Meleagris gallopavo

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

I am so full.

Our remedy

The Cutie season has started!

Cuties are our remedy for everything at our house these days. Feeling sick? Have a Cutie! Tough day at work? Have a cutie! Friday Night Lights a rerun this week? Have a Cutie!

My shirt is famous

We were watching Saturday Night Live today and Tim McGraw was wearing my shirt in one of the sketches. How sweet.

it was our anniversary!

I guess I should get use to it. My birthday and our wedding anniversary being lumped together. I was the one that okay'd a wedding day two days after my birthday. So for the rest of my life these two great events will be connected which is just fine with me. A couple weekends ago we went to visit Steve's parents in the east bay and his mom had made the most thoughtful, adorable cake I'd ever seen. It was half birthday (complete with candles) and half anniversary! Steve's parents are so cute.Steve and I are a little bit oblivious to anniversary's and things like that. We didn't even realize when we opened up this gift from his parents that the first wedding anniversary is the "paper" anniversary.

Steve did break his "no roses" rule for the occasion and bought me a dozen red roses. Apparently roses are some man-made mockery of flowers and he usually prefers not to support the rose cause.
Happy anniversary!

justin timberlake how i love you so

did you guys see this on saturday night live this weekend? one of best sketches of the season for sure. make sure you turn up your volume so you can hear all the dialogue. why is justin timberlake so hilarious.

seriously suzy, watch it. you'll be totally rotfl.

Dreams really do come true

Tonight is the season premiere of Top Chef New York!



As if it didn't already feel like Christmas, I also saw this article about a particular guest judge on the Thanksgiving episode. Jen, you're going to totally flip out.

FHE: Caramel Apples

Last week we got together with the McMillan's for Family Home Evening and decided to make caramel apples. After a delicious black bean soup, grilled cheese and salad dinner we broke out our 50% off Halloween candy bin package of Brach's caramels.

I took my apple and dunked it in. No real problems here. I got a nice, even coating.

And after letting the excess drip away, I immediately rolled my caramel covered apple into a pile of salted, chopped peanuts.
The caramel in the pan cooled and thickened quickly which left poor Jeremy struggling to cover his apple. His had bald spots and glops.
We provided as much encouragement as possible...
...but it never quite came together for him. Until he rolled it in peanuts and m&m's (Jeremy's apple is the one on the right). Turns out obnoxious amounts of candy and nuts makes any caramel apple look beautiful.
Steve doesn't believe in the whole "less is more" philosophy. We forgot to factor in the "let them set in the fridge for an hour" part of the process so we decided to chop up our last two apples and dip them in the leftovers. So much sugar...thank heavens we had those peanuts to add some protein.
Although it appears from this picture, the sugar had already taken effect.

Happy Birthday from your favorite kids in all the land!

Happy birthday dad! Next time you're in San Francisco, the Houston's Famous French Dips are on us. We love you!

And now...Mexico.

To celebrate our one year of living together (marriage) we decided to go to Mexico, Cabo San Lucas to be exact. Using Betsy's contacts at work, we were able to get a great deal at the Riu Palace, very VIP and exciting. Cabo is a quick trip from SF, but we had to stop in LA first. Not only did we get to see celebrities, but we were able to see one of our favorite shows on a plane.

We also noticed these vending machines. Instead of candy and soda, they dispensed electronics. iPods, Nintendo DS, PSP, my kind of vending machine. A man machine if you will.
After a quick 2.5 hour flight we were in Cabo. The weather was 90 degrees. It was summer again. Thanks to Betsy's connections, we had our own car to our hotel. As soon as we walked outside the airport, a sign welcomed us!

We were suddenly whisked away to our resort in clean, air-conditioned comfort. It was so nice.

We also had a sweet room with an OK view.
Since we got to Cabo so early, we changed into our suits and hit the pool. Cabo is in the desert and the weather is pretty hot year round so jumping into the pool was very refreshing.

The Riu palace is an all inclusive resort. If you're not familiar with this term, it means you don't pay for any food or drink while at the resort. Basically we were on a land, booze cruise! There are several restaurants we could choose from that take reservations and a main buffet that all can enjoy. The menu changes daily but it is still a buffet. I am not a good buffet eater, I can only do one round before I am full. We ate a lot of fish and steak tacos.

As you can see, Betsy makes better choices than I do.


The next day we decided to walk to town via the beach. The town is about 1 mile away and not that bad of a walk. When we couldn't take the heat anymore we jumped in the ocean.

The town of Cabo is not that exciting in the middle of the day. I think the town gets a bit more exciting at night, with all the bars and nightclubs in town. We did a bit of shopping for souvenirs.

I wanted to buy a Lucha libre mask so bad but Betsy wouldn't let me. Also it was too hot to try one on!
We came across a grocery store and to beat the heat we perused the isles. They love Pringles

and Zucarita's. It was too hot for walking so we jumped in a cab and went back to the resort to relax by the pool.

The next day we went on a glass bottom boat/snorkeling tour to the famous arch from the marina.

There were several others on the tour but we were the only ones that were snorkeling. Look how white Betsy is!

The first part of the tour our captain drove us around and told us about stuff. We then went to the shallows where the fish are and you can watch them swimming around. The boat captain dropped us off here later so we could snorkel for a couple of hours. We didn't buy an underwater camera so you'll just have to imagine.

There were lots of pelicans.


And seals.
We then went over to the famous arch. It was beautiful.



The rock in the background looks like Scooby Doo!


This is Betsy's favorite picture from the entire trip.

Just our luck! When we finished our snorkeling tour and were dropped back off in the Marina, they were having an awards ceremony for the largest Marlin! It really was huge.
The last night at our resort I tried to get into the Mexican style. You know, shirt unbuttoned, chest hair, sexy look. I am half Mexican you know (please disregard the sunburn on my chest, it looked more tan in person).
This is the view out the front door of our room. We're on our way out for the last evening of all-inclusive resort style entertainment.

Which included vendors all over the place. Including this vendor who was selling amazing chess sets! If we'd had room in our luggage we would have picked up the big one for our x-high-school-chess-club-champion friend Shawn.

Betsy's dream came true when the entertainment for the night was a Grease sing-a-long!

As you probably know, we cut our trip significantly short to make it home in time for Betsy's friend Zach's funeral. We thought long and hard about whether to go on our trip at all but in the end decided to go, even if only for a few days, and celebrate Zach's life in a place surrounded by the things he loved. The ocean, surfing, sunshine. It was our own little tribute to him. Our last morning was beautiful as usual.And our flight left late in the day so we were able to spend almost that whole last day by the pool. I love sitting by the pool and reading. Betsy loves Grease sing-a-longs, I love reading.