Saturday Night--Belly Up Bar

Saturday  Night  we headed to Solano Beach to attend a concert of James Morrison with the Kirtley's.  The tickets were theirs and they generously shared with us.  We met them for a fabulous Greek dinner first, yum.  Then off to the Belly Up Bar.  My first standing only concert with a room more than full of fans.  It was a fun concert with good music and good people watching.  Here's a video of one of our favorite songs that he preformed that night.

Christmas on Monday

OK, it's been way tooo long since a post.  I did blog about  our Christmas in Utah, now I'll blog about our early Christmas with the Shelby's before they left to ditch us at Christmas.  They came on Saturday evening to be here for the blessing of Finley Jean Baird.   It was a beautiful Sunday with  a great blessing and family and food.  Thanks Bairds.

This sure was a great start to the Christmas week.  I love family!

Then on Monday it was Christmas here with some very excited kids.

Adam is a delight.

Caleb, he is easy, he just watches and enjoys all of the fun.
Hannah, so easy to please.  So easy to spoil.
Nicole, good thing that this wasn't her only present, kind of small.  More on the way.
TJ, in cashmere, everyone needs at least one.

I love my family.

Dinner for 20

I know that it is too late to use your ideas (maybe), BUT if you had to fix dinner for a General Authority (Donald Tenney)and 19 others on a limited budget what would you fix?

Saturday is our Stake conference, with dinner being served in-between the Priesthood session and the Adult session.  The bonus of this is that this conference I am not speaking (a first for me) so I get to speak with my cooking, much better.  You never know what might turn up on their plate.

I am so Thankful!!

                      Thanksgiving, 2008.

This pic is from the night before.  Mark and I with Finley & Caleb, life couldn't be any better.
Thanksgiving Day, Cousins so happy to be together.
I'm at my post, the stove/oven.
My right hand man, ready and willing to carve.
Dad Fiet, visiting on the all man couch.
Mom Fiet, adding encouragement to get the food on.  Not really, just talking and keeping me company.
We had Pilgrims and Indians at our feast disguised as the Shelby's.   What a fun surprise to have them dress for the occasion.  Even the kids kept it a secret until the unveiling. 
The Bairds were there with food in tow, and in mouth.

                       Aidan

                                Hannah

                       Adam

                       Caleb

                       Finley

                                             See what turkey does to you.

I hope that your Thanksgiving was also filled with family, food, thanks, and Joy.   (Scott & Amanda were missed as they were crusin with her family) (Maloy's sure were missed, come home for christmas)

Pre Holiday Fun.

I have the whole week of Thanksgiving off from work, so what a great way to start the week by spending it with great friends.  Ken and Lisa invited us to their boat for two days of friends, food, fun, biking and talking and in Lisa's words Chill-axing.   The weather has cooled off, with rain forecasted in the next couple of days.  The clouds provided many great photos but in the end we arrived home before the rain.

We took off for dinner and site seeing on our bikes, this is a great bike path (it went most of the way to the shops) it's been way too long since I've been on a bike, I need to bike more often it felt great.

Before he fixed his pant leg that he had rolled up so that it wouldn't get caught in the spokes.  We rode our bikes to the shops on 2nd street in Long Beach.  This pic was typical, there seemed to be some sort of coffee shop every few stores.  We stopped at "Taco Surf" for dinner and were going to stop at "Sweet Jill's" for dessert, but were too full.
Lisa posed for me Monday evening when we where walking the shops on 2nd Ave.   I couldn't resist the sky, so I added Lisa, and voila a nice picture (no photo shop here).
I saw this restaurant featured in "Diners, Dives, and Drive-Ins" located in San Pedro so off we went for breakfast.  It says diner, but the place looked like a dive, but the food was home cooked and great.  All the food this week-end was a stretching excercise for our Thanksgiving meal coming up.
Warming up in the sun at the back of the boat after a cool morning.

Taken on the side of Ken and Lisa's boat "Bella"  isn't she pretty.  Getting ready for our bike ride.

We went for another bike ride today, look to the left of the photo, this is where Ken's boat is and where we started out.  On the right is the Queen Mary which was one of the stops of our bike ride.  As you can tell there wasn't a direct route, so away we went.  The weather and sky couldn't have been more beautiful!!

     On one of our stops to enjoy the scenery.

This is a wave--water fountain.  It was very cool.
This is out in front of the Aquarium in Long Beach.  I have to say it again--What a wonderful two days!

Christmas early for me!

I'm spoiled!  In July while I making making Scott's b-day dinner PIZZA, I turned around for 20 secs. and my Kitchen Aid mixer walked off my counter.  I was so blessed, they were grandkids running around and people everywhere, and no one was hurt, and the tile floor was not cracked.  The mixer was in a couple of pieces, and I put it back together, it worked but was out of sinc in the spin, and didn't smell very good when I made bread dough, to much work for it.  I did some research on the net and decided that I wanted a bosch mixer.  When we were in Utah visiting the Maloys, Heidi informed me that there was a Bosch store in Orem, so while we were shopping we stopped by.  Mark bought me one after we looked at them, they threw in a cook book, a blender, and reduced the price of a metal piece that replaced the plastic one that it came with.  I was so excited.

Here is my new cool mixer that can mix up to 14 cups of flour, quickly.
Here is my second adventure with the mixer, garlic/parmesan bread sticks.
I made these for Jodi's b-day dinner.  I think that turned out well, and tasted great.  I will be mixing all kinds of fun stuff.  Thanks Mark for giving me the present early.  I LOVE you.

This post is for Heidi

Heidi you doubted me when I choose Hugh Jackman as my man in my personal mosaic post on 8/31/08.  I win.