Christmas 2012, Part 1

Happy New Year! We're still catching up and getting back into our normal weekly routine after the holidays, but we do have several things to share on here over the next few weeks or so. I hope to post a bit more regularly this year, but I'm not going to call it a "resolution" just yet.

For Christmas, we drove down to South Carolina to see family. We spent a few days with my parents and grandmother (which this post covers), and then we spent a few days with Ed's family (will cover in our next post).

We had a nice trip. There wasn't much traffic, and we saw lots of farmland and mountains. We broke the trip up into two days, stopping for the night in Franklin, IN, since we didn't leave Rockford until mid-afternoon on the Friday before Christmas and it's about a 14- or 15-hour drive.

Somewhere in Indiana

Somewhere obviously not in Indiana (can't remember if it was KY, TN, or NC)

Once we arrived in SC, we watched a few movies, went to church, did a little shopping, and even did a few quick and easy craft projects. And thanks to a $10 gift card, my mom and I both ate lunch at Chick-fil-A for 44 cents total one day while we were out shopping!

Speaking of Chick-fil-A, the Clemson Tigers (our alma mater, in case you couldn't tell) played the LSU Tigers in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on New Year's Eve, and Clemson won in the last few seconds of the game, in true Clemson form. You could say it was a real cat fight!

And speaking of Clemson, the Clemson Christmas tree ornament was cute this year. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

And speaking of Christmas trees, my parents totally got one for free this year. Sweet!

And speaking of sweet...just kidding. Is that getting funny or annoying? I'm kind of enjoying it. It's pretty much how my mind works all of the time. I'll stop for now.

Anyway, onto some photos from Christmas day. We made some jams, jellies, and a marmalade to give as gifts. We also made some lip balms. I'll post more details and photos of all of that later.

Bernadette holding up some blackberry jam we made

When Bernadette (my mom) opened the lip balms, she tried one on and asked Daniel (my dad) to see if he could smell it, so he kissed her to find out. It was cute. Ed managed to snap a photo, but it came out too blurry. Oh well. They probably didn't want a photo like that on the internet anyway. ;)

We were glad we got to see Joyce (my grandmother), since we hadn't seen her since before we moved to Illinois.

Joyce sitting with Buster (left) and Buddy

The pugs were adorable, as usual. Buddy enjoys opening Christmas presents, but evidently it's not Buster's thing. Buster pretty much just sat there and didn't want to be bothered with it until someone mostly unwrapped it for him. This from the dog who until recently chewed on everything. Obviously, Buddy just has more Christmas spirit and experience than Buster.

Buddy opening his Christmas present

Buster not opening his

We sort of developed this expectation while opening gifts that everyone needed to look really surprised, maybe even shocked, as they opened each gift. We think my dad gets the prize for that.

That second one makes me laugh so hard every time I look at it! Not sure what happened with the lighting, but I think the reddish tint kind of adds to the intensity. He really does like nuts that much, though (which is why he got them), so he may not have been trying too hard to act pleasantly surprised.

Well, we set out the next day for Ed's parents' house, but before we left town, Ed wanted to stop by Death Valley (the Clemson football stadium, aka Memorial Stadium) for a few photos. It was starting to rain and it was windy (the wind was puffing up his shirt in the first photo below--not extra pounds!).

We played in the marching band while we were there, so we spent a lot of time in this stadium.

And yes, the grass was green the day after Christmas. We won't even get to see grass again where we live until maybe March-ish.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Every Thanksgiving, I bake pumpkin cheesecake. I've been doing so since I was in grad school (How did I have the time back then?! How has it been so long that it now qualifies as "back then"?!).

I use this recipe for the most part, but I use ginger snaps for the crust (about two cups of finely ground ginger snap cookies and half a stick of butter), I don't use brandy, and I don't measure the spices (cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg)--I just put however much looks right.

The recipe says to use a 9-inch springform pan, but the pieces are just too big. Instead, I like to use two 6-inch springform pans and one mini springform pan (it's the perfect size for tasting, and it's cute). This recipe makes a lot of batter (not every cheesecake recipe that calls for a 9-inch pan will yield the same amount of batter as this one).

We took some over to Michigan this Thanksgiving. Of course, the problem was that by the time dessert rolled around, everyone was too full, so not much of it was eaten. But at least a couple of people thought it was good. Oh well. I'll be making more for Christmas, since our moms haven't had it yet this year and they requested it. And I don't plan on bringing any back!

Banana Bread

I've been baking lots of quick breads recently. I use three mini loaf pans (each is 5.75" x 3") instead of one large (regular-sized) loaf pan, and I've been freezing at least one from each batch, so we can enjoy some now and some later. We haven't noticed any significant difference in taste with the ones we've frozen and eaten later, so they seem to freeze well.

Banana Quick Bread
(adapted from Joy of Cooking's "Banana Bread Cockaigne" recipe)
Makes one 8.5" x 4.5" loaf or three 5.75" x 3" mini loaves

1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp salt
2/3 cup sugar
6 Tbsp butter (3/4 stick), softened (I just microwave it)
2 eggs
3 bananas

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F). Grease pan(s).
2. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small mixing bowl. (Sometimes, I put some cinnamon in there, too.)
3. Beat sugar and butter together in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add bananas in pieces, mash with fork, and beat in.
4. Add the dry ingredient mixture in about 3 parts to the wet ingredent mixture, beating in until smooth after each addition.
5. Scrape batter into pan(s) and bake about 50-60 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

The Beauty of Decay

We went for a walk around the neighborhood on a nice, sunny day a few weeks ago and took some photos of the leaves as they were first beginning to change color.

We also happened to encounter some creatures along the way, and they were nice enough to pose for us.

And speaking of creatures, we seem to get a lot of visitors in our back yard. All on the same day one day, we saw a hawk, some squirrels, and somehow even a cat managed to get through our fence. The hawks around here seem to like perching on our fence.

The leaves are in the orange/red/falling phase right now. They're beautiful, but it's been cooler and rainy, so we haven't gotten any photos recently.

Isn't it kind of interesting that most things that are decaying lose their appeal, but it's almost the opposite with autumn leaves?

Jennifer's West Coast Trip: San Francisco

Sorry for the long pause. I know the suspense was killing you! I was battling a weird cold that kept sort of going away and coming back every couple of days. So, back to my trip....

The last place on our itinerary was San Francisco, California. We went there to attend a Tears for Fears (TFF) concert, which has sort of become an annual event for us since 2010. We flew from Seattle in the morning on the day before the concert so we could do a little sightseeing.

But first, let's talk about the weather. It was pretty cloudy, cool (cold, compared to Seattle and Vancouver), and foggy most of the time we were there, but I guess that's why they call it "Fog City" (among many other nicknames). Good thing we brought jackets! They must make a killing selling unsuspecting tourists San Francisco jackets and sweatshirts, so if you plan to go, even in the summer, take a jacket. Oh, and thanks a lot, fog, for ruining every chance we had to get decent photos of the Golden Gate Bridge (and by decent I mean you can tell that it's the Golden Gate Bridge without squinting or being told that's what you're looking at).

The best photo I got of the Golden Gate Bridge (taken from the Alcatraz ferry). Seriously.

Anyway. Maybe next time I can get closer to the bridge for some better shots. We wanted to go over that way, but we didn't have time.

We already had tickets for Alcatraz, because they can sell out weeks in advance, so that was first on our to-do list. Once we checked into our hotel, which was on the south side of town, we headed to Fisherman's Wharf and got on the ferry to travel about 1.25 miles across San Francisco Bay to Alcatraz Island. The island is now a national park site featuring what remains of the abandoned prison, early military fortifications, and the oldest operating lighthouse on the U.S. west coast.


Approaching Alcatraz Island

We spent a few hours on the island, touring the former penitentiary grounds. In the first photo below, you can see (from the top left to the bottom right) the lighthouse, the warden's house, the cellhouse (peeking out from behind the warden's house), the barracks/apartment building, the guard house (behind and to the right of the barracks/apartment building), the guard tower, and the dock.

View approaching the dock





The wall above was written on during the 19-month (November of 1969 to June of 1971) occupation of the island by the group Indians of All Tribes. 



Military chapel and guardhouse

Gardens, power house, and view facing northwest

The 84-foot-tall lighthouse which replaced the original in 1909

Cell block

Inside a cell

Solitary confinement cells

There are many ornamental plant species on the island--remnants of gardens planted by inmates and correctional staff and families--which are now tended by volunteers.



View of San Francisco from Alcatraz Island

After our tour of Alcatraz, we sailed back to Fisherman's Wharf and walked around and shopped since we were already there.






Marina at Fisherman's Wharf, SF

Seals sunning themselves at Fisherman's Wharf

We ate dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., since we seem to have also made a tradition out of that since we went to Chicago last year. And I had to have some of their bread pudding again.

We took a cable car ride from Ghirardelli Square to the transit station on our way back to our hotel. We actually took a few cable car rides, but they were all at night, so they weren't the best times for good photos. And they were super-crowded.

The next day (our final day together), we ate lunch at the Fog City Diner, which was more upscale than we expected it to be. Both the food and service were good.

Then we took a streetcar (we did manage to get a shot of one of those) to Chinatown.

Streetcar in San Francisco

Somehow, we managed to completely miss the front entrance gate and area, which is probably where all of the photo opps are (we came through the opposite end of Chinatown...the part where Asian people are shopping). Oh well.

Somewhere in Chinatown, San Francisco

Chinatown, SF

From there we scaled a few small mountains to get to the concert venue, Nob Hill Masonic Center. The TFF show was great, as usual. We love that they sound just as good live as they do on a recording. We also really enjoyed their opening act, Carina Round, who also sang backup vocals for them and signed a copy of her CD for Alexis after the show. I took some photos, but they all came out really blurry. I guess I was a little excited.

The next morning, we parted ways at the airport and both flew to our respective cities. There are tons of things we didn't have time to do in San Francisco (and Seattle and Vancouver), but we did what we could and had a great time. Well, that concludes this whirlwind West Coast trip series!