the good doggie

our boxer, giada, won "the good doggie" of the month for september!

we are so proud of her. you can check out her whole interview on being doggie of the month here.

also her birthday is coming up! on september 10th, she will be one year old. she's hoping for new bones and a playdate at nanas with all her doggie friends. maybe we'll see your dog there too!

two little love birds

I always leave my back door open for Giada to run in and out to play. Well, this morning proved it to be not such a good idea. A humming bird (I assume?) flew right in through the door and into my kitchen. It fluttered around a bit with it's mate on the opposite side of window hoping to get out and reunite. Finally, she settled down and perched on my window sill behind my mini kitchen herb garden. I put on my oven mitts, and gently held her until we got outside (where Giada was open to get a fresh meal)

 to let her fly away with her little bird lover! 

Can you see her at the bottom in front of my giraffe measuring spoons?

I took this picture from the outside of my window!

Speaking of my mini herb garden... What is the deal with this?

I got cilantro growing every day, no basil, and two little buds of oregano. Does cilantro typically grow this much faster? Does anyone know?

flowers & seagulls

Last (Valentine's) weekend, my husband and I went down to the coast to enjoy each others company and the warm weather. 

We started in La Jolla and headed on up the coast to Newport. 

first, he pulled off PCH and took me down an off beaten path 

on the way, we saw beautiful purple flowers

then we came to a wood fence that dared us to go further

but, why bother when the view from the fence is this?

then we continued up PCH to newport

and stopped at the Balboa Yacht Club

we hopped on my dads boat (with Giada)

took a relaxing ride through the bay

and pulled the boat up to the Cannery dock 

to have lunch with my parents, yumm!

Giada spent her weekend barking at all the seagulls 

and taking naps on the back of the boat :)

a bright [pink] morning

This morning my mom and i (with giada!) headed over to the shops downtown by the Mission inn to pick up some cupcakes for our valentines. i thought you might like to join us for a 

bright pink and cheerful morning. :)

enter in through the heart shaped door handles

  

where first you find cupcakes displayed on chandeliers

which do you prefer? 

i got romantic raspberry, rockin' red velvet, & precious peppermint!

or if you keep going, maybe you would just like some 

good old fashioned pink candy?

then again, who can say no to so many flavors of fresh white frosting...

of course, i still think starbucks is better than their cappuccinos :)

Casey's Cupcakes & Cappuccinos was created by Casey Reinhardt, daughter of John & Kelly Reinhardt the owners of the Mission Inn.

amazon woman

I love amazon.com, they know exactly what I want. I can't say that for
too many people in my life. I started with just managing my magazine
subscriptions through them, which led to recommendations for uhmazing
books like flea market style, and apartment therapy. just now they
offered me sixteen different magazines for a year for five bucks.
that's a little treat in the mail every month that's wayy cheaper than
my daily latte. I'm obsessed.

in twentyten i will...

...not make a yearlong resolution. 

doing the same thing repetitively drives me absolutely crazy. so the thought of committing to eat healthier/work out more all year makes me want to do the exact opposite. after trying all month to think of any one thing i might want to do for longer than a couple of weeks, i decided to forget all that, and instead choose to do many things at least once this year. so (finally, on January 23rd) here is my list:: 

kiss my husband.
replicate this kitchen (okay fine, this one is a bit of high hoping).

make my own cakestands.

teach giada to not bark when it rains.

use my new le creuset dutch oven to make a yummy meal for my hubby.

make new headbands for my etsy shop.

leave the states, to go here or maybe here.

well, that's it- the only things i am willing to commit to do in the future at this point. if you have any other ideas, let me know :)

meet giada.

The day before Thanksgiving, we got Giada.

She is a 10-week-old boxer. We wanted a guard dog so we checked out a few different breeds of dogs, and then went to meet more puppies. Well, when we met Giada's daddy- I was more scared than I have ever been in my life. Seconds later, I fell in love with Giada. So I knew she would be perfect. Cory was more hesitant, and made me wait and look at others (like labs). But, he liked her the best too. It took us a little while to come up with a name, but we finally settled on Giada (like the Italian cook from the food network). Anyway, we love her so much!