Thanks Worm:)

So I am sitting here trying to "rest" as I have to start working night shift tonight, and I miss Worm already! We had so much fun, and I just love getting to spend time with her:) Thanks for coming to visit us in Cali Lisa!

The Mystery Spot

One thing we did while Lisa was here was drive to Santa Cruz and visit "The Mystery Spot." I have no idea how to explain it, but you can read here. I did this with Erica when she came to visit, and it is worth seeing over and over.



Confused? I know. Just read here.

Worm's Visit!

On Thursday night Lisa came to visit for a long weekend:) I have been so excited for lisa to get here....She came to visit last year in December too. Lisa is such a great friend to me, and I really appreciate her coming to visit and hang out. I hope she can do it every year:) On Friday morning we woke up and went shopping at the mall. After that we went to Santana Row and ate lunch at Yankee Pier. It was a beautiful day so we ate on the patio in the sun:) After lunch we went and got pedicures...I know, very hard day;)

Here we are in front of the huge Christmas tree in Santana Row...We have this same exact picture from last year!

On Friday night after Derek got off work we went downtown San Jose to Christmas in the Park. We walked around and looked at all the neat Christmas decorations they have...



They have really big snow machines everywhere and Lisa got to experience some "California snow"

The night ended at Gordon Biersch Brewery were we had some good drinks and food:)

Oh Holy Night

Selah came out with a Christmas CD...All of the songs are beautiful, but here is my favorite. It really reminds me of what Christmas is all about.

Ack!

I am almost done with my Christmas shopping! When I went to the mall this afternoon I parked right outside the Nordstrom entrance. Of course I did. Why? Oh just a little shoe browsing before I started my day. Well after a successful day of shopping for OTHERS, I headed to my car. And there was one more quick pass by the shoes. This time it was not so quick. It was kinda long. And here is why. I gave in.

Merry Christmas to me. I swear, thats the only time I will say it. Swear.

Star of Wonder, Star of Night

I. Love. Christmas Music. Ask Derek, I made him listen to it all last weekend while we got our tree and did our decorating. (Christmas music is not his favorite...BUT he knows how much I love it so he downloaded a bunch of Christmas music he could tolerate....very sweet)

Some songs he played were by Stephen Colbert and John Stewart...kinda inappropriate for Christmas songs...but they had to do with Christmas so I will take it. Can't be too picky!

So.

On to my new favorite Christmas song: Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan's "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." Such a good song. As are all of Sarah McLachlin's songs...and BNL!



My favorite part~

O star of wonder, star of night,
Star with royal beauty bright,
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect light.

Born a king on Bethlehem's plain,
Gold I bring, to crown him again,
King forever, ceasing never,
Over us all to rein

For Mom

The other night I made chicken pot pie from a recipe that I got while watching Oprah. It is by Cristina Ferrare and she has some other pretty good recipes too! It is almost exactly like Mom's recipe, but instead of pie crust it has cornbread crust. It is very good, and easy to make.

Ingredients:

Filling:

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 medium Onion , chopped
1/4 cup flour
2 cups chicken stock
2 cups chopped Roasted Chicken
1/2 cup frozen sweet petite peas
1 potato , diced and boiled
1 1/2 cup chopped, cooked carrots
1/2 tsp. salt
Cracked pepper
Dash of Tabasco® sauce

Crust:

3/4 cup white or yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk
1 large egg
2 Tbsp. canola oil

To make filling: Preheat the oven to 400°. Spray a 2-quart casserole with cooking spray. In a large sauce pan, heat olive oil and unsalted butter together. Add onion and sauté until tender, about 4 or 5 minutes. Add in flour until blended. Slowly stir in 2 cups of heated chicken stock, whisking well. Cook mixture over medium heat until thickened and bubbly, about 4 minutes. Stir in chicken, peas, potato, carrots, salt, pepper and Tabasco®. Pour into a 2-quart ovenproof casserole dish coated with cooking spray and spread mixture evenly.

To make crust: In a bowl, stir cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Stir milk, egg and canola oil until well combined. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Spoon the batter evenly on the filling. Bake until the top is golden brown, about 22 to 25 minutes.

Decorated House

Here is our living room after we decorated!




And what was the lazy cat doing?

Christmas Tradition

Clark: We're kicking off our fun old fashion family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols.
Audrey: We're not coming all the way out here just to get one of those stupid ties with Santa Clauses on it are we?
Clark: No, I have one of those at home


This year Derek and I decided to go cut our Christmas tree down. We wanted to start a tradition since it is our first Christmas as a married couple! Ever since I was little I have wanted to go chop down a tree (just like Clark and family in Christmas Vacation!). So we headed to Los Gatos to get our tree! We drove up a mountain to a tree farm and it was so beautiful! (Not to mention that it was almost 70 degrees:) After we walked the entire farm we finally found the perfect tree! (Yes, it is a little big...around 9 feet!)





hehe one more:
Clark: Oh, I was just smelling - smiling. I was just blouse - browsing. I, uh, heh heh. Well, I guess it just wouldn't... Oh hee hee, it wouldn't be the Christmas shopping season if the stores were any less hooter than they - HOTTER than they are. Whew. It is warm in here, isn't it?
Mary: You have your coat on.
Clark: Yes, oh do I? Yeah, it is a bit nipply out. I mean nippy. What am I saying, nipple?

Sacramento

Last week Derek had to go to Sacramento California for a work conference. I happened to be off work so I decided to tag along with him! We stayed in a very nice hotel downtown right next to "Old Sacramento." It is a cute little part of town on the river with some cute shops and old railroad station...Each day while he went to his conference I would shop. shop. and shop some more! There are two really big outlet malls in Sac and one of the biggest indoor malls I have ever seen! It was Right outside the city and seriously so big! (Kinda like an airport!) Everything outside of Sacramento is so so new and really attracting people and families (Home prices are cheap....wait, I mean compared to the bay area!) Each night Derek and I got to go out to dinner downtown and spend some time together...It was nice to get away and spend time with D!








This was the first time I have been to the state Capitol of California! It is a beautiful building in the middle of a pretty neat city.

Projects @ the Moore house:)

Finally Derek and I have had some time to get some things done around the house! It seems like November has gone by so fast! I am getting so excited for the holidays and being able to decorate our new house for Christmas! Right when we first moved in, Derek's great Aunt gave us a pair of antique lamps. I loved them and could not wait to fix them so they worked! The hardware in them was really old and needed to be replaced. They also needed new lamp shades. After a trip to Home Depot and an hour of putting them together(very gently---they are hand painted and very fragile!) here they are!


This next project took us longer than an hour....actually it took us a few weeks(Only working on it during the weekends). Derek's parents friends gave us this hutch when we first moved in. It was painted a brownish color(That had to go) and we wanted to paint it black and put it in our new family room. After refinishing, painting, and putting new hardware on it, here it is!

Another big project has been window treatments. For some reason I love picking out hardware(Windows, furniture, lamps, and much more!). I just think that so many things can look so much better with some good quality hardware! (I know I am a dork:) Here are our new silk curtains in the guest bedroom and the master bedroom:




And more hardware! I have no idea what this is called... Door Knocker? Anyways I found it at an estate sale and thought it would look nice on our front door!


Could not resist the beautiful fall colors:
Here is our Family room! We were originally going to have this be the Living room, but I decided that Derek (gasp) was right about having this be the family/TV room! He thought we should use the biggest room as our family/TV room. I was totally against this idea at first, but eventually Derek convinced me that it could work. In the future we want to redo our kitchen and make the room off of the kitchen the dinning room...and (I hate to admit) it makes sense! After all we did work VERY hard putting the new bamboo floors in the family/TV room!



Here is the very empty future dinning room. Our plan is to put our new table and chairs in here on one side and make the area next to the fireplace a little seating area. We just need a couch, rug, artwork, and a lot of $$$ to redo the kitchen!