My Grandfather passed away last night

I am filled with sadness.
My grandfather would have been 94 in March.
He was a great man.
He passed quietly in his sleep last night...

My grandfather is dying..

I adore my grandfather

and it is killing me...

My Car is possessed...

again....

Seriously, my car has a mind of its own. I won't list all its weird behaviors of the past, but I will tell you about today's oddity....
So the windshield wipers have issues - if they are on when you turn the car off, when you turn it back on they do not go on...even though the knob is in the on position....but today we had some new weirdness.
I had them on staggered (not sure what to call it, but you know - not on constantly, but rather on, pause, on, pause, etc...). I have noticed that sometimes when it thinks I need it, the car will put them on constant - totally random, sometimes while driving and sometimes while sitting, but today it decided that, occasionally, I need a burst of Super Speed Wiping - just for a moment or 2...so glad my car takes care of me like that :-)

My Dog is a Water Snob

Seriously!

I have known for a while that he does not like to drink water that sits in his bowl for any period of time...and that he prefers to drink water out of the hose or rain water, but now it is out of control. I noticed the other day that I filled the bowl and at the end of the day it was still full - odd for them. So I washed it out completely, and filled it....and still he kept insisting on going outside to drink the pooled rain water.
I know our tap water tastes pretty nasty, but who knew a dog would be that picky??

It is tuesday again...

and I am so excited about it!

While wasting time between school and dutch class, Anneke and I wandered into ta little strip mall in search of a snack. There was one of those new fangled yogurt places that are popping up all over the place, so we decided to try it - kill a few minutes and eat something...
As I get out of the car I see a van with a decal for Charlie's Cheescakes...hmm wonder what that is - YUM....but sadly not something I can eat....
as I turn around to walk to the store I see a big sign "Gluten Free items here"...
AT The CHEESCAKE STORE? WOHOOOOOO wonder what they have?
So we go in and ask the guy (I think it was Charlie :-) ) and he proceeds to hand me a list with several things - cookie dough, scones, biscotti, pizza crusts..."...has a niece who is Celiac (sorry I missed the part where he told me who..), and since she is a baker by profession, she decided to start experimenting and here is what we have..the items on top are in stock (like 15 of them!) and the ones on the bottom we have to order, oh and the Ravioli are to die for..."
Wait Ravioli? I LOVE Ravioli.
So turns out that she comes in after hours, cleand the place up so it is a GF environment, and bakes away...I left with a Pizza Crust (in the oven as I type) Cheese Ravioli, and Choc Chip Cookie Dough...he was out of the CC scones, but maybe next week???
Unfortunately, he was also out of the GF Cheescake Poppers, but gets them in stock on and off...guess I will be checking back regularly!

website is www.iamoi.com -
looks like the products are available at select markets health food stores around the Bay Area

Followup - Pizza was pretty darn good!

Rumbling around over here

we have had a rash of small Earthquakes the last couple of days - 2 I have felt (a 2.8 and a 4.2). There was another 3 ish today but I missed that one...however, there have been 20+ micro quakes int eh same place over the last 3 days...question is - is this a good thing (releases the pressure) or a build up...I am going for the first :-)

We are off to try out a new Gym - I have not been overjoyed with Annekes progress at Cal Sports, and talking to another mom on New Years eve, I heard about West Valley Gymnastics...so we are going for a trial. Pictures look more like the kind of Gym I remember...and the classes are 90 mins instead of 55, which I like...so we will see :-)

already missed a day...

my goal was to write something every day...and I missed yesterday...nothing interesting to say I guess (what else is new right? :-) )

We had a mini earthquake last night. It was 2.8 which usually you don't even feel, but I guess this one was pretty shallow, because it shook the house. I have grown up with Earthquakes, and really don't mind the little ones, but there is that moment when you realize it is an earthquake and you wait to see if it is over or if you need to get up and take cover...of course by the time you figure it out, it is already over lol.

So what is on the agenda for today - NO Bejeweled - that is number 1! Bill paying and possibly a trip to Big lots for wine. Mark is taking off for a week tomorrow, but luckily all the laundry is done, so really not much prep work for that...oh and I need to plan a Daisy meeting....guess I better get going?

Tuesday=Dutch School

Tuesdays are long days for us - After 6.5 hours of regular school, Anneke heads over for 2.5 hours of Dutch School. At least this year we do not have to drive all the way to Palo Alto....
The question is whether it is worth it? Since Mark does not really speak Dutch to her at home, I am not sure 2.5 hour, 1X a week are any benefit....but I guess it is better than nothing.

Back to School we go...

I am SO not ready for this yet...back to school we go :-(

Happy Birthday Puppy :-)

Last week - 9 years old - almost :-)

6 weeks old :-)

April 01- 14 weeks old :-)

April 01 right after he came to live with us

the last morning for sleeping in

how are we ever going to get up and moving before 7 am tomorrow? I slept in until 9:15 and
Anneke just got up at 10:15...tomorrow is going to be very hard...

someone peed in the house

and judging by how freaked out and hyper she is, I would guess it is Sasha...

Who knew?

who knew Bowling was such an expensive diversion...

We decided to have a family outing to the bowling alley - play a few games...should be pretty cheap entertainment right? NO - the 3 of us played 4 games and it was $96 - yes $96 to BOWL...wow...

Well then - there go the "Annual" Camping event plans....

So last year we had this GREAT experience camping at Refugio SB. My mom drove up in an RV with her husband and his 2 granddaughters. We hooked up Poppy and drove down with another family. We had 3 sites with 12 people, and we stayed 3 nights...it was a blast and we decided to make it an annual event. Even try to draft a few more people each year...

WELL that did not work out.
Mark and I set the alarm and got up early so we could coordinate which 4 sites we were going to get....at 7:55 we had the sites all picked and all we had to do was click the "Reserve" button....we counted down the last minute and at precisely 8 am PST we clicked all four.....and we waited....and waited...and waited.....etc. It just continued to say "processing". Never even popped up to say that they were already reserved, just kept "processing"...
Finally Mark noticed that he had 1 item in his cart, and we managed to get 1 site :-(
We had drafted 1 new family, which would have raised our number to 15 (and 5 vehicles)....not going to fit on the 1 site.

At this point (8:30!) it was too late to reserve any of the other popular sites - El Cap was all booked and so was Carpenteria...Gaviota SB was open, but the reviews are not too flattering...

SO I checked Pfeiffer Big Sur (one of our fav camping spots)...and found 2 River Sites and a couple scattered other sites nearby...our usual sites were all already gone of course, but Hey, they are River sites - cannot be too bad right???
I am curious how the sites will be...there must be something less than ideal about these 2 for them to have still been open, but I will remain optimistic lol. Mark snagged another nearby site...at worst we can use it to park cars..or maybe it will make a great "time out" spot :-)
A bit later another River spot 2 over opened up so I quickly grabbed that one - I do feel sorry for the poor person/family/group stuck in between us, but maybe they will trade :-)

So it looks like the trip will be at Big Sur this year - we have 4 sites and 1 less family (mom won't drive up that far for it)...I guess we need to draft someone else :-)

Gluten Free Ricotta Pancakes

Made these this morning using a variation on the GF Cottage Cheese Pancake recipe I had.
Came out GREAT! Would never know they were Gluten Free....

Recipe:
2 1/2 Tblsp Butter melted
1/4 cup GF Flour (I used the Whole foods All purpose Baking mix - I liked it better than the Robs Red Mill I think)
1/2 cup Ricotta
2 Eggs

Splash of Milk or cream if the batter seems a bit thick.

Happy 2010!!

Here's to a Happy and Healthy 2010....

I have tried this blogging thing a couple of times and never seem to keep up with it. But it is a New Year so let's see if I can do any better this time :-) I doubt I will have anything particularly interesting to say, but I will *try* to write something each day....

We had a pleasant New Years Eve - We hung out with some very good friends and some people we really don't know very well (and don't think we need to spend much time with in the future) definitely missing friends from last year!

New year's resolutions?? Just the usual - try to be healthier. I ended the year in a very non Gluten Free way :-( Someone brought homemade Crab Cream Cheese Puffs...one of my all time favorites, so I snuck one...and then after that, why not have "just a bite" of the homemade Red Velvet cupcakes....This morning I have a nice new welt on my forearm. Coincidence? Probably not...
I need to go 100% for a few days to see if all the skin irritation goes away...actually I need to go on a strict elimination diet to figure out what the problem, is, but I am lazy.
My doctor has also challenged me to lose 10lbs before my next appointment in the beginning of March...that actually is probably easier :-)

So lets make a list of what I generally avoid and I can keep adding to it:
1) the bag of Butterfingers sitting right next to me
2) gluten in all forms
3) HFCS (not hard since I avoid this mostly anyway) but I did have a Coke yesterday...
3.5) Lets say Soda too then
4) MSG (again not too hard, but I do miss doritos :-) )
5) Processed foods including anything with a word I cannot pronounce
5) I am going to avoid Seafood for a couple of weeks as well
Okay then - those are things I already avoid, but I am sure new ones will pop up.

all for now...