I absolutely LOVE Christmas, but I utterly detest Christmas shopping! Every year I dream of being one of those super organised people who has all their pressies bought by the first week in December, yet every year I find myself running around at the last minute, doing battle in the mall with my fellow disorganised shoppers!
Shopping for friends and family back home is tricky as you end up assessing gifts for their postability (yes, I claiming that as a new word) rather than how much the person will like it, and that is not how i like to pick gifts. Last year I relied on Amazon (God love them!) and Marks and Spencer but still felt that my selections fell a little short of my usual standards.
This year, I have decided that I'm only going to do a mini on line shop for family (I cant leave them completely empty handed on Christmas morning!) and then bring back really kick-ass presents for everyone when we come home for a visit in June, ones that people will really enjoy and that I will be truly happy to give!
It's bloody miserable outside today, so I guess it's a perfect day to sit in front of the computer and get my on line shopping done, and maybe a little research on the rest so I can limit the time I have to spend at the mall this week.
It also felt appropriate to bust out my Oscar t-shirt! Hopefully I'll be feeling a lot less grouchy by the end of the day!!
Howdy folks! We're just back from our weekend in Monterey and had a fantastic time! We weren't sure if we were going to make it or not as Hubby is having a very busy time at work just now, but luckily he managed to get away!
The hotel, The Anton Inn, was certainly not one of the nicest places i have stayed, but it was cheap and clean and the beds were comfy so I wasn't going to complain!
We arrived around 8.30, and our partners in crime Eric and Rose had already checked in and were out collecting some pizza to have in their room along with a couple of bottles of wine - yum! This was the first pizza I had had since the first cholesterol test and dear God, it was amazing!!
We had a nice chilled evening catching up while Hubby did a little work, and were tucked up in bed by midnight :-)
We had a leisurely morning on Saturday and hooked up around 11.30 to head downtown. We had a lovely wander along the seafront and ended up at the Taste of Monterey wine tasting rooms where we got to try some delicious wines.
Now, I'm a bit of a peasant when it comes to wine tasting. I know what I like, but I have never really bought in to all the flowery descriptions of what the experts can taste in the wine, and I am definitely calling bullshit on the description for one of the wines we tried!! "Blackness followed by a barrage of tar, wet sand, leather, river stones, plums and smoked meat" Really? Really?!?!?! Luckily, it didn't taste as disgusting as it sounded!
After a quick peruse around their gift shop we set off for our next destination - another tasting room! :-) This one was Wine from the Heart, and if you ever find yourself in downtown Monterey please promise me you will go in and check it out!! It's a really cute little boutique wine shop, and we were thoroughly entertained by our new friend Vergudo! He took the time to go through the ins and outs of how to taste the wine properly and introduced us to the aroma wheel which provided much entertainment! Wet sand did not make an appearance, but we were amused to see things like cabbage, skunk, kerosene and many more on the wheel. I have to say, I think you're doing something wrong if you can smell any of those in your wine!
Sadly we had to get back to the car before our meter ran out, otherwise I think we would have spent most of the afternoon with Vergudo! By now it was after 2pm and we were feeling a bit tipsy so decided it was definitely time for lunch!! We went to the restaurant at the golf course near our hotel and had some yummy fish and chips - oh yeah, and more wine!
We were back at the hotel for the wine and appetisers hour, which turned out to be a huge disappointment. After all the delicious wines we had been trying all day, the cheapo crap they were serving did not go down well at all - even if it was free! - and I was expecting a little more than cubes of cheddar and grapes for the appetisers!
Not to worry - Eric and Rose had come prepared with a gigantic bottle of prosecco which more than helped erase the taste of grotty Merlot from our mouths!
We were very surprised when we polished off the prosecco so easily (No really! We were!!) and by now it was about 8.30 and we were getting hungry again so we headed over to An Choi, the Chinese across the road. This is another place you really should check out if you are in the area!! Hubby and I shared a shrimp and chicken chow mein and it was delicious, and Eric and Rose enjoyed their meals too. Plus, when Rose realised that she had left her purse there, the lovely man came over to our hotel and delivered it straight to her room - now that's what I call service!!
We polished off the last of our wine back in Eric and Rose's room, and not surprisingly, found ourselves to be shit faced so Hubby and I staggered back to our room and put ourselves to bed. A poor night's sleep meant that I was shattered this morning so sadly I missed out on the walk to the beach, but I enjoyed a quiet hour to myself reading my new book before we checked out and came home.
Once again, a HUGE thank you to Eric and Rose for an awesome weekend away!! :-)
Poor Hubby is back in the office already, and I suppose I have enough time to unpack before joining the ladies in the pub for the football in an hour. Better go and get some more coffee on too ......!!
So, today I got the results of my latest cholesterol tests, and I have to say I'm a little disappointed. I really felt like I had made a good effort over the last three months, but my levels have not improved as much as I hoped - my total cholesterol has gone from 261 to 243, and my LDL has gone from 159 to 143.
As I write it occurs to me that I don't actually know how much it should have or could have dropped in this time frame (note to self - ask the doctor!) but I was definitely expecting more! Time to have a good hard think about all the changes I thought I had made, and perhaps a rather brutal assessment of what I actually did and what I need to do better ...
Hubby hasn't had his follow up yet, and I'm a bit more hopeful for him as he has been better at taking his supplements and eating his oily fish, and he has started swimming regularly while my attempts at an exercise routine are a bit hit and miss. He actually has to go to the doctor for his test (I just got my blood taken at a lab and the doctor emailed me the results) so I think I will tag along and prepare some questions so I can set some realistic goals and expectations.
Luckily I have not been having any cravings for steaks and cheeseburgers as they will clearly not being making any appearances in my diet in the near future, but I was looking forward to the occasional egg and a trip to the cheese counter again *sigh*
My results weren't all doom and gloom, though, as I now no longer have dangerously low levels of vitamin D - hurrah!! Yes, you read that right - I moved from rainy Scotland to California and got myself a vit D deficiency and had to take prescription strength liquid sunshine capsules for the last three months. Oh, how I laughed!
Anyhoo, I cant sit around chatting all day! We're off to Monterey for the weekend with friends and I have to get packed and organised. I'll tell you all about it on Monday
So, back in September Hubby and I had cholesterol tests done and discovered that they were ... ahem .... a bit on the high side! Our lovely doctor gave us three months to start making the necessary changes and we have our follow up appointments in the next week or so.
Our diet needed a major makeover :-( Farewell, bacon. So long, steak. Ta ta, cheese *sob*
In an attempt to maximise our progress we basically adopted a mostly vegetarian diet, which has actually been a lot of fun and I now find that I have pretty much gone off meat!
Now, I'm not saying that I have given it up for good as I consider bacon to be less a meat and more of a basic human right, and there are many meaty meals that I would be devastated if I could never have them again (Hubby's BBQ chicken, Jared's tri tip, Cameron's jambalaya to name but a few ....)
But I have really enjoyed the challenge of trying to make interesting veggie meals that my carnivore Hubby will eat voluntarily!
Here are a couple of my successes from the weekend
Last night I made a wild rice pilaf, which is probably the fanciest thing I have ever made in my life and I was really impressed!
I may even make it again for the dinner we are hosting on Christmas Eve, although as Katy kindly pointed out, no-one else likes Brussels Sprouts so perhaps i'll do some different veg, (and something meaty for everyone else to enjoy ......!)
I have made a few other veggie gems which will be making future appearances on the Kavanagh menu, and I will try and remember to photograph them and share them with you.
Oh yeah, and I'll let you know we get on at the doc's next week ....!!
Hello again, my lovelies!! I know, I know! I don't call, I don't write - basically I suck as a correspondent! But, as I sit listening to Nat King Cole crooning the Christmas Song and basking in the glow of my Christmas tree, I do feel the need to reconnect.
Hubby and I have been quite busy since last we spoke but I wont bore you with the details, as anyone who knows me has probably already heard all about them. (And if you are unfortunate enough to have randomly stumbled across this blog then you probably don't care!)
Instead, here are a few photos to show you the highlights .......
We spent another happy afternoon getting drunk in the sun at the Vintage Santa Clara wine event. For more info on that event see my post from last year.
Our first visitors from Scotland came to stay - hurrah!! It was soooooo awesome to have them here, and incredibly surreal! I wish they hadn't had to go home :-(
Halloween came around again and Hubby carved his first pumpkin.
After much research and debate, he settled on Jolly, the pirate fish.
Whaddya think?
Hubby also turned his hand to making our costumes and created these awesome jellyfish!
They were spectacular, but dear God, they caught on EVERYTHING and were a bit of a nightmare to lug around all night! But I guess no-one ever said it was easy being fabulous ... *sigh*
For Cameron's birthday we did a group trip to an idyllic place called Sea Ranch where we spent a wonderful weekend eating and drinking and relaxing
For Hubby's birthday we were in Austin, Texas, for the first Formula 1 grand prix at the new Circuit of the Americas track
Despite having to slum it in a Motel 6 *shudder*, and a disappointing early departure from the race for my boy Mark Webber (above) we had a brilliant weekend!
We were lucky enough to be invited back to spend Thanksgiving in Arizona with Eric & Rose's families, where once again we were spoiled rotten and generally had a wonderful time
A huge thank you to our hosts for your hospitality and generosity! :-)
And then, all of a sudden, it was December!! Not quite sure how that happened, but here we are!! We still have a couple of wee adventures to squeeze in before the end of the year, and I shall do my best to share them with you, along with any other nonsense that pops in my head! (And we all know my head is full of nonsense .....!!)
Love and hugs and stuff, and thank you for reading!! :-) xxx
Last week I finally had my first trip to Las Vegas - woohoo!! Hubby's sister and her fiance were in town so we flew over on Wednesday to catch up with them for a few nights.
I couldn't make up my mind which hotel I wanted to stay in, but a little on line research and some recommendations from friends indicated that the Wynn was the place to be, and they were not wrong!!
From the moment we stepped out of the taxi we were blown away by how awesome the hotel was!!
This picture on the left is the entrance lobby.
Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of our beautiful corner suite as every time I remembered it looked like a hurricane had hit it!! However, Hubby did get this awesome shot of the view from our window ...
Once we had unpacked and freshened up we were off to meet Hubby's sister, Caroline, and her fiance Christopher. We had a wee drink at the bar while we caught up, then went in search of dinner. They suggested we head to the Venetian, and as that was at the top of my To Do list we agreed!
People had told us what to expect at the Venetian, and I had seen pictures before, but nothing prepares you for seeing it in the flesh!!
They have St Mark's Square, the Doge's palace, and gondolas sailing up and down the canals! There were even a couple of bridges we recognised from our trip to the real Venice!
The painted sky was really trippy, and it was quite hard to remember that we were actually indoors!!
It was a magical wee place and we had a good wander round before we settled on - surprise surprise! - an Italian restaurant for dinner.
Next, we ventured on up to the Mirage and stopped off at the Rhumbar for a round of massive frozen margaritas which, although delicious, gave us all brain freeze and we struggled to finish them, I know, I know - there's a first time for everything!! By now we were getting quite tired, and the DJ was quite simply atrocious, so we decided to call it a night and arranged to meet up with Caroline and Christopher the next day at 11am.
Cut to 10.45am and me and him waking up in a panic as we realised we were going to be late! This wouldn't normally be a huge problem, but neither Caroline or Christopher's phones would work in the US, and our only means of communication was Facebook when Caroline found somewhere she could get wifi! We managed to get ready in record time and headed towards the tour booth we had decided on last night.
Cut to the second problem - they had picked the tour booth based on Google maps information, and the booth did not in fact exist any more. We spent a good half an hour or so running back and forward trying to see if they were hanging around before we decided to head back to the hotel and try and leave them a message.
By some miracle we found them just beside our hotel, where they had decided to wait for a bit to see if we would come back. After much rejoicing, we declared it to be time for lunch and headed back to our hotel as Hubby wanted to try the Red 8 restaurant.
The menu offered a selection from various Asian cuisines and i thoroughly enjoyed my Malaysian chicken and shrimp fried rice! C & C enjoyed their meals too, but Hubby was a little disappointed with his laksa :-(
After lunch we decided to explore the hotel and stumbled across a little wine bar, or wine and food hideaway as it called itself, called La Cave. And then the drinking began!! I wont go into full detail of all we did or drank that day as quite frankly, I cant remember!! But here are the highlights!! :-)
I remember stopping off at the encouragingly named Margaritaville, and this time the cocktail did not freeze my insides!
Armed with our happy little plastic cups we set off for the Bellagio.
The fountains at the Bellagio were one of the highlights of our trip. So elegant and beautiful - something else that needs to be seen to fully appreciate! This video really doesn't do them justice! (And yes, that is me squealing in the background ......)
Next we cut through the hotel to get to the monorail that would take us to C & C's hotel and on our way we got to see this exquisite ceiling, made up of 2000 hand blown glass flowers.
Our path took us through their conservatory and botanical garden where we saw bees and birds ......
...... and frogs ........
...... and ladybugs .......
..... and mini hot air balloons!! It was wonderfully fairy tale (and yes, I was rather tipsy at this point ...)
Oh yeah, and they had a chocolate fountain at the cake shop!! :-)
Once I had been pried away from the fountain, we continued on our merry way to New York, New York, where C & C were staying, which was, again, visually spectacular!
I loved walking through the bars and restaurants, all laid out like city streets. I would show you a picture, but unfortunately my margarita consumption had not improved my camera skills so all I have are blurry shots :-(
The boys decided that they wanted a go on the rollercoaster, while the girls decided that we'd rather stick needles in our eyes, so we waited for them at a bar and had another wee glass of wine. *hic!*
C & C then packed up a change of clothes and we returned to our hotel to get ready for dinner.
Hubby had a fancy for steak, so we reserved a table at the SW Steakhouse in our hotel and got our glad rags on!
And once again, the meal was exquisite! Wonderful, perfectly cooked steaks, with fries, potato gratin, and some broccoli so we could at least pretend to be healthy!! ;-)
After dinner we ventured down to the nightclub, which was a very fancy outdoor setting with a river and a waterfall, and some really good music (Swedish House Mafia, if you care) but unfortunately nowhere for me to sit, and that was the point that I decided I may now be too old for clubbing! I would much rather have been sitting comfortably with good company and a nice glass of pinot noir listening to the music than constantly getting bumped out of the way and unable to hear what anyone was saying!! Anyway, old lady rant over! I stuck it out for an hour or so then decided to leave the others to it and head back to the room (with a final glass of prosecco for the road)
I vaguely remember people coming back to the room and rough plans being made for lunchtime the following day, but my next real memory is of the monster hangover I woke up with! Hubby wasn't much better and we lay in bed willing ourselves to get up so we could go meet C & C. We were very relieved when Caroline sent us a message saying that they also felt like death and would be hanging around their pool all day. We agreed to do our own thing and meet for dinner later.
After another hour or so in bed the hunger kicked in and I knew we had to get up. I was craving a burger so we headed to the Palazzo hotel and found an appropriately named I <3 Burgers. It was heaven! Aside from the weird greasy bun, my burger topped with blue cheese and bacon was delicious, and Hubby's bacon-fest (a burger with chopped bacon through it, bacon on top and bacon mayo!) hit the spot.
But nothing could compare to the sheer joy that was my Tahitian vanilla bean milkshake!! :-)
Granted, it did make me a bit sick on top of my hangover and the big ass burger I had polished off, but dear God it was awesome!!
After that we shopped for a bit but I was suffering from milkshake intoxication so we headed back to the hotel to chill for a bit before dinner.
Dinner that night was Caroline's choice, and we went to BB King's Blues Club at the Mirage. My hangover was still demanding lardy food so I had fried chicken with mac and cheese - yummy!! The music was mostly pretty good there, apart from a woman who couldn't sing to save her life and murdered many classics right before our eyes!!
None of us were in a drinking mood so we paid the bill and headed out for the Mirage's hourly volcano display which was fun. We were ready to call it a night, but wanted to catch one last show from the fountains at the Bellagio which was even more spectacular than the day performance! I wish I had captured that one for you, but I was too busy watching and enjoying myself!!
We said our farewells then, and made our way back to the hotel. It was still relatively early (for Vegas, anyway!) but we weren't feeling terribly sociable so we just chilled in the room. Tiesto was playing in the club that night and, as the club was directly below our room, we were able to listen to his set from bed - rock 'n' roll!!!
Sadly, the next day we had to go home :-( We had a couple of hours to kill after we checked out so we went back to La Cave and had some more of their delicious wine and some lunch and sat contentedly til some posh English assholes came in and were .... well .... assholes. We decided to relocate to the bar in the lobby for a last wee drink before we had to drag ourselves to the airport :-(
So that was my first Vegas trip, and I loved it!! There was still so much that we didn't get to see, so I will be looking forward to making a trip back as soon as possible!!
Here are a few other random pics we took:
The Palazzo & Venetian hotels, with our hotel in the background
Outside Caesar's Palace
The Paris hotel
Giant parasols suspended from the ceiling in our hotel
Greetings!! What's new in your part of the world? We haven't been having too many adventures, but I would like to tell you about our new favourite wine bar, Grapevine in Willow Glen. We ventured down with the usual suspects (you know who you are!!) on Saturday night and loved it so much we were back there on Tuesday! They have a really good selection of wine and speciality beers, and a truly scrumptious appetiser menu. The ham and Gouda grilled cheese sandwiches, and prosciutto, cheese and arugula flat breads will definitely keep us coming back for more!!
We also got our Vegas trip booked - woohoo!! :-) We were planning a longer road trip there but Hubby will be very busy at work so we are going to fly there Wednesday night and come back Saturday afternoon - that should be just enough time to pickle our livers without destroying them completely!! Thanks to everyone who has suggested restaurants and things to do - I think we have enough recommendations to see us through at least another 5 trips!
I got round to making one of my new recipes that i've been meaning to try for a while last night, and I can confidently say that spicy basil chicken has gone straight in to my top 5 recipes - hurrah!! I made the sesame rice as suggested, but I used white rice as we were too hungry to wait for brown to cook, and it came out a bit soggy but the flavours were really yummy and went well with the chicken.
This will be a good meal to make when our friends Greeny and Nadine get here for their visit (19 more sleeps - squeeeeee!!) as Nadine doesn't eat meat, and it would be very easy and equally delicious made with shrimp.
Well, now I shall go back to contemplating the gym. I went on Tuesday and did a couple of new upper body exercises but have shocked some new muscles in my arms and chest in to life, and dear god they are sore!! I only got 3 or 4 hours sleep last night as no matter how I lay something was hurting just enough to keep me awake :-( Maybe I'll skip the gym today and get some exercise walking around the mall instead .... ;-)
Happy Tuesday, my friends! Did you have a nice weekend? We had a rather busy one.
We were supposed to be going to a classical concert outside San Jose State University on Friday night but I was exhausted and incredibly sore after a new routine at the gym and three hours of baking, so we joined the neighbours for some wine and hot tubbing instead. It was a wonderful way to spend a Friday night and my
muscles were very grateful!
Saturday morning we were off to the Guglielmo Winery nearby for their quarterly bottle your own wine event. This is a great wee event where they blend up their excess wine and sell it off for $7 a bottle, and if you buy a case you get free access to the buffet of sausage, garlic bread, cured meats, cheeses and baguette.
The wine can be a bit hit and miss depending on the blend, and sadly this was not one of the better ones. It's still better than a lot of the crap you can get for the money in the supermarket so we got a case to put by for when Greeny & Nadine get here next month (5 weeks today to be precise - WOOHOOOOOO!!!)
Once we were home we had a short space of time to frost the mountain of mini cupcakes I had made the previous day to take to John & Teo's housewarming party. Luckily my handsome assistant, aka the Hubby, took care of the frosting duties while I was busy clearing up and working out how to successfully transport 70 mini cupcakes on a train. The answer? Carefully!!!
The featured cupcake this weekend was the butterscotch with salted caramel frosting, and everyone appeared to enjoy them. They might even be rivalling my chocolate chip cookies and my Oreo truffles for the top spot in my friends' affections!!
Fun times were had at the party, including a thorough testing of John's new BB gun. No people or animals were injured during these tests, but a Diet Coke can was disintegrated and a broken garden chair was, well, destroyed further!
Just another Saturday night in sunny California!!
After a brief hangover on Sunday I surprised everyone, including myself, by making it to the gym - more for a muscle stretch than a real workout it, but I felt better for at least trying.
In the evening we finally made it to one of the free classical concerts that Symphony Silicon Valley and San Jose State University put on every summer. We really enjoyed the ones we went to last year with Eric and Rose and were looking forward to them again this year, but unfortunately we managed to miss all but the final one on Sunday :-(
We spent a lovely hour or so listening to the music in the sunshine and enjoying a glass of wine and some leftover cupcakes. Oh yeah, and some free ice cream! :-)
Well, I'm off to the gym now. I have a fun afternoon of tidying out my shoe closet to look forward to - but don't worry, I'm not getting rid of any of my babies!! We just ran out of room so we got some more shelves to help make them more comfortable :-) If you behave yourselves I might show you some pics when I'm done ......!!
