More Travels

May just worked out for vacationing this year. I spent this last week in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. I have had it on my mind to go to Newport and see the old mansions and summer homes of the rich people. :) I love historic homes and I loved Newport.

We toured 5 of them. I could have done a few more, but not on the same day. Five was plenty for one day. Plus, we walked and it was a lot of time on your feet. I only took pictures of the outsides of them because I have tons of pictures of insides of various palaces and castles and homes and I never look at them and they are a little bit useless out of context.

Marble House

Rosecliff

The Breakers

Chateau-sur-Mer

The Elms

The cliff walk was just beautiful.

Then we spent a couple days on Cape Cod and took a ferry over to Nantucket. If I had planned better to get out of the harbor part of Nantucket, I would have liked it a little more. It was a beautiful place, and also had a bunch of historic homes that I had fun looking at as I walked the streets.

And finally, two other stops were to Edward Gorey's house and Plymouth Rock. 

Road Trip

My mom and I took a little road trip to Scottsdale last week. The object of the road trip was to get to The Poisoned Pen bookstore and a book signing of C.S. Harris, Anna Lee Huber, and Victoria Thompson. I spent so much money in that bookstore! I feel good supporting independent bookstores, even if this one isn’t one I can get to often. Or possibly ever again.

 It was definitely worth going to and fun to hear each of them talk about their books. 

Near the hotel we found a Cornish Pasty Co. restaurant. Yum! I’ve eaten there in Seattle and will admit that we also bought a half baked one to take home and eat.

It was a long time in a car, but fun anyway. It rained on us quite a bit on the way down. And a little bit on the way back home. Still, it was great weather.

And we got to stop at Horseshoe Bend on the way back…with about 1000 other tourists. It was kind of busy for a drizzle-y Thursday morning. I can’t imagine what it’s like in the summer.

We also did a quick little hike to the toadstool hoodoos. It was nice and way less crowded than the horseshoe. Plus, the parking lot is small so the big tourist buses would have a hard time getting in there. 

It was a fun, fast trip!

Happy Easter

It’s been a great Easter weekend. I had Friday off work so I took my 3 year old nephew to the park during the day. It really was a perfect spring day. We walked around the duck pond and threw sticks and rocks into the water.

Today after church, I went to my sister’s house for family dinner. It has been kind of rainy today, but that didn’t stop us from going outside. My niece started playing volleyball on a team this year and they have a net up in the yard so my brother and I played with Livi for a while. LOL we are getting old. It’s not as easy as it used to be. The wet grass didn’t help. After it dried out a bit I jumped on the trampoline with the younger kids. I’m going to be feeling my knees tomorrow.

Apples and Pears

I had my final oral surgery a month ago. At least, it had better be the final. Ha ha…. Anyway, trying to find soft foods I could eat had me making applesauce in my Instant Pot. Oh my gosh, it was good!!!  I have to say I’m not the biggest fan of cooked fruit, so pies and cobblers are something I can easily pass on. This applesauce was just apples, cinnamon, and a little lemon juice and honey. It was like eating apple pie filling but so much better. I will definitely be making it again.

So last night I was looking in my fridge and I still had a vanilla Greek yogurt which I’m not a big fan of that particular flavor. I also had some pears that were going to go bad if I didn’t eat them. So I made baked pears. And…..they were so good! LOL – I really love cinnamon. The recipe said serve with ice cream if you want, but I didn’t have any so I decided to save some for breakfast to eat with my yogurt. Yum! It made a really good breakfast. And it was filling. Now I’ve been rethinking the whole cooked fruit thing, or at least apples and pears. I do like to eat them raw, but now I have some new, healthy ways to eat fruit when I get tired of plain. Sometimes you just need to mix things up a bit.

I’m just really happy it all turned out. I’m really not much of a cook so I always feel so good when I find a recipe that makes me feel like I can actually make good food. Or as one of my favorite food blogger says a Rockstar in the kitchen.

Blue Skies and Sunshine

Spent a great day with 2 of my nieces. We went to SL to see the Utah Symphony and Ballet West II perform Peter and the Wolf.  The girls said they liked it. I know I did. I think they did a fanstastic job.   But then, I’ve loved the music for years. Having the dancers dressed up like the characters during the narration was so much fun though.

Then a little lunch and shopping over at City Creek. Sitting by the fountains in the sunshine was just perfect. It’s a little cool but it felt like spring.

Febrary Odds and Ends

It’s February so birthday shopping month can officially begin. I want to get it done early since I scheduled my (hopefully) last oral surgery for 3 days after my actual birthday and then I’m going to be miserable and won’t be able to eat anything. I’ve decided on 3 or 4 places to donate some money and then I think I’m going to buy myself a new bed. It’s time for the old one to go. I think I’m going to go to a few bookstores with my niece also. I’ve already gotten myself a few puzzles. The bed is kind of major so I don’t know that I’ll do too much more but that is definitely plenty.

In other news, after my trip last December I decided I needed a change in my hairstyle. I didn’t want anything drastic but still wanted it to be enough different that it was a change. So I grew my bangs longer, then had my stylist cut more bangs so they go back a little bit farther. LOL – that was a bit of a shock to get used to, even though it was what I wanted. Then I kept the layers and cut it back to shoulder length. There has been some growing pains trying to figure out how to style my bangs but I’m happy with the change. On days like today where everything worked and I like the way it looks, I’m so happy I went with it. I have had a few complements, but I like it and that’s what matters to me.

Puzzles

Growing up, my family did puzzles. A lot of them through the years. I have great memories of Christmas break from school and we'd do puzzle after puzzle. My mom would just cover the table with a tablecloth and we'd keep them out for weeks. Friends and family would come to visit and just pull up a chair and start doing them with us. The Charles Wysocki ones were my dad's favorite and became a family favorite. Then as I moved out and got older I lost interest. I couldn't sit still for that long and didn't have the patience for all those little pieces. Even so, when my parents cleaned out their house before they moved, I still took about 6 of them for nostalgia's sake. The year my dad died my mom and sister and I did a puzzle for dad at Christmas and that was the first time I'd done one in a long time.


Then right after Christmas, I was at the store with my sister and saw a 500 piece Charles Wysocki puzzle and bought it on a whim. I cleaned off my table and put it together in a couple of hours on New Year's Day. It was fun. Since then, I've bought a couple more and I've had a puzzle out nonstop. I branched out and bought a few that are not Charles Wysocki. My dad would be shocked. :)  I prefer the 500-750 piece range because they fit on my table nicely but maybe one of these days I'll go get down one of the 1000 piece ones I took from home. I've got a few more on my wish list for my birthday. Who would have thought I'd be loving doing puzzles again? Not me, that's for sure.