Morning Love

You'll love this one honey

Gracie and I made shadow puppets last night with the guidance of one of our great Christmas presents (Thanks Auntie Beth!) Everyday is a Holiday - Year-Round Crafting with Kids. 


Punxsutawney Phil talking to the owl: "Okay Bob. Bye Bye."

It looks like she will love Cusack as much as we do!

Sunsets

THIS was the view from our camper last week. In my entire life, the two most beautiful sunsets I have seen were this one and another in SB when I was a teenager. I was driving with my dad and made him pull off the road so I could get a picture of it. I still treasure that photo and the fun memories of road trips with my dad. He surely is smiling down on us as I take hundreds of photos of sunsets like this one.

The girl is mine.

We are listening to The Essential Michael Jackson and one of my favorites from Michael and Paul McCartney, The Girl is Mine.

Grace: Brook, This is my song to you.
Brook: The girl is mine?
Grace: Yes, I love you more than anything. I love you more than the whole university.

Peer Pressure

What a FUN day! Just as I was siting around the coffee table with three of my favorite people, thinking to myself that it was so amazing to be having such a great adult conversation for longer than two minutes, we heard a yell from upstairs. Irene jumped up and yelled "oh no!" As we were running up the stairs, we heard the most genuine laughter radiating from the bathroom. This is what we found...

The girls had decided to give each other baths. With hand soap. So much for adult conversation. :-)

Meatless Monday :: Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

For part of my new year's list of resolutions, we are going to have Meatless Mondays here in the Coffee Cottage. Not that it will be too hard as we were vegetarian for a long time and still have many meatless meals but I have noticed that we are eating meat more often than I would like. I want to be more mindful of our choices for food, for our health and for the health of the planet. HERE is the link to the Meatless Monday campaign if you would like to read more about the benefits and would like to join us. Leave a comment and maybe a link to one of your favorite meatless dishes below.

Homemade Meatless Spaghetti Sauce (using the LAST of our summer tomatoes in the freezer)

Saute:
evoo
one package TJ's mirepoix (onions, carrots, celery)
one package TJ's sliced crimini mushrooms
garlic
herbs de provence
one can tomato paste
one can water
1/2 gallon bag frozen tomatoes from the garden
s+p
Bring to a boil. Crush tomatoes and try to remove tomato skins. Simmer until ready to eat.
I may puree it a bit with an immersion blender so it is smoother over the w/w angel hair and so Gracie gets more of it in her stomach than on her face.

We met a sweet family (Shannon, Michael, Catalina and Sydney) at Refugio and they commented that Catalina (age 5) who doesn't care much for veggies and won't eat spaghetti sauce if it "has stuff in it" so HERE is another favorite pasta sauce without "stuff." I hope our paths cross again!

Happy.....

We had a GREAT vacation at Refugio and are already planning our next Westy trip!

I have a cold and lots of laundry and cleaning to do so it may be a few days until I am back in this space but hopefully these photos will give you a sense of the magic we experienced. Watching the sun rise and set from your camper really does something for the soul. 

What a wonderful way to start an amazing new year.