One of many favorite quotes

May the light always find you on a dreary day.

When you need to be home, may you find your way.

May you always have courage to take a chance.

And never find frogs in your underpants.

Good Morning

LET THE STRESS BEGIN!!

The Christmas season is upon us and we will be very busy.  My friend Bee is an avid collector of quotes I hope she enjoys this one as much as I do.

I'll try to post a few photos of the trees in our lot.



Shhhhhhh............... they are sleeping

Next stop 41

But in the mean time the celebration for our 40th anniversary was so very special.  Sister found a cool little tratorria over in Culver City.  Brunello's was a terrific choice. 
After spending the afternoon at the Petersen Auto Museum, we met up with sweet niece and hunky nephew in law at Brunello's.

They have a pretty standard Itlian fare menu but their specials were quite special.  One of which was an artichoke potato soup.  Sister and I have a habit of trying to recreate a dish if it's something that alerts our taste buds.  Well that soup certainly was one that caught our attention.  If it sounds like something that would tempt your taste buds try this recipe.  I should have known Giada would have this in her repetoire. 

I made this soup exactly as the recipe stated and turned out just divine. Yes I said divine.   Oh wait I think she calls for two cups of chicken stock I used the whole package which is 26 ounces. It was thick and creamy just as I remembered that special nite of celebrating.

Thankful early

To be honest I'm rather thankful all the time but it seems

this year I have a lot to be thankful for.  I'm not gonna bore you to tears with my list of thankfuls, because those that read my blog know what I'm thankful for. 

But I will tell you here and now I am so very thankful for family.  If you have family hold them close because everything else is secondary.

We as a family gather early to be thankful earlier than most.  Reason being is that Doodles and Mr Doodles open up that Christmas tree lot the day after Thanksgiving.  Lots of preparation needs to be done to open the tree lot on that dreaded Black Friday.  I know I was shocked when I found out how many folks want to purchase a tree Thanksgiving weekend.  Guess it has a lot to do with tradition on when folks want to put up there tree.

I also need to put in a plug here for real trees vs fake trees, real trees are so much better for the environment as well as good for stimulating the economy so I would appreciate it if you would stimulate the economy as well as the environment.

So back to being Thankful.  We will gather our small family this Saturday to be thankful together and of course EAT!!!  We have a wicked menu planned of all the usual food items with a few newbies making an appearance.

So.................

Forty..............WTH!!!

Forty years................................ good lord seems hard to believe.  Not that we haven't enjoyed most moments of the past forty years, but it just flies by.  I swear I am hearing all the elders in our family that told us stuff and we all just laughed. 
Trust me young-uns  it's right around the corner.

Trust me Mr Doodles is dern lucky after this incident a few years ago.  I thought I had written a blog about us getting hitched and why Tombstone guess not.  I'll save it for fifty maybe.  The other day Mr Doodles  heard about a couple celebrating  their eighty years of marriage (holy crap) he says "hey we're half way there".  Gotta love a guy with a vision.

Look at that picture, I had hair,  Mr Doodles had dorky glasses and a pocket protector.  We had just gotten married by this wacky Judge Sharpe who had just gotten out of the hospital wearing a neck collar.  Here we both are  with our witness  standing in Judge Sharpe's  antique office, I mean some gorgeous antiques.  And the view out of his second floor office window was over looking the Lavendar Open Pit Copper Mine just outside of Tombstone, Arizona, home of our favorite movie Tombstone.

Thanks Mr Doodles......................it's been a hell of a ride!!  .