What a weekend!

My friend Erin just shared the above photo with me and it definitely made my day! She captured the picture at Ranch 99 and for some reason it reminded her of me. :) I can't believe there is a house wife soy sauce! I wonder if it tastes different from normal soy sauce? I suppose it must be the brand most trusted by housewives. 

This weekend was quite exciting. I spent Saturday afternoon in the kitchen getting ready for a dinner party we were having with our friends Allen and Beth. I had planned to start dinner around 3pm but at 2:30 I was inspired to mop the hardwood floors, which I have been putting off for weeks. I figured as long as I was feeling up to it I had better do it right then before the inspiration wore off. :) 

The mopping caused me to start dinner a little late and that, combined with the fact that I decided to bake a 3 layer cake at the last minute (with 2 different types of frosting), meant that dinner was a bit late. Allen and Beth didn't seem to mind too much though and the meal turned out very well (although the kitchen was a complete disaster!). 

For dinner I made Cod with Coconut, Lime, and Lemongrass Curry Sauce, with bok choy, rice, and a salad on the side. For dessert we had the 3 layer white cake (sadly I didn't capture a photo) with chocolate and cream cheese frosting along with ice cream and strawberries. We also fit in 3 games of spades after dinner which was fabulous! We haven't played in quite awhile and it was so fun! 

Sunday morning we were still groggy but we got up early in order to make it over to Santa Cruz to meet up with my good friend Nicola and her parents who were visiting from Washington. We went to church with them and then we all headed down to Big Sur for the afternoon. 

It was so fun to see them and it is always such a treat to visit the coast. We even managed to hike down to the beach where we saw 2 condors feeding on a dead seal or sea otter (we didn't get close enough to find out for sure) and 2 (live) sea otters swimming, playing, and eating very close to shore. It was amazing to see so much wild life so close by. I just wish I had had my camera with me! 

After a few hours on the shore, we bid goodbye to Nicola and her family and headed back up to San Jose where we met up with Woodley's parents and his cousin who was visiting from Montreal. It was so nice to get to spend some time with her! After a quick dinner we hopped in the car once more and headed up to Palo Alto to the Stanford Theater where we watched, "The Quiet Man," starring John Wayne. See the original trailer below:

That was the third time I had seen "The Quiet Man" and I think I like it more each time. I'm not 100% sure though. It was produced in 1952, won 2 Oscars and features John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. Since it is set in Ireland, there is lots of lovely scenery including many stone walls and some cute flocks of sheep. 

Overall, it is a touching love story about an American who returns to Ireland and falls in love with a local girl. It is very interesting to see the dynamics between the couple which are sometimes quite rough - she has an intense temper and he isn't afraid of using his physical strength to show her he means business. There's one famous scene where John Wayne practically drags Maureen O'Harra across a field (you see a bit of it in the preview above). Although it seems quite brutal at times, the rough love actually seems to bring the main characters together and they end up very happy together. I suppose it was a different time and a different place but after watching it I can't help feeling glad that things are a bit different now. I don't think I would like being dragged across a field like that one bit and I'm sure Woodley wouldn't like it if I had a temper like that of Mary Kate Danaher (the character O'Harra plays). 

On a different note, last Thursday I finished transplanting the seedlings I started in the peat containers a couple of months ago. 

They had gotten quite big and the roots were starting to grow out of the peat bundles. 

I decided to plant the 3 cherry tomato plants in their own big pots with 3 basil surrounding each tomato plant. The herbs and cosmos that were left, I planted in 4 smaller pots. 

When I was finished they looked quite nice lined up along the driveway. So far they seem to be doing well and I really think they enjoy being out in the sunshine and rain now. I'm looking forward to using them in the kitchen once they have grown up a bit more. :)

~ElizabethRose