Sara's Bridal Shower

My sister's bridal shower was a couple of weeks ago, the day after her Bachelorette, which I recently wrote about.  The inspiration for her shower were hearts, wine, and things Sara loves.  

We went with the colors of purple and green to represent wine since she is getting married at a winery and used wine bottles as part of our floral decorations.  Sara and her fiance, Adam, have always shared random pictures of hearts found in random locations.  It became their "thing" pretty early on in their relationship.  

For things she loves, my mom and I focused on her favorite foods to help focus our plan for food.  We served bite-size, appetizer portions of all different kinds of food.  Our menu included:

Spinach-Artichoke dip in puff pastry shells

Fruit with a mascarpone cinnamon dip

Mini tacos in puff pastry

Lasagna bites (her favorite food)

7 layer dip

Caesar Salad in pancetta cups

Drinks:

Sangria

Blueberry acai iced tea

Strawberry lemonade 

For dessert we had:

White-chocolate Raspberry cheesecake (we bought a cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory-we had to go easy some where)

Home-made caramel with apples

White Chocolate macadamia nut cookies

With so much stuff to plan in a short amount of time, I was lucky enough to have some very wonderful bridesmaids who helped out with some planning.  Our cousin Jacque made adorable invitations for me and took care of having them printed.  Our cousin Katie helped with planning some games for the shower, luckily her mom Teri had some pretty good ideas (and took care of setting them up and the prizes!)   It was amazing to not have to worry about what we were going to do, especially since the ideas I was coming up with were going to take a lot of time to make it work.

After everyone enjoyed the food, Teri helped get the games going.  I love her "teacher" bell she used.  The first game was a candy themed game where names of various candies were matched to wedding themed events/people/things.  For example, "the wedding night" was matched with a "Skor" candy bar.  

Every one took the game very seriously.  There were some very fun/amusing matches in this game.  

The second game was a take on a shower game where you have to write down everything you remember seeing.  The twist for this game, however, was in the instructions given by Teri to take notice of every thing you see, without specifically mentioning items on the tray.  Once Sara left with her tray of kitchen goodies, Teri then told everyone to write down everything they noticed about what Sara was wearing.  Once that was done, then we switched and had them write down what was on the tray.  

Here is our cousin Katie and her adorable son Talin.

Kalea hanging out on Jacque's lap with Jacque's daughter Aydan.

My mom made Sara a cake platter that will actually be used for the wedding cake.  So pretty!

Our family tradition of giving the bride-to-bo a quilt turned out amazing!  9 women on my mom's side of the family each cross-stitched a square and my Grandma put together the entire quilt.  Green and Blue are colors Sara and Adam both love, and are part of their wedding colors.  Notice the two hearts intertwined.  The cross-stitch squared were each a different kind of heart design as well.

The dessert table and the heart garland.  I forgot to take a picture of the food tables before the party started, so the dessert table is pretty empty at this point.

Here is the banner I made "From Miss to Mrs"

Sara's work friends.  I took a couple pics since I caught them eating their desserts in the first one.

Our wonderfully crazy cousin Colleen, she loved the caramel we made (it was sooo good!)

My dad's cousins with Kalea.  Teri is on the far right, the wonderful game planner!

Katie with Talin again and her sister Megan holding Kalea.

My mom enjoying some Kalea time as the shower was wrapping up.

Sara with both moms.  I am pretty cheesy and made my mom stand on the "miss" side and Adam's mom stand on the "mrs" side.

Overall, the shower was a great success and Sara was really happy with it all.  My mom and I did our best to make it a surprise for her, especially since she loves to be involved with planning things.  I tried my best to come up with things that she had not seen, and I think we managed to surprise her with a few things (thanks pinterest for lots of great recipes!).  It really was a fun shower and I am so glad we were able to make it special for her, because she really deserves the best.  

We are just under 3 weeks away from the wedding (wow!) and I need to get going on my Matron of Honor speech.  Wish me luck!

Family trip to Napa

The day after Father's Day in Napa, the boys went for a gold outing.  Us girls decided to do some wine tasting on our own.  Our first stop was the winery where my dad bought some special sparkling wine for our wedding toast.  Here is the front of the winery, Domaine Carneros.

My mom and Kalea waiting for us to walk up the stairs (they were dropped off before we parked.

Kalea wanted to gnaw on the glass as we were passing it around.  

A group shot of the girls

We had a wonderful picnic lunch later that day at Rutherford Hill Winery.  We had delicious salmon in addition to lots of other spreads for our lunch.  So delicious.

The view during our picnic.

The following day we went to a great winery where the owner shipped tons of authentic medieval stones from castles.  We went on a great tour and it was a nice change from the normal wine tastings.

Pat next to the "iron maiden" on the left.

Their wine cave that took almost 2 years to build!  

Pat and I during the tasting

After the castle, we went for our last picnic and I took a few pictures of Kalea.  I love this one.

Daddy and daughter taking it all in.

The last night we were in Napa, Pat and I went on a date to Santa Rosa.  Pat has been wanting to try a Guy Fieri restaurant for awhile now so we took the opportunity to try out "Tex Wasabi's."  We tried one of the "gringo sushi" appetizers which had pulled pork and french fries in it.  It was one of the weirdest things I have eaten in terms of taste expectations.  It was really good, but it completely messed with your head on what you were expecting it to taste like.

Pat in front of the restaurant when we were leaving.

We had a wonderful first family vacation.  Looking forward to many more!

A Few Firsts

Our little girl is growing up so fast.   About two weeks ago ( I think it was May 30th...) Kalea managed to roll from her back to her tummy for the first time.  She had been so close before that but she was having difficulty going all the way over since she kept her fingers in her mouth.  Finally she managed to figure it out and no one saw!  I have her on her back one minute as I went to brush my teeth and the next thing I know I come back and she is on her belly!  Luckily, she did it again later that evening when both Pat and I could see.  

Since then she has mastered rolling over and getting her arm out from under her.  She has even mastered rolling over in both directions, so she is now an "ambi-turner!"  (10 points if you know the movie that is from=)

The fun part is now when she gets to her belly she either falls asleep, gets mad that she can't go back the other way, or enjoys pushing herself up and looking around.  She is getting really good at pushing herself up now that she can control the amount of time she spends on her belly.

Here she is fast asleep on her giraffe.

What a long day she had!

We recently went to lunch with my family, my sister's fiance, and her future mother-in-law to test out a possible rehearsal dinner location.  There were ceiling fans spinning and one caught her eye.  She just kept looking up at it to see what it was doing.  It is really fun to watch her as she discovers more and more of the world around her. 

Kalea is still spending her nights in her cradle in our room.  I love having her next to me so that I can be there as soon as she wakes up.  In the mean time, we have been trying to get her used to her regular crib in her room as well.  We don't want  it to be a complete shock to her when it is time to move her to her room.  She seems to love it whenever she has a nap during the day.  This is how I found her sleeping the other day!

As she nears the 6 month mark, we are in preparations for her to try solids.  Last week we put together her high chair and now she joins us in her own chair as we eat dinner.  She looks so tiny in it!  The straps are as tight as they can go and yet still way too loose.  She loves taking the shoulder strap and gnawing on them to help her teething gums.

One night we gave her a baby spoon to "play" with and she seemed to enjoy checking it out.

Finally, the day came to try out her first real food.  Aunt Sara came down for the occasion.  Saturday, June 9th, we got out the camera, video camera, and phone to capture her first taste of food.  On the menu...homemade oatmeal cereal.  We decided to go for the Bumpo in the beginning since the high chair is just a bit too big for her.  Here she is all ready for her big moment.

At first she was way more interested in the hanging mobile from the ceiling fan then what I had for her.

"What is this stuff, Mommy?"

She took to her fingers for comfort in between bites.

Daddy got in on the action as well

Yumm...fingers and food at the same time!

She seemed to like it and kept opening wide and leaning forward toward the spoon.

Nice mess she made for her first meal.  We decided to let her go at it since it was a special occasion, plus she was due for a bath that night anyway.  Here is our beautiful girl when she was all done!

She has been on oatmeal for 4 days now and so far so good.  i think we are going to keep it going a little longer since she is still learning and not really needing to have too much of it so far.  I have already prepared home made green beans, sweet potato, and carrots for follow-up food.  Can't wait to have her try those!

San Diego's Best BBQ!!!

After our trip to the zoo, Pat and I decided we would try Phil's BBQ in San Diego.  Luckily, they recently opened a location closer to our house and Pat has tried it a couple times already.  He loves BBQ and when he mentioned that they make the best sandwich he has ever had, I knew I had to try it.  Not to mention it was featured on "Man vs. Food" and the host said the same thing.  

When we pulled into the parking lot I saw the line...

At first I wanted to hit the road and just go to the one by our house.  Pat convinced me to stay.  I am so glad I did!  The wait didn't seem that bad, especially since we got to smell the food the whole time.  An hour later we reached this point...

  We are so close...

About 1 hour, 20 minutes later we had a table and our food.

Starting with a bar-b-q essential...pulled pork with cole slaw.  I can't decide if it is the best I have ever had...I think so, but I think I need to try the delicious Memphis bbq again, plus I need to try Kansas City still!  But it is worthy of competing with all of the classics.

 Now for a truly Southern Californian original...

The "El Toro" which is made with Tri-tip steak.  For some reason a cut of meat that is local to California and never heard of east of here.  It is strange to think what the rest of the country is missing out on.  This is the sandwich remarked as "the best sandwich I have ever had" by my husband.  And he is talking about ALL sandwiches-that includes his local home-town favorite cheesesteak!  Now, that is a big accomplishment.  I am now dreaming about this dang sandwich right now.  There really are no words, you just have to try it.

 Now for the unhealthy side dish.  Pat assured me the only thing we needed besides the sandwiches were these beauties.  Absolutely the best onion rings I have ever had.  I know I have been saying that quite a bit on here...but it is true.  I cannot wait to take my dad here-he will be in heaven.  They are cooked perfectly; crunchy on the outside with a thick breading you actually want to eat with or without an onion.  We ordered a large so we would have leftovers to take home.

 We also each had a beef rib since Pat mentioned that they are equally as delicious.  It was a nice appetizer!  Plus a small side of macaroni salad.  Yum!!!

Perfection in BBQ...that is all I can say about how good this place is.  Plus they made for excellent left-overs the next day.

We are willing to go with anyone that would like to drive down (or fly) for a visit.  This will definitely be a stopping point for any and all family and friends.  Sorry if I made you drool or hungry...