Merry Christmas

Just wanted to share the WIDE tree that Patrick picked out for Christmas. I had to talk him out of the 10-footer. We wish you all a merry Chrismas this year!

"C" is for cookie, that's good enough for me

For four years now our friends have an annual cookie/football party where we watch a Charger game and bring our homemade cookies for exchanging. Last year I placed first for "Most Tastiest" and "Most Holiday" so there was a challenge this year being returning champ. LOL! We had about 20 entries this year and 25-30 attendees so the judging was tough. I made Devil's Food Cake Mix Cookies this year with vanilla candy frosting and placed third for "Most Holiday". (Although I guess they were no comparison to the White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Bars I made last year.) At least you get to come home with a lot of loot, i.e. 50 cookies of all flavors!


Devil's Food Cake Mix Cookies

Ingredients (Cookie):
1 box of Devil's Food Chocolate Cake Mix
1/3 cup oil
2 eggs

Ingredients (Frosting):
1 pkg Candiquick Vanilla candy coating
1 tube Writing Icing, optional, any color (use writing icing because it dries hard and you can stack them easier)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Mix cookie ingredients together to make a dough. Roll into balls and place on cookie sheet. Bake 9-10 minutes. Allow to cool. Heat Candiquick as directions on package. Dip tops of cookies in candy and allow to dry. Add writing icing in whatever design you choose.

These are super easy and very tasty.


(Left) Tasting and judging all the cookies. (Right) The prize winners.

Turkey Fry

Thank you to our friend Canaan Thomas for hosting a post-Thanksgiving "turkey fry" — a first taste at deep fried turkey for most of the party goers. Frying a turkey actually only takes about a quarter of the time as a traditional turkey so we were ready to eat in 45 minutes. The skin is crispy and the inside stays really moist. See this tutorial I found online if you're interested: How to Deep Fry a Turkey. Even with our small crowd of 12, we finished two of them off so you know they were good! And contrary to popular belief, you will not set your house on fire if you do it correctly.


Jessica and Patrick waiting for turkey.

(Left) Taz carving the turkey. (Right) Caleb enjoying the turkey.

2 - 7

I turned 27 last weekend. Yay for birthdays! We took it easy with a nice dinner at PF Changs (since we kind of bought a house for our birthdays… and anniversary… and Christmas…) We also went to see Mom and Dad Lintz and take advantage of their camp/cottage at San Onofre Beach. We lounged around at the beach and went tidepool scavenging. It's a nice campground but unfortunately you can only camp here if you have access through Camp Pendleton, ie. military etc. Here's the link if you want to make reservations to camp: Camp Pendleton Camping. They stayed at the San Onofre Beach Cottages, but there is also RV and tent camping.

Halloween

We love dressing up for Halloween and we've got quite a reputation to uphold in regards to our costumes. On Oct. 30 we went to the annual Halloween party at our friends', the Williams' house. Costumes for this year: Bronze Sculptures. Being sculptures was Patrick's crazy idea and it turned out really cool.

We had to shop around a lot to find non-toxic metallic paint and employees at the stores we went to felt they had to tell us all their horror stories of painting skin. We found and bought the entire stock of some washable paint at Michaels. It didn't say it was toxic or anything on the label so we hoped it was a good bet... or we'd have a good lawsuit later, ha ha! Every year we try to buy all our costume stuff at Goodwill and this year I even found the plastic wig there.

Lots of people have been asking how hard it was to get it off and it was actually pretty easy! It started coming off itself at the party, but I'd rather it come off then permanently stay on. The hard part was getting it out of Patrick's arm hair and our shower still has specks of paint on the walls.



We should have gone and sat on a bench somewhere, that would have been funny! Another suggestion I got was that we should have added a pigeon and his mess to one of our shoulders...
Look out for next year, we're already coming up with ideas!

Camping

We camped at Hurkey Creek in Mountain Center (near Idyllwild) over the weekend. It was great weather… during the day. The night was another story—temps probably got below freezing and our tent is quite large and not very insulated making for very cold nights! We just had to sleep under the blankets and NOT move. We did about a 5-mile hike on Saturday that is part of a 9-mile mountain bike loop. It wasn't very strenuous and from the direction we went, it was mostly downhill or flat. Thankfully! It is a beautiful and very large campground and I would assume the creek would have water in it during the spring. Here's the link if you want to make reservations to camp: Hurkey Creek Park. I recommend campsites #112, 115, 117, 123 or 125.


(Left) Our campsite. (Right) View from our hike.


(Left) Patrick and Riley during the hike. (Right) Me, trying to keep warm by the fire.

Four Years

Today is our four year wedding anniversary. Time flies when you're having fun, right?! I am just so thankful to be with my soul mate.
After eight years together, I'm thankful that we still…
• would rather come home than stay at work
• can chat for hours on the couch after we get home without turning on the tv
• laugh at each other
• roll with the punches
• a million things I can't think of right now
I couldn't ask for a better partner.

Wedding recap October 8, 2005:
Venue: Bali Hai in San Diego
Photography: Ruettgers Photography
Cake: Edelweiss Bakery
Florist: Grand Avenue Floral

River Trip

We went to our friends' river house on the Colorado River (Parker, AZ) and enjoyed a long 4 day weekend in the sun. It wasn't too hot, I think it reached about 90° as the high. We cruised around on the boat a couple time and Patrick did some kneeboarding. There were some crazy winds on Saturday night that were probably around 50 mph which made sleeping in a tent an experience.

I realized I need to take some new pictures next time we are there. We go there a few times a year and the most recent picture I have is when Patrick and I first started dating over 7 years ago!

The New House

We finally closed escrow on the new house! I will post more pictures soon.

Mammoth Trip

We went up to Mammoth this last week with the family on my dad's side. 18 of us all together, I think. Patrick and I could only get Wed-Sat off work so we had to shove our week-long vacation into 3 days.

Patrick went horseback riding for the first time with me, my mom and sisters. If you didn't know, he is deathly allergic to horses but we talked him into it with some Claritin. We rode for 2-hours along McGee Creek, nearly Crowley Lake.



I went fly-fishing for the first time with Patrick, my dad, grandpa and uncle at the Owens River. It was really windy so I had a hard time casting. I don't know how my dad can do it for hours and hours, but I guess if you actually catch fish, like he does, then it would be fun. Patrick said he caught a guppy... I don't think he knows you're supposed to exaggerate it a little bit.



We went kayaking a little bit around tiny Lake Mamie (above). Patrick also went mountain biking, taking the ski lift up to Mammoth Mountain, we played some tennis and went in the jacuzzi at night. Not bad for 3 days, including the 6-hour drive up in which I got a speeding ticket. Boo!

Patrick's parents house-sat and watched Riley for us since the condo didn't allow dogs. Thanks guys!

Tiffany's Wedding

Patrick and I were both in the wedding for Tiffany and Aaron on April 25. I was Matron of Honor and Patrick was a groomsman. It ended up being a beautiful day in Dana Point although the forecaster had called for sprinkles. It was good to see friends and have some fun. (Hopefully I'll get some other photos soon, but I was able to steal these from Yvonne.)

Patrick & IFour out of six bridesmaids: Jen, Jessica, Danielle and me.

It's About Time

I figured out how to set up this blog so now you’re all doomed to reading it. I’m catching up with the technological world—which I guess means telling everyone all about yourself and what you do everyday. Hopefully this will be interesting and useful to those of you who want to know those things.