Christmas 2007

Well I FINALLY have a bloom on my Christmas cactus. Granted it was only one but it was very exciting nonetheless. Erin made her first wreath from greenery from our Virginia trip. It came out very nice.

Our skinny little discount tree and the bounty of gifts we had. Rowan had a hard time staying out of photos.

There are two very large stockings here and somehow they belong to the same person! Guess who that is...

Bad Ass Rowan on his new scooter. Helmet and pads were forthcoming.

After they did some pipework down the street and shut our water off for a few hours, when they hooked everything back up, they opened up the fire hydrant to flush the system. Rowan couldn't help himself and even though it was in the high 50's, he is soaked here.

We went to the James Island County Park for the Festival of Lights. Erin, Rowan and Anna decided to ride in the back back and watch the lights from there. Helen, Dennis and I stayed inside the warm cab.

Dennis poses in front of this year's sand sculpture.

Honeymoon

We flew in and out of Reno as the closest major airport to Lake Tahoe. We actually stayed in Reno for the first night and a good portion of the second day.
This is our infamous "cut out" picture that we pasted ourselves onto. No seriously, this is us at the top of Vikingsholm overlooking Emerald Bay and Fannette Island. Obviously it's a very beautiful place.

Here's us on the boat tour of the lake right in front of Vikingsholm. This place was built for $250,000 back in the 1920's! No expense was spared as all the wood used was taken from trees away from the house in order to keep all the trees around the house in tact.

Erin even drove the boat. I don't think the passengers were overly excited when they found out... :)

While we were there they got their first snow of the season. I tried out my legs on "Heavenly" to do some snowboarding in the snow. My beard acted as an ice magnet and I had quite the ice beard going while Erin enjoyed herself with a spa day (not pictured).

While we were in Tahoe, we HAD to see Lynn since we were only a couple hours away. We drove out to Nevada City and Grass Valley for the Cornish Christmas Festival and spent the night at the DiVecchio compound.

When we got back to Tahoe, we took the Heavenly Gondola up to the observation desk and took some great photos, the next two are from there.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, Erin's schedule opened up and we were able to ride up to Virgina. We did think that we weren't going anywhere so we offered to watch Molly for Jess and Brian while they went to New York for the weekend (unbeknownst to Jessica to get engaged!). Since we had the room in the truck - see below pic - we took all three dogs up to visit Helen and Dennis.

Erin's Aunt Marti and Uncle Tom were also staying in Mount Crawford too. It was nice to finally meet them! Marti taught Erin how to knit while we were there so now she's got a new hobby. Here's proof she was doing it!

Halloween 2007

Erin and I got a little dressed up for Halloween this year but nothing too fancy. We got a late start on the pumpkin carving so we didn't have our usual fancy pumpkin display. I posted my witch above.

Parker House Charity Ride

On Saturday we met at Low Country Harley just in the nick of time. Sign up for the ride was from 8 am to 10 am, kickstands up at 10:15. We got there at about 10 after 10. We hopped on 526 and then 26 up to Ridgeville where we jumped off and went up a more rural rode and enjoyed a pit stop before getting back onto rte 95 to go over the bridge down through Summerton to the destination. The picture below is Erin and Rob out at Taw Caw cove on Lake Marion. After the BBQ and the silent auction (I won a Harley rental for a day for $20 and a bottle of Rebel Yell whiskey for $15). Rob lost the auction on the leather jacket we were really hoping he'd get as the lady running the table outbid him at the last minute. Booo.

After the party, Erin and I cruised over to Bruce and Beth's lake cottage and they took us for a ride out in their boat. We hung there for a while and then headed home about 8 pm. It got really cool after the sun went down so we had a pretty chill ride home but we made it safe and sound. Erin's "hot" shower turned cold on her as she let the tub run too long before getting in there. 5 minutes later, her lips were bright blue. So much for that idea. Overall though I'd say it was a pretty good day.

Kitchen Progress!

Well now that the weather is starting to get cooler, kitchen work is getting back underway. Granted this isn't the prettiest of pictures, you can see my new friend, and soon to be daddy, Matt underneath the floor working on lining up the copper work. We put in 3 T-joints on Sunday. 2 copper and one PVC and you can see we fed them right up through the bottom of the new kitchen sink cabinet. Soldering copper isn't overly difficult provided you ensure that the ends are really clean, you use flux and this one's really important, get all of the water out of the lines. We had some trouble getting some of the old copper pipe to seal with the new T joint and it turned out that even though we had drained what we thought was all the water, some residual came back down. A shop vac on the tub was able to pull all the water out and then it worked real easy. Amazing! So now I need to add some threaded ends on the ball valves we installed, set up the studor vent and then I can put the sink over start getting into the electrical rewiring. Everyone needs to keep the positive vibe going as this new work is now getting me motivated again. :)

Cul-de-sac Venison Cook-Off

Hello All! This is my first contribution to the blog . . . actually, it's my first blog entry ever!! Do you believe it? My husband is SOOOO proud! :) Tonight we had a cul-de-sac cook-off. Our neighbor Scott shot a deer last week (yes, I know . . . my insides cringe as well, but I'm doing my best to just go with the flow). As he butchered the deer and ground the meat on his back porch, he cooked up some of the fresh meat and Mark and I tasted it. It was my first voluntary taste of venison. I hate to admit it, but it wasn't bad. I was stupid enough to say this out loud, and Scott's immediate remark was "You know this was running through the woods yesterday." Ahh, yes, I know. So we each (Mark and I, Beth and Bruce, and Carla and Scott) took a bag of ground venison and vowed to come up with a creative recipe to be presented to a "judge" (one of Scott's friends) and eaten for dinner. The winner would be rewarded with gift certificates that Carla received through work. Mark and I decided to make Shepard's Pie . . . with a contemporary twist :) As we all know, I do not cook often, or well for that matter! However, when I do it, I do it right! I made "bowls" out of shredded phyllo dough (which looked exactly like bird nests when they were done) and cooked the ground venison in bacon grease and minced yellow onion. I made wasabi mashed potatoes with my KITCHEN AID MIXER (!!!!! My first WONDERFUL use of it! It was SOOOOO awesome!) and made gravy, peas, and corn. I burned my hand on a tray right out of the oven, so Mark was left to do the presentation of the dish while I soaked my hand in milk. By the way he (and the milk) did a fabulous job :) We layered each component with the taters on top and then sprinkled cheddar cheese on the "nests". We broiled them to melt the cheese and then added crumbled bacon as a topper. Earlier this evening I cut up radishes into flower shapes, but they didn't turn out as I hoped. However, everyone seemed to still be impressed by them :) So, anyway, everyone's dish was fabulous! Ours was the best presentation, but I'll concede the best taste to Carla who did homemade venison-stuffed ravioli with shrimp and scallop in a tomato cream sauce. Beth went the classic southern route and did stroganoff over rice which was wonderful as well. We called the evening a three-way tie and decided to all go out together with the gift certificates. We had a great time and finished out the evening with a round of Yahtzee, which has become a regular time-passer in the 'hood. So, this has been my evening of advanced meal preparation for the next few months . . . at least! ;) Nah . . . I love my Kitchen Aid too much! I'll have to think of something else to cook! One last little bit of info . . . I finally explored the realm of boxed wine! I got a 5 liter box of Franzia Merlot, and it's really not all that bad! My favorite part is filling up the wine glass where I just turn a little knob and presto! Wine! Even Mark approves :) And I promise, all my future posts won't be this long . . . damn wine! :)