Christmas week 2008

What a busy week! It started last Sunday with food shopping and cooking Sunday and Monday for Betsy and Jerry's vow renewal. Nancy, Kierra and I shopped for about 3 hours for all the food. Monday Joni, Susan, Nancy, and I cooked all afternoon to be ready for the big shindig on Tuesday. I think it turned out very well!! About 50 people witnessed their ceremony and ate the food and drank good wine.

Wednesday was spent practicing music for Christmas Eve service and then playing both the piano and clarinet for 2 different services. When I finally was home at 12:30 a.m. I was beat. So we slept in Christmas morning, had a good brunch, and then we open presents from each other and from our families in Iowa. Then we headed off to Manteca to our friends Jen and Ed's, who had invited us for Christmas dinner with their families. We had a great time meeting their family members. Ed's brother and sister-in-law, and 2 nieces were visiting from West Des Moines, IA! They live very close to Rachel and Chris!! Small world. We ate, talked, and played games all evening.

Friday morning we got up, packed our bags, and headed to Monterey. We haven't been there for a few years, and we now wonder why we don't go back more often. We spent Fri. evening exploring Fisherman's Wharf and sampling all the restaurants' clam chowders before we finally chose Cafe Fina. We had a yummy meal with the highlight being the crabcakes! Saturday was filled with wandering through the Monterey Bay Aquarium which has to be the best ever! Then we wandered through Cannery Row shops. Next we spent a couple hours driving the beautiful 17-mile drive oooing and aaahing at all the huge mansions, beautiful views, etc. The weather was so nice we had the moon roof open and we could smell the ocean and the redwoods and eucalyptus. We, of course, had to stop at the Pebble Beach Golf Course and walk out to the 18th green and walk through the lodge. Did you know that in 2010 the U.S. Open is in Pebble Beach? We are now starting our U.S. Open Fund. Maybe we'll get to go????? We dined at the Sardine Factory in the evening having a wonderful meal. Sunday we got to shop in Carmel before heading home to mounds of laundry and a house that needs to be cleaned!

Getting Ready for Christmas

It's been a while since I've updated this! Thanksgiving was a great time in Iowa. Rachel and I did a pretty good job cooking for 31, which turned out to be only 25. We made a 20-lb. turkey and 10 lbs. of pork roast! Everything was a success except for the fact that we forgot to make the corn! We all lived having a Thanksgiving meal in Iowa without corn!

While in Iowa we also saw Scott's family and spent a lot of time shopping for Christmas gifts and for ourselves. We picked up some nice bargains at places we miss like Younkers and my new favorite store, C.J. Banks. When we got to the airport we had to do a little rearranging b/c my suitcase was over 50 lbs. and they were going to charge us $125!! Thanksfully we could put more stuff in Scott's.

Last weekend was busy with lots of music events. Our quartet (well, 3 of us) played for a women's ministry event called Advent by Candlelight. Sunday after playing for 3 services the quartet played at the Windmill Ridge Winery. Our homeless shelter in town, McHenry House, had a benefit tour of homes. Everyone started at the winery. There you picked up your map and had desserts and drinks. We played for about 3 hours.

This weekend has been much more laid back. We atteneded my staff party and a birthday party Friday night. Now I'm trying to decide what to bake. Scott and I went to a wine tasting event at Steven Kent Winery in Livermore last night and then had dinner at a place called Zephyr Grille. We learned about this restaurant in all places--Seattle! Our last night there we ate at a place called the Icon Grille and they had Livermore wines on the menu. That's when we found out that they had a sister restaurant in Livermore. It was very tasty and they had a cool way to give you tastes of wine--a little wine tree.