Thanksgiving

We kicked off our Thanksgiving week with an early Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house.  It was nice to sit down for a fancy meal with our friends before the holidays started.  

 

Our lovely host setting up the buffet of delicious food.

We decided last minute to stay in Humboldt for Thanksgiving.  We went up to Maple Creek and had a wonderful time in the hills.  We had a relaxing dinner and a fun evening playing a homemade horse racing game (Will and I each won one race).  We stayed the night and the had a wonderful warm November day of 60 degreees (unheard of for Humboldt County) and pressed our own apple juice.  Wally spent his Thanksgiving exploring our friends' property and the turkey the sneaky adults fed him.

While I was getting ready Will made our fennel, persimmon, and pommegrantite salad (which was delecious).

Lucky for me being a teacher I had the whole week off.  I was able to make Wally a Thanksgiving day bandana.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Folgers!

Pumpkins Everywhere!

These past two weekends Will and I have gone to two pumpkin carving parties.  We just love any reason to be with friends (and lets not forget the food and drinks).

Can you guess who did each pumpkin?  Will make the face on the left and I made the face on the right (can you tell I teach TK?).

Here are all the pumpkins from the first party:

This past weekend we carved more pumpkins and stayed out late into the morning with our friends (yes I was the one falling asleep on the couch).

There were so many pumpkins I had to take a couple of pictures.

Will's pumpkin is the large one in the back and mine is the little on that says "eek."

 

Here's a close up of Will's, he is an artist he didn't use a stencil like I did.

Of course a pumpkin party isn't complete without a family picture with Wally!

Hunting

This weekend marked the open of mushroom season, and Will and Matt decided to take the opportunity to test Wally.  They were a bit wary about taking an unblooded dog out on a hunt like this for the first time, but he handled himself surprisingly well.  When he came into a clearing and found himself surrounded by 4 mushrooms he didn't even panic. A couple of our friends squash hunt but personaly I just don't get it. Without the danger to the hunt, where is the interest? Fungus kills more people in America each year than sharks do!

ANyhow, this is a picture of their haul.

(Matt wrote this antidote for this post, thanks Matt)!

We are drying out the mushrooms in the dehydrator we got at Christmas (thanks Joey). Here is the first batch, and there is more drying.

Now since the holiday season in starting hopefully I will be posting more often.

August 2013

Well another month flew by.  We were so lucky to have our families visit.  We started out with my momma coming for 10 days!  As well as Will's best friend's parents.  The highlight of the weekend was saying good bye to Big Brown (our big brown couch) and hello to Olive, our new super comfy couch.

We had a great time with my mom relaxing and setting up my classroom.  Plus Wally got tons of spoiled attention and belly rubs, he was so sad when she left.  But Wallly wasn't sad for too long because a couple of days later my sister-in-law flew up here to visit and Will's parents also drove up for a long weekend visit.  We had a fun Folger family weekend.  We made dinner, went out, saw the sites, and went to the Humboldt Food Expo in Blue Lake.  

Our summer fun had to wind down and I started back at work.  It was very different for me teaching at a new district and school but exciting. I just finished my first week and we had an overnight visit from Will's cousins (we love our families!).  To make sure our lives are never dull, after finishing my first week as a first grade teacher, it was decided that due to the influx of kindergarteners I will be changing from first grade to .... TK (transitional kindergarten)!!!!  I thaught TK last year and LOVED it.  Although I will have to change classrooms (yes all the hard work my mom and I put into my classroom has to come down and move) I am beyond excited to be teaching a school closer to home and in a grade I've taught before and love. 

Okay I did find a couple of pictures from August.

Wally with my sister-in-laws and future baby Tague.  

And Wally relaxing with my mom.

August was a jammed pack month, I wonder what September has in stored for us.

Kitchen Floors

I am always looking for a new cleaning tip and just LOVE Pinterest.  Now I wish I was a June Cleaver but I'm not, and try my best to balance working full time as a teacher and a housewive.  I've learned that I'm not a make-up and pearl wearing girl during my vacation days, but I do love a DIY project.

Now I've been married for 2 years (but together with my husband for 8 years) and we have learned that my husband likes to do a quick clean and hid the mess; where I like to deep clean.  I love to clean the shower when I'm in the shower (I've learned that the Magic Erasers are the best to keep in the shower for a quick clean).  I am known for being crazy on a free day from school or finishing up a tv show, to clean my kitchen floor.  Now understand that the awful laminate is a very porous and suppose to be white (which equals awful to clean and keep clean).  Over the almost two years living in our house I've only used bleach and water or vinegar and water.  Both work fine with elbow work (which is free exercise so I'm so for it).

I love to pretend to be Cinderella and clean my kitchen floor on my hands and knees.  My average time is 1.5 hours (did I mention I work full time, thus don't scrub my floors often, maybe every two months).  Since unfortunately it is the last week of my summer vacation, and my in-laws are coming to visit, I thought I would tackle my kitchen floors one last time for summer.  Now we are having a heat wave so I had all of our windows open and doors, but there was barely a breeze so I did not want to use bleach, due to the smell.  I had a little solution left of vinegar and water, so I used that.  It was going fine, similar to bleach but less smelly.  Then half way through I ran out of the mixture.  Since I love Pinterest and trying more homemade products I looked online.  I found an old pin, and a pin mybest friend  pinned several times..  I thought, I'm up for a new challenge and have to run errands again (I'm such a great housewife), lets try something new.

Now this is the longest post I've ever written but lets keep  it going, I'll get to the recipe soon.  Here is the link that I referred to, but I altered the amounts for my needs. Here is my pin and the notees that came with it http://pinterest.com/pin/275212227201983051/
I made a smaller batch (small kitchen, no mop just scrub brush):
1tbl vinegar
1tbl super washing soda
1 tsp blue dawn dish soap
4 c water

I mixed all these ingredients in a large bowl, poured the mixture in a spray bottle, and used the extra to clean the floor.  I dipped my scrub rush in the liquid, scrubbed a smallish section, then wiped the section with a wet towel (microfiber worked great).  Make sure to have a damp cloth to wipe up the dirty mixture since there is soap, otherwise your floors will feel sticky.  I got up to take a picture of my floors but my awful white floors are dirty since my husband, his friends, and our Wally dog were outside the floors already need a quick wipe down (and in an OCD way a new scrub down).

Classroom

As my family knows I took a new job closer to home for this coming school year.  I will be teaching first grade (a huge change from TK) and my commute will only be 20 minutes one way (so much better than 1 hour one way).  My mom just left today after visiting for 10 days.  We loved having her here, especially little Wally.  Since my mom is an expert at setting up classrooms she helped me set up my room.  Here are the bare bones of my classroom so far.

The two boards are for Math and Language Arts

Calendar

My mom got this awesome idea from my girlfriend at her school to use plastic hooks for each day on the calendar, so there is no stapling.  I used the hooks for the days and weather.  The lines at the top are for the word wall.

Front of the classroom

The bare bones are there but it took us days to put everything away, reorganized, and set up.

July

Well it's August 1st! The end of June and the month of July flew by so fast.  I ended June moving out of my classroom to a new district/school closer to home.  I am so excited not to have to commute 1 hour each way to work, instead it will only take me 20 minutes to get to my new school.  The beginning of July I went home to see my family and my pregnant best friend.  Between being a stay at home wife and preparing to teach a new grade I have been busy.  And lets not forget having my cutie pie Wally with me all day!

4th of July in Huntington Beach

My brother has been working on growing his "stache" since we saw Elton John.

Being at the Folger's house Joey had to dress the part.

My grandma and I just love watching parades!

I ended the 4th with Erin and her family (This was the first time I got to see her babies bump- she's having twin boys!).

I was lucky enough to visit my whole family (including my Aunt and Uncle from Colorado) for Gianni's 3rd birthday.

My Godson and I

Grandma with her great-grandsons (the birthday boy is in the middle)

The whole family!

Besides being with my family and enjoying the warm sunny days of Orange County, I made sure I was able to attend one of Erin's baby showers.  Erin is the glowing mommy-to-be in the purple dress.

Coming home Will and I spent a Sunday at the Blue Lake Folk Music Festival.  It was so much fun.  We brought our little Wally Dog and towels to sit at the park and eat delicious BBQ, beer, and lively music.

Wally just loves laying out in the sun.

Will and I ended the month celebrating our 2nd wedding anniversary.  We had a nice night getting cocktails, appetizers, and an Italian dinner.

The restaurant celebrated with traditional Italian wedding cake.

Roller Derby

Now that August has begun we have a full month of plans.  My mom is traveling to visit us and help me set up my new classroom!  When my momma leaves we have a couple days to get ready for Will's parents to visit and then his cousins.  We love having visitors and showing them our fun Humboldt life.  Lets not forget that school starts at the end of the month. 

Baby Shower Gifts

My friends and family have been keeping busy.  I am happy to say I ended this weekend with my best friend Justine sharing that she is engaged!!!!! And to be ready for a wedding, possibly before the end of the year.  Well before I get into wedding mode I have 7 friends/family members having babies, and my best friend Erin is having twins.  So I have 8 babies to shower!  I have 7 beautiful babies arriving within a 6 week span.  My sister-in-law is having her bouncing boy in November.  I have been searching Pinterest for ideas and found so many.  Now i like to say that I am an organized person but sometimes I loose track of time.  Here are a couple of gifts I tried to make from my Pinterest boards.

I made a burp cloth, with fabric i had at home as well as using an old t-shirt.  I am so proud of my skills, I might be making burp clothes for all our baby showers.

Here is the "cute" side of the burp cloth.

Here is the "functional" side of the burp cloth.  I am still working on my sewing skills but I had so much fun making these, I'll keep practicing and will get better.

And the final presentation of this lovely homemade gift:

My friend pinned a wall decoration to add a nautical feel to a nursery rhyme.  I decided to make her the wall decoration but turn it into a picture frame.  (The star is a starfish). Since she is having twins I made two picture frames.

One of my favorite gift ideas is a Dr. Seuss theme.  Now my fellow teachers that have worked with me know my love for Dr. Seuss and I couldn't resist this gift idea.  I found someone who threw a Dr. Seuss themed baby shower online/Pinterest and a poetic person wrote a poem about items a baby will need based off Dr. Seuss' "Oh The Places You'll Go."  I will buy the book to add to the gift.

Dog Show and Baby Shower

This weekend kicked off baby shower season. Unfortunately there have been two showers that we missed earlier this year but we mailed the babes gifts. I celebrated my first and only girl baby shower this past weekend (our cousin Rose is having the other girl but her shower for the family was in the fall).  I was feeling adventurous and brought out the sewing machine and tried a Pinterest craft.  Stay tuned, I will post my shower gifts on another post.

While I went to the baby shower Will and Wally went canoeing but they did not take any pictures, but sounds like Wally loved jumping into the water and feeling the breeze on his face.

Sunday was the Dog Show.  I had so much fun but next year will get there earlier and possible go by myself so I can see all of the Best Of awards.  It was hard to get a good picture because the dogs kept moving, but here is a dog that looks like Wally.

Placerville Wedding Vacation

Wally spent the weekend with his best friend Moose and his brother Gus (yes they are dogs).  Our friends took Wally to the beach and spoiled him.  He had so much fun he needs a couple days of rest to recharge his energy.  We love that our friends take pictures of wally to send to us while we are gone.

Wally, Gus, and Moose running and playing in the ocean.

Dogs make friends at the beach.

I love running around outside, but I'm tired.

While Wally is having fun with this friends all weekend us humans went to a wedding in Placerville.  Our friends tied the knot and everyone from Humboldt was able to make it to the celebration, even our friends from New Mexico.  Will and I were even able to go wine tasting and try new restaurants.  This was a much needed vacation and a great way to kick off the summer solstice.

The Humboldt crew with the newlyweds. 

Will and I wanted to stop off during the drive home and do something different.  We stopped in Sacramento to sight see and eat lunch.  We decided to take a tour of the state capitol and it was so much fun!  We were lucky enough to sit in on the state senate and general assembly hearings.

I am holding a quail ceramic tile that we bought as a souvenir for our home.