Tying Up Some Loose Ends.

Remember this post from New Year, where I said my New Year's resolution was to blog more?

Yeah. Utter failure.

And remember when I promised over and over and over that I'd post some pictures of our place?

Yeah. That didn't happen either.

I am back to remedy both of those situations.

So here's a big WELCOME BACK from me, to myself. There are a lot of things that have happened in the time I've been blog-hibernating, and some thoughts on life that I'd like to get written down, so here goes New Year's Resolution: Take Two.

And here are some fabulously blurry pictures of the past three-ish months of our life!

I'll start with a couple pics of our place, since you've been waiting so long:

Our living room. Much more "us" than it would be if it was centered around a tv.

Our kitchen, on one of its cleaner days.

Our dining area, aka the other half of the kitchen?

Sorry folks, no pics of our bedroom or our office. Both are consistently messy and mostly undecorated (still! I know. We somehow lost all our thumbtacks in the move and didn't get around to buying new ones till like... a week ago) so you will probably have to come visit if you want to see them!

MISC PICTURES FROM FEBRUARY [Holy crap. I haven't blogged since February.]

Valentine's Day:

This is what I came home to at lunch on Valentine's Day!

Steve shucked those oysters himself. And put together the centerpiece flower arrangement.

AVENUE OF THE GIANTS, Humboldt County, CA

Eel River(?)

The view from above. 

 This is where the pictures start getting blurry, because I changed the setting on the camera to something that required the camera to be held very, very, VERY still.....

That is a tall tree. A very, very tall tree.

Between me, Billy, and my brother, we could reach maybe a third of  the way around the tree?

Party tree! The couple in the middle are my old friend Adrienne and her husband Evan, who  we were visiting in Humboldt.

The boys atop a fallen tree.

That is a redwood that had fallen over. For scaling purposes, keep in mind that my brother, standing on the ground right next to the tree, is a little over six feet tall.

A creek we found. I mostly posted this picture because Billy looks adorable in my jacket.

MARCH:

We basically didn't do anything exciting in February due to MY FIRST TAX SEASON aka I did not have a single day off work in the month of March.

APRIL:

As a celebratory MY-FIRST-WEEKEND-OFF-IN-TWO-MONTHS!!!, we met up with a bunch of our college friends in Santa Barbara for a mini-reunion and some hiking and avocado picking and other typical shenanigans. Steve and I took the train down rather than driving - and that train ride was like 17 hours long. Each way. But it was also kind of refreshing to travel around with just a backpack once more....

The view from the beginning of our hike.

Don't know if you can see it, but Iris has a big fancy camera - I took this picture as proof she was there, because she normally doesn't have any pictures of herself from our adventures.

We got lost on our hike, and asked some random guys for directions to Seven Falls (which, incidentally, were all dried up by the time we got there - 3 hours later) and they told us to continue on the trail we were walking on until we came to Pride Rock... We were pretty stoked to hear that other people use Disney references to describe landmarks besides us.

Steve and Blonde Matt helping me down a boulder. I was certain I was going to die. Thank goodness I had tall, strong, handsome blonde men to save me.

I was clinging like a barnacle to that rock.

Steve and Jane atop Pride Rock, SB version

Blonde Matt's and my feet..... You really can't tell from this picture how effing far down it was from the rock we were sitting on to the bottom of the canyon.

Carolyn, the dust from our hike washed off and adequately prepared for avocado picking.

Jane basically lives in the avocado grove. 

FOOD AND OTHER THINGS:

Carne asada tacos

Trying our hand at kalbi [Korean shirt ribs]

I guess the Deutschland jacket takes away from me pretending to be Asian?

Steve's glorious cheese pizza

Spanish sweet rolls... I forget what they're called. But Steve made them. From scratch.

Getting ready for some BEZZERWIZZER!!! [A fair warning to everyone out there: don't play trivia games with us unless you are a serious trivia game fanatic. Because that's what we are, and we will beat you every time.]

Korea Steve came for a visit!!!! :D

I love coming home to lunch already made.

Homemade turkey meatballs, courtesy of Steve.

Vegetable curry.

Some of Steve's fantastic french bread.

Homemade pretzels. Steve made the pretzels from scratch, and I stole a bite before taking a picture so it would look like a heart. Awwwww.

Steve's family's traditional Valentine's day cookie. This is a cake pan, so this cookie is much bigger than it looks.

Bacon, balsamic, and brussel sprouts. A winning combination.

Swiss chard pasta, courtesy of my dad's garden, and a pineapple-zubrowka martini.

Plantain empanadas - my mom's recipe.

Billy misses having his picture taken all the time. What a ham.

Multigrain pancakes (mix courtesy of the local flour mill) with strawberries & yogurt. And breakfast sausage. 

Bay scallop salsa-viche.

Just another day of lunch waiting for me at home.

Whew. I'm worn out and all I posted was a bunch of pictures!

But it's a good start, right? :P