Our Little Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

On Christmas Eve, the kiddos and I carried out our traditions, along with a couple new ones and some adaptations.  A cop's family is all about adaptations.

One adaptation:  drive all the way to downtown Santa Barbara to see Christmas lights, instead of staying in our area.  We didn't know the good neighborhoods, so I headed to the upscale parts of town, hoping that where there is money, there would be lights.  We were disappointed. Good displays were few and far between. It got to the point that we were excited when we saw reflectors on a car parked on the street up ahead!

But driving downtown was part of a master plan:  having our traditional Chinese food Christmas Eve dinner.  Usually we get Chinese take-out, but this year we headed to a downtown restaurant and had our own Police escort.  It was great to have dinner all together, even though the officer could only stay for part of dinner.  We enjoyed China Pavilion!

After the fortune cookies, we headed home the back way (still hoping for some lights, and indeed we enjoyed quite a few skillfully decorated homes), and started on frosting the cookies that we had left to cool.

A new tradition:  drinking Butterbeer while decorating cookies.  There are several recipes floating around for the Wizarding treat, but we used this one:  Mix 7 parts cream soda to one part Butterscotch Schnapps.  Drink.

Last year, Erin decorated cookies to resemble Harry Potter characters.

Can you identify them?  *Answer below.

This year it was the members of her favorite band, The Strokes.

Top Row: Nikolai Fraiture; Julian Casablancas. Bottom Row: Nick Valensi; Fabrizio Moretti; Albert Hammond, Jr.

Kevin and I took responsibility for the rest.  We missed having the Squid taking his share, so we got tuckered out.  Here are some of our better ones.

When we finished the cookies, it was time to clean up, and suddenly it was nearing 11:00pm.  It is traditional for their father and me to wrap the kids' packages on Christmas Eve.  In years past, we've had to stay up quite late, wrapping and also doing the requisite assembly duty.  This year, we again had to adapt, so we did some together earlier in the day, but in the end there was quite a bit for me to finish up.  I worked hard!  I was afraid that Santa might bypass us, I was up so late.

By the time I went to bed the clock read:

It seemed like I had just shut my eyes when my hero returned from protecting and serving, and the clock read:

Santa had managed to come though, and the tree looked sooooo pretty!

So, Christmas began!

The Squid brought home the traditional donuts (we had this tradition even before he became a cop!), fresh from Spudnuts, and we woke the family.

Wow, were we ever spoiled! We felt so loved, and there were lots of gifts to love!  Here we are with some of our favorite presents. 

A BB gun.  You'll shoot yer eye out, kid.

Hello Kitty sleep gear and a pocket camera for when the SLR is too big to carry around.

Even Pirates love a Snuggie®, the Blanket with Sleeves!  I designed the hat: a black-on-black embroidered squid!

It isn't very usual for the Mom to get a bike on Christmas morning, but I did! Kevin bought me a beautiful nearly-new cruiser!

Don't you love how it matches my jammies?

And Erin had tricked me into driving her to buy a frame for "her friend," all the while plotting to give me this.  I love it!

 Kibble and Cocoa got rawhide bones in their stocking, and true to form, Cocoa laid claim to both.

Photo by Erin

We all went back to bed about 6:30am, just when the sky was lightening. Here is what we left behind.

We enjoyed Chinese/Italian dim sum for our mid-day meal.  Trader Joe's is a wonderful source of goodies, and I found more at the neighborhood Oriental market. Egg rolls, shrimp shu-mai, mini pizzas and garlic-Parmesan pastry bites. We had just a short time before the officer had to get ready to go back to work.

Another storm was a-brewing, and by about 4:00 the skies opened and it rained hard for about three hours.

There's a storm coming!

This morning, I woke up and started in the kitchen and didn't stop until about 3:00pm, when we sat down to eat our traditional turkey dinner.  We were lucky to have Kevin's girlfriend come to have dinner with us.  We had turkey breast, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, rolls, cranberries, champagne, and sparkling cider!

And for dessert: I made my first apple pie! Can you believe I had never made an apple pie?  My husband doesn't care for fruit pie, so I have gone all these years without trying to make one.  Luckily, my son does enjoy them, so I was inspired to try my hand. I have to admit I used Marie Callendar's® frozen crusts for my maiden attempt.  It turned out pretty good!  I made a French Silk Chocolate pie, too (definitely not my first!), which was delicious with fresh whipped cream.  *burp*

My first apple pie!

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend.  I hope you all had a warm holiday full of happiness and love.




*Harry Potter cookies: Voldemort, Serverus Snape, Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter.

Monster Cauliflower

Kevin has been gardening in the front yard, and he grew a giant cauliflower.  It is as big as his head! 

Here he is by his sugar snap peas. This is only part of it; we ate some of it last night.

Merry Christmas!

This Liō comic was in today's paper.  Kevin had similar plans when he was a tot.  His was fishing line and paper and staples and tape!  I think Liō and Kevin would've been good friends!

Here is the link.

Brand! New! Curio Cabinet!

Since we dismissed our old TV and the cabinet it had been sitting in, I had been without a place to display my tchotchkes. I was really interested in an oak Mission-style piece, as I love our Mission-style oak end tables. 

So, I went to the internet!

I found a perfect piece, Amish made, and I ordered it straight-away. They were able to customize the stain and hardware. It took a couple months to be built and delivered from the East Coast, but I was patient, and it finally arrived earlier this month.  It fits just right in the corner of our living room, and I love the way it faces out toward the living area.  Isn't it purdy?

San Jose Creek River

It has been raining for over 60 hours straight, so this afternoon when there was a little break in the pourage, Cocoa, Kibble, and I took advantage and went out to see the sights.

Our little San Jose Creek, which is usually dry during the Summer, became a rushin' river.  Here are some pictures, and my first attempt at HD video with my new camera.

Looking downstream

Looking upstream

Gopher Face

This little guy watched us as Kevin and I hiked on his trail the other day. 

(I had forgotton my camera and Kev's has been damaged, so this is as good as it gets, unfortunately)

Yeah, yeah, Arrest and Control Practice, riiiiight....

He says he is going to ArCon practice every week, but I bet he's really perfecting Double Dream Hands.

Monarchs!

A gem of our area is the Monarch butterfly breeding area.  Monarchs are migratory, and every winter they return en masse to the Ellwood area of Goleta. The monarch is even part of the City of Goleta's seal.

 

But guess what?  On my walk yesterday with the pups, on a path along our own San Jose Creek, I found a eucalyptus tree fluttering with orange and black! 

It was neat how the branch looked like a plain ol' eucalyptus branch until a butterfly landed and the branch was suddenly a burst of color! Here is a movie!

And if you are vegetarian, F.U!

The Squid belongs to a local gun club, and he gets their monthly newsletter.  The gun club has officers with names like Bill Tanner and Dusty Rhodes.  Really!

I always laugh at their annual banquet invitation in the December newsletter.

Eat beef or die.

Flowers Surprise

I know, I know, you've seen 'em all before.... But not this month!

I was surprised to see some of my flowers blooming, when they usually wait until spring.

Monkeyflowers!  One of my favorite flowers.

Wooly Blue Curls

My new sunflower/

Bush Poppy!

And not a surprise, some winter bloomers:

Azalea

and Camellia

Elvis Live's!

Viva Las Vegas!  For some reason, we've been donating regularly to the Las Vegas economy in  the last couple years, more regularly than we've ever done before.

This time, the Squid had a conference and I tagged along for fun.  It was time for a getaway. Getaways are good.  Even in Vegas.

Besides, I needed time to write!

As you know, I'm not a fan of gambling, so I took the opportunity to escape the ugliness that is Las Vegas and head out to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.  I armed myself with the Brand! New! Camera! that Mikey gave me for my birthday.

It was wonderful to be able to drive just about 15 miles, reach the edge of town, and suddenly enter into wilderness!

The park has a 13-mile loop to drive, with plenty of opportunities to admire the geology as well as plenty of hiking trails.  I had taken a wrong turn (Ahem, OK, a couple of them) on my way out there, so I got there later than I had wanted.  So, I picked a random "moderate" hike and set out.  It was nice; hardly anybody was on the trail on a cool, blustery fall weekday!

The sandstone is stunning.  See?

I started my hike to La Madre Springs.  Soon after I had started my hike, some fellow hikers pointed out a Bighorn Ram!  If my goal had been to spot cool fauna, I could've turned around and went back, because Bighorn is the coup de grace!

Didn't he pose so pretty?

Here he is, showing off his beautiful big horns!

I saw another one a few steps beyond.  It was a thrill!

No more wildlife on the rest of the hike, but pretty sights! Come on!

Wilderness.  Just in case you didn't know.

The flora was typical high-desert. I felt right at home.  Piñons, lots of junipers, sagebrush, yuccas, cactus, Mormon tea. 

The Dam at La Madre Spring

The spring area was a little more lush, and some wild flowers were still hanging on.

A sign of Fall

There were a couple of these concrete slabs right out in the middle of the wilderness. Old foundations?

This one had a tile-like floor.

There were lots of piñon trees, and many cones. I opened piñons from half a dozen trees, but they were all empty!

I added a stone to this cairn.

The cross-bedding was gorgeous!

Back in Vegas, I mostly wrote while he was in the conference.

We stayed at Ballys.

Our room was the window in the bottom right of that ad: the top part of the "R" in "Rio"

It was shabby. Ripped furniture, an old-fashioned TV, and graffiti in the table.

As for Elvis? We think we may have spotted him at the Wynn, dressed in fur from head to toe.

A crappy photo of maybe-Elvis