planetpayne

We had a two part celebration this year: a tea party and a bowling party. The tea party was attended by Aunt Tana, Grandma, Aunt Claudia, and Bella, Nathan and Ollie. I spent the morning shopping, baking and cooking away, and soon became overwhelmed with how much work there was to do! I forgot a bunch of ingredients at the store, everything took longer than it should have (of course!) and keeping the kids from fighting over helping was not easy either. I had to scrap the blueberry scones from the menu. But the kids had a great time helping me dip the chocolate strawberries, making the little quiches, and especially assembling the edible arrangement. I could see the magic in their faces and that made me really glad to have them involved. The food turned out well, the table that Ingrid had the kids set and decorate looked beautiful, and we all enjoyed some sinful little foods. And most importantly, Ingrid got to have a “real” tea party at last.

For the rest of the family, we had a bowling party at the local alley here in Redwood City. I baked the cakes at Claudia’s house (another disastrous undertaking), and brought home what was salvageable. The mini 4-inch and 6-inch tiers were white cake with raspberry mouse filling and the 9-inch tier was chocolate with Oreo cookies and cream filling. Well the chocolate cake stuck to the pan too much because I’d forgotten my parchment paper and so that was unusable; the raspberry mousse was perfect until I added the other half of the puree and then it flopped into a liquidy mess. So what we did instead is just a mini 2-tier white cake with cookies and cream filling, hot pink buttercream icing with nice little decorations, including some flowers that Ingrid had piped and frozen a few days before. And we bought a big half sheet chocolate cake from Safeway which Ingrid also loved. It worked out well, I got to make my little cake for her and the chocoholics got their wish too.

We all had a ball bowling, who knew bowling could be so fun? Ingrid and I loved loved loved making buttercream flowers, and coloring our buttercream. We spent an evening learning and freezing the ones that looked OK. Ingrid told me: mommy this is the best day of my life! I kinda felt that way too, after watching countless episodes of Cake Boss we have both been itching to try it out for ourselves. The dilemma now is how to keep up our new hobby. I’ve already left a message with Claudia suggesting a cupcake decorating party, just for fun : )

I made these swan cream puffs from a recipe online. They came out GREAT! My favorite item at the party. The filling was instant vanilla pudding but the dough I made myself (super easy) and I piped the necks with a bag and round tip. The wings are just the top third of the biscuit, cut in half and stuck into the pudding. Yummers, can’t wait to make these again some day…

Lego men that daddy made out of chocolate!

We just got back into the Bay Area a few days ago and we are missing our Moab already! Especially more so since the weather here is rainy every other day, whereas in Moab it was blue skies and warm warm sun on your skin almost every day. Truly lovely! Andrew’s dream day in Moab was out on a dirtbike riding through the canyons and over the slickrock… my dream was walking into a wide open red dirt landscape, feeling the hot sun on my skin and hearing absolutely nothing. Needless to say, we all had a wonderful time in Moab. Ingrid really enjoyed climbing up the rocks and playing paper airplanes with Uncle Eric, who we picked up in Salt Lake City on our way into Moab. I’m glad Andrew had someone to do the challenging stuff with, as it took the pressure off of me. I did venture out on my dirtbike once, but didn’t really enjoy it all that much. The only part I liked was when I got off my bike and climbed onto the back of Andrew’s :)  That’s when I could relax and really enjoy the beautiful scenery.

The pets had a fun time as well. Ginger and Otto got to run free, after we made sure they wouldn’t run off. This time they had some sense of where they were, since we took them walking to the open space adjacent to the campground. We also waited a few days until they were less excited about the rabbits. And we didn’t let them off until we’d been out on the rocks for a good fifteen minutes. Even then we had the ball to keep Ginger near, and Otto is never really a concern, he’s such a mama’s boy that he always comes back. As for Pluto, he followed us out to the rocks a few times and played in the crevices and climbed all over the rocks, following Ingrid most of the time. On the way home he panted like a real lion and swished his tail in happiness.

We did a few hikes together, and they were all awesome. One of them was a hidden canyon that we drove out to in Vanny. This was a little nerve wracking for me, but lots of fun for everyone else, Ingrid included. The canyon was beautiful, and there were many shapes to see in the rocks. Check out the pictures, it’s easier than me trying to describe them.

This was SO much fun! The audience was mostly families, unlike the Carnaval parade. Our fellow paraders were soccer teams, firefighters, boy scouts, those kinds of groups. We were the liveliest group with our drumming bateria and colorful costumes. I wore a tank top from my new group, Samba Mundial. Now I feel officially a part of the group. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos to share because Andrew didn’t go and my dad’s camera ran out of battery. Still I’m really glad I decided to be in this parade. I’ll definitely look forward to it next year.

Maybe some photos will turn up from someone in the group.

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My mom has some photos. Yay! I really want to remember this day. Thanks mom.

We’ve been back in California for a couple of weeks. We surprised my mom on her birthday and it really was a surprise! She had to take a moment and I could see she was shaken, but of course, very happy to see us!

Life has been super duper busy lately. Andrew has been putting in lots of hours at the office. His company was bought out by Oracle and and he’s been going in and getting to know his new coworkers. What little time is left after that, he’s been using to do a major remodel on our little casa. The old office/dog room/closet was torn down and in its place we now have a beautiful new walk in closet/dog room and bigger private office. It looks amazing and I am in love with my new closet. Oh the joy of having a full length mirror! Will have to post pictures soon.

In the meantime, Ingrid and I have been spending lots and lots of time with our beloved family here in the Bay Area. Ingrid sees her cousins almost every day. After two weeks of this we have finally reduced the visits down to every other day or so. This was out of necessity because I always have so much stuff to take care of while we’re in the Bay Area. It’s all important stuff, like renewing our passports, updating registration, ordering checks, those types of things.

The other biggie taking up a lot of my time: dance! I have to get into serious dancing shape before the end of May, for the San Francisco Carnaval Parade. This year was extra busy, as I had to try a bunch of classes and decide which group I’ll join. My old group, Brazivedas, is no longer. My instructor retired just before we arrived in California. I felt pretty depressed about this for a few days but in the end I decided I had to bite the bullet and find a new group. And I am really really glad that I did. The group I’ll parade with this year is called Samba Mundial. They put on more of a Rio-style show. To make myself feel better about having to make all new friends (not easy for someone as shy as me), I splurged and ordered a real costume from Brazil! It turns out the people I’ll be parading with, and my new instructor Sandy, are super nice and just as welcoming to Ingrid. I don’t know that I would have ventured out of my comfort zone to find a new group had it not been for my other group ending. So it’s actually been a blessing in disguise. One great thing about SM is that they are close by, in Mountain View, so I don’t have to drive to San Francisco for every class and rehearsal. There are four types of costumes you can wear, and the routine is very simple. There’s a song I had to learn, and there’ll be a line from the Yellow Submarine in it, which just happens to be one of Ingrid’s favorite songs. Ingrid says she will parade with me, but I’ll have to see it to believe it. She can get shy on me at the last minute. I’m going to make her a costume anyway, so she can at least be dressed in a fun way for the parade.

There’s also a small parade we’re going to do this weekend, the Mountain View Annual Family Parade. I don’t have the costume every one else is wearing, so me and some other dancers will just wear a white skirt and a tank top. It should be fun. At the end of the parade there’s a park where they’ll have games and we’ll have drumming and dancing with audience participation. Andrew won’t be there, so I can’t promise any pictures from that one. But Ingrid is excited about parading in this one, and we’re working on her costume this week. Hopefully someone else will take our picture.

We definitely need to come back to New Orleans. Between a couple of bad weather days and Andrew’s new job, we really only got a little taste of it.

We went downtown twice, once to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and once to the famous French Quarter. Ruth’s is one of our favorite chain restaurants, and New Orleans is home to the original one. Sorry to say we were not terribly impressed by this Ruth’s, it was just OK. What was fun, is that they put us in a booth with a curtain. I kept seeing people try to look in to see who was sitting in the private booth, maybe they were hoping to see a celebrity. Lots of famous people float through New Orleans, and the lady who cut my hair here told me that famous musicians come here to live their final days. Anyway, seeing the French Quarter was awesome. Loved the narrow streets, iron balconies covered with ferns, and the colorful names of the bars and restaurants. Of course many of them were French boutiques, selling linens or china. There was a chic yarn store that I shopped twice in our short stay. The owner wrapped my yarn up like a gift, with confetti hearts and curled ribbons. I really did feel like I was walking away with a present for myself.

New Orleans has great energy, even between festivals, which I hear there are many many of. New Orleaners are a colorful and partying bunch. People watching is great there. We sat at an outdoor market and had some catfish po’boys while listening to live jazz. Ingrid got the kids’ popcorn shrimp meal (finally, a kid’s menu with something other than hamburger, hot dog, or chicken nuggets!!). For dessert we headed to the famous Cafe du Monde, which has been operating in New Orleans since 1862! They only serve one pastry plus a few beverage options. But OMG the beignets are to die for! They’re similar to donuts but better, served hot off the fryer under a mountain of powdered sugar.

The Louisiana State Museum was fascinating. The first time we visited, we saw the Mardi Gras exhibit. This included history, costumes, drawings, photos, posters. Even a cart full of “throws”, the objects they throw from the floats. Ingrid delighted in finding these throws on the streets, free for the taking. Another day we came back to learn about the last two hundred years in New Orleans. There were displays about the natives that were here before Spanish and French explorers came, even several artifacts that dated from before 1700. We saw one woven basket that was so well constructed that it still holds water! Ingrid was very interested in the displays and she went back and forth between Andrew and I, asking us questions about what we were looking at. We learned about how New Orleans was not really a profitable port, but countries held on to it mostly to keep it out of the hands of others. Seeing New Orleans, it’s hard to imagine people traveling to it, it’s so far away from the mainland. Driving out of it, you see nothing but tall bridges and overpasses, marshes below you. You don’t touch much land until you get to the actual city. Slavery was part of the display, and it was very hard to read the detailed accounts of how people treated slaves. They didn’t dwell on it, but there enough stories to horrify me and I couldn’t get it out of my head for a couple of days. I wish we’d had time to see some plantations. We did get to go inside these very old buildings that housed the different rooms of the museum. Walking up their big staircases was fun, as they were lined with giant portraits of some of the rich people of the time, along with little stories of how they became so wealthy.

We spent about half our time at the campground, which was a pretty nice one. As far as animals, we saw bunnies, armadillos, and cardinals. The armadillos were the best, because they completely ignore you and just keep digging or nosing noisily even if you’re standing two feet away from them. We met some nice people, including Angie and her little guy West, who came to the RV and played for a while one day. The people next to us were here because their dog was dying and this was his favorite park. He was thirteen years old and had heart failure and wouldn’t eat anymore. I gave them some coconut oil and he seemed to like it, but we left for the day and I never did find out if he made it through that day or not.