Cabin Livin'

"Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean."

-John Muir

A peek into our 10 days in the Eastern Sierra, aka June Lake, aka our "second home"... I've been coming here every Summer for over 15 years and it just gets more gorgeous every single time.
We're so fortunate to have a cabin to come to every year.. to share with our children the quiet and the beauty that exists only five hours from the hustle & bustle of the big city.

All photos are from my phone or Instagram... (the phone is so much easier to carry around than the big camera)

 Arrowhead Lake (Duck Lake Trail-head) Mammoth Lakes

 

hiking to Yost Meadow (Fern Lake Trail-head)

 

 Q'in on the deck

playing outside the cabin

 

Greasy Spoon breakfast (in Lee Vining)

 

 Bath time with cousin Stella!

overlooking Gull Lake (June Lake Loop)

 

Auntie Ash & Cousin Stella @ the "Beach"

4th of July

  

Bennetville (one of our favorite easy breezy hikes).  
Usually get the whole family to do it!

 

(picking Sierra wildflowers)

The End!

having withdrawals already....

Tiny Dancer

I'm not a stage mom by any means... And the whole idea of a dance recital sounded like there was potential for a  Toddlers & Tiara's moment.... We were told to put makeup on them.  I just added a little blush & Hello Kitty lip gloss.  That's how I roll.

But, it was such a treat watching my little girl up on the stage... making up her own dance (along with all the others)... not really doing what the teacher taught them all these months!  Ha!  But what do you expect from a 3 year old?  Whatever she was doing up there, it was fantastic and we loved every second of it!!

Here's our tiny dancer...

 

.....And a Rocco shot (in Grandma Nonna's arms)

This and That

Just a little something that I co-shot recently... A room filled with some pretty rad vintage cars... and there may have been a celeb here and there as well.

This & That

What have I been up to the last 3 months? Oh nothing really.... Just this:



Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the newest addition - Baby Rocco! Born 2 days after Christmas! Let's hope he doesn't hate his parents for giving him that birthday...

Now that we are three months in, I'm feeling almost new again... almost. Sofia loves her baby brother and we just can't get enough of that smile! It literally melts hearts... I'm not kidding.

I'm so excited that it's finally April! We just recently started up the garden again... Tomatoes are in and lettuce seeds are in the ground. Last year when we planted our lettuce seeds, I found out I was pregnant and then had a huge aversion to all the lettuce we planted. Not fun. BUT, we are back in the game of gardening and hoping for the best. We've gone through such an evolution in our garden throughout the years... I'll have to do a post on how we have evolved and what we have discovered through the years as far as "yield" goes.

So here's to cute new babies, Springtime, and gettin' down and dirty in the garden!

I leave you with another picture of Rocco...

Hello Dolly Bars

My, how time flies!!
I'm less than two weeks away from my due date and I can't believe how fast it has gone by..

Nesting is in full swing, and I'm running around trying to get everything done before baby comes... The house has been decorated since the day after Thanksgiving: lights on the house, tree up. And the Christmas cookies? I've been all over that lately.... I'm doing a sort of bake & freeze kind of deal this time around because any second I could be in the hospital and I need to have Christmas goodness to come home to!

These are Hello Dolly Bars... I've even heard them called Magic Bars. Whatever they are, they are a buttery, chocolatey, coconut-nutty goodness that will send you into a downward spiral of wanting to eat the entire pan. And since I'm on my last leg of this pregnancy, I was happily popping these things into my mouth like pills... not that I pop pills.

So, here you go!
I referenced Smitten Kitchen's recipe but omitted the butterscotch chips and also swapped the pecans for chopped walnuts.

By the way, this is seriously the easiest recipe. You are just layering the ingredients on!

Hello Dolly Bars

1 stick salted butter
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 8-10 graham crackers pulsed in a food processor)
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk (about 1/2 a small can or so - you might want to eyeball it)

Preheat oven to 350.

Melt butter on stove until just melted. Add graham cracker crumbs and stir. Press evenly into bottom of a 8x8 pan.
Layer the coconut, walnuts, and chocolate chips on top of graham cracker base. Pour sweetened condensed milk over whole mixture.
Bake in oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the top is light brown.
Cool completely and then cut into small squares.

Try not to eat the whole pan!

a day of apples

Once October hits, we start doing anything and everything Fall-ish. Even though we get extremely warm weather in Fall, we just have to put that aside and imagine crisp and cool Fall days... As a side note, Josh wishes he could start listening to Christmas music in October but I won't have it. I have to draw the line somewhere!
We headed up to Oak Glen this past weekend to visit the apple orchards. Unfortunately it was really warm but fortunately it was a LOT of fun!
We also took the excuse to get some 'belly' photos done since we were in such a fun setting! I look as though I'm about to give birth... but.... seriously, I still have a little over 2 months to go!

Apples were picked, apple pie & cider donuts were consumed (yum)... We even had apple beer! (which wasn't really "beer", but more of a cider)

...can't wait to put those apples to good use!

this & that

...from a wedding shot last Saturday in Lake Arrowhead

Autumn Has Arrived

photo taken in the Eastern Sierra - October 2010

I keep asking myself where Summer went. It came in so quick and blew away even quicker... But, alas, it's obvious that Autumn has finally arrived. Days are getting shorter, the air has that certain feel, and stores have all their Halloween merchandise out... along with all the Christmas stuff, but we won't get into that yet.
It feels like just yesterday we found out we were expecting baby #2 and now we are only three months away from his big debut into our lives. While I'm anxious to have that day arrive, I also want time to slow down just a little bit...

Lately I've been dreaming of scarves, sweaters, apple picking, pumpkin patch visits, cold weather soups, a house that smells like fresh baked cookies and breads, and putting pumpkin in everything!

I've been spending way too much time browsing through these two blogs lately... Both of them are getting me SO into the Autumn mood!

The Ardent Sparrow
&
Food + Words (I want to make EVERYTHING she posts on her blog)

While we had a great Summer, I'm looking forward to getting some projects started and turning that oven on and going crazy in the kitchen!

Strawberry Agua Fresca

Every Sunday there is a Farmers Market right across the street from us, so when we don't have much going on we take a walk over there to do some shopping.
We always stop at the El Salvadorian food stand that makes pupusa's and the most amazing agua fresca's! Our favorite - the lime & mint agua fresca! (tastes like a mojito). We never go there without getting one! .....and sometimes we even get a pupusa :)

Recently there was a recipe on a blog that I read on occasion for Strawberry agua fresca! And since it's strawberry season it had to be done!

Here's the recipe.

People, this is so so so so so so easy!

Introducing... Laverne & Shirley!

Last Saturday we made the trek up to Lompoc to finally pick out our chickens and bring them home.
Dare 2 Dream Farms was such a cool find! (thanks to Josh who did all the research)

This is the kind of farm you would want to move to. It's tucked away in the hills of Lompoc and when you pull up there are random roosters, chickens & ducks just roaming around. You can't get any more free range than that!

The owners were a really young couple, obviously living out their dreams of running a farm. They were very educated and were able to help us pick out the perfect chickens that suited our needs.

Now I'm not going to lie... since there were hundreds of chickens, the smell was on the 'poopy' side. Probably because chickens poop as though it were going out of style! They really do, it's pretty funny! (and gross...)

So we loaded up our Rhode Island Red & Easter Egger into a cat carrier (yes, a cat carrier). They were so quiet on the ride home that I forgot we had them back there!
Sofia on the other hand was anything but quiet so we were fully aware she was in the car.... yup, there may have been a tantrum or FIVE on that ride home.

Nevertheless, the chickens are here - and adapting to their coop. By this weekend they'll be roaming the yard.

Laverne & Shirely

Where have I been?

Wow, it's been two months since I've posted something! How and where did the time go??

So where have I been and what have I been doing??

Well, for starters, taking pictures!
Shooting stuff here and there...

like this little guy and his family



This one was a side project, shooting sports photography for Harvard-Westlake School Soccer. I had a great time doing it and have a lot of respect for people who actually do sports photography for a living!


And of course, a wedding!


And there's been a little reading here and there.....

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Food Rules by Michael Pollan

and just recently In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

Maybe one of these days I'll go into detail/rants of how wonderful these books and authors are.

What else have I been up to?
The husband built a chicken coop last week so we're hoping to get some chickens this weekend!! So exciting!! I can't wait to have eggs right from the backyard :)

We've prepped and started the annual veg garden..... So far there are just radishes and lettuce greens sprouting up through the ground. But we seperately have tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, etc that need to do a little more sprouting before they get planted into the garden boxes.

I'm so excited that Spring is finally here and that everything is blossoming! It's nice to walk into the backyard and be hit in the face with the sweet smell of orange/lemon blossoms... And birds singing their little beaks off. It's too wonderful.

Whole Wheat Bread

I've made bread a couple of times and have never been impressed with how it turns out!
It's usually just good, but not GREAT.

This recipe that I found is a GREAT whole wheat recipe! It had over 800 positive reviews so I knew that I had to try it!
It's very basic, and in the future I would love to play around and add other things like seeds/nuts/oats..

After baking, you brush the tops of the loaves with melted butter to keep them from getting hard, which is brilliant!

RECIPE HERE