Vacation

I'm off for a few days of fun and sun in California this weekend. I'll be hanging out with some new friends, drinking coffee and eating Dad's waffles in my parents kitchen, holding my new(ish) nephew James, and learning the names of my 2nd cousins for the 7th time at the Van Laar reunion. Or the names of my 7th cousins the 2nd time... I can't keep them all straight.

Cinnamon-nutmeg French toast with blueberry compote, and a vanilla latte

Don't you wish you were at my house this morning...

Strawberries make my day

To appreciate just how special these strawberries are, I have to give you the whole story.

Last weekend in Nevada, we had a big bbq for Casey's birthday. There were big, bright, beautiful strawberries on the table. Usually *big* strawberries = pretty -but tasteless- strawberries. Not these! They were amazing! I couldn't wait to find out where they were from. They were grown in California (naturally) but shipped in by Costco. Ok. So on Monday when I get back, I have to drag Meredith down to Costo, because she is my "friend with a Costco card". I have a plan. Those strawberries stayed on my mind all the way back to Idaho. That's 5 hours, people.

Monday night, Meredith and I drove straight to Costco after work. Walk to the back -oh wait, look at those muffins, those look good... -oh! and look at the grapes, those look good... ok, back on track, let's get to the strawberries. So we looked. And looked. And looked. No. Strawberries. Anywhere. I was one sad girl that night. Oh well, I guess I'll make up for the strawberry-loss with asparagus, grapes, watermelon, romaine, snap peas, tomatoes, salmon burgers, and potstickers (mmm... potstickers!). Oh yeah, and vanilla ice cream. Gotta have that. It helped, but I was still very sad about my strawberry-less-ness.

Tuesday afternoon, I got a text from Meredith. Karla got you strawberries from Costco. Karla is Meredith's co-worker. Her amazing, wonderful, thoughtful, kind coworker. To whom I am eternally grateful. She happened to go to Costco at lunchtime the day after we were there, and voila! there were strawberries. And she got some just for me.

Thanks Karla!

Almost gone

Happy Mother's Day!

Ok, even though the last post was about tomorrow, this one is about today. Still with me?

Happy Mother's Day to my mom, my Grandma Fredriks, and my Grandma Haveman. I am blessed to have each of you in my life.

Hope you had a great Mother's Day Mom, and I'll see you in a couple weeks! :-)

Happy Birthday A and B!

Just got back from a weekend in Nevada at Casey and Lisa's. They hosted a big bbq on Saturday for Casey's birthday (which is actually tomorrow). We had really great chicken and beef kebabs which were a joint effort between Susan (marinating), Lisa (cutting/prep), myself (skewering) and Casey (grilling). They were sooooo good! We were also celebrating because Lisa recently found out she is pregnant! She is due some time in late December or early January. This new little kiddo will be my fourth niece/nephew.

Jerry will also be celebrating a birthday tomorrow (naturally) and I'm sure Bernice has some fabulous menu prep going on right now. I can already see it... knives and cutting boards on every counter, garlic crushed, vegetables chopped, and cookbooks in various stages of perusal.

Happy 30th birthday guys! May the Lord bless you with 30 more, even better than before. :-)