Feather Love

I am loving the new feather trend for fall. I keep seeing it everywhere and I need to get my hands on one of these fabulous head pieces. Except by "get my hands on one" I mean "get my hands to make one because I won't pay exorbitant prices for them"...and sometimes it takes a while for me to gather all the supplies and the motivation and the time. But I guess by blogging about it now I'll be held a little more accountable for actually accomplishing it.

Happy Halloween

Saturday night we went to a haunted house with our friends Brooke and Christian and some of their San Francisco friends. We had such a great time. Brooke and I held onto each other for dear life through all of the haunted rooms, while the boys acted like they weren't scared (even though I know they were!) I get so freaked out in haunted houses...but I love to do them every year. They really get you in the Halloween spirit.

Flashback

I finally uploaded some of Brendon's photos from our summer vacation. Maybe I am biased...but I think some of the artsy ones are pretty good for his few weeks with his new camera as a photography novice.
Garden of Gethsemene (with Kyler...Bren's cousin we stayed with in Jerusalem)

Mykonos

Mykonos

Mykonos (these birds were as big as me!)

Mykonos

Mykonos

Oia, Santorini (Greece)

Oia, Santorini

Oia, Santorini

Oia, Santorini

Oia, Santorini

Oia, Santorini

Oia, Santorini

Athens

my favorite bead shop in the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem

camel crossing

Jerusalem

Jerusalem

I Love California...

But sometimes I miss this place.

Like a Kid in a Candy Store

Saturday we took a trip to San Francisco with the in-laws...and we all went our separate ways for a few hours to get some things done that we each wanted to do. My choice of activity was fabric shopping at Britex Fabrics.

I knew it was going to be good, but holy smokes this store was amazing. There were four floors of amazing fabric eye candy. One entire floor was devoted to trims...amazing buttons, ribbons and vintage lace. I was overwhelmed by the possibilities, but I did walk away with a beautiful embroidered yellow silk. Stay tuned to see what I decide to make with it.

More Family Time

Brendon's parents flew in to visit on Wednesday and we had a fabulous weekend with them! Of course it was primarily I that had a fabulous weekend with them, because Brendon was busy at school or doing homework most of the time...sheesh Stanford lay off! Jk.

We ate huge banana split sundaes at the Palo Alto creamery.

We went shopping in adorable Los Gatos...where Al found some amazing new bifocals.
We made delicious homemade pizza and caprese salads with the fresh basil from our garden.

We spent a day shopping and visiting the SF Museum of Modern Art, and then drove to lovely Sausalito for a delicious dinner at The Spinnaker.

Basically we ate, shopped, and ooh-ed and ah-ed over cute quaint towns.

Ee I Ee I O

For those of you that don't know already...I am a farmer's daughter. My dad grows walnuts in Northern California. Brendon had never seen the harvest season and I had not been home for harvest in nine years, so two weekends ago we took the short drive (yay!) home to Gridley to visit my parents.
Brendon had a blast playing with the puppy and taking pictures of the entire walnut harvesting and hulling process. He loves this kind of stuff. I was thrilled to be home because I love this kind of stuff too. This is me with Dad and Mom.Everyone always asks how you pick walnuts. Well...Brendon documented the whole process...but lucky for you I'm not going to post 230 photos. There is a tractor that shakes the walnuts out of the tree onto the ground. Next, a special sweeper tractor drives (very speedily!) around sweeping the fallen walnuts into tidy rows. Finally another tractor drives over the rows and suctions them up into a trailer. It really quite wild. This is a bird's eye view photo of the huller facility on our farm. After walnuts are picked they have to be hulled (the green husk that grows around the walnuts has to be removed), cleaned and dried. Below is a picture of many tons of walnuts in trailers hooked up to the drying tunnel.

Bootylicious

In Relief Society we are doing a craft night in November - and I am in charge of teaching the ladies how to make felt booties...so I made a bunch of examples last night. These things are so darn fun to make.

Have You Tried These Yet?

I love them. I just bought the minis because they were on sale at Safeway. They're only 150 calories (so no guilt!) and they take 30 seconds. That's my kind of cake. I put a generous scoop of fat free cool whip on top and enjoy.

Cabo With The Ladies

We had so much fun on our spontaneous trip to Mexico. Boy oh boy was it ever hot! And boy oh boy were we ever LAZY! We spent the whole time reading by the pool (or the ocean) and drinking virgin pina coladas and strawberry daquiris. And a few times a day we would take a break from that to gorge on authentic Mexican food. Yum!

Grandma, Mom, and me waiting for our food at the Mexican fiesta buffet. The churros were my favorite!And here's the spread of food.
Mom, Grandma, me, and Katrina (my sis-in-law) enjoying some more food by the water.
Mom, me, Katrina, and Grandma getting ready for our sunset cruise...
And enjoying our sunset cruise...

And here's the sunset:

Thanks Dad for sending the ladies on a fabulous trip!

Adios Amigos

Sorry for the lack of posts...

I am relaxing on the beach in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with the ladies in my family.