How I ate my way through San Francisco...

I spent this weekend in San Francisco with a bunch of wonderful women who used to live here, but sadly, now don't. Take that back, 2 still do, the other 4 do not. Anyway, we met there Thurs afternoon and had a great weekend of sightseeing and fun! We went to Golden Gate Park, Ghiradeli square, Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown, rode bikes across the Golden Gate Bridge to Saucilito, and managed to do all of this either walking or on public transportation. We spent quite a bit of time eating as well - and from my list - I wonder how we had time to do anything else!

Here are some of the wonderful things I had to eat this weekend...

*Pumpkin ravioli (I am now a new convert!)

* Gelato (this gives Frost a serious run for it's money!)

* Sesame Chicken (I am wishing I knew how to make the sweet potatoes they were served with!)

* Mahi Mahi (and the sauce it was in was *heavenly*!!!!)

* ice cream sundaes from Ghiradeli square (2x!)

* sourdough breadbowl with clam chowder

* french toast (I wish I could make it this good!)

* a $3 cupcake (OK, so it was CUTE and YUMMY even if it was $3. I never make choc raspberry cupcakes!)

From this list, it looks like I need to go clothes shopping for the next size up (or maybe 2 sizes???).

Now I should start a new list with the strange characters we ran in to... public transportation brings them all out!

PS - If you love me at all, you will vote in my poll down below! ;)

Poll....

Without going into a lot of details, post as to which picture of Rik you like the best. The one with facial hair, or the one without. I'll explain later.

Caitlin and I are back!

From Girl's Camp! Yes, I didn't know I was going either until about a week before it happened! The lady that was supposed to go suddenly couldn't, so I was asked to step in. I hadn't been to camp in about 19 yrs or so, and while a lot is the same, a lot has changed as well. I was in charge of 9 girls for the week - and there were about 100 people at this camp. It was a great experience for the girls - and me. The activities the girls did were fun - the speakers and classes were really interesting and spiritual, and, most importantly, I didn't have to cook for a few days!

Philip and Rik did just fine at home without me. Rik managed to do laundry, make his own lunch, and even filled some prescriptions! He did a great job!

This is the picture of Caitlin waiting for everyone's ride to show up so that we could leave camp. It's really the picture of how I felt after getting home!

I'm almost embarrassed to post this...

But it's Philip's birthday cake - probably the most, um, unique thing I have ever made. He wanted a rock climbing cake - mostly because he wanted the little bendy rock climbing guys I put on it. I have never spent $10 on a cake topper until now! I hope you can tell - but it is a mountain the bendy guys are climbing. The cake is dusted with chocolate pudding because that's all I could find in my kitchen w/o running to the store to find something else to make it look more like dirt!

Happy Birthday Philip!

He's 11 - today in fact! It's some sort of record that I'm getting pictures up the day it happened!

This morning we went geocaching while Caitlin was at ballet camp. We found 5 different caches - and a couple of them were clever - like the one hidden in a irrigation tube...

And then we went and got his birthday Cold Stone afterwards.. (he chose Birthday Cake Remix!)

.

We arrived home in time to meet dad... bringing home his birthday present! I think this has been a pretty good day for him!

There must be a new rule here..

We dog-sat again last week - another dog named Mollie - totally different breed though! So, we must only be capable of sitting dogs named Molly/Mollie and no one told me about it! She was funny - she always had to have something in her mouth - I was busy making sure it wasn't something I cared about!

The end of an era...

(As short as it may have been). Bye to Rik's road bike - it's gone - sold - the man came and got it this past weekend. It sold with lightning speed! Here's the final washing of it before it got put up for sale.

Saguaro festival

Last Sat I went with my friend Ann to a festival/workshop where we learned how to harvest saguaro fruits. First we made the sticks that you use to harvest the fruit out of saguaro ribs and greasewood. We lashed them together with bailing wire. Mine was great, except when we were out picking, the top broke off. When we came back, we boiled the fruit down into syrup. It takes a loooooonnnnnnng time since you have to first boil the fruit, then strain the seeds/pulp out, and then boil it again until it is thick. It took even longer than it probably should have since the process was being done on camp stoves. This was all taught the traditional Native American way. They sang a song before we were able to go and harvest the fruit.

So, Ann and I went out this week and tried to harvest the fruit ourselves. We used pool cleaning poles with bolts stuck in the ends - much easier since they telescoped out and there were no issues with them breaking. (So much for the Native American way!) It took us two hours to harvest a 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket of fruit. This is a very long time compared to the 30 min it takes use to get the 2 5 gal buckets of prickley pear fruit! Not as easy as it looks! Some of that fruit is really stuck up there! When it does come down, we were trying to catch it with the bucket. It was an adventure to say the least!