Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Holiday Weekend

We had a really busy weekend which included trying to clean out the garage which will eventually be a part of the addition we are putting on our house. We have to get it empty so we can finalize our designs for permitting. We want to have a plumber come out and advise us on the least expensive location for the new bathroom so we can then alter the plans around that. So that basically consumed our weekend with the very nice exception of the Los Poblanos Harvest Dinner on Sunday afternoon. My MIL was kind enough to watch the kids so we could go to the first Harvest Dinner at Season's Rest. It was very cool. The food was delicious and the speakers were informative. We will be ordering some meat from one of the guys we met who raises black angus cattle on year round grass in the NE part of New Mexico. He was a nice guy and the meat was really good. Of course my husband is thrilled by the idea of having beef in our freezer all the time. I am not a big red meat eater so I could take it or leave it, however if we are going to buy it, and eat it, I would rather get if from Dennis. www.fishhugger.com is his site and they sell both wild salmon he catches in Alaska and the beef at the Los Ranchos Farmers Market each weekend.

As for today, well I need a day to get things together, we brought a lot of stuff in from the garage which now needs to find a space inside. I want to integrate it now before it feeds the chaos monster and takes over my entire house and sucks the energy right out of me and the kids. So today will be all about getting things settled inside. We do have drama this afternoon and of course it is veggie pick-up day at the farm, so we will get a few outings later in the day.

Tonight will be all about crab cakes! My grandma Alice sent us a box of chesapeake bay crab cakes so I can close my eyes and dream of summer back east. We will do some corn on the grill, along with whatever yummy veggie Monte has in the box this week and enjoy sitting on our porch tasting a bit of summer.

4 comments:

Sunshine Alternative Mama said...

We had a really busy weekend too.

How cool that you had a "grown-up" outing. I suppose it doesn't happen very often (at least it doesn't for us). We have grandparents willing to watch the boys, but it is so much work to prepare all the food, we have drive to them, and honestly there isn't much happening that is worth the time away from our boys. But your outing sounds really neat, and just up our alley.

Veggie pick-up! I wish we had a CSA close by, or even within a reasonable driving distance. There are CSAs in So Cal, but most are far enough away that with traffic we'd spend all day (and too much gas) getting veggies. We have to content ourselves with the farmer's market, which has very few organic growers.

Blissfulbee said...

Our CSA farm is only a few miles from our house. I absolutely love it! www.lospoblanosorganics.com That combined with our coop being super close by were some of the factors that helped me agree to buy this house. In VA we would have to drive for about an hour to even get to a Whole Foods or something like that. So this is terrific! We never ever went out in VA everything was too far and we didnt have family close enough by to help with the kids. Here my MIL will come and sit for us when we need her too. We dont do it often though. We like doing stuff with the kids with us. This however was a great opportunity to get out and support something we really love. Plus we met the cattle guy, and some other really good resources.

Sunshine Alternative Mama said...

My ILS would like to retire here, within walking distance of our house, so if that happens it would be great.

There is so much that happens here that we don't do because of the boys. There is a Shakespeare Festival (3 plays done in repertory over the month)

www.redlandsshakespearefestival.com

The summer bowl series, with concerts, opera, dance, etc.

www.redlandsbowl.org

Our theater festival:

www.rtfseason.org

Plus so many great recitals and concerts at the University of Redlands.

We do take the boys to the Redlands Bowl, but it means keeping them up late, and they don't make it through more than about 30 minutes.

More political type events are usually held in Los Angeles.

Blissfulbee said...

Yeah, when we lived just outside of DC we never got to go to any of the amazing things there unless they were kid friendly. This year the boys attended about 11-13 different performances through popejoy, kimo theatre and kiva theatre. It was a great year for the arts for them. However with the exception of the daytime popejoy series, we were able to get help with ME during the performances that were in the evening or were over an hour. Once your little guys get a bit older they may like some of the cool festivals you have there, but this is a hard age. They dont want to sit through a long performance somewhere. One of the shows we went to, the boys both just really did not like. It was good though, because they had to learn that live performances are not all terrific, some you just have to be polite and sit through, and then you know you arent a big fan of that style or whatever.

So Cal is great for cool stuff going on! Here in New Mexico I am surprised by how much there is to do. Coming from DC I thought it would be hardly anything, but really it is even more accessible and family friendly.