Miscellaneous Moments

A couple months ago, I meant to make a blog entry showing off our Christmas gifts getting use, but I got sidetracked and haven't consistently remembered to take photos. However, some of the things and events we've been occupied with don't warrant a full entry on their own, so I decided to build off of the idea and do another "miscellaneous" sort of posting.

Our tea ball broke so we requested a new infuser for Christmas. Evander went crazy and bought us three different types to experiment with! This one is so cute, I just had to share.

My father bought us each a nerf gun. After getting shot at several times, I told Patrick he needed to find something else to have target practice with. One night I walked out of the bedroom to see why he wasn't getting ready for bed, and our front room's lamp looked like this. We still have no idea how he got the one stuck on the rim at the top. In the process of giving it a try, I got hooked on shooting darts at the ceiling light as well and it's provided a great source of entertainment for several months afterward, particularly for guests during a house party we hosted.

Speaking of the house party, here were our host & hostess outfits. We held a "Goodwill Prom" (I got the idea from a friend on Facebook who attended one), which is basically just the normal party/get-together but you dress up with clothes from thrift shops. Our friends had some awesome ensembles but stupid-us didn't take any photos that evening to share. Patrick & I look kinda like a Vegas/Gangster Bonnie & Clyde that looks pretty good, but what you can't tell from this photo is that all of Patrick's clothes are about 5 sizes too large for him and I'm wearing a bathroom robe with the most horrific pants.

Cue the pants I just referenced. Skin tight (I totally had muffin top on my hips hidden by the dress) and fake-snakeskin in texture, they were covered in a metallic gold spray-paint pattern broken up by zippered ankles. Absolutely horrid but perfect for that sort of an evening!

Patrick's mom sent us a cheese-making  kit for St. Nicholas Day, so we've attempted a few batches of mozzarella. The first batch lost its shape in our fridge since it was about the consistency of thick slime, but our next two batches graced rather delicious homemade pizzas.

Our garden kept us tied up nearly every weekend during Spring. Prior to this year's bed-prepping, Patrick pruned the trees and decided to give our decorative grasses an inaugural trim (he's only got about half the plant snipped to ground level at this point in the photo). The bushes are huge havens for snails so he got gooed more than once. Yuck.

A couple in our small group had a recommitment ceremony in their home on their 10th wedding anniversary. It was a fairly small affair so we felt pretty honored to be invited. Tony & Rosa worked hard leading up to the event to have their backyard ready for the special occasion, and the weather had been perfect all week. Naturally it poured all day then. Everything was drenched and soggy so they moved things indoors, but the sky cleared to reveal the largest and most complete rainbow I had ever seen as we drove to their home.

Now that we've got a little more disposable income built up, we've been able to dabble in brewing a bit more lately. We made an awesome oatmeal stout over the winter, and a pale ale made with citra hops this spring. Patrick would like to get into all-grain brewing eventually so he bought a grinder, and in the meantime we were able to use it for our ginger pale ale, of which I reused the spent grain to make chocolate chip cookies that were delish! We just cracked open a few bottles this week that are rather refreshing in the 90/100 degree weather, and this weekend we will be bottling a Zythos IPA. I think we'll need to take a short break now to rebuild that disposable income I mentioned though!

 

 Downtown Merced  had an event called Cap & Town during an early weekend in May to celebrate the graduation commencements. We had a really great evening together browsing craft booths, grabbing a local brew at the nearby pub, browsing (and buying) art at the nearby gallery while chatting with the owners & artist, thrift shopping, eating brick oven pizza & homemade ice cream from food vendors, and taking in some of the live entertainment. The hula group was of particular interest to me, and this performance from their star pupil was certainly eye-catching. You'll see what I mean when you click on the above video.

Since the Cap & Town event was right outside my work building, I showed Patrick the little bakery down the street where I got our anniversary cupcakes. I've since been back a few times, and we picked up some lemon-blueberry cupcakes to devour the next day. I think my sister Courtney will appreciate my dorky posing.

Around 6:30 on May 20, a solar eclipse was viewable in our part of the country/world, and with full sun in our backyard at that time, we didn't have to travel far to participate, conveniently enough.

Shadows of the crescent make for a happy cyclops shadow monster.

So, those are a few odds and ends on display from our life these last few months. But tune in soon for some reporting on our latest out-of-town excursions!