Departure of the Deciduous

I come bearing sad news.  Or, rather, you have arrived to read my sad news.

This weekend we had to say goodbye to one of my favorite things about the house we're renting: our big backyard tree

Our landlord had arranged to have someone trim it over the weekend and when he stopped by after the trimming he realized that 1. the trimmers had butchered the tree (chopped off the top and left the low hanging side branches that were supposed to be removed) and 2. the tree's trunk disease had gotten bad enough that its large branches would like fall and could do some real damage.

So he called us while we were both out on Saturday and let us know it had to go.

I didn't realize how few pictures we have of our backyard until I started looking for them!
Here is one taken the evening we invited our church's youth group over for a bonfire last September.

< The tree covered about 2/3 of our backyard (on the west side of the house) and provided total afternoon shade. We rarely turned on our air conditioner because our house was so well-protected from the sun. I've been looking online to see if I could figure out what kind of a tree it was and it might be some species of oak. Our landlord was apologetic, but there wasn't much we could do about it. I pouted and watched out the window while they cut it down, branch by branch

And then, it was over.

Our kitchen is three times as bright, but I think i would give up my sunlight to have that tree back.

I'm trying to look on the bright side (literally--there much more sunlight in our house, and a chance for grass to grow again) but this morning it looked no less sad and lonely.

I'm not sure anything's going to be done about the stump for a while--does anyone have suggestions about how I could make it a little less ugly? (a pot with a hanging plant?)

Theatre with Jane Gray and Allan

Every summer San Diego has a Summer Shakespeare Festival at the Lowell Davies Theatre in Balboa Park.  It's outdoors!  We saw The Taming of the Shrew earlier in the summer with Eric's family.  Last week we took Allan and Jane Gray to see The Madness of King George III.

It's not a Shakespeare play, but it was set in the same time and place as a book I recently read for my book club (Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire), so I was interested in seeing it.

Then two weeks before we wanted to go, I got an email from the media director for the theater that the tickets had gone down in price to $10 (usually $50, or $20 if you are 30 yrs old or younger).  SO we snatched them up.

After a hectic day with work and school (Jane Gray got a job!), it was nice to take a break and enjoy the show.

Right after this photo we got reprimanded for taking pictures!

We enjoyed walking through the gardens in Balboa park and sipping hot chocolate in the intermission.

Fun night with friends!

In the Kitchen with Katie: the latest

Here is a large photo dump of the food I've been making lately, with a few recipe links:

Blackberry Muffins

Baked Citrus Cod on a bed of roasted tomatoes and potatoes



Peach Crisp


Ryans last meal before going back to college:
Ribs, Corn on the cob, corn muffins, potatoes








Chicken in a gorgonzola sauce



Zucchini Cupcake (shown without cream cheese frosting)



And lastly, some garden produce.
I think my garden got it's second wind.  Suddenly my zucchini and peppers started blooming again this week!

Pizza Night: Girl's Style

A couple of weeks ago, Carly, Dyan, Adrienne and I got together for our monthly-ish girls night. Typically we split up the food prep and drinks and enjoy them at Thomas and Adrienne's house.

This week we decided to try our hands at some homemade, gourmet pizza. Both Eric's dad and a bookclub member have fig trees, so we have an abundant supply this time of year. We picked a recipe that involved figs, and attempted to recreate an herb potato pizza I had at Leucadia Pizzeria in the spring.

I picked up two balls of pre-made pizza dough (wheat and regular) at a market.  

Carly and I tossed and stretched like pros and then set the pizzas on boards covered in cornmeal.

Adrienne started sauteing the potatoes and I carmelized a sliced red onion.


carly spread the oil and we topped



Dyan chopped all the herbs!






And the yummy result:


We ended the night with homemade salted caramel ice cream. delightful.


Here are the recipes we used:
Fig, Onion Goat Cheese
Sage Rosemary Potato

My new friend Jane Gray has had much more time to update her blog, so I'm going to direct you over there to keep up with some more of our July fun.

A Morning at Vista Market
Wine and Cheese Game Night

(if you stop by, makes sure to comment and say hello!)

We went to the Klunder Reunion in Colorado a couple weeks ago, and you can check out our photos of it here:
http://flickr.com/gp/41305990@N06/1mE0Jw


As of yesterday Eric completed his summer-long internship in Chino.  While the busyness doesn't seem to stop, we're relieved to have completed the internship and to get back into our normal schedule when school starts up.

But these next two weeks are some of my busiest at work (WSC has their biggest incoming masters class in 30 years!), and Eric is preparing to preach at a church in LA this Sunday, and speak a youth group conference in Big Bear over Labor Day weekend.

Also, we have a roommate moving into our garage apartment before school this year.  He's one of Eric's friends from school and since he spends every weekend up in LA, I think it will be an easy transition for us.

Can hardly believe September is a week away!

Summer Update: Anniversary

It's been one month since my last post so I couldn't wait a day longer.  Next month i'll have a lot more interesting things to post about!

Eric is over halfway through his summer internship which takes him away 4 days and 2 nights per week.

I'll try to update everyone one what else has been keep us occupied this summer.

We went away for a weekend for our 1st anniversary

What a difference a year makes (not much)
Happy as ever!

we stayed here:

in this room:

Swam in this pool:

and relaxed...

for not nearly long enough.

It was roasting hot, but we hiked to a waterfall and soothed our tired toes.

We toasted our anniversary with some Chianti from the Chianti region in Italy.  The last of our 'souvenirs' from the honeymoon!

Garden: weeks 6-9

Ok, ok, so I don't write very often, and all I can think about is my garden.

But here is an update!

The cucs and zucs started exploding.  I harvested my first cucmber waaaay too late it was terrible.

But at least it was big & beautiful!

(about a week and a half later...)

pepper plants are flowering, but still getting eaten!  It's frustrating because I can't find a single bug!

tomatoes are growing!

Because we have a bunny problem (we even found the rear half of a bunny in our yard the other day--gross!!  I have no idea how it got there, or where it's front half went!), we decided to put up a rabbit fence.  No digging underneath it yet, so I'll feel more comfortable when I plant broccoli, cauliflower and lettuce later in the year)

I don't know if the flower eating has been bunnies or bugs

any ideas on what to do with this?