Celebrity Sightings from last night...

Dyan Cannon, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, David Beckham and Penny Marshall.

Jack was nowhere to be found...and I know we would have seen him if he was there because we were right up on the floor and the court is way smaller than it looks on TV, so you can clearly see everyone there. I'm bummed...I was looking forward to watching Jack jump up and down, yell at the refs for bad calls, etc...
It was a really exciting game. I didn't think I'd like it, but when you're that close, it's hard not to get into it. The action is pretty much non-stop!

Back to L.A. again...

Tonight we are going to the Lakers game at the Staples center. Pretty exciting stuff even though I don't care for basketball one bit. Nah, for me, the excitement is in the celebrity-spotting potential!
I almost scrapped our plans since Lola was throwing up last night, but she does seem so much better today and she was just outside flying a kite with daddy a few minutes ago, looking cheerful as can be. Plus, our friends have had these tickets for months...they are floor courtside seats worth more than a couple of hundred bucks a piece. They were given to my friend's husband by some company that is shmoozing him.

So! Wish me luck oggling celebrities! Oh and...er...go lakers!

Catching up...

I'm just posting because it's been so long, but I don't feel like I have that much to say, really. Sorry! I'm lame.
I've been really busy trying to take care of a bunch of loose ends here at home so I was really stressed out yesterday. My friend was so kind and took Lola to the beach to play with her daughter and some other friends. That helped a lot! I've procrastinated on some stuff and now it's just gotta get done and off my mind, you know?
Anyhoooo....I did make a remarkable discovery tonight. After scrapping my dinner at the last minute for yuckiness, I looked around in the cupboards for something else to pull together. Well, I had bought these little pouches from Trader Joe's that looked interesting. One was an Indian chickpea dinner and the other was a pouch of precooked wild rice. Per instructions, I set both pouches in boiling water for 5 minutes and PRESTO!!! Instant dinner! It was really good too, I'm shocked. I don't know how they do it, really, because there was nothing but whole food ingredients on both packages. I had the punjab choley with rice. It was so insanely spicy, I could only eat about half. I had to stop since I literally could feel my throat burn! GOOD STUFF!

L.A.

We had a fun but exhausting trip to L.A. and we are finally home! I only say "finally" because we left our friend's house in Northridge at 3:30 pm this afternoon and we just got home maybe an hour ago. Crazy long ride home with tons of traffic and tons of Elise screaming.
Otherwise, it was a good trip. Lola had an interview on Thursday with a child modeling agency and they really liked her. Afterwards, we went to eat at a surfer kinda burrito place in Huntington Beach called "The Secret Spot". It was super non-descript and casual, but I picked that cafe for it's large focus on vegetarian/vegan type stuff. I had looked up different restaurant options before we left and even mapquested the directions!
But even with all that planning ahead of time, I still feel like we ate nothing but bean burritos, pretzels, z-bars, fruit leathers and brown rice chips. Not terrible for an "on the road" diet, but not exactly prime either. I think the only veggies I ate were in my bean burrito from The Secret Spot!
Dan had a golf tournament the next day (this morning) so the girls and I kicked about town for a while, then went to our friend's house to visit. We woke up early so I carried Elise on my back and Lola and I went down the street to get some coffee. On the way back to the hotel, we saw a cool place to get breakfast so we ate a nice meal...
We visited a huge Indian "sweet and spice" store and picked up some interesting stuff that I can't wait to try out.
We got to our friend's house by late morning and hung out until Dan was done with the tournament. We left right away but I'm still shocked at how much traffic we encountoured!
Back to our regular stuff tomorrow. Veggies. I'm actually craving veggies. I don't want to see another fruit leather for a long time.

Tempeh chili

I have a tainted memory of tempeh...the first and only time I ever tried it was when I was in my first trimester pregnant with Lola. Kinda around the time that everything smells and tastes nauseating. Anyway, let's just say that tempeh didn't go over very well, not just for the barfy pregnant girl, but for Dan either. I haven't been able to get over that since. But last night I thought I would give it another try so I make a chili and, taking the advice of veganmomma, I pulsed the tempeh into tiny bits in my processor first, then sauteed it along with my onion and garlic. I used a chili recipe from vegnews magazine that included chocolate and coffee. I really thought I would have a hit on my hands....I actually really liked it, but Dan and Lola didn't care for it too much. They ate some but without much enthusiasm.

My "goat" cheese was definitely not successful either. It was a blend of pine nuts, lemon, garlic and nutritional yeast. I'm bummed it didn't taste better because pine nuts are ridiculously expensive! They are over $14 a lb! You have to be kidding me!
So the end result tastes ok, but definitely nothing like cheese, never mind goat. I just don't know where and how I'll use it. It was kind of like a really expensive hummus. Maybe I can add more garlic and olive oil to it and use it like a veggie dip.

Back to the drawing board for me!

Blessingway

Last weekend, I flew to Idaho for 2 days to attend Dan's cousin's wife's (also my very good friend) blessingway. I have been to a couple of these now and I much prefer them to a baby shower. They are incomperable, really, but the whole idea of the "regular" baby shower thing with games and a bunch of pink and blue ribbon-adorned presents just doesn't have quite the appeal of the calm "sisterhood" atmosphere of a blessingway.
We strung beads into bracelets that we will all wear until Shantel has her baby. This way we will all think about her everytime we look at our bracelets. I'm particularly fond of mine so I'm sure I will wear it beyond the birth. Some of us also got henna tattoos. We prepared birth affirmations on one card, then Shantel's strengths on another card. We read them aloud to her and her friend collected them all to make a keepsake for her. It was really nice. We all shared our birth stories too. I especially love that part because I will share my birth stories with anyone who will listen!

Idaho was snowy and cold, but it was still nice. Well, for me, anyway. Most people there are pretty sick of the cold weather and since a good percentage of the folk work in construction/developement, well, a long winter can mean some lean times.
Dan's cousin and wife were even tossing around the idea of moving to So Cal and I never thought they would even consider that. They've always loved northern Idaho. Guess that weather can really get to you after a while!

Now I've been tagged.

I'm going to play the game! Here are the rules, per veganmomma:
Rules:Link to your tagger and post these rules.Share 5 facts about yourself.Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Ok, 5 factoids:
1. I was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. Oh wait, that's on my blog so it's probably nothing new to you all.
2. I was heavily involved in Army cadets from age 12-19, my last year was served as a Civilan Instructor. It was like a huge family there and I still keep in touch with a few people.
3. In high school I wore all black and had purple hair that was often in pig tails.
4. I saw bands that I never thought I would ever see in my lifetime, like the Specials, the Selecter, Exploited and the Buzzcocks.
5. That said, Pete Shelley gave me his guitar pick at the end of the one and only Buzzcocks shows I've ever seen. He probably felt sorry for the lunatic girl who had pushed her way to the front of the stage and sang every word to all their songs at the top of her lungs.....

Ok, now for the tagging....

A Night Out!

We went to a wedding on Saturday night. Dan's brother, Phil, and his expectant wife, Kristina were also there. They are due with a little baby boy any time now so we are all really anxious for the "THE" phone call!

We had fun at the wedding, but later on, I got really sick and started throwing up. I'm finally feeling better today, but I wonder if I had a touch of flu or some food poisoning....banquet style dinners always make me nervous! It was a nice night, in all. The last picture is Dan's brother, Phil.

Cake or Death!!!!

If you know me really well, you'll know about my secret obsession with Eddie Izzard. I've done crazy stuff like stand in line for hours in L.A. to get an autograph, hop a plane nearly 9 months pregnant to catch one of his shows in San Francisco, etc...well, at least this was all before I had kids. Now, it's not so easy to just hop a plane. Dan is totally accepting of my little obsession and goes along with me. I think he's secretly obsessed with him too. ha ha!
Anyway, for the first time that I know of, Eddie Izzard will be HERE! yay! The show is not until August, but I already have my front and center tickets bought and I'll be counting the months.

"Well, do you have a flag?"
Eddie Izzard - Dress to Kill

My Girls!

I took a bunch of pictures of the girls last Friday. These are my two favorites. Elise is really hard to take a picture of these days. She moves like lightening!

Saturday was Dan's birthday. He played golf in the morning and I threw a party for him that night. It was really fun, lots of people were here. We bought "American Idol" for the wii, so we had everyone whooping it up on the mic. Good times!