Oh Christmas Tree

Steve and I went out and bought our Christmas tree today! We drove over to the local garden store and picked up a really fresh (and reasonably priced) tree and brought it home, decorated it, and gave it lots of love. Click here to see more pics.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Whew! I can't believe another Thanksgiving is here and done already. This year, Steve and I cooked the turkey and trimmings, and boy is it a lot of work! But we also had a lot of fun looking up recipes and cooking tips. We brined the bird in a concoction designed by Alton Brown from the Food Network. It was simply F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S!!! I'm not saying it was easy, but the turkey really didn't take as much effort as I thought it would. The stuffing, sweet potatoes, and chard, all turned out pretty delicious (if I do say so myself).

We enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner with my mom, stepfather Bruce, and cousin Tom. I'm so extremely thankful this year to have had the most important people in my life with me to celebrate. I don't have a religious bone in my body, but I do feel truly blessed. And very happy. :)

Click here for the making of the turkey pics.

Happy Birthday Mom!

This year we celebrated my mom's birthday by going out to dinner at one of her favorite places to eat. It was a very special birthday indeed as this year Grandma Tsuma was here visiting! I took the rare opportunity to take a picture of us all together.

Scott boldy goes....to the Star Trek Exhibit

Steve, my cousin Tom, and I went to the Star Trek Exhibit at the San Jose Tech Museum this weekend. It was a fun display of artifacts from the various Star Trek series and movies. We walked on the original bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise and I sat in Captain Kirk's chair. There was also a transporter room where Scottie beamed Scott to another world. It was nerderiffic!

Happy Halloween!

Steve and I are going to fire up the Jack-O-Lanterns, play some scary sounds and put the candy on dry ice. I have a very scary zombie costume that I'm going to wear so I can scare the crap out of the trick-or-treaters. I'm going to wait until they get their candy and then I'm going to jump out from the side gate and be all zombie-like. Hee hee hee...

Happy Halloween to all our peeps!

Tarantula Hunt

This weekend, Steve and I went hunting for tarantulas up at Mount Diablo. This is the time of year when they all come out to mate. They like to scurry across the road, so we drive very carefully until we see them and then we pull over and film them. This is a clip of three different tarantulas that we encountered.

The rings

Here they are! We picked them up today. We haven't quite decided when to file the paperwork for our domestic partnership, but we decided that we will present each other with the rings tomorrow, September 21, our first anniversary. We are going to the coffee shop where we first met and then we are going to retrace our steps and walk to Chipotle and have burrito bowls (it was our first meal together). Sappy but extremely wonderful to us!

Steve's work bench, our trip to Seattle, piano and PESTO!!!

So much has happened since I last wrote anything on my blog. Steve has been working on the house, or more specifically the garage, all summer long. It's absolutely beautiful! Yes, I never thought I'd say that about a garage but it's true. Click here for photos of the garage. He spent a lot of time dry walling and insulating the ceiling to make it a more pleasant place to do projects.

Steve also got a piano! It took several weeks of research and searching through Craigslist, but Steve found a great 1930's era piano that looks and sounds fantastic. It needs a little love and some tuning, but Steve is very happy with his choice. Click here for photos of the piano.

The vegetable garden has also taken off like crazy! We have been eating Zucchini every night with dinner and Steve has made several loaves of Zucchini bread. Funny, the newspaper just happened to feature a few zucchini recipes for people like us who are over run with zucchini!

We also took a trip to see Steve's brother Mark and his wife Meika. It was my first meeting with them and they are absolutely wonderful people. Steve and I had a lot of fun touring their farm, playing with the dogs, cats, and horses, and taking hikes in the forest. We also got to help Mark with his bee hives! Click here to see all of my latest photos.

We've been having so much fun that we don't want summer to be over!!!

Camping at Grover Hot Springs

Steve and I spent part of our vacation camping at Grover Hot Springs (near Lake Tahoe). We camped with our friends Laura, Julia and Julian. Our three days of camping included hikes to the waterfall, soaking in the hot springs, playing in the streams and sleeping in our new REI two-man tent. Overall it was a very fun time. Click here to see some of our camping pictures.

Vacation!

It's the beginning of a week-long summer vacation for me! This morning I got up and made Steve some whole wheat pancakes (see pancake man above). Later on today we will drive up to Grover Hot Springs to camp for a couple days. Our camping gear is all packed and we are almost ready to hit the road! Check back later for some camping pics.

In the meantime, check out some of the latest pictures of our vegetable and herb garden. It's starting to take off like crazy, especially the radishes and Zucchini. Click here to see our garden pics!