While we were happy to see a couple eagles, the highlight of the walk was viewing a Red-Tailed Hawk only 8-10 feet from us.  He had caught a squirrel (not pictured here, no need to look away) so when we walked by he was reluctant to leave and instead gave me wonderful photo opportunities.

Thanks to my mom for letting me borrow the long lens, but then I hardly even needed it with the hawk so close.

Can you tell I like Christmas cookies?

And here are some New Year’s Eve trials

I was playing with the focus which is all new to me coming from point and shoot.  The first one, above, I focused on the back glass — it looks horrible, but is a fun contrast to the second one, below, where I focused on the front glass instead.

Ahh, better.  Here are some nice evening scenes that helped me play with the ISO, even though I’m not completely sure what that is yet.  Pretty, though, right?

And now you have experienced the beginning of my journey of learning to use my new camera!  But first, I need a camera bag — any suggestions?

We ended 2010 with a nice 1 ½ week “Christmas break,” reminiscent of our school days.  We enjoyed spending lots of time with family, seeing old friends, celebrating special events, and not having to be anywhere at any specific time (well, unless food was being served we wouldn’t miss that).

We started the trip a little earlier than planned in order to beat a storm, but it gave us a nice chance to spend extra time with my Grandma, make cookies with NGHubby’s family, and finish our Christmas present wrapping.  The “official” holiday celebrations began with church, music, and oyster stew on Christmas Eve.  NGHubby, who some people call Adam, has an amazing way of putting babies to sleep – I like to tease him that he’s just boring, but it’s probably his loving, caring blah blah blah

Soon after, we were all tucked in for the night to prepare to start early Christmas morning with stockings and presents with my family…

and then headed over for a day of festivities with NGHubby’s family.

We enjoyed Christmas dinner, Christmas presents, Christmas reading time…

and Christmas tormenting the nephew.

Don’t worry, he’s still happy.

The large-scale family fun spilled over into Sunday as we celebrated the baptism of our newest niece.

Again, babies just love Adam.

I appreciated our personal time, but clearly she is just looking for Uncle Adam

Meanwhile, he was having fun in the sing-a-long.

The fun continued all week with reunions with friends, fun with family, and more scrabble games for NGHubby than one can count without taking off shoes.

Luckily, just before it was time for us to head home, the temperatures took a downward turn so we didn’t feel bad getting in the car to head south.  Thanks to all for a  fun-filled week, and sorry to any we were not able to catch during our Christmas marathon.

I started by mushing up some avocados in a bowl.  I then squeezed the juice of an entire lime all over the avocados and mushed it up more to distribute the juice throughout.  I then diced up a jalapeno and added the entire thing (minus the stem, I hope that’s not even a question ) to the bowl.  I actually started with just the outsides of the jalapeno, but through the “tinkering” process ended up gradually dumping in the whole shebang — seeds and all.  Next a teensy bit of salt, cumin and cayenne.  Finally, some minced garlic and plenty of cilantro.  NGHubby and I are big time cilantro fans, so I put in WAY more than the recommended 1 tablespoon — isn’t that the freedom of cooking anyway?  Like the salsa, there should probably be onion in there…if you’re into that kind of thing.

Here’s the ingredient list.  Now go forth and conquer.

Guacamole from Scratch

• 3 Haas avocados, halved, seeded and peeled
• 1 lime, juiced
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 medium onion, diced
• 2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
• 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
• 1 clove garlic, minced

Recipe adapted from Food Network, Alton Brown

Coming next: NGHubby’s bacon-wrapped jalapenos

Salsa from Scratch

• 3 roma tomatoes, diced
• 1 jalapeño, diced – Include seeds proportionate to how hot you can handle your salsa.  I used about half of the seeds from the jalapeno
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped
• Juice of 1 lime
• Dash of cumin
• Dash of salt
• Dash of sugar
• Normal people would also include some onion – maybe 1/2 of an onion.  That’s if you, unlike me, don’t have anybody in your household deathly afraid of onions.

Chop the tomatoes and jalapeno (and onions, if you choose) and throw it all into a food processor or blender.  Pulse until the tomatoes are close to the consistency you want — I was going for restaurant type consistency, so you want to be careful not to over-pulse.  Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse just enough to integrate everything.  Finally, pour it all into a pretty bowl and serve with some nice chips.  Or eat it all right there before anyone else arrives.  Whatever suits your fancy.

Now for my next problem – what to do with the other 34 jalapenos left in the bag?  We have eaten jalapenos in and on just about everything this last week.  So I’ll give you a few more great jalapeno recipes as soon as I can replicate them.

Hasta luego!

Now, with digital photography completely taking over, we can take as many pictures as our hearts’ desire with no regard to “waste.”  We see the photo immediately on the camera, and take another and another, as many as those ever-increasingly-sized memory cards will hold.  When we feel like it, we upload/email/sync the photos to our computer.  And then what?  We can email the photos, post them on blog, share on Facebook, and on and on.  But what about those prints and albums we used to set on the shelf and pull out when the grandparents came to visit? That’s the exact question I’ve been debating.  For quite a while, I tried going totally digital and not buying prints or albums.  After two years, though, I realized that I never looked back at those photos on my computer, and missed just pulling out an album to look back through the great memories it holds.  Well, last week I ordered some 300+ prints from events over the last two years.  So, the sentimental me who likes to pull out a photo album to browse occasionally won over the practical me who thinks about the 9 cent per photo cost and about packing those albums next time we move.  I’m sure I’ll have the same debate next year   What do you think on the prints vs. digital debate?  Have you gone completely digital, or do you cling to the album of prints?

Here’s an idea for somewhere in the middle — use photos as your home decor.  It’s personal and a whole lot cheaper than art – so it fits both the sentimental and practical sides.  I created this wall collage from photos NGHubby and I have taken in our travels.

We also use family photos in our decor, from our wedding pictures to this frame — perfectly made for those of us with nine siblings

How do you use your photos?  I’d love to hear your ideas.

The only variation I made to this recipe was to substitute regular ginger ale for cranberry ginger ale.  That was no scientific substitution, simply because the grocery store where I was shopping didn’t have cranberry ginger ale and I wasn’t about to go ’round town hunting it down.  I’m really not sure what that changed in the taste except, I suppose, making it less cranberry-y, but I thought it was plenty cranberry-y for me.  Also, beware of the can sizes when you’re shopping because what I would call the “regular” frozen concentrate cans are 12-ounces, not 6.  Now don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Pink and Bubbly Punch

• 2  6-ounce cans frozen pink lemonade concentrate
• 1  6-ounce can frozen pineapple juice concentrate
• 1 gallon cranberry juice
• 2 liters cranberry ginger ale
• 4 cups crushed ice

In a large punch bowl, mix lemonade concentrate, pineapple juice concentrate, and cranberry juice.  Add ice and slowly pour in the ginger ale.

Here’s a nice one of my sister, our mom, and our grandma…



We had a big group of female family members, ranging in age from 12 to 86.  Possibly the most praised part of the shower were the activities.  It was important to me to have some activities that were a little different from the normal shower games, were group-oriented, and would be fun for all ages.

We started, as people arrived and mingled, by taking small groups at a time to the garage for a little creative activity.  I bought a whole bunch of white onesies ranging in sizes for the entire first year of the baby’s life.  I then provided fabric markers and paint for each guest to paint a onesie with whatever she desired.  This was a fun activity, and also made for a great present for the future-mom to take home.

Before the shower I had some of the kids decorate as well.

Our second activity was a baby animal game that I found online.  I prepared sheets with a list of the names of animals, and each team had to write the name of the baby of each animal (i.e. sheep –> lamb).  The guest of honor with our Grandma and sister sure were serious competitors…

It turned into a very competitive game — check out these cheaters who found a Mammal book sitting around…

This team won in the end, correctly answering 36 of 44 – it wasn’t as easy as it sounds!  Check out how serious they were…

Because we had such a wide range of ages and people from different sides of the family, I had a mini-activity to determine the pairs for the game.  My mom had little two-piece Sesame Street puzzles which we put into a basket and allowed each person to pick one piece.  After everyone had a piece, they all were tasked with finding the person with the other half of the puzzle.  This really mixed people up and served as kind of an ice breaker.

After eating, we played the final activity — Baby Family Feud.  For this game, I created a big magnetic board  (I used magnetic paint, but there are probably many better ways because that was not easy).  If you’re familiar with family feud, it’s exactly that.  If you’re not, check out the Game Show Network.  Seriously, though, people are divided into teams (two on the show, four for our large group), I ask a question like “Name a popular nursery rhyme,” and people guess what would be the most popular answer.  There were more details, but you get the idea.  It can be modified to fit any group size or any topic other than baby.  It got a little loud and wild, but not many games in my family don’t.  It was a fun time!

We finished with the obligatory present opening, and then everyone left to go home for a nap.  Not really, I assume, but it was a fun (and tiring) baby shower!

And her monstrous tomato plants…

And these next photos are, in her words, “the reason we don’t have a real garden.”

What a cute fawn!  I’m thinking it’s worth the trade-off.

This is a Peruvian Lily (or daffodil, we’ve found conflicting reports) that I actually gave Lois a few years ago.  I just love how fragile they look.

And here is Lois’ cute flower garden setup.  Recognize those cannas?  Lois provided all of my canna lily bulbs from their “siblings” in her garden.  In front of the cannas are her Peruvian Lilies, Gladiolus from Denmark, and snap dragons adding some color in the front.  How creative!

Have photos of your own to show?  Leave your website in a comment, or email your photos to clarissa@nextgenerationhousewife.com.