California Culinary Academy

As I mentioned earlier, we have Evan's niece Luci visiting. One of her possible dreams is to attend culinary academy, so we hit San Francisco for a guided tour!

It was enough to make me want to go to culinary school. I mean, isn't this stuff we all need to know?: make a good chicken stock, plan and prepare food for a large group of people, knife techniques, etc. For now I'm going to have to settle for on-the-job training. Luci might get to learn the real way though.

Here's one of Luci's masterpieces: our fourth of July cake. Yummy!

Happy B-Day Evan!!

Evan turned...errrhh, 30? We had a little birthday bash. Since the birthday boy always gets to chose what's for dinner it was flank steak, sushi, deviled eggs, and hamburger salad (ask me about that sometime...it's basically the fixings of a hamburger all cut up into a salad).

We had a few friends over. Of course, Evan insisted on decorations...(you know this is me, right, not Evan insisting on decorations??)

Our niece Luci is in town visiting from Minnesota. Being in California, of course you need to try sushi!

Dallin is always happy to help blow out the candles.

Fuzzy group shot:

Happy Birthday Evan! love you.

While the husband's away...Kate comes to play!

That's right. Jim was away on business so my sister Kate came to visit!

It was a week full of activities: dinner party, trip to the zoo, parks, library story time, a little bit of attempted shopping.

First, dinner party with friends. I won this Williams-Sonoma and Calphalon dinner party. I received some new cookware in the mail as well as a menu. I love this sort of thing, but man the preparation was a bit intense! Good thing I had all these extra helpers around:

Here's what the table looked like outside:

 

This is the little plot of grass outside our condo. Evan really tried to talk me out of eating outside, but I had a vision. Evan joked that someone with a shopping cart who is fishing for recyclables is going to come strolling right through our dinner (our recycle bins are very popular with the homeless crowd; they come by multiple times per day). Well, they did come, but he was walking, and when he saw us, he left.

Instead of what Williams-Sonoma recommended for dessert, we made homemade marshmallows for a smore spread. 

We headed to the baby story time at 11:30 (we missed the toddler one at 10:30--hey getting out the door with 4 kids 4 and under takes a while!) Here we are playing/picnicking at the nearby park afterwards:

First, happy Thad

Dallin and Billy sliding:

Kate and Bobby

This one of Thad swinging is hilarious because it almost looks like Dallin's legs could be his:

Billy loves the swings!

Finally, our trip to the zoo, a first for Billy, Bobby and Thad!

Trying (unsuccessfully) to get the brother's shot:

Billy wasn't too sure about riding the frog:

Billy, Bobby and Kate:

And finally, our trip on the train.

I think we're pretty much recovered from the fun. Come again soon, please!

Preschool Graduation

Dallin just graduated from preschool! Well, technically he still has another year of preschool and he only went to this particular school for two months (one day a week), but it's graduation I guess :)

Here is the proud boy:

Here he is with his buddy Nathan Eyre:

Here's hoping for a lot more graduations!!

Lovin' the Water

Thad is still 9 months and just had his first swim! He loved the water; laughed every time he splashed his little hands and water flew into his face.

I see this look multiple times a day; it's a combination of "Are you sure you know what you're doing??" and "I'm about to get really excited and flap my arms and spread my fingers!!" Now it's captured:

The latest of the kiddos

A Friday outing to Happy Hollow in San Jose in May. Dallin was stoked to get the dragon!

We were lucky to get Evan home for a couple of days. Our friends the O'Neils were in town; this was taken outside Grandma Bailey's house in Alamo mid-May.

Dallin has been all about "spikey" hair lately.

Giving brother spikey hair

Happy baby

Kitchen Redo

I never knew how much I loved interior design until I had a home of my own! I could spend hours looking at kitchens online. We did a quick upgrade to our kitchen recently.

First, a before: (I never realized how much clutter is on the counter! I thought I had it under control...)

And the after:

The best part is the sink. It's amazingly huge and I am in love with it. Best part, it fits two kids bathing (can these things hold this much weight?? Sorry, couldn't hold Thad and take the picture so Dallin is solo)

I'm not in love with the backsplash (we just extended the quartz; my preference would have been subway tile), but since this is a place we're not living in forever, we went the quick route. The quartz is Caesarstone, color Raven. I still dream of carera marble in my kitchen so I'm hoping by the time I'm building my dream kitchen they'll have an amazing Quartz equivalent. Got that counter engineers? You've got one year...well, maybe a little longer!