What I've done so far on my vacation

It's Wednesday and haven't done too much on vacation to-do list. Let's see if my list is getting any shorter. [I won't mention the previous Satuday and Sunday--too crabby]

-worked for WG at the restaurant

-baked bread pudding, red velvet cupcakes and chocolate mocha cupcakes [this is still in progress waiting for my chocolate frosting to firm up before I pipe it on the cupcake]

-cleaned the first floor of the house

-scheduled lunch with friend and icp

-made strawberry ice cream for me and WG to have @ home

-got a new tire for my truck [the 4th tire this year and 1 year before. My commute is hell]

Today

-making my appt for hair cut and massage

-making cheesecake [I'm hoping I can get two done, one to freeze]

-find my upholstery webbing for the tote bag [I hope I didn't throw this out in one my get rid of crap days]

-layout my dress for cutting

-vacuum upstairs

Thursday

-lunch in NYC

-show @ icp

-learn how to twitter with style

Friday

-haircut and massage

-farmer's market

-start twittering [Yes, I've decided to do this for the restaurant--who knew I had this much to say, 2 blogs, 2 facebooks and now twitter. I'm so tired]

Let's see how much more I get done. Stay tune! Hope to post some pictures of the chocolate mocha cupcakes on Cafe Bua blog and fb. [for me, this is my kind of cupcake]

By the way, green highlight text in brackets, [was blue before but conflicted with the links color] is sort me talking out loud to myself, adding more information or rambling. Maybe a sign of being crazy! :)

My summer vacation

Today is my official start to my summer vacation. Hopeful it will not be anything like my Saturday and Sunday--working with a headache and massively crabby.

I have a huge list of things to do for myself this week. If I can get half of it done, I'll be happy. My vacation to-do list:

-get set up with Twitter
-organize my office (so I can find things easier)
-work on some bag prototypes
-plant a few more plants
-cut my hair
-get a massage
-have lunch in NYC with a friend
-see a show @ icp
-sew a dress for myself

Add my weekly to-do:
-bake
-laundry
-clean the house
-bills

And on top of that I'm giving WG break and working for him on Tuesday. I guess I'm going to be busy. At least I know, I have lunch and icp scheduled. Yah!

I hope I can get some pictures from this week.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Belated Birthday cake

For my sister and brother-in-law. A chocolate loaf cake. Got the recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Overall, not too bad, could be a bit more moist. Good chocolate taste. Not sure how I would alter, maybe another egg, maybe more butter? Would make again but would adjust a little. Here's shot of the cake.







UPDATE
I forgot to add the link to the recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/08/everyday-chocolate-cake/

I should take better food images. But with my iphone and my forgetfulness, I take what I get. Maybe I pick up a little point and shoot soon to get better pics.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

2 more days

then off to quick trip to Northern CA. First to a wedding then off to see my sister's new digs and a quick visit with a friend. Hope this will be a restful trip because I sure need it. I think my life will becoming quite busy in the near future.

My Arches link

As I promised a while ago, here's my link to my Arches National Park photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/princesshotflash/sets/72157621641383617/

Sorry I took so long I was editing the photo set and adding captions. I kind of stop at the Fiery Furnace hike as it was taking me too long. At the end of the set there are images from Dead Horse Point State Park (Thelma and Louise) and Canyonland NP. You need more than 3 days to do all of these parks. I was wiped out on the last day-1/2 day hike then waking into the very hot sun to see things in the other 2 parks. If you are going to Arches, the first thing you need to do is to go to the visitor's center and sign up for the fiery furnace hike. S10 per person. It is so worth it. You need to sign up in person. You can go with an outfitter but I'm sure it cost more. And one last thing, I don't recommend going in July, so HOT. Makes it very hard to do things. We did very early hikes and evening hikes and rested during the day with long lunches and naps. Here's a few pictures from the park.


Delicate Arch


Partition Arch


From the Fiery Furnace hike


Dead Horse Point


View from the Mesa Arch Canyonland NP

Snowy day adventure

On the snowy new year's eve, I went on a mini adventure with almost famous mountainman into woods of Rutger Gardens.


Oremiah "noodle-eating" Johnson, my guide


The first thing he spots are animal tracks. Bear? he shout as he points in the prints.


The raging river that we had to cross.


My guide trained me look for sign of danger. Instead I looked for things to shoot with my iphone


Look! Tree. Oremiah explained. Does it have special healing powers? I asked. I don't know, just a tree.


More tracks in the snow, I think those are Oremiah footprints.


Another tree


Tree Grid

So here's my adventure on New Year's eve after the morning snow. WG got my iphone up and running (as many of you notice from FB posting) and I wanted to start taking pictures with it. If it clears anything up, WG has been quite interested in Jeremiah "liver-eating" Johnson since we came back from Yellowstone this summer.

Arches

As I promised here's my link for my Grand Teton pictures.

Back to my vacation preview, next to Arches National Park in South East Utah.

Day 5
A driving day, I'm secretly hoping that we reach Arches before the visitors center closes. I want to get on the Fiery Furnace Hike for Friday (our last day). No pressure, I don't want to us drive like a crazy people to get there and it's all booked up.

We kind of drove in a diagonal line through Utah. The drive was quite beautiful, saw some fun looking state parks. No time to stop. It was pretty much small town all the way until we hit this town called Bear Lake. Actually, I really didn't know it was called, I had to look it up on the map as I was writing this. It had enormous mansions everywhere you looked, with multiple car garages and recreation vechicles (giant speed boats everywhere. It was such a surprise to see. We stop at the rest stop at the edge of town and I asked the person there about the town. It was a resort town, a lot of folks from Salt Lake. If this is any sign, people in Salt Lake must loaded.

Then off we go. We kind of make a decision not to stop for lunch. We had a bag of goodies in the car and we ate what we had. We end up stopping in Helper and Green--caffeine and bathroom break. Not bad for all day drive. We got to the visitor center at 5:30 and hour to spare and got the last 2 tickets for the fiery furnace hike on Friday. Here's a picture of me at the visitor center.




I wasn't finished but I must have pressed the "publish post" button. Day 6 to be continued later.

Grand Tetons

My vacation pictures are all uploaded to flickr acct. Now I just have to edit the massive amount of pictures that WG took.

Here's link to my yellowstone pictures

I'll put up my link to the Grand Teton pictures with my Arches preview.

Back to the vacation preview. I've been trying to post this but it is taking me so long. I'm trying to remember what we did and where we went. I know, I know, I should have done this sooner.


Day 3
After Old Faithful, we started south to our next hotel in Alpine, WY (south of Grand Tetons NP). There was a lot of road work being done in both parks, so it took us a while to get to out or in to the Parks. But the closer we got to GT NP, the more we could see the beautiful mountains. We had to make a pit stop.

Colter Bay Village was our first stop in GT NP to get a map and ask if there was a better viewing spot to take some picture. Well, we sure got one. The range pointed us to a picnic/beach area off one of the parking lots. And there they were, SO BEAUTIFUL! Even with clouds rolling in.






I was laying on the pebbly shore (no sand) while WG was taking his pictures. The rocks were warm by the sun and it was perfect for a short little cat nap.

We tried to hit as many spots on the way through the park since we really didn't have that much time there. Most of it, were beautiful mountain views--we couldn't get enough of them.

Finally, we got to the hotel. On their website, it said the hotel was close to the park (or we thought it was). Maybe it is to people in WY it is because everything is so far apart. Oh well, the room was big and quiet and they had a great restaurant at the hotel, that served the most delicious ribeye steak. I guess it makes up for the long drive.


Day 4
Our full day in Grand Tetons. I'm trying to keep these description short but it's not that easy when you have jam-packed days. Our first stop was to the Chapel of the Transfiguration and Menor's Ferry. The chapel was a tiny building position perfectly with the mountains behind it. Inside, behind the alter was a picture window that you could see the mountains. This sure would make it easy to sit and listen to a service. Here's a picture of the chapel and the mountains.




Most of the hike are quite long but we were able to squeeze a hike to Inspiration Point. We took the ferry across Jenny Lake, then upward to Inspiration Point. Here's a picture of me (in my silly hat) going up.



We really didn't plan our time in Grand Teton well. We should have packed a lunch to eat when we got to Inspiration Point but we didn't. We instead ate at Signal Mountain Lodge, sat on the deck with the view of mountains and the lake. Here's a picture from inside of the Signal Mountain Lodge restaurant. Pretty nice.



Signal Mountain road was close, so off we went to Cunningham Cabin. This is where one of the homesteaders lived. The view was amazing but very remote, even now. While we were there, 2 bisons trotted by to the parking lot. They seemed to be in such a hurry. I don't know where they were running to.



The mountains view from the Cunningham Cabin



One of the bison trotting towards the parking lot.

We decided to make our way back to the hotel as we had a full day drive tomorrow. We made a couple of stop on the back to Alpine. We stop at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. It is a beautiful place with incredible pieces. They must have incredible benefactors.

The next stop was Dairy Queen to have our first blizzard with butterfingers. Even the counter boy laughed at me when I told him I never had one.

After that we stop by the town square of Jackson. WG went out to get a few pictures of the square and the antler arches.



One of the statues outside of the National Museum of Wildlife Art



One of the antler arches in Jackson

One more preview to come of Arches. Hope you like it.

preview of my vacation pictures

I'm sitting here on a beautiful day, uploading my vacation pictures. I found a faster way to get these upload instead of my pokey computer. I'm using WG's PC and it's like lightening compared to my slow little MAC (need to upgrade--maybe next year). But I want to give everyone a preview of a few of my favorite pictures and places we visited.

Day 1
After driving up from Salt Lake airport, we enter Yellowstone around 4:30pm, drove north towards Mammoth Hot Springs. This is from the upper terrace @ MHS as we made our way down the broadwalks. Lots of bubbling pools, steam, limestone deposits and dead trees made the landscape have a great eerie look (would have been better without the beautiful blue skies)



Day 2
Up at the crack of dawn, we are off and running in the park by 7:30. Today's adventures takes us through canyon country, lake country and Cody (Buffalo Bill) then back in early evening with the hopes to see animals, animals and more animals. A full day of driving and seeing so many beautiful spots, made it very hard to choose a picture for this day. But a picked one from Artist Point, of the falls.



Day 3
A half day in Yellowstone, then long drive down to Grand Teton NP. It was geyser country today with Old Faithful topping it off. I started feeling ill at Grand Prismatic Spring, chills, cramps and a bad stomachache. WG was a little oblivious to me being sick as he was taking hundreds of pictures. I waited paitently on bench, listening in to all the tidbits of what to see. Bison and bear prints around the spring. Anyway, I made it through with out any incidents--the wait at toilets was a little rough. We went to have lunch near Old Faithful, picked the perfect out-of-crazy-crowd cafeteria--very clean and new. Then we made our way to the visitor's center to see when the next time for Old Faithful to erupt. Our wait was about 1/2 hour. WG found us a place in shade next to a very tall family--everyone in the fall was so tall. They must have thought I was an oopalumpa (sp?). To commemorate my eventful time at Grand Prismatic Spring, here's a picture of it with the bison foot prints.



Then we were off to Grand Teton. I have to stop now. The Closer is on and I want to watch. I'll try and write more tomorrow.

Back from vacation

Just got back from vacation--yellowstone, grand teton and arches. 3 national parks in a 8 days in 2 states. Yes we are gluttons for punishment. Driving, driving and more driving. We're exhausted. Hope to upload the pictures sometime soon but remember it almost took a year to the great wild west pics.

Will be having a busy few months starting in Aug. 3 sets of visitors in 3 months. At least my house will be clean during that time.

Back from CA

Just got back CA, in and out in 5 days for my niece's graduation (I'm old) and family visit.


I'm the munchkin auntie on the right (old and short)


Happy Graduate

a year late can't be too bad

I know, I know. I should have done this at least 10 months ago but I didn't. And now that I have the time, I've decided to post the rest of my Wild, Wild West pictures.

So I posted images from Sacramento and Zion National Park. Here's the rest of the trip. I hate to admit that I still have to develop some pictures from a disposable camera. Our camera broke on the 1st day at Grand Canyon. So I can't say it's all the pictures but most of them.

Tahoe



The mountains still had snow, it was definitely colder than Sacramento.




An island in Lake Tahoe. The color of the water was beautiful



Driving out of Tahoe to go over one of the pass to Nevada


Death Valley



Driving into Death Valley NP



Scotty's Castle at Death Valley NP



Mom and me at Scotty's Castle



Wildlife


Vegas



hours for driving to vegas and a picture of my round face



instead of gambling, we went to the Hoover Dam


Route 66



Hackberry General Store



WG posing with a wooden indian



Dad and a new friend



Mom and Dad playing tourist


Grand Canyon



Me on the edge



Grand Canyon


That's all folks!

Wild Wild West--Part 2

It's almost a year since I took this trip but I wanted to share what I thought so beautiful, Zion National Park. We were there only for a day (next time longer and will stay near the park to get a early jump on hiking) and only really got to hike up Angel's Landing. I wished I made it all the way but I thought it would have been worst not to be able to get back down. As you can see, we had the most beautiful weather that day. Blue skies everywhere. Here some of our pics:






Angel's landing



PHF at in front of Angel's landing


WG at in front of Angel's landing

The college tour

Just got back from another trip. My sister and niece are in town for the east coast college tour. Drove to Providence, RI (Brown); Worchester, MA (WPI); Northampton, MA (Smith); Syracuse, NY (Syracuse); and Postdam, NY (Clarkson). Will post some pictures as soon as I get settle.

The Great Wild West

Here's the first part of our trip out west this past May. Drove more than 1700 miles on this trip.

Elk Grove
Started off at my sister's place in Elk Grove (south of Sacramento). Spend time roaming around town with my sister and my parents (in from Hawaii) while WG worked from home from their house. We got a one day visitation with my all-too-busy-college-student nephew before he went off on a crazy long weekend camping music festival in Washington.

My niece got her license (on the last day of her permit) while we were there. Now we have to worry about her getting lost. I baked a vanilla bean cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting (Yummmm!) to celebrate. Read about it in super eggplant. The recipe is from Coconut and Lime.
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THE PLANE. All the boys (dad and WG) were excited to see that. My brother-in-law has decide to build a plane in his garage. As you can see from the pictures below, my ride isn't coming too soon














The plans



















Here's a part of the plane that he has built. Not sure what part it is. He is really building everything from scratch.















This piece was on his work bench. There was way too many holes that he had to drill. Can't wait to see the progress and my ride.