Family Fun

Elevated Wine, Really?

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Last year my brother gifted us a night’s stay at Ponte’s Inn and Vineyard in Temecula for our birthday’s.

We finally had a free weekend to enjoy it. Once we checked in and dropped our stuff, we headed out for wine, starting at Altisima. They are a newer winery, making old world and new world wines with Spanish roots. The grounds are beautiful as is the tasting room. Luckily we had a knowledgable pourer who had a fun personality, that can make all the difference (well that can make a difference in the experience, not in the wine). Luckily the wine was superb, everything we tasted we enjoyed, and that rarely happens.

We moved on to a couple more wineries that we haven’t been to, and honestly, didn’t really like. We ended at Bottaia. Bottaia is Ponte’s sister winery, the same winemaker but elevated, I guess. I was eager to try it because I do like Ponte’s wines. When you walk in you are greeted and then asked to pay depending on what type of “experience” you want. Uh, ya, we want the one where we try your wine please. Their description reads “chic”, I say boujie… They say “elegant”, I say expensive. The experiences that they were offering were….we could either sit out on the deck and choose from a flight of wines or we could sit in the cold barrel room, and choose from a flight of more expensive wines. We chose the deck, ordered some hummus and wine.

Nope, not for us. It felt as if the focus of the winery was on the atmosphere, opposed to the wine. We didn’t like any of them and you guys, it’s not cheap. I wouldn’t go back on purpose.

However, the view of the vineyard when the sun started to set, was gorgeous.

We had dinner at Bouquet, the restaurant at Ponte. It was good, very intimate. Mushroom soup and scallops, not bad at all.

The next morning we were looking for egg bennies before we drove home. We stopped at a winery whose website said that they had it on their menu. Lies, all lies. Once we were seated we were handed a menu for lunch, which as you know, isn’t breakfast, it was very sad way to say, the end.

The next day the girls and I went to a Christmas party at the clubhouse.

They ran in and headed straight for the soda and donuts, and then waited for Santa.

Giving Santa the lowdown. Unicorns, horses and toys..oh my!

The girls met up with some friends and ran around outside for a good hour. Finally, when I was so bored I couldn’t take it anymore, we headed home.

The next morning we woke up to Cupcake confused on where he was at.

Definitely not summer weather here anymore.

Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

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This is a festive and easy activity to do for the holidays. Two ingredients, that’s it. These will make the house smell amazing and they make a great homemade gift.

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup applesauce

4 oz. cinnamon

rolling pin

cookie cutters

glue

glitter various colors

straw

string

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 200°. Mix applesauce and cinnamon in small bowl until a smooth ball of dough is formed, your hands are the best tool for this.

I divided the dough amongst the three girls.

Roll dough to 1/4-inch to 1/3-inch thickness between two sheets of plastic wrap.

Peel off top sheet of plastic wrap. Cut dough into desired shapes

Make a hole at the top of ornament with a straw.

Place ornaments on baking sheet.

Bake for about 2 1/2 hours. Cool ornaments on a wire rack.

Once completely cool. brush with glue and decorate with glitter.

Wrap them up as a gift or hang on the tree.

Cupcake Dustybum

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Did you remember…. the 1st night of December (insert Earth Wind and Fire tune) lucky for us, our elf did remember to pay us a visit. Santa sent his elf Cupcake Dustybum to ours on the first night of December. He left a wrapped present for the girls.

But first, they had to read the official North Pole letter that our elf brought.

In the letter, Cupcake pretty much threatened them to be good, or ELSE!

The present was the Elf on the Shelf book that Santa sends them each year. They each took a turn reading it.

Along with the book, Santa sent them each an animal ornament, so nice, that guy!

Then the girls ran all over the house looking for Cupcake, every noise, anything out of the ordinary, it HAD to be him. But alas, he didn’t show his face until the next morning.

He got himself all tangled up trying to write a joke.

What kind of pictures do elves take?

Give up?

Elf-ies. Haha ha ha ha

Speaking of pictures, I took one of him and this is what I got.

Spooky eh? I didn’t even show the girls, they would have been in distress.

Apparently there was a cold going around Averi’s classroom and I guess Cupcake must of caught it. We woke up the next morning to this….

I think we should take Cupcake to get his Covid vaccine, just to be safe. If this is who he is kicking it with at night, we can’t be too careful.

We went and picked up a tree while the girls were at school that day.

They were so excited to decorate.

They asked Alexa to play the Justin Bieber Christmas song, repeatedly.

Later that afternoon, we had a belated traditional Thanksgiving with Shawna’s mom. I had a game plan, the potatoes were prepped and ready to cook, stuffing was a no brainer, rolls just needed to be heated, but, there’s always a but, the turkey was still partially frozen, or so I thought. I over compensated for the cooking time and I’m pretty sure the (13 lb. ) turkey was done in an hour and a half. I had the oven safe digital thermometer inside of the bird while it cooked, and it read done hours before I was expecting, wtf? Anyhow, I second guessed myself and cooked it a tad longer, and we ended with dry turkey meat. The SOLE reason I’m not a fan on the traditional Thanksgiving menu is becuase there is nothing worse than, dry meat. (Get your head out of the gutter) Boring, not enough dark TURKEY meat, too much white meat AND it was over cooked. Ugh, it still makes me frustrated. Anyhow, I am going to try and make a cranberry pecan turkey salad with the leftovers, wish me luck.

The next morning we woke to this.

Where are his manners?

This morning he was hiding pretty well.

I needed a hint to find him.

So, that is how the first few days of December has gone over here. I can’t wait to see what else Cupcake has up his elf sleeve.

I leave you with this.

Raise that Money

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You guys, we have fifth graders…. 5th graders, that is absolute bullshit. I had lunch today with my uncle and he brought up a memory that I had completely forgotten about. In 2011 San Diego had an unprecedented and unplanned power outage. I vaguely remember trying to put a five month old

baby to bed, in the dark with no power. We live on sound machines, so I am not sure how I survived that, probably with wine.

Anyhow, now she is finishing her last year of elementary school and that makes me feel all sorts of ways.

To raise money for their fifth grade promotion, the girls volunteered at their school craft fair selling food. They loved it, they would have worked until sun down. Even Averi got in on the action, amazing, ask them to help around the house, and I am a mean mom, but at school, it’s a holiday.

They were able to raise over $1,000, so the hard work paid off. They were rewarded with free room and board.

That was the tail end of the busy week I was talking about. It was nice to see other parents that we’ve missed, we talked to the girls old, that doesn’t sound right….the teacher they had for Kindergarten? You know what I mean right? Well we chatted with her for probably an hour, and I was lucky enough to meet Averi’s teacher, in person, and see her classroom. Funny how we aren’t allowed on campus during the week but on Saturday…. Speaking of that, all the girls have gotten their first dose of the vaccine, they should be fully vaccinated by Christmas. Jesus is clapping, be like Jesus.

I celebrated getting through the week with this.

A Thai Tornado with Tiramisu foam from Ding Tea. I can’t begin to try and explain to you how GOOOOOOD this is, it’s just, so good! And rich, I put half of it in the fridge for the next morning and then when I was prepping dinner, it fell to the ground and SPLAT, I cried. So, we now have a date with Ding Tea on Friday.

Take that Phyllo

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I had this great plan of posting a delicious Jamie Oliver recipe for you guys, but as we all know, plans change. The recipe was very good, however my execution of it was not. Another time I suppose.

You know how when you buy the store bought pie dough, puff pastry dough or phyllo dough they always come in packs of two? Every time I end up only using one of them and the other goes in the freezer to die. Months go by, I forget I have it in there and then I buy more, literally life’s rotation. I am proud to say that I put my foot down and I was not going to put the leftover lonely roll of phyllo dough back into the freezer to meet it’s demise. Instead I made super simple apple turnovers. So easy there isn’t even a need for a recipe.

I peeled, cored and chopped two apples {I had Envy apples in the fridge} and sautéed them with a couple tablespoons of butter and a quick zest of lemon. I let those hang out at medium heat while I grabbed sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. I guestimated the measurements but I probably added in 1/4 to 1/3 cup of sugar, the tarter the apples you use the more sugar you will need. I tossed in about a teaspoon of cinnamon and a teaspoon of vanilla. {Oh, the Mexican vanilla did make it home, Shawna put it in the pantry, phew!} Once the apples were pretty soft, maybe 10-15 minutes, I whisked in about one tablespoon of cornstarch to thicken it up, added a pinch of salt and then I moved on to the phyllo dough.

I took two sheets of phyllo, brushed with melted butter and then folded it in half lengthwise. Brushed with more melted butter and folded it lengthwise again giving me one long strip. I added a scoop of the apple filling on one end of the pastry dough and folded it in the form of a triangle. Remember the triangle notes we would pass to friends in high school? That’s how you want to fold these. The two apples I used made enough filling for four pastries. Once they were all folded, I popped them onto a cookie sheet, brushed one more time with butter and put them into a 350 degree oven. My oven is on the hotter side, you could probably get away with 375 degrees. I set the time for 10 minutes, but they needed a little more time. I’d say by 15 minutes they were golden brown, the apple filling was bubbling and the house smelled amazing.

Once they were cool, I moved them onto a plate and sprinkled with powder sugar.

Yes, they were good, really good and also really messy, This would be something Averi would have to eat outside.

Averi is on another level when it comes to being a messy eater. If she isn’t complaining about not liking something then she is dropping food. It’s unreal.

We took the girls to Belmont park to celebrate the older ones half birthday’s. They each got a set amount of tickets and they chose what rides they wanted to spend them on. When the tickets were gone, they were gone. That made for some serious planning and contemplating on choosing the rides they were going to go on.

I think they enjoyed themselves, I know we did.