Memorial Weekend

Memorial weekend will be... memorable.  We meet up with my parents and grandparents on their 11day camping adventure. Lake Vallecito?  We hadn't heard of it either, it is deep, deep, in the mountains. Beautiful, but faaaaar. I was so anxious to get there I managed to get a $250 speeding ticket. yOUCH! Once we got there we spent time doing the usually camping activities: fishing, roasting smores, eating too much, and for old times' sake a game or two of rummikub with Grandma. I'm glad we were able to spend the time with family. In case you were wondering, Grandma and Grandpa are still in love. 

Kimball Kitchen: Old-Fashioned Banana Cream Pie

Nine inches pie shells, baked (Vanilla Wafer Crust)
Three cups whole milk
Three quarters cup white sugar
One third cup all-purpose flour
One quarter teaspoon salt
Three egg yolks, slightly beaten
Two tablespoons butter
One teaspoon vanilla
Three bananas

Have baked 9-inch pie shell ready.
In a large saucepan, scald the milk.
In another saucepan, combine the sugar, flour and salt; gradually stir in the scalded milk.
Over medium heat, stirring constantly, cook until thickened.
Cover and, stirring occasionally, cook for two minutes longer.
In a small bowl, have the 3 egg yolks, slightly beaten, ready; stir a small amount of the hot mixture into beaten yolks; when thoroughly combined, stir yolks into hot mixture.
Cook for one minute longer, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and blend in the butter and vanilla.
Let sit until lukewarm.
When ready to pour, slice bananas and scatter in pie shell; pour warm mixture over bananas.

Fish Scale Art

Ever since I saw this piece over on Two Thirty-Five Design  or was it at Kara Paslay Designs (can't remember) I have wanted re-create it. Eventually, I think I might want to do something along the same scale as she did, but for now I just wanted  to try my hand at it. I have three frames in the office that have gone through a few art changes none of which I super love. So this seemed like the perfect spot.

I went to Hobby lobby and picked up a circle craft punch, a couple sheets of white poster board, and a can of gold spray paint. I sprayed the sheets first. After drying time I cut them out with my craft punch and assembled them directly on the backing of the frame in a fish scale pattern. Instant cheap art.

If I were to do it over, I probably would have lined it up better for the actual square that shows and made it more even. I am also considering getting one or two more shades of gold and putting a few "scales" here and there in a different shade. We will see. I love the texture and the repeat pattern. What is filling up your walls, any homemade art projects you've tackled?

422: Backyard

Our backyard is complete! I think I've mentioned before that I build PP for anything and everything, the backyard was no exception. I'm a visual person and it helps me see things out. Here is the plan. Our backyard is ity bity, teeny tiny, and our houses are close together. Ryan and I decided we wanted to make the most of the space by making it "livable." We are patio people! Siting in the grass, toting a lawn mower back there, paying more money to water it didn't sound like our idea of fun. So we xeriscaped the whole thing (don't worry we have parks right outside the door so our future children wont be deprived of grass.)

Last year we completed all of the major stuff, we covered the entire yard with rocks. We as in Ryan and I did all by ourselves.  It was backbreaking, but saved a ton of money.  We hired out for the parts we are clueless on, like extending the patio to make it bigger and adding the fire pit. I saw this concrete fire pit in Restoration Hardware's summer catalog and thought it wouldn't be too difficult to recreate. So I showed the landscaper and he winged it. Its not perfect but it works, and it is way fun. We still are slowly adding a plant here or there but for the most part it is finished. We sit out there almost everyday and watch the sun go down, or enjoy our small glimpse of the mountains. Of course, on occasion we roast a few marshmallows here and there. 

Other than a few small changes, I would say my PP is pretty spot on. 

Organized

I guess I got the spring cleaning bug because I have been on an organizing mission. We have now lived in this house for a little over two years and I finally got around to adjusting the shelf heights of our kitchen cabinets to fit our needs.  Biggest success, all of my tall olive oil bottles now fit in with other miscellaneous cooking supplies. I organized all the glass with glass and all the white dishes with white dishes, and down below are all the metal baking dishes, pots pans, etc. How do you organize your kitchen cabinets?

Road Trip

Ryan has been crazy busy with work and school,  we [he] really needed this time away to relax. We did just that. We escaped to the mountains and it was absolutely perfect.  Spending one on one time away from day to day life was wonderful and just what we needed. The scenery was beautiful and we took full advantage of the outdoors.

We stopped along the way had a picnic, stopped again, took a dip in the hot springs, then checked in to the Limelight Hotel in Aspen. This hotel was great! It was walking distance to all the restaurants and the ski resort, the staff was so hospitable, and our room had perfect views. For dinner we ate at Matsuhisa, a Japanese restaurant that was highly recommended. The rock shrimp is not to be missed!

Aspen has a huge network of trails that weave in and out of beautiful groves of trees and along the streams. We made use of the hotel's complimentary cruiser bikes to take in all the scenery. On our bike ride we stumbled across an art museum we toured.  It really was a perfect weekend, I love you Ryan!

Mother's Day

Happy Mothers Day to my beautiful mama! We celebrated last weekend with dinner on the patio. We made her a yummy salmon dinner. I love you mom and thank you for everything you do for me! I am so lucky to call you mom!

Spring Flowers

I am loving this spring!  I love sitting on our back patio watching the trees fill in, the cactus grow new pods,  the yucca shoot their shoots high in the sky. I love my newly planted pots on the front porch filled with wild flowers, I love my ever changing vase sitting on the table. I love the sun shine.

Cinco De Mayo

We had fun celebrating our inner Spanish heritage Saturday. Hope everyone had a Happy Cinco De Mayo!