Celebrating Another Decade

Last weekend we began a week of celebration starting out with St. Patrick's Day on the 17th, Ken's 70th birthday was on the 18th and mine on the 19th (I need another year to catch up with him!). On Sunday night while it was snowing outside Ken decided to get the truck turned around in the driveway ready for our early morning departure only to find two trees had fallen during the storm, blocking our driveway. A quick call for help brought our friends Greg and Teresa over who cheerfully got the trees trimmed and moved out of the way so we could leave early as planned. They are true friends, indeed. 

Our plan was to head to the coast in hopes to find some sun and enjoy the ocean air. 

Our first night was spent at St. Orre's in a little town called Gualala. It is a beautiful inn with five rooms in the main building plus a dozen or so small cottages scattered through the woods. The four-star restaurant where we enjoyed a scrumptious birthday dinner is located inside this beautiful building.

We stayed in the "Rose Cottage" . . . 

The view from our living room window.

An adorable little cottage we could have spent a week easily . . . it was a bit rainy outside so the fireplace was nice to snuggle up to and receive its warmth.

This cottage had all kinds of interesting wood treatments, this bird carved on the end of a large beam being one of them.

In the morning a knock at the door and the words "Good morning . . . breakfast!" were heard and the wooden box seen at the left was placed on our front porch.

Here are the contents found inside the box . . . breakfast consisting of scrambled eggs perfectly cooked and hot, a small pumpkin bread, fresh fruit, granola, milk and orange juice. We brewed a fresh pot of coffee and enjoyed it while grinning from ear to ear.

The next three nights were spent up the road in Point Arena at the Wharf Master's Inn. Pictured here is the original Wharf Master's house. The building to the left called "The Lookout" is where our room was located.

The entrance to our room is to the left of the staircase. The Wharf Master was recommended by my sister and brother-in-law and is a place they frequent often.

Just down the road from the Wharf Master is Point Arena Tile Works owned by a really nice and talented artist named Matt—who designs all his tiles and creates his own molds. Check out his work here.

We picked out and purchased these hand-made tiles from Matt. Our plan is to make a table when we get home.

The view from our room . . . the building below houses several shops and restaurants.

The sunset on our last evening . . . beautiful. The following day we stopped by for a yummy dinner and sleep-over at Jackie and Rick's (our traditional birthday hang-out) before heading back to our mountain town.
What a great way to celebrate our birthdays!

Life is good!

What's up with this?

We've had early spring weather for a few weeks now, saying goodbye to a very quick dry winter. This morning we woke up to this! Mother Nature decided we needed a nice snowfall before the actual date of spring arrives.

Four to five inches of snow overnight . . .

Like a winter wonderland . . .

So pretty on the Manzanitas . . .

We lost a 70' Grey Pine . . . lucky for us it fell away from the house!

Life is good!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

May your home be filled with laughter

May your pockets be filled with gold

And may you have all the happiness

Your Irish heart can hold.

May joy and peace surround you,

Contentment latch your door,

And happiness be with you now

And bless you evermore.

May brooks and trees and singing hills

Join in the chorus too,

And every gentle wind that blows

Send happiness to you.

Life is good!

Out with the old . . . In with the new!

Our all-electric house was built in 1984. Beautiful built-in Jenn-Air cook top and oven were installed at that time. When we moved in a year ago we had a repair man come out to fix the downdraft fan on the cook top. There are no parts of that era available to make that repair. Then a couple of months ago one of the burners (of course it would be the one I used most often) started malfunctioning. Researching online proved to us that the downdraft fan system has been installed in many brands of cook tops and the reviews for the Kenmore (Sears) were far better than the new Jenn-Air brand. So we purchased the Kenmore and hired an independent contractor to install it. When he came out to do the installation it was discovered that there wasn't enough power in the house (currently 30 amp) for the modern cook tops so we needed to have the house re-wired with 50 amp. . . which was something we had planned to do any way in order to get power to the shop. Seems like a fairly simple thing to do, right? Well . . . since our house has a high pitched roof it was a bit trickier getting the 2" diameter wire up and over the peak of the roof crawling through the attic . . . what a job! However the job did get done and all is well. I love my new cook top!

This is the old Jenn-Air . . .

The new Kenmore glass/ceramic top . . . cooking with electric has created a whole new learning curve for me having grown up and cooked with gas for nearly fifty years!

Life is good!

Fresh Ciabatta Bread

I wish you could smell my kitchen . . . Ken just took out a beautiful loaf of Ciabatta Bread to take up to Jen's for dinner tonight. It began yesterday when he made the starter which had to sit and develop all night. He added more ingredients to the starter and tossed it into the bread machine which turned it into a beautiful dough. Then the dough was turned out and shaped and then allowed to rise a couple times before baking it in the oven. I know it will be as tasty as it looks. He'll make another one tomorrow because knowing the family up at Simply Country you can bet there will be no leftovers!

P.S. I was right. We just got back from dinner at Simply Country . . . not a crumb left and they all agreed that Ken should bring another loaf next week!

Life is good!