San Diego

Chris and I had a 4 day off vacation from the Melodrama so we headed down to San Diego...well Escondido to visit my Uncle Steve and his girlfriend Pam and see their new BEAUTIFUL home.  We had an amazing time and can't wait to go back! I took somewhere around 250 pictures so i'll put the album at the end of this post. We went to Stone Brewery, which is one of Chris' favorite beer makers and took a tour of the brewery.  That night Steve grilled some great steaks and Chris and I made havarti and proscuitto wrapped asparagus, garlic parmesan salad, and garlic bread. Delicious!Tuesday was Sea World day. So fun! We were sad that the trainers no longer get in the water at the Shamu show but understand it's for their own safety.  The new dolphin show is incredible.  It's not part dolphin show part cirque de soleil-esq. They had trapeze artists and high dive jumpers, the works! Just beautiful. That night we met Steve and Pam in Old Town and had great Mexican food. Wednesday we went to Del Mar and walked on the beach, strolled through Balboa Park, and then went into the Gaslamp Quarter and went to the Melting Pot and had a fondue dinner.  Thursday was our trip home and we decided to take the I5 back home and stop in downtown Disney for lunch.  We'll we got a wild hair during lunch and decided to put our season passes to good use and run into the park ride Tower of Terror then get back in the car.  Just because we can! Such a great vacation! Steve and Pam, if you're reading... Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!

I just learned how to embed the slideshow into my blog, let me know how you like it.  If it was better just posting the link for you to click on we can always go back to that. I just thought this was pretty neat! It starts when you click the play button and will scroll through automatically, but if you want to slow down and look picture by picture just use the right and left controll arrows and/or the pause button :)

Big Fish

As most of you know Chris is the contemporary worship director at our church.  We've been doing a series on Jonah and Chris along with 3 good friends (Patrick and Paige Burzlaff and Stephanie Lewis) put together an old FFH song called Big Fish. Enjoy!

Spanish Cooking Class at Cafe Med

It's no secret that my family LOVES to cook and loves to eat even more. A local restaurant called Cafe Med offers cooking classes the second Wednesday of every month and I've always wanted to go. Well, yesterday was the day. I went with my Mom, Aunt Sandra, Mimi, and my cousin Taylor works at Cafe Med and assisted the chef, Meir Brown, in the cooking class...so she was there too!

The main dish we learned to cook was Paella.

Now here's the thing...my mom dad and I spent a week and Spain and my grandma lived there for 3 months. I'm more than familiar with Paella. While Meir didn't prepare the Paella anywhere close to the traditional way we saw it prepared in Spain, but it was still really darn good! My grandma shipped home all the traditional pans and burners and had families that had been making Paella for generations teach her detail by detail the "proper" way to make a Paella. Meir used ingredients and and kitchen wear he already had, which is great! I've just been spoiled by fancy imported paella rice and seasonings. Don't get me wrong, Meir's Paella was great. There is just something nostalgic to me about the real deal!

Anywho....we started out the class with Tapas. Tapas is the Spanish equivalent of appetizer.

First we made Spanish Meatball and Manchego Empanadas, Tuna Stuffed Sweet Piquillo Peppers,

and Serrano and Fontina Wrapped Asparagus. (Asparagus was my favorite dish of the night!)

Next were Goat Cheese Stuffed Piquillo Peppers--there were gooey and so delicious!

Above is an inside view of the stuffed piquillo peppers.  Yummm!

For our main dinner course we had a hot/cold Mushroom, Asparagus, Shrimp Salad with a Lemon Vinaigrette, Spanish Meatballs in Saffron Sauce, and Paella with scallops, shrimp, chicken, pork, and mussels!

Bellow is my cousin, Taylor, at her normal day's work.  Helping in the kitchen at Cafe Med.  What a life!

For dessert we had a vanilla bean flan topped with raspberry and mint.

German Chocolate Cupcakes

Made for a friend's, Ken Burdick, birthday today!

Dodger Game

Yesterday I went to my very first pro baseball game. That's right folks, I live an hour away from LA and have never been to a game. The Dodgers were playing the Padres and it all just worked out perfect. I had a Dodger Dog and everything.