of Utah, using all natural, primarily organic, and locally-grown foods. So far, everything we're trying to work towards. The deal is, you pay a $12 monthly charge, they give you a spiffy wheeled cooler that you set outside your front door every Tuesday, you place an order online, and like magic, farm-fresh produce, milk, free-range eggs show up at your door every Wednesday morning. The part we were skeptical about was the pricing; from all our research, the prices were at LEAST on par with the grocery's (non-organic) food, and most of the time, it was noticeably cheaper. Since what we're getting is organic, which is a premium at the grocery, this is a good value, even with the delivery fee, and there was a promise of coupons every month to make it even more affordable. Seemed too good to be true, but we caved and signed up for a short-term agreement based on a promotion we found at a festival a week ago.

This was the bounty I found waiting for me this morning - and I gotta say, the produce was just as pretty and fresh and wonderful looking as anything I've ever found at the Albertsons. What's more, you can order it as a "kit" with a recipe to make supper. This one is for grilled chicken salad and a lemon cake.

If this first order is anything like what we should expect in the future, I think I'm falling in love.

Great Glaciers!

It's hard to believe Steve was here today, and I was walking around in 87 degree sunshine :-)

Alaskian Air

Steve sent these pictures today from over Alaska. Pretty amazing! I think I could even deal with the cold to see this.... well, at least for a FEW days....