Tonight I made gingersnap cookies [...]]]> Thanksgiving is only a few days away! It’s all I can do to keep my mind on work during the day instead of dreaming about the delicious dinner we’ve got planned. Not to mention all the baking we’ll be doing in the next month. Oh man, oh man, oh man.

Tonight I made gingersnap cookies for the first time. Half of them are to eat and half of them are for our Thanksgiving dinner pumpkin pie crust. I didn’t think I liked gingersnaps but these were so good! I got the recipe here: Grandma’s Gingersnap Cookies. I read somewhere that the holidays don’t officially begin in a home until there are gingersnaps baking… they may be right!

Growing up in Minnesota, I’ve always equated Christmas with freezing cold weather. Freezing cold weather usually means you don’t see flowers in the ground. You see snow as you are running from the heat of your vehicle to the heat of the house. Well, the weather is quite a bit [...]]]>

Growing up in Minnesota, I’ve always equated Christmas with freezing cold weather. Freezing cold weather usually means you don’t see flowers in the ground. You see snow as you are running from the heat of your vehicle to the heat of the house. Well, the weather is quite a bit different here in California. These folks plant poinsettia’s in the ground. The first time I saw it, I was certain that they were fake, but they weren’t. Every time we walked around Old Pasadena, I kept doing double takes as we walked by them. It was seriously freaking me out! It is beautiful, for the record, and quite festive.

I took this picture the day after Christmas when we stopped at Dana Point for lunch. I loved that they planted the poinsettia’s in the regular beds with all the rest of the plants. I suppose they will pull them all up and toss them now that the holidays are over. The thought doesn’t really bother me because our poinsettia’s never lasted that long anyway. Are they known to be hard to care for? They remind me of Boston ferns, I kill them every time.

Definitely one of the highlights of living here are all the plants. My goal is to learn more about how to grow things here… the climate and soil is completely different than anywhere I’ve ever lived. There are so many beautiful areas with lush landscaping. It sometimes feels like the whole town is an arboretum. I love it!

Apart from missing my family at random moments, [...]]]> The holidays are officially over in the Lloyd household. My mom-in-law flew back to Colorado this morning, having stayed with us since Thanksgiving. It was great to have her but our place really shouldn’t house more than two people for very long. It’s tight up in here!

Apart from missing my family at random moments, all went well. We spent Thanksgiving at our house in Pasadena and Christmas at Matt’s brother’s place in Encinitas. Both main meals were delicious. We tried new recipes for almost every dish and, thanks be to Martha Stewart, they all turned out. Ha.

Going to the beach on Christmas Day was a highlight of my life. I’m being serious. There is definitely a place for snow (mountain caps in the distance comes to mind!) but I’m perfectly content with our lack of seasons here in Southern California. I mean it. Blue skies and warm temperatures have yet to get old. I feel like I’m on vacation, like it’s too good to be true! Cabin fever was never my friend and I’m glad that I won’t have to experience it here. We had chilly weather for a week-ish but our landlady loaned us a space heater and it kept us basically warm. Oh, that cold spell was pre-Christmas. Christmas Day was beautiful.

Matt and I didn’t stay up to usher in the New Year because we went to the Tournament of the Roses Parade in the morning. My family watched it every year growing up, so I was pretty excited when I found out the parade route comes within a mile of our house. We bought tickets for the bleachers (you can also sit on the side for free but people camp out two days beforehand for the best spots) and had a great time. At some point I’d like to sit over near the cameras though, where everyone starts out because we were close to the end of the route and everyone was tired by the time they got to us. Several bands weren’t playing anything, they were just marching. Really the only person that I saw that was still grinning and waving his little heart out was Jackie Chan on the Shanghai float. Haha. It was awesome!

Now that the holidays are over, we can return to our normal routine. Me- working, Matt- studying. We have hopes and plans for this year but I have yet to document them. We are still discussing a bunch of options, actually. I’m excited to see what this year brings though. 2010 seems so futuristic!