Happy Holidays!

Master in the Hoag House

Well, it's official. I'm finally a Master of Arts. And I hate to boast, but I'm going to do it anyway to try and redeem myself a little. It might have taken me 3.5 years to complete my thesis, but I rocked at being a grad student in classes (*cough*notice my gpa*cough*). So while my self discipline is lacking, I can jump through assigned hoops really well.

And it's worth pointing out that I made this process much harder than it needed to be, but it's still tough. And it reminds me that Matt's determination to finish his PhD (in 4 years no less!) is quite admirable. 

Frenemy Staredown

When we are home, Bounce spends the majority of his days parked in the window keeping "guard" of the house. He's always on the lookout for the squirrels and mail men that might attack us and barks ferociously each and every time he spots one. 

And then there's his frenemy. We call her (him?) Snowbell. She belongs to one of our neighbors and loves to just saunter across the street, lawn, etc. to taunt Bounce. I'm pretty sure they have a mutual interest in each other. But I don't want to know what they would do if given the opportunity.

Reason 72 to love Sacramento

Every time we visit family and friends in Washington, I come back to Sacramento a bit homesick. And then Sacramento reminds me why we love it here. Case in point, we come home after Thanksgiving and I'm majorly missing family and my favorite city, Portland.

Then I took Bounce on a walk on this Sunday morning and my homesickness subsided. Sixty degrees, blue skies, the sound of soccer fans cheering and piles and piles of dry, crisp fall leaves blanketing the ground. And let's not forget, this is in DECEMBER. Yep, Sacramento, you reminded me that I do love it here. 

Case in point:

Best $9.99 we've ever spent

Matt and I were lucky to have a full house for the Fourth of July this year. Mat and Alison made the trek down from Seattle and Scott and Hanna came across the country from DC. We spent part of the time in Sonoma, tasting wine and trying to survive the heatwave that came through.

We drove home from Sonoma in the morning of the Fourth and came up with our game plan during the drive. The boys would get fireworks while the girls got food and "entertainment." At Target we saw a slip n' slide for a mere $9.99 and splurged. We figured it wouldn't hold up long with grown men using it, but that's okay. Little did we know, it would hold up just fine and actually provided entertainment for my nephews and niece when they visited later in the month. Not bad for less than ten bucks!

That's me behind all that water

Slide and shoot

Scott's face here is priceless

Bounce got into the fun perhaps more than anyone else

Stare off!

Look at that form!

The aftermath

 

Wheatens on parade

Way back in April I was dropping Bounce off at doggie daycare and stopped to chat with our trainer, Victoria. She was happy I came in because there was a dog show that weekend that she was competing in and she noticed that the Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier group was one of the largest in the show, with 44 dogs total. So I got all the details on her competition time and convinced Matt that we should go check it out.

Neither of us had been to a dog show before so we prepared ourselves for all kinds of crazy dog people (think Best in Show) and we were not disappointed! First we watched Victoria compete with her dog Enzo. Enzo was the example dog in our training class and I can honestly say I've never seen a more obedient dog. Victoria and Enzo were competing in the intermediate obedience competition. She decided to sign on up kind of on a whim and it the first time she's competed in years. During the competition she pointed out all the regulars that typically sweep the medal stands. When it was her turn, they rocked it. Then we waited and waited and waited.



They finally called up the finalists to do one last parade around the ring and hilarious, Victoria was so convinced that she wouldn't qualify that Enzo didn't even have a collar on! When they called her name she had to scramble and borrow someone else's so they could do a quick trot around the ring. And then, she won first place! We were really excited to see her win, and it was cool to see someone so laid back win over the intense regulars.

And then we boogied over the a different part of the dog show to see all the Wheatens. We cut through the grooming area and many of the Wheatens where getting their last minutes touch ups before the show. Groomers were feverishly combing and hairspraying the dogs in preparation. And then we watched the Wheatens go. Honestly, I didn't really follow what was happening because it wasn't like there was an announcer or anything to explain who was entering the ring when, etc. I gather they competed on several different levels but really couldn't tell who was beating out who, etc. All I cared about were the many cute Wheatens. I loved it.

The biggest downside to the whole day? Hours of standing on cement.
My legs ached by the time we left.

Vendors were set up around the perimeter and there was one that really caught our eye.I really wanted to get two of these for Matt and I to wear like crazy people but we resisted the urge.

Handpainted Wheatens on denim. I especially love the sleeveless one! ;)

And here's Bounce pouting at home because he didn't get to go along and mingle with all of his cousins. I can only imagine what chaos he would have caused if we could have brought him. Despite our wonderful trainer, he won't be competing in any obedience competitions any time soon!

 

Like lasagna but not

My Cooking Light magazine arrived Saturday and while flipping through the pages, this recipe jumped out at me. So I gave it a try last night and I definitely recommend it. The flavor is just like spaghetti or lasagna but instead of pasta it uses cauliflower. And since Matt and I are counting down days till Hawaii (61), we are trying to eat healthy and shed a few pounds. So at 306 calories a serving, this isn't terrible for our bikini diet (swim trunk diet for Matt, which doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well).

I would also like to mention a BIG accomplishment for me with this recipe. I used onions. I never thought I'd say this, but I am starting to appreciate onions for the flavor they provide in cooking things. This is actually the third time this month I've used onions in a recipe. I just cut them in really big chunks and then once I feel the flavor has been infused, I pick them out so they never touch our dinner plates. With this recipe, I used onions when browning the ground beef and picked them out before adding the marinara. Matt even said "Mmmm, that smells so good!" when it was just the onions sauteing!

I also altered the recipe in the broiling stage. See, I am afraid to use our broiler after we had a bit of a catastrophe that resulted in this:

The firefighters paid us a visit.

Burnt pizza peal

We made the mistake of storing a pizza peal in the drawer below our oven, not realizing that it isn't a drawer in our case, it's the broiler. Oops! This whole drawer as a broiler thing is new to me so I've dealt with it avoiding broiling things. Maybe one day soon I'll tackle it. I'm certain our Baked Italian-Style Cauliflower would have tasted even better with the crispy finish you get from broiling.

Hoags in Europe - Santorini

Our next stop was the part of the trip I was most excited about: Santorini, Greece. For years I've heard people talk about the Greek islands and how they can't wait to return, how its one of their favorite European destinations, etc. One of my dearest friends even got engaged in Santorini and has some of the most picturesque proposal pictures I've ever seen (he's good, he set up a camera on a timer and caught shots of himself on bending knee!) So, I had HIGH hopes.

See how excited we were on the flight over? Happy happy!

My excitement continued to build looking out the plane window at this.

We've arrived! Doesn't Matt look like a backpacking pro?
This was his first trip breaking in the backpack and he loved it.

We had a kind of bizarre drive to the rental house, the van driver was driving crazy slow and nearly stopping in the middle of the road to point out interesting things about the island. And he kept taking phone calls and speaking in Greek to someone. We later realized it was probably the rental owner because she was still preparing the house for our arrival.

The slow drive was worth it because we got to see this view from our patio!

And she had cold beers ready for us to enjoy along with the view.

 We spent a total of four nights in Santorini, in our wonderful rental located in Oia. We quickly adopted the carefree, relaxed attitude common on the island and soaked in one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.

Brian and Jen on our balcony

Our balcony

View from our balcony. Can you see why we barely left the house!?

The balcony again. And look, someone taking pictures of the view (shocker!).

Looking at town from our balcony at sunset

And by daylight

Yep, it's really that blue.

We did a fair amount of this.

Okay, so we did manage to peel ourselves away from our balcony and enjoy more of what Oia has to offer. We even went out on the town in Fira and danced the night away, but those pictures aren't as fun to share!

The crisp white contrast against the bright blue sky and ocean is classic Santorini.

And those white buildings don't stay crisp on their own, that guy is rolling on a fresh coat of white pain, dressed in all white of course!

We got a great deal on a private boat tour for one afternoon so the six of us piled on this sailboat. It was so nice to have the boat to ourselves and a great way to see more of the area.

A little church, accessible only by boat, that people actually use!

Jen and DJ both caught fish. I stayed clear because the fish just gross me out!

Just gorgeous.

After swimming in a cave, our next stop were the sulfuric hot springs. Yes, it smelled like sulfur (ew) and yes, the water was warm, and yes, we smeared the mud all over ourselves like crazy tourists because its supposedly good for your skin (and surprisingly fun to play in stinky mud).  But an unfortunate lesson we learned: the mud can stain swimsuits, especially light colored ones and they maybe ruined beyond repair.

The sulfur changes the rock coloration, and in the hot springs a lot of people (us included) take the mud and write messages on the rocks.

Proof that we smeared mud ALL over.

Mature, I know.

Just swimming in the Aegean Sea, no big deal.

You can kind of see how Matt's trunks are ruined by the sulfur with all that discoloration on the sides.

Jen and Justin soaking it all in.

Are you sick of pictures yet? I hope not, because I have more to share. It was just too hard to narrow them down any further.

They really do use donkeys to take away people's garbage. Crazy, right?

Sunset on our last night.

DJ, Jen, Brian, Matt, Me, Justin on our last night in Oia. We'll be back.

It was tough to bid farewell to Oia. I wish we could have stayed a week there and explored more of the islands. Before we left we were already plotting when we can return and I absolutely plan to. I hope you have the chance to go as well. I've seen many parts of Europe and this was one of my ultimate favorites.

Stay tuned for one more post with the comedic ending to our time in Oia.