Home!

We are home.

Our honeymoon was exactly the proper length and entirely wonderful - full of adventures, book-reading, roughing it, luxuriating, walking, seeing scenes, drinking wine in Napa, drinking beer around campfires, eating amazing food, hiking, biking and more.

I promise to share many, many details and photos - especially if you have any wish to visit California and make a trip along the coast. I think we did it up right.

For now, we are unpacking. Some highlights...

• Four bottles of wine and one non-wine bottle all survived a long plane ride and taxi ride in checked luggage.
• Two wine glasses and two sparkling wine flutes also survived to tell the tale.
  
• B is certain that he can smell campfire on clothes still. He's probably right. Campfires are awesome but infectious.
• Two happy kitties welcomed us home - bravo to the amazing Debo for taking care of them while we took off during the hottest weeks of August.
• My strong runner/walker/biker legs learned thing or two about hills in the beautiful but astounding San Francisco.
• When we landed we were excited to receive word that our wedding photos are available for review online. What a treat!
• Tomorrow we will say a sad goodbye to Big Red Suitcase, whose handle stopped moving up (so you could us it without being really bothered by it) on our first day of vacation. We will also finish the unpacking that we started tomorrow. And NOT eat at a restaurant. Weird what we get to appreciate, no?
  
• Someone left cold beer, cold Diet Coke and easy eats for us at home! Hint: It was me! Hooray for this miraculous situation!

This photo is me in our perfect hammock, a gift from our friends who a true appreciators of things like hammocks. We set this up at our campsite near Big Sur, next to a babbling brook and enjoyed the most relaxing day ever.

Produce - Michigan v. California

Our farm share is from Michigan. And it's amazing. We love it. B has even come to love zucchini cakes (really zucchini hash browns - zucchini matchsticks with egg, flower and spices, grilled with a little olive oil - yummy) and roasted tomatoes with white beans.

Since B got his PICC line out on Monday he's realized how easy he's been on himself - lots of crap to eat, no gym visits, no biking and lots of naps. So I'm trying to help him get back on track.

In California we'll get to eat lots of really fresh produce - avocados for one. I'm sure we'll try some In-And-Out Burger fare, but I think California might be just the place to fall back in love with fruits and veggies, no?

Clearing out, off to California!

On Saturday we head west for our California roadtrip honeymoon.

Suffice to say we need to get away - B's primary care physician actually told him to get out of town and stay away from doctors for awhile. I'm ready for an adventure! Before we leave we have to deal with quite a bit of food in our fridge. Here's the plan:

• Dinner tonight - white, purple, red & green peppers from our farm share grilled with sausage. We'll add some goat cheese and some of the hot peppers from the farm share too, and drink some pinot grigio as well. Yum. This'll use a lot of our produce - the stuff that really, really won't wait patiently while we're in California.
• Blueberry smoothie to use the yogurt. Either today or tomorrow.
• Important stuff like beer, diet coke, and cheese will stay to nourish the kind people helping feed the cats.
• On the top shelf you can see some of my favorite things - lemonade and wedding cake. This is a small amount of the wedding cake we had leftover and hopefully there's just enough to please all the people visiting the cats and B and I before we leave. Yum! Seriously - Dinkels' cake is still good 12 days after. Still delicious.
• Sadly my baked good triumphs - apple pie and zucchini bread - are probably on the way out.

Tomorrow night we go to the Chicago Art Institute for B's summer work party - fancy and fantastic!