Bike Trip

Today for my Saturday bike "trek" I decided to stop by one of the strawberry stands near my house. I love, love, that I can just drop by and pick up fresh strawberries.

Posing with my ride....

Here is the strawberry stand (notice the fields right behind the stand)

The view from my bike

Beautiful flowers!

My successful Winco adventure

I ventured out to Winco (our local grocery store) to see how much I could load onto my cruiser. Not bad for a quick trip...

Here she is all loaded up...

The Lofthouse pink cookies are safe!

The bread didn't get smooshed...

I had to use a "complimentary" grocery bag to house my chips (precious cargo)

Here is all my haul on the counter...it is a lot when you look at it this way.

Man, it felt so good to go the grocery store on my bike, lock it up, pack it in and ride it home.

I want to ride my bicycle...

We bought a new bike for me a few weeks ago and have reaquainted myself with an old love...bicycling. My daughter and I went for a ride yesterday after the fog cleared..

Snow Day

We decided that after Christmas we wanted to head up to the Sequoia's to see the snow and boy did we see snow, it was so beautiful up there, we decided to purchase an annual pass to the park because we like going up there for day trips because it isn't too far from us (about 2 hours).

We met a very nice family from Paris who was there visiting their parent's who are living in L.A. and they all decided to drive from L.A. to see the mountains. I heard the mom speaking French to her young son who was about 4 years old and I was so excited because I am teaching Mikayla to speak French. I realize it isn't a very useful language around here but I love the way it sounds. Anyway, I asked for their e-mail and home address so that we might correspond and perhaps I can learn the proper way to speak French and when we visit Paris (yeah right) I will know someone there!

You really can't take a bad picture here.

Another beautiful view

Mikayla hugging the "snowman" that she and Greg built (mom was in the car getting warm after her cheap tennis shoes got wet).

On our way home we pulled off the road to get this shot, unbelievably gorgeous!

Christmas Outside of Our House

Greg was in charge of the Christmas decorations on the outside of the house, as he is every year. He always does a great job!

Christmas Around the House

Here are some pictures of our house decorated for Christmas.

This is the nativity scene in our entry way

Our mantel

A close-up of the stockings on our mantel

This is in the entry way on the opposite side of the nativity scene

This is in the hallway

This is in our guest bathroom

This is another one of our guest bathroom

I love this sign!

This is my favorite of all of my Christmas things - Santa kneeling at Baby Jesus' manger

Homemade Savon de Marseille (soap)

I saw an episode of Martha Stewart crafts on DIY where she was making a soap called "Savon de Marseille". I decided to try it myself and it was really easy. I ordered the ingredients online from Majestic Mountain Sage http://www.the-sage.com/. All you have to do is melt the soap on your stove top and the trick is (I later discovered by e-mailing customer service) to keep stirring, especially after you add the french clay as it will stay clumped if you don't. My kitchen smelled so good as I was making this. I added a little Rosemary essential oil to it to give it even more scent. After I mixed and melted, I then poured the melted concoction into a soap mold that was designed for small guest soap bars.

After they cooled off, I wrapped the bars in unbleached parchment paper and packaged them for Christmas gifts. I also kept some to use in my bathroom and the guest bathroom