Entries Tagged 'Urban family' ↓

The Orange Sister sent me a photo today of her new puppy – so cute! And smaller than a Mac Book! Name to be confirmed but Stella is the fav so far. Can’t wait for a pat in a couple of weeks.

Our first San Francisco Christmas (but not our first one overseas because we were in Washington DC a few years ago) has been great. As much as we’re supposed to miss family and friends and all things New Zealand it was good to have a day of just us doing what we want – even did some washing (Steph would be proud!).

We spend much of Christmas eve on Skype to friends and family – actually a really nice Christmas eve thing to do. The Mister is still hacking and coughing and getting over his ChristmasManFlu but we went for a quick walk outside to get a coffee.

And cooked our traditional Christmas Eve feast – this year spinach lasagne.

On Christmas day:

The Mister got his pancakes

We opened presents next to our little tree

We made and took some little ricotta and tomato tarts out to Bev & Dan’s where we feasted with their friends on lots of meat and Kiwi puddings!

We drove through their neighborhood on our way back to the freeway and saw quite a lot of decorated front yards – this was one pretty spectacular.

Knowing how I like Christmas, Bev invited us out to their place this weekend to go Christmas tree shopping and trimming with them. We didn’t go out to a Christmas tree farm but to a big lot next to a Costco – just like on the movies! The pine smell was amazing when we got out of the car in a giant parking lot outside the supermarket and there were so many tied up trees to choose from. He took a bit of a risk getting me to choose – no idea what would fit into their house or what the tree would look like when untied – bit of a gamble picking which one so I just went for one that was huggable.

At a supermarket as giant as Costco the tree just got chucked into the shopping cart with everything else and wheeled through the checkout!

It only just fit into their house and after vacuuming all the dead needles out of it and cutting off the string (yes it exploded into The Mister’s face when the tight string was released!) it was onto decorating it. Apparently it is rather more giant than the ones they’ve had in previous years and I’m not living that down quickly!

This year’s dinner was a lot smaller than our previous 5, only having 3 people in attendance but this time it was so much more real being here in the States! Of course we missed our New Zealand urban family but it was very cool shopping in Wholefoods and seeing all the Thanksgiving stuff and the whole country having a long weekend off centered around women in the kitchen and men on the couch … yes The Mister turned on the football just to live the real experience! Plus it was cold outside so it was lovely family time inside.

We invited Kara over at this important family time when she was so far away from hers so I was a bit nervous about how genuine our feast would be! Instead of a whole turkey for 3 we got a breast and stuffed it like Bev did a few years ago at Christmas and it turned out OK although the stuffing was more under the skin than making a nice ripple pattern through the middle!

The usual menu – but it impressed Kara

Thanksgiving Dinner 2011
Roast turkey breast stuffed with cranberry wild rice
Homemade cranberry sauce
Kumara & orange gratin
Coleslaw
Apple pie & cream

Look Mother – Brussels sprouts!!

Cooked for Cousin Grant on Sunday night (no sprouts!) – I felt so tiny next to his giant oven! Kumara, bacon & feta salad went down a treat!

It was our new friend Kara’s birthday over Halloween weekend and Sara was in town so we decided to host a birthday dinner and get these North American friends to guide us in carving our pumpkin … wasn’t sure I would right up until the last minute because it was still perfectly round and orange and I couldn’t bear the thought of cutting into it. But we did. We had a ridiculous little plastic pumpkin carving set on the front of a kids’ Halloween stencil book – something Jif had suggested and I thought might be safer than wielding the big kitchen knives – turns out that while it was quite hard work and required a fair amount of sawing that the vicious little jagged blade on the knife was way more effective than a kitchen knife. We took it in turns but The Mister did most of it under the guidance of the experienced girls while I prepared a very orange dinner – kumara, feta & bacon salad (with the orange cherry tomatoes) and carrot cake.

The pumpkin turned out great and looked awesome glowing out on our deck.

I forgot I’d written down a list of things about my mother which I unearthed when we were packing up to move. When she turned 60 and had a big party at the local hall with friends and family we drove up and some part of me wondered if I’d get over my fear of speaking in front of people enough to say a few words, tell a few funny stories. As it happened my nerves couldn’t handle it and her friends had gone to a lot of trouble to put on a locally inspired opera so there was enough to see without me stuttering and stammering.

I never told her I wrote all this down – she’ll chuckle and probably be very embarrassed to read it! Just a random collection of things she’s done, can do and some random memories.

My mum:

• can pot – at some stage in my childhood she had a potting wheel and made lots of very good things, perfectly round and symmetrical although I seem to recall they never got fired so they dried into the most delicate of muds in the garage and Dad grumbled having to move them between a couple of houses.
• can fly a plane
• made lots and lots and lots of chocolate eclairs for birthdays, dinner parties, take-a-plates, school fairs, family treat and she still makes them now from time to time
• was a wild lady from the lupins once – my sister and I (probably about 7 and 9 (probably the last time I wore togs)) were building sand castles on the firm sand at the beach and Mum was doing what she loved best at the beach which was lying basking in the sun, on this occasion fairly hidden in the sand dunes. There was hardly anyone else about. The sand castles that we’d built were perfect and we were building roads to join them together in a castle town when a couple of naughty boys who’d wandered along the beach came up to us and said “stupid girls with stupid sand castles” and stomped all over all of them with their feet laughing – I can’t recall which of us, or perhaps both, burst into tears, loud enough for Mum to hear – next minute she came tearing out of the dunes through the lupins shrieking and waving her fist at the boys “get away you horrible boys – leave those girls alone – how would you like it if we smashed things you made?”. Her hair was all over the place, she’d been asleep, she was a bit pink, she was screaming – a sight that scared them away. But she saved us
• has run/walked a few half marathons – all of them when she was over 50
• is an amazing cook – I remember a lot of dinner parties at our house in Woodlands Road. For birthdays she always made our faves, and would now were we ever at their house on our birthdays – roast chicken and lemon meringue pie for me, pork chops and berry cheesecake for my sister, sausage casserole and golden steamed pudding for Dad.
• can run a high school single-handedly
• made me some amazing birthday cakes – ones I remember most are a piano (with while chocolate and licorice keys) and a pink fairly castle (the cake tins she used for the turrets were cans from tinned goods, peaches she told us, but I’m sure they were from  the cats jellimeat, not because of any bad taste in the cake but because Mum never had tinned peaches or other fruit, she bottled everything!
• would never give us luncheon and tomato sauce white bread sandwiches for our school lunches – oh no, always brown bread with left over cold roast meat and salad … usually had to find my school friend Natalie to switch for her luncheon sandwich and loved staying at her house on school nights because that’s what her Mum put in my lunch box! Kids just don’t appreciate the good ground work their parents put in – I’m sure my good teeth, nails, hair, weight and constitution are due to a decent helping of brown bread in my childhood diet!
• was very VERY mad with me when I ran away to Joanne Brown’s house on the orange school bus. I wasn’t actually running away from home. I don’t recall being angry or upset or particularly rebellious, I just wanted to go visit. I should’ve got suspicious when I got on the bus at the lady driver asked me if my mother knew I was going on the bus (small town, small bus, she knew every kid and I was a spare) “Oh yes, I’m going to visit with Joanne” … yes Joanne was there so the explanation was plausible. Got to Joanne’s house where I was greeted with a similar question “No, but Joanne invited me to your house.” Obviously Mrs Brown phoned my mother, I stayed and played for a while, then was driven home later. A rather frosty reception from my mother who questioned me repeatedly “do you know how worried I was?” with my sister looking smugly on, usually it was her that was in trouble. I was sent to my room and told “wait until your father gets home’. Hmmmm, I recall that dark night, he was home way after I’d gone to bed and sleep but the light when on, I was hauled out of bed, given a big explanation about how worried my mother had been and to never ever go anywhere without telling her again and I think that was the last time I got the wooden spoon … when the last of the decorative fruit got whacked off I’m still scared of buses to this day …
• once sprayed fly spray on her hair instead of hair spray
• loves to dance and her and dad are great dancers together and sometimes, even fairly recently, well, certainly on The Mister’s first night with the family, we dance as a family to Boney M – crazy laughing arms-out-whirling family. (He just watched. And yes he still married me.)
• can smell berries, plums, pepper, spices and all sorts of things in wine.
• once left the car keys in the house when we were late for school and shouted out to me as she was rushing back in to the house  “you back the car out while I go and get the keys”!
• has been married for 38 years (at the time I originally wrote this)
• has worked her whole life, although as home after school for us and now wants to travel the world.

Feels like a bit of an abrupt end to the list, but had I actually made it into a speech I’m sure it would’ve had a more planned out ending.

Life is speeding by when your niece is wearing your clothes (no not the shorts!) – my fav New York t-shirt that became just a little too snug for my liking after it got washed a couple of times.

Emily came to stay for a week while on a conference. Keith arrived later in the week for a night. It was so great to see them. We don’t know Emily very well but Keith is a long-time friend so we offered for her to treat us like a hotel while she was in town for her conference. She arrived on the doorstep with a kilo of Supreme beans – we welcomed her with open arms!

When Keith arrived I showed him some good coffee – we hung out at Blue Bottle Mint for a while and got to watch the full siphon process a couple of times. Funny watching all the tourists in there. Emily organised a tour of Lucasfilm for us – The Mister was particularly excited to see posters and backing images for a lot of the films we’ve seen and to get up close to a stormtrooper and R2D2.

We had a great dinner at The Presido Social Club – a cool wooden-floored space in what could’ve been an old lawn bowling club with tables for 4 along the window. We had a bottle of champagne and I had macaroni cheese.

We dropped the off at the bus on Friday night to continue their trip through the States.