Wrap it Up

With the onset of football season comes the reminder that "summer", for the Andersens, is over. Granted, the weather will stay pretty much the same until December or so, and I can still head to the beach whenever I wish, so I guess I should say my season of "summer companionship" with my husband is over.

Scratching you head, dear reader? Just watch and learn.

Two weekends ago (pre-football):

Friday night brought us to Edna Valley Vineyards for their annual "Movies Under the Stars" to watch Back to the Future...and yes, that IS a Delorean parked out front. Don't even ask. Young Michael J. Fox is definitely worth wrapping ourselves in jackets, scarves, and blankets for a few hours in the chilly evening air. The bottle of Edna Valley V didn't hurt either.

The next morning, we were up bright and early to head to Arroyo Seco a few hours north for a day falling on my ass hiking through the freezing cold brisk river.
After an evening off semi-homemade pizza, good wine, and fun games at Sterling and Roxan's lake house, we headed home the next morning to make it to Kiel's company picnic. Maybe we're a tad biased, but we definitely think we had the cutest child there.

Out for a walk around Shell Beach, I found the house I can finally see myself settling down in. For the low, low price of $6.5M, you too can have a 4bedroom pad overlooking the ocean. (And no, the house isn't on fire...that's just the remainder of the morning fog on the mountain.)

So now, let's fast forward to last weekend:

Where this

Served as the center of Kiel's universe. Yes, those are the games he watched on SATURDAY. All of them. Notice the way he meticulously listed them out, hour by hour, so he could make sure to capitalize on any commercial time by switching to the right channel to catch the score of another game. I mean, I guess the list was a good idea because the world would come to a screeching halt if he had missed the Cincinnati/Fresno State game. I mean, considering he knows no one on those teams, at the schools, or even alums of those schools, who could fathom him missing a game like THAT?!?!

So, what do I do for fun myself? I eat.

Thanks to Molly's amazing recipe, I made my own little version of her "Plum Cake" with strawberries in lieu of the plums. Survey says: AMAZING! :) If you like to bake/cook/read amazing writing, you should seriously check out her blog. I was introduced to it through a colleague a few years ago, and her story of culinary school dreams shattered by a loss of smell following a car accident just moved me.

Saturday, I escaped the ESPN sound stage that had become of our living room, and headed with my friend Renee to catch Eat.Pray.Love. at the local theater. During the scenes in Italy, my mouth was literally watering; how I wanted to transport myself to that dinner table and enjoy every cheesy, saucy, slice of goodness right there with Liz in Naples. So, after the flick ended, what did we do? (Well, we walked around Sephora and played and shopped for an hour, but after that...) We grabbed a nice little table al fresco under the heater at Palazzo Guissepe and promptly ordered Italian wine. Then we ordered a super thin crust, wood-fired pizza. Topped with crisp fried eggplant. Drizzled in olive oil. Healthy, right? Oh, and if you've seen the movie, you may remember the scene where she cuts into the fried zucchini blossom and the cheese goes oozing out onto her plate. Yeah, we may or may not have ordered a few of those. Heaven.

Sunday, I escaped once again (all the games he missed on Saturday were DVR'ed to be watched Sunday) and headed down to Nipomo to have a nice girls day with Sandee and our pups. Luckily, the amazing brunch and delicious wine made up for the insanely bad "Backup Plan". I'm sorry, but WHO approved the part of the script where she takes this dude on like their THIRD date to her OB appointment, complete with vaginal ultrasound, and he's just sitting there next to her while she's in stirrups like they're in a bar?!?! Um, how realistic. J-Lo movie FAIL.

Labor Day was uneventful (you know, because K spent the day watching DVR'ed HIGH SCHOOL football, no I'm not joking), until I flipped on DDD and saw one of my favorite people on screen. No, not the blonde making the unfortunate face, but the brunette behind her ON HER BLACKBERRY. Way to make your television debut, Deebs...next time, let's try looking a tad less interested, okay? :) In your defense, that burger looked friggin' gross. Also in your defense? I think you were bbm'ing me.

Hope everyone is having a great week so far. If anyone would like to come out to California and finish my packing (both for my weekend in Houston and week in Ireland, thank you) for me, I'd greatly appreciate it.