It's been a while

Since the Fab 4 hung out. A long while. I spent some time in Utah (sans the husb) for some much enjoyable family time, a baptism for my niece Marlee, some shopping, lots of laughing, too much eating, and a lot of play time with the nieces and nephews.

The "VaughnThomDragonman" family.

70 degrees...somone pinch me

Our East Coast friends are snowed in, our Utah friends are frozen until May, and the weather is wreaking havoc on the rest of you...so, we are considering ourselves pretty dang lucky. 70 degrees in February. But, don't wish us a slow, miserable death just yet; come June we will be sporting rain gear and heavy jackets.

To take advantage (along with 30,000 other people) of the sun, we took Frankie for a walk at Baker Beach.

Great views of...

the bridge
public nudity while hula hooping (he was in his briefs)
fishing
crab catching
sunning
frolicking
etc
etc
etc






Hang in there peeps. The sun'll come out tomorrow.

Sorry East Coast friends.

Found these two guys just laying around.

This is a silly city we live in.

Did I mention it's January?

I think Tyler Florence is getting a restraining order against us.

Driving out of the city yesterday made me realize why people love San Francisco. Because they don't love San Francisco...but rather the surrounding area (lovingly called The Bay Area) and if I can throw my two cents in...Mill Valley. It is SUCH an adorable little town.

If you remember, just a few shorts month ago we visited Tyler Florence's restaurant, Wayfare Tavern, for Jed's birthday. Our DVR is full of "Tyler's Ultimate", we've made his recipes. So, it only made sense to visit his kitchen supply store. And, when we get a home to call our own, I will be making a visit to this store to get one of everything. Including the cashier.

The store was AMAZING! Everything was so pretty. The ladies room was my dream bathroom. A sweet little lady even passed out due to the beauty that was before us. (Not really...apparently she had a bad reaction to her new meds...rest assured, she's fine. I helped by waiving Himalayan Pink Kosher Sea Salt to help her come to her senses. Not really.)

To top the store off, they had a cookbook library. With a fireplace. Be still my heart.

After drooling and oohing at all of the goods, we purchased a salt dish (really, just to say we bought something from TF's kitchen supply store) and walked over to Pearl's Burger. I almost don't dare to write this, but it was Tyler Florence's "Best Burger I ever Ate." I gave it a 7. But, the PB/Oreo milkshake a solid 9. Mostly because of the straw.

So, if you see Jed and I being hauled off to the pokey, there is a good chance it's because we saw TF in person and let him read this post.

O'er the hills we go

As everyone else on blogs, facebook, work, texts, and e-mails have noted, we too had a great Christmas.

We found ourselves in Utah. As always.
We spent time with family. As always.
We ate too much food. As always.

We went sledding as a family...screeeeeeech. Wait a minute. Hold up. Don't get me wrong, we have a lot of fun with my family, but it usually consists of me and Hillary begging the family to play scatergories, stuffing our face with food, and hiding from the kids as they gang up on us (there are 7 now!)

Going sledding was a bit out of the norm, but we had SUCH a good time. I would dare say it was the highlight of the trip.
That and Ole St. Nick finding us in Utah. How does he do that???



Even woofs got in on the fun...but, her type of fun was making "lemon sno-cones" she has no manners.



Beck was waiting for us in the Yert. With snacks and cupcakes for Asher's birthday. He was quite the host.



I love Asher's rosy cheeks. This kid knows how to play hard. And by hard, I meant that I wanted to borrow his helmet so I could protect my skull from his muay tai karate moves.




Picking the color of the tube was the hardest part of the day.



Taytum was brave until half-way down the kiddie slide. Then things went sour. And she cried. But, she sure looked cute in the tube.

We clearly had too much fun, because this is where the picture taking ended for the rest of the trip.

We hope all of your Christmas dreams came true.

Only you can prevent yuletide fires

At our park (yes, Jed and I now own a park. Frankie has marked every square inch of it to prove it)there isn't a lot of Christmas going on. Maybe it's because it's raining...and has been for days. Maybe people think outdoor Christmas lights + rain = electrical storm. It makes sense. And to be honest, I too have had those thoughts.

I've also had thoughts of Christmas trees lights + not enough water = tree on fire, which is why we chose to decorate our dresser.

Good thing twinkling lights + cheap furniture that you had to put together yourself and it's most likely not even real wood will NOT = dresser fire.

As Jed and I are still newer in our married life, we only have one Christmas tradition. We buy an ornament that has significance to an event that has happened in our lives. This is one of my favorites (of the 3) It's the Empire State Building and will remind me of the magic of living in NYC.

Now, who can find us an ornament of a wiener dog with a pacifier in her mouth??? She is our little baby, that's for sure! Ugh. I hate that I just made a dog = fur baby comment. Forget it. But seriously, email me if you do.

Frankenwooferton

I was about 30 minutes too late for the "good light" so, I will leave you with the Sunday in SF picture of our dog. Smelling something. Probably something nasty.

Here's to a "not so long, so I can take some decent shots when it's light" nap next week.