Manzanitas

Several months ago I posted about our beautifully blooming apple trees. All the pinks and whites absolutely covering the entire tree - so beautiful. Almost unreal.
This season, Chris and I enjoyed our small apples and even got more than we bargained for. You see, bigger apples make them more versatile because you can peel them, core them and use them for many things, such as apple pie. But we have small apples. They are about the size of a ping pong ball, so peeling them for recipes just doesn't work (at least not in my books). So, we found two main recipes to use them for: apple juice and caramel and chocolate covered apples.


I have to tell you more about each of these as they were amazing! First, the apple juice. Since you don't have to peel them, just core them, this became our #1 way to use the apples. I would core each of them - making sure that the apple didn't contain worms - and put them in filtered water, boiled them and added a touch of sugar. Perfect! Juice for the week! The flavor was outstanding! I could NEVER have ordinary, sugar water with apple flavoring and enjoy it again. The flavor of this "real" apple juice was as if you were biting into an apple. Tangy and sweet. Perfect. My parents even got to get in on all the apple juice making fun! Ha! (Hey, they volunteered!)

The other way we used the apples was a creation of Chef Chris. He made these perfectly wonderful apples with either a chocolate/white chocolate coating or a caramel glaze that was beautiful to look at and delicious to eat.


Chris made these for my parents when they came, his work and a church group we were going to. On the first batch, he didn't know to add milk to the caramel as they hardened a bit too much and they were hard as a rock as you tried to sink you teeth into them. Ha! My mom had a blast trying to work her way through it. But the next batches came out nice and silky.

I would say one of the downers of having so many apples was picking the ones up that fell on the ground.


We'd have to sweep almost every day to ensure we wouldn't have apple juice on our sidewalk everyone stepping on them. BUT we couldn't pick them up every day because our trash cans would get too heavy for the trash collectors. One day, we even found little boys from our neighborhood lining up the apples and smooshing them with their little feet on our sidewalk. I became the neighborhood witch by having to stop that - yuck! What a mess! And when it would be windy at night, we'd hear thumping and rolling sounds on our roof as the apples fell. Talk about keeping us awake at night.

Alas, we enjoyed our apples and the goodness it brought!

Oh, and yes, the title of this entry means "little apples" in Spanish.

Pack on the Back

Oh, and so it was a nice large pack on the back. Rewind:

For the past few years, we had a little tradition of going camping during the 4th of July weekends with our friends (I'll leave their names off for privacy). We had gone to the campsite where we found the bear nearby and Rocky Mountain National Park. Very nice camping trips. But this year, we wanted to challenge ourselves a little more. We decided to not pack our cars and go camping, but instead, we'd pack very large backpacks and go to our camping destination on foot, with allllll of our belongings on our backs. It turns out that I had about 30 pounds on my back and Chris had more like 40 pounds.


Yes, the dogs had to carry their weight too. So, they had to carry their own food and some of our stuff too. They carried them on their backs like it was nothing.


We rented our packs since we didn't quite know if we'd like to carry all of our belongings on our backs just yet. Off we went. We'd hike up half of the loop on that Saturday morning and come back following the rest of the loop for a total of 11 miles. The day was cool, so that helped make things pleasant. We had a nice lunch by a forested area and we kept going. What was interesting is that you literally can't carry all the water you need. That would just be back breaking. So, we bought this cool water bottle filter that kills the bacteria using UV light. The taste wasn't great, but knowing you can carry a lighter load by refilling was truly worth it!

Once we got to our campsite, our shoulders were just so sore from the packs. But the scenery from the campsite was unbelievable! There was no one camping close to us at all (only across the lake), so it was quite remote and beautiful!



That night we cooked hot dogs and smores and had a nice night by the bonfire. The surprising thing was that it was so coooold - I still get surprised by that since it was the middle of summer. I went to bed early with the dogs and Chris and our friends stayed up a bit longer. That next morning, we had our breakfast - dehydrated eggs - and our friends headed back to finish some papers for school. We stayed to enjoy the mountains for longer. We took a long nap and Chris and the dogs were rested enough to go for a hike to other surrounding lakes. The dogs LOVE Chris and his adventurous spirit. Chris runs down trails with them and encourages them to follow their hunting instincts. This time the victims were marmots - the dogs didn't catch any of them, but they got very close. This is the second lake Chris got to see.

In the meantime, I took naps, enjoyed the view, exercised a bit, re-filled our water containers and made dinner - again, dehydrated food. This is pretty much all you can take to eat since it's non-perishable, lightweight and very easy to prepare. We had more smores that night....oh, and it even snowed for a little while too. Did I mention it was cold? I believe this was one of my first experiences with camping without any toilets... I think the most challenging part was to find a spot to do your business that felt private. I always feared an animal would approach me in the middle of it all. Ha!

The next morning, we packed up all of our packs and headed out. It was a much nicer hike going back to the car - though we found out instead of doing a full loop, we actually did one segment of the loop twice. Oops! We had a nice picnic lunch, the dogs got to spoon and we were off to a nice well-deserved shower at home. The good thing is that our hike was close to Denver so we didn't have to drive for too long.

Backpacking - the next new tradition for us? We shall see.

Who Meeee?

This past Labor Day, Chris and I decided to go camping very last minute - which very last minute to us means that week. Ha! Though many campsites had to be reserve months in advance to secure a spot, fortunately for us, we live in a state where a majority of it is "campable" - meaning, you can put your stuff in your car, find a nice spot in the forests and camp. Being the "experienced" campers, we found a few sites that didn't have any running water, toilets, electricity - nothing. Those were the ones were had our eye on. I found one that I really liked and it happened to be right at the base of the tallest mountain in Colorado - no, it's not Pikes Peak (Pike's is only popular because there is a way for people to go to the top without having to climb - it's accessible - which makes it popular). Actually, we were in the between the first, Mt. Elbert, and second tallest, Mt. Massive (which Chris hiked last year).
I just thought it would be a nice view from our campsite, but Chris thought the campsite would be a nice view from the top of Mt. Elbert. When he mentioned we'd hike the tallest mountain in Colorado, I said, "Who? Meeee? I'm not a billy goat who just goes up mountains!" But, we decided to go for it - I would take on the challenge with one condition - a nice big dinner the night before.

We packed up our car and headed west. We stopped by a Chinese restaurant (classic camping food - ha!) in the small town of Leadville and we were offff. We slept pretty well that night, we had a quick breakfast, layered up (and our dogs) and we were off to the hike. It was generally not too bad of a climb until we got to about 12,000 feet and I was feeling quite weak. As in, I could close my eyes and take a nice long nap if I had the chance. The wind was so strong and cold... It was mentally challenging to put one foot ahead of the other. I got to the point where I didn't feel I could climb anymore and Chris came to the rescue. He pretty much led me through breathing exercises and that truly helped me get to the top - I apparently needed much more oxygen than I was getting by breathing regularly. Oxygen was the key. Once I got more oxygen, the last bit of the climb wasn't so bad. And....

We made it!!!

The views were pretty awesome. Chancho wanted to sleep and Lola wanted to say hi to everyone. So typical of them. They did get quite a bit of compliments - especially about their "fashion forward" coats. Oh goodness! They were cold and they have very little fur to keep them cozy. I do have to mention that my monkey Lola was so cute in that when she saw me climbing down (because Chris and the dogs had to stop to wait for me many times) she would climb up to greet me and climb down with me. So cute and concerned for her mommy!

On our slooooooow way back (yes, I was quite slow since I don't like the thought of falling on rocks) we had a little photo shoot. The first few ones we had to repeat since all Chancho wanted to do was sleep. Once he picked his head up, we were set.

This was quite the little family event. Though there were definitely moments when all I wanted to do was cry, I could say that it was worth it. It was nice to say that I've climbed a 14er and we got to do it as a family! On to the next adventure...

Ta Daaaaaa!

I had mentioned in an earlier post that I hadn't been blogging because a lot of things were going on in our lives (broken toes, travelling, etc). I am very happy and excited to reveal our biggest remodeling project to date. It took us about 6 months laboring and having this project in our thoughts. There was pretty much no rest as we were always thinking of "what should we do next?" or "wow - we didn't get anything done for this project this weekend" (with a feeling of guilt).

So, here are the before and after pictures of our beautifully remodeled kitchen:

I'm extremely proud of Chris because he always had a lot of determination and the boldness to try new projects he'd never tried before, like putting up the backsplash. Wow - that was a tedious process and having a perfectionist husband made it look much better and professional. So often I would tell him to hire a professional so we could get the job done quicker - hey, 6 months of not having a fully functioning kitchen is not easy. I'm so happy to enjoy such a beautiful kitchen now. It really made a world of difference. We love our kitchen - so come on over - we'd love to have you for dinner. ;-)

Spooning

Introducing Gian!

IT'S A BOY for my brother and sister in law!!! He was born in April, but we didn't get to meet him until the end of May and he's just adorable. Cute little tiny boy who I can't wait to see grow. It'll be so fun to watch his soccer games and see him as he explores the world around him.

We had the great opportunity to be with him during one of his baths. He was actually really quite and comfy during the whole thing until he had to get out of the water and into his ducky towel...

To continue from the picture at the very top, we caught a glimpse of little Gian smiling and having a good ole time as he slept. Isn't that a nice content face? I bet he's dreaming of eating... Boys!

I'm truly proud of being an aunt to this fabulous little guy. He was born only a couple of days before my dad's birthday, so that was probably the best birthday gift my dad had ever received. He had been wanting a grandchild for years...

An Apple A Day

After our vacation, Chris and I found a house full of flowers. Our front yard had vibrant reds in the tulips, purples of a ground cover plant (unknown name), yellow of a different ground cover plan (another unknown name). But the one thing we were most excited about were our amazingly fragrant and pink and white flower-filled apple trees. Do you know why?

That means that depending on how much the bees were lurred to the sweet pollen off of our flowers, we'd get buckets full of apples in late Summer. I have so many ideas of what do to with all those apples - pies, cider, butter, chocolate/caramel/candy covered apples, and much more that I don't even know about. Makes me happy. Check'em out...

This last one is from our backyard. In total, we have 4 apple trees. Whoo-Hoo for apples!

3 Continents, 4 Airlines, 14 Cities, Oh My!

Try saying that quickly 10 times!

At last we got to experience the cruise we had planned on for over a year... and no volcano in Iceland was going to stop us.

Warning: This a long post.

The day had come for Chris and I to travel via our favorite airline (Lufthansa) and head over to Rome for a wonderful 10-day cruise. We had our bags packed, dogs dropped off in a safe place, plants distributed among friends to water and we were set...HALT! Our flight was cancelled due to the volcanic ash that was looming over northern Europe. Chris stepped up to the plate and spent that entire day looking for alternate flights and routes. He had the brilliant idea of taking a route that would take us 36 hours to get to Rome, but alas, we'd be there. We would leave the next day, so we had a few hours to get home and sleep before our long journey ahead of us.

Our first adventure started when we got on the South African Airlines plane and were all sprayed with insecticide while on the plane. T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E! The plane was actually really nice (besides the crazy spray) and we arrived in Dakar, Senegal. Wow! The culture shock I've had in Europe is NOTHING compared to what we experienced in our short time in Dakar. The building where you go into when you get off the plane is different than the terminal to connect to your next flight. At 3am, we experienced many beggers, sellers, animals and crazy humidity as we crossed from building to building to get on our next flight. The worst thing was that the lady who spoke English and was leading us to our next terminal (the only other flight leaving at that hour) told us that we wouldn't get on the next flight because it was full. I was in full prayer mode! What I saw was neither welcoming nor seemed safe and the last thing I wanted was to be stuck there for a night. We thankfully had our printed tickets and got onto the next flight on Royal Air Moroc, in which we were sprayed again with insecticide.

We arrived in Casablanca, Morocco and had to almost pursuade the people at the ticket counter to accept our reservations to get to Rome. It's fascinating the way lines and waiting your turn didn't exist in Africa. The mentality was push your way through to get to the front - no shame in that at all. Phew... we got on! We spent a few hours in the airport (which was much much nicer) and off we went to Rome.

AT LAST... WE'RE IN ROME.

We stayed the night in Rome and had our first experience of the trip with amazing real Italian pizza. The hotel was super nice (it was a hostel mind you, but an very nice one) and we were happy to wash off the insecticide off of our bodies that night. The next day, we spent a few hours at the Vatican City - which was amazing.

We then hauled our luggage a few miles away to the train station. It was a long haul, but we were on a mission to get to our boat on time. We arrived in the port town and saw our beautiful boat in the distance. As we reached it, we found out we'd be docked in the port city for a another day to allow for late comers (due to the volcano) to arrive. We got our first experience in cruise dining (4-course meals for every meal) and enjoyed a welcoming show that night. The next two days were relaxing as we got to spend time in the port city and a full day at sea. Eating a ton, relaxing even more and enjoying all the boat had to offer. Our room was super nice and big. I had the impression cruise boats look more like dorm rooms - but ours was great. Our first city was Dubrovnik, Croatia - which was my favorite. It was a super charming, clean, friendly little city.

Our next stop was in Olympia, Greece where we got to experience the home of the Olympic games. Chris got to run the original Olympic stadium. Below is Chris, as his own statue, after running the actual length of the original Olympic stadium.
Next was Chris' favorite stop, Santorini, Greece. Most of the pictures of Greece are from Santorini. We visited two cities here and got to hike about 6 miles along the volcanic rim back to our boat. It was tiring, but very worth it. I earned my large meal that evening!We visited Ephesus, Turkey next where we got to see the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus. It was magnificant how the structures perserved their detail. We also were taken to the House of Mary - where Mary supposidly lived in her last days. Also, on our tour was a stop at a rug store. Though this was more of a gimic to buy their Turkish rugs, I really enjoyed learning how the rugs are made and feeling different types of rugs made from different materials. Very fun! Though we didn't enjoy a Turkish bath, we got to bargain quite a bit, which was interesting (until we got kicked out of a store by an older woman who I think didn't quite understand us and thought we were ripping her off. Oops).

After Ephesus was Athens, Greece. Besides Rome, this city had so much history and culture that you could stay here for days to learn about all of it. I'm glad we were out of there before all the riots began though.

Then we had a day at sea and went to the quiet little town of Messina, Sicily. This town's highlight was a clock tower that had all sorts of bells, music, statues moving, walking, waving, animals crowing or growling. Very interesting.... yyyyyyyeah. We did get to eat an incredibly delicious cannoli though.

And finally, we got back to Rome. Though I was ready to be off the ship, I can definitely say it was an unforgetable experience. The great food, service, entertainment and variety of activities made it so fun. Though most of the people on the boat were retired, we had a fun time learning about their grandkids, etc. We were probably one of fifteen other younger couples. We learned that many of them were on their honeymoons or were planning on getting married during their time on the boat.

We took a train back to Rome and were on our way to our next hotel which was close to the Colosseum. Before we left Denver, we sent a message to the hotel letting them know we wanted to stay 2 more nights (to make up for the days we missed at the beginning); however, when we arrived they were already full. We quickly looked for another hotel in Bologna, Italy. That day we walked around the Roman forum and saw where Peter and Paul were imprisoned, and at night we got an impressive view of the Colisseum all lit up. Very romantic.

The next day, we toured the Colosseum and were off to our next hotel. That evening, we literally just had dinner at a cute little restaurant close by and got a good night's rest. Let me tell you that the hotel change was fantastic as the Bologna area was beautiful, lush, luxurious yet friendly. I would recommend staying in that area as the train stop was very close by. On Saturday we toured the Trevi Fountain by day and night, Spanish Steps, Pantheon and walked past really nice piazzas, fountains and statues. We even were in the midst of a big labor day "festival" with a ton of young people. We even saw people that were with the Communist party (flags, shirts, posters, etc) - really odd. Though Chris wanted to stay and be part of it, I kind of got freaked out and opted to continue on peacefully as any gathering like that could get violent. That night (after getting kicked out of a restaurant for asking to see the wine list before seating) we ate our last Italian meal at a local hotspot (which we surprisingly got a table) that had great pasta and also stopped at a delicious gelato place. Wow! So fresh and simple. Loved it.

My overall impression of Rome was nothing but positive. Well, except for a lot of rude service, but the sights and overall culture made us happy.

Though Chris and I ate a ton, we walked so much so that we even managed to lose a few pounds. Yay!

This was truly a once in a lifetime experience and I'm so glad we got to take the trip. It was a much needed time away...

I'll be back...

I cannot believe I have left my blog to gather this much dust... crazy stuff. Okay, so to make me feel better, here are the top ten reasons (ahem, excuses) why I haven't updated the blog...

10. I ended up with two broken pinky toes in the late Winter and I was trying not to walk around too much - which included walking down to my basement to reach my computer.

9. It was too cold in the basement.

8. I had been travelling a lot for work, so I wanted to spend all my free time with Chris and my two dogs.

7. I couldn't find a suitable place to send my rolls of film to that would do a decent job and I like posts with pictures.

6. I was too busy cuddling with my dogs - they're very needy.

5. I've been having too much fun reading other people's blogs.

4. We went skiing a few times (yes, my toes were broken at the time).

3. I painted our living room and that took about a day and a half.

2. We have been remodeling our kitchen (painting cabinets and walls, new light fixtures under the cabinets and in the ceiling, new appliances, backsplash, etc.) all on our own and a lot of our time was spent doing just that. It's not completely done, but I hope that someday it will be. ;-)

1. We were researching a lot for our upcoming vacation that starts this Friday - Whoo Hoo - and didn't have time to post any updates.

I'll be back though...oh, I'll be back.

A Lesson in Communication

Happy 2010! I can't believe it's here... or it's been here for a few weeks now. It's been an adventurous year thus far, I must say. The first new adventure was that I broke my pinkie toe a few days after Christmas (though it was in '09, I'm still experiencing the consequences of my clumsiness in 2010). It was not a fun experience. I've been asked many times how it happened, as if I had this interesting or funny story... I literally just ran into Chris's foot (shoe on) while trying to heat my breakfast in Corpus. Sigh, I'm clumsy. I almost wish I had a more exciting story to share. Well, the "exciting" part was that I fainted. Yup, I have a very low threshold for pain. I felt so badly because I totally freaked my parents out who already had a tough year worrying about my brother's health. Then... little miss Mariana had to top it off by fainting in front of them in their kitchen. Sigh. Anyway, I'm still hobbling around and have been given the nickname Gimpy at work. I went from Madam M to Gimpy. Classy.

Well, the real reason I was writing was because Chris and I had a lesson in communication yesterday. Our second great adventure of the year went a little like this...
We were looking snazzy and were headed to Boulder, Colorado for Chris's company party (dinner theatre...oooooo). We were on a busy road and my car shook (not normal for my car or probably any car). Chris pulled over on the shoulder as we couldn't accelerate and things were acting up. Chris looked under the hood, I tried restarting it and the car just wasn't budging. We called a friend to pick us up and we got back to the car with our SUV... as we were headed for an adventure. Chris tied tow rope to both of our cars and told me to steer my broken car as he would pull me home. YIKES! My heart was pounding as I was super close to Chris's car and I could almost see my car running into his much newer car and things getting ugly. Well, we connected on our cell phones (on speaker, of course) and off we went. Chris would tell me in advance when he was going to break and start up again. There were several times when my head bounced back to the head rest because the tow rope wasn't tight and it caused my car to be pulled very suddenly. But we were home about 25 minutes later and it never felt so good to be home! That's when we got comfortable and didn't turn on our phones again to move my car up a little bit. I realized how important it was for us to be connected and communicating after Chris moved up and I was still on "park." Not a good thing - though nothing happened to his or my car. I guess the lesson was always keep communication open with your spouse, even when things seem to be going smoothly. Always talk about what is going on... and NO don't do it while you are driving (though in our case, it was essential).

So, now I have to take the light rail and hobble a few blocks to work. It's actually interesting that this all happened like it did. I broke my toe and now I have to walk to work... quite interesting. I wonder what I'm supposed to learn from the whole situation. God is up to something.