Memorial Day

I love long weekends. Sleeping in, eating delicious food, barbecuing, downtime with the fam in bed...it's heavenly.

Today we went to Pescadero, which is a tradition we started a few year ago. The weather was absolutely perfect. It's not often you leave the overcast suburbs and end up with amazing weather on the coast.

It's a fun and mellow way to spend Memorial Day. It's a teeny-tiny town, and it reminds me of the fun little towns in the midwest. This is the main drag.

The flags up for Memorial Day

B was taking in the sights, and enjoying the sun

Our first stop was at the Argangeli Grocery Company. They're famous for their warm ollalaberry pies, and fresh, warm artichoke bread. Lancer just got the pie a few weeks ago when his parents were visiting, so he went for the bread.

The bread smelled SO good. I caved and bought a homemade peanut butter cup that was jam packed with creamy peanut butter.

Somebody else at the table thought the bread smelled good, too.

Beezie scooted her way across the table and demanded to be fed some of the tasty bread.

Papa was nice enough to share his spoils

After eating, we busted out of town with a few stops along the way to take in the views

The weekend was especially great because Lancer was finally home after a 2 week European trip. We missed him a lot. I made Beezie a little photo album she could flip through while he was gone, and see his cute mug everyday. He spent some time in London, and brought back a Paddington Bear. B loves it.

B and I also got a little Costco shopping in. She is a total charmer--I can tell she has my outgoing personality. She laps up attention and smiles in every aisle, giving big smiles and laughs back when people come up to her.

We whipped up a triple batch of my lazy spaghetti sauce.

Kaari's Lazy Spaghetti Sauce

* 6 bottles of spaghetti sauce
* 6 lbs ground beef
* 6 chopped onions
*8 TBS jarred garlic
* 3 green peppers, chopped
* 3 large can of mushrooms, drained
*1 6 lb can chopped tomatoes, drained
*1 large can tomato paste
* 1/2 bottle of red wine--you can omit if you don't care for the taste

Brown the onions, beef, peppers, and garlic. I do 2 separate pans to brown the items. Split between 2-3 crockpots and add the remaining ingredients. Cook on high for 5-6 hours, or 8 hours on low. Freezes well.

Beezie and I also took a trip over to Danville to drop in at Miglet's Gluten Free Bakery. Their stuff is so delicious.

They had been advertising 'Mostess' cupcakes--a very clever take on the oh-so-tasty Hostess cupcakes we can't enjoy. Who am I to turn down a cupcake named after me?

It even had the creamy center!

This little Miglet was delighted to be out and about

She even got a little taste of frosting!

We hope you also had a wonderful and relaxing weekend. We know we did. I am so ready for summer to be here. Bring on the cute shorts, ice cream, the beach, Gilroy Gardens visits, swimming, and endless fun in the sun. Let's pack up our 80 lbs of gear and go!

Boot Scootin Boogie

Here's B's booty scooting. Enjoy!

Chugging Away

We've been hard at work and play this last week.

We had a fun little joint baby shower for our friends from the ward. Each one was on their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th baby, so we kept it low key. We did a chocolate fondue night--one peanut butter and chocolate, and one plain milk chocolate. It was divine.



Beezie and I packed up and headed up to Sacramento for the day to visit friends. Our first stop was seeing my crazy-fun NKOTB friend Shauran. Here we are over the years at NKOTB concerts:


She has an adorable little boy a few months older than Beezie. They played on the carpet, rolling around and having fun while we ate lunch and caught up on the NKOTB cruise her husband so generously sent her on. Talking about the cruise fueled my DDub fire, and I am SO excited for the back to back concert dates in July!!

Our next stop was at my friend Rachels. We roomed together in Provo in 1994, and have stayed in touch ever since. She has 5 kids, so it's nearly impossible to get together. But every time we do, it's like no time has passed at all--except we have better hair, and our jeans aren't 5 inches above our bellybuttons.

We went to the Fake Cafe Rio spot I have been hearing so much about-Costa Vida. It was SO tasty! Naturally, I got the pork barbacoa salad, and I have to say, it's really the only salad I enjoy eating.

Next on the agenda was a much deserved and long overdue GNO with the girls in the city. You know the night is going to be good when it starts with car service!

Our first stop was Orson--it's run by Top Chef and Citizen Cake Chef Elizabeth Falkner. I'm sure you've seen her on the Food Network over the years.

The restaurant was gorgeous, and the food did NOT disappoint!

We started off sharing the prosciutto and melon salad. This was followed by the duck fat fries topped off with brown butter béarnaise.Re-read that, and take it all in. For the main course, JoJo and I shared two dishes: the smoked pork chop on top of creamy polenta and collard greens with an orange chutney AND the grilled rib eye with asparagus and marble potatoes. I'm drooling thinking about it.

Next 2 stops were at Roe, and then off to Cat Club. It was 90's night, and the music was awesome. I needed a good night of dancing. Except that dumb-dumb JoJo convinced me to wear these shoes. They have a killer spiked heel.

I had on cute and comfy flats because JoJo told me that everyone was going in "dressy casual." I showed up, and everyone looks like they are going to prom! To dress up my boring mom outfit, I popped on the Lanvins. They looked great, but after 20 minutes, I was ready to kill myself. I kicked them off, and probably need a hepatitis C test now.

I also got some allergy testing done. I have been getting these horrible canker sores in my mouth and down the sides of my throat. It was horrible. I basically had a raw, sore throat for almost 2 months before I caved and went to the doctor.


I would have been scared I picked up some weird disease from the Cat Club floor, but the symptoms appeared long before the shoes incident. I thought my allergy was to nuts--specifically almonds.


Nope! The culprit was soy and...gluten. I also have bad seasonal allergies. Duh. I reacted like crazy to the wheat, barley, rye and oats. It's also likely some nasal drainage (so hot!!) combined with my sensitivity to gluten. I had accidentally ingested some gluten several times, and it kicked off this horrible immune reaction, which caused the neverending canker sores. They also told me to slow down, and rest a little. I have been napping with B for the last few weeks, and its really helped. That whole "sleep when the baby sleeps" business is solid advice! Who knew?

Beezie is teething again--argh. When not shredding on her guitar like her daddy...

...and playing with her fun and exciting toys...

She's been serving me up a main dish consisting of this....

with a side of this......

...and this for dessert!

She's been a total stalker. I read an article titled "7 Signs That Your Baby Loves You" and it kind of sounds like the Stalker's Handbook--a book that apparently, B has been reading nightly. Of course, my friend Mary wisely pointed out that she inherited her stalker tendencies. I have no idea what she's talking about!

There Once was a Girl...

...who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.

And when she was good, she was very good.

And when she was bad, she was horrid.

Yeah, even at her most horrid, she's still pretty dang good. These are from her 7 month shoot. She was tired, teething, and on the cranky side. Enjoy what we got!