Third Snow

This is our third snow this season and it's going to stick around for a little while I think. That's Cooper at the end of the driveway. He absolutely LOVES the snow and could stay out in it all day.

Randy had to get out his trusty snow shovel this morning and clear the driveway.

My little bird house looked cute with a snowy roof. The snow is definitely putting a stop to the paver patio project on the west side of the house.

West Yard Pavers

We chose gray/light brown pavers for the patio area in the west yard. This is the yard that is fenced and contains the garden.

The pavers compliment the stone on the fireplace as the fireplace is two plus stories high.

We are going to have two areas of pavers with "fake" turf in between. It will be a nice area to relax. I am on the lookout for some good deals on comfortable patio furniture.

Happy Holidays

Hope.....

Love...

Joy......

Wishing you lots of reasons

to celebrate this season.

Luminarias at the Desert Botanical Gardens

Each year, in the month of December, the Desert Botanical Gardens is open in the evenings for a unique holiday event. A special dinner is served......Caesar salad, fruit salad, roast sirloin of beef, chicken, herbed focaccia bread, potato gnocchi, roasted red potatoes, sautéed vegetables, and pumpkin cinnamon spice tiramisu.

Entertainment happens throughout the garden.......Native American storytelling and flute.

A group called Traveler......world music and dynamic violin.

8000 luminarias light up the garden. (Real candles)

The trees and cacti are also illuminated.

We especially enjoyed this steel drum group. Randy bought one of their CDs.

One of my favorites is always the handbell group. "Silver Bells" never sounded so wonderful! We listened to eleven different groups......a nice evening.

Catching Up....

The focus for December's Cooking Class was high altitude baking. We started the class by sampling a Chocolate Pound Cake.....very rich and yummy. It has some odd ingredients....potato starch, turbinado sugar, vanilla powder, brandy......but it was delicious.

We then made a Pineapple Upside-Down Cornmeal Cake....also delicious. We made a cake from scratch and worked on our ratios...flour and eggs for structure, fat and sugar for tenderness. Too much structure equals tough and dry. Too much moisture equals too tender and falling apart. I have lots of notes and hopefully I will be able to adjust a recipe for our higher altitude.

We have a new car! I traded in my Mazda for a 2010 Volkswagon Touareg. It only has 17,000 miles on it and is in excellent condition. We found it on CarMax....had it brought to the valley from Las Vegas. CarMax made it easy....we were out the door with the new car in 2 hours. It has more "bells and whistles" than we have ever had on a car  but we are enjoying the "luxury."

We have started to work on our side yard. Matt, the builder, (and Cooper) are laying out new irrigation lines. This area will be part pavers and artificial grass.

Matt will be building an arbor and privacy screen so we don't have to look at the garden, which can be ugly depending on the time of year. We had to move one flower bed down to the garden area and will be filling in areas with more granite. We will use this area for lounging and may include a fire pit. I'll keep you posted!