merry Christmas!

we had a wonderful week with ben's family this past week. mom, dad, and daniel arrived on saturday and katy joined us on wednesday. we had a very relaxing time and loved being together. we spent most of our time (indoors due to the weather) playing games (heartland, up and down the river, sevens, mario party, dominion, pinochle, etc.), eating (pork tacos, beef tenderloin, baked oatmeal, tri-tip, baked french toast, etc.), shopping (fresno, tulare outlets), taking walks, reading, making starbucks runs (mostly mom and dad when they woke up two hours before the rest of us), and just hanging out. here are just a few pictures of our time together.

all dressed up for a night on the town (dinner at tommy's)! this is the fireplace that ben built for our last play. we decided to put in our living room for Christmas. nice addition, don't you think?

it was sad that it rained for most of their visit, but it DID make the mountains nice and clear when it stopped! we decided to have a photo shoot in a local field. ben used the new tri-pod that he got for Christmas.

we're so glad they decided to come for a california Christmas! we had a great week.

le basil

 after planting basil this summer and using it in only a handful of recipes, ben and i had an abundance of basil on our hands. i decided it was time to make pesto!

here's our basil plant. remarkably i took this picture AFTER picking the leaves that i used in the pesto. as you can see, there's still a lot remaining.

 here are the leaves, washed and ready for the processor.

and here are all of the ingredients in our chopper: basil, olive oil, parmesan cheese, pine nuts, and garlic. actually, that's not parmesan cheese. we didn't have any in the house, but we did have some leftover bravo farms cheese from the other night so we used that instead.

pulse pulse pulse -- here's our pesto!

we froze it in an ice cube tray so now we just take out a cube as we need it.

and we did it JUST in time. two nights ago we had a frost and our basil plant is looking sad. hopefully we'll be able to revive it for more batches of pesto in the future!

just thought we would share a few pictures of our time together with the in't houts a couple weekends ago (before little lamb's visit).

nick sitting beneath the persimmon tree

sofia and her teeth

the in't hout family

julie (looking cute in her crafty shirt)

eva giving a face show! 

a pleasure as always. come back soon!

being crafty (like martha, not like the serpent)

when julie and i get together we tend to do crafty things. whether it be trying a new recipe, reupholstering chairs (or at least picking out the fabric so the boys can reupholster them), or making jewelry, we've always got a new project to try.

the last time they were here, we decided to embellish some shirts. we went to old navy to get some cheap long sleeve shirts and then to joanne's for some tulle. we didn't get to finish them together, but i've since completed mine.

here's the final product:

little lamb's adventures: part 5

after a wonderful week of vacation in visalia, little lamb was ready to go home. she missed walter, she missed her bed in redlands, but most of all she missed eva! talking with her on skype just wasn't the same.
 

little lamb got ready to go, packed up her things (it didn't take long - she travels light), and then it was time for goodbyes. oinkers promised to come along with ben and jodi next time they visited redlands.

it was time to head to the post office train station. little lamb wasn't excited about the trip, but she was eager to get home to eva and her family.

thanks for a great week, little lamb! we enjoyed having you visit. give eva a big squeeze for us! 

little lamb's adventures: part 4

little lamb really enjoys being a california lamb, because you can play outside year round! here at ben and jodi's house, there's lots of space to run and play. little lamb and oinkers spent most of today playing outside in the sun. they took turns giving each other piggy-back (or lambie-back) rides and playing leap frog.

kitty noticed little lamb and oinkers playing and wanted to join in the fun. after the requisite smell down, kitty and little lamb quickly became fast friends. 

kitty might even say family.

after their fun on the ground, little lamb and oinkers climbed up into a tree and relaxed on a tree branch for a while, enjoying the feel of the wind on their faces. oinkers is a surprisingly good climber.

naturally, all their playing outside made them rather dirty. as a pig, oinkers can stand to be a little messy. but little lamb needed a bath.

after soaking in the warm water and playing in the tub, little lamb was ready to dry off. we wrapped her up and she waddled around like a little penguin.



just another day on the ranch for little lamb and oinkers.

little lamb's adventures: part 3

another activity that little lamb has been enjoying this week is reading. she and oinkers enjoy looking through oinker's favorite book, "a color of his own." they really get into it, using different voices for the different chameleons.

 

little lamb and oinkers don't really know how to play tichu, but they really want to be like the grown-ups. they enjoy playing with the cards. mostly they just sit there and say "pass".  i'm pretty sure little lamb is holding on to a bomb.

little lamb's adventures: part 2

each day this week, little lamb has started her day off with a big bowl of lucky charms. she loves the marshmallows.

after having watched the world series, little lamb and oinkers thought it would be fun to play some wii baseball. though the game was scoreless at the bottom of the first, little lamb won 2-0. though she may have had an advantage having legs that are long enough to hold the remote.

little lamb's adventures: part 1

this weekend nick, julie, eva, and sofia came up for a visit. naturally this meant that eva's friend, little lamb, came along. at the end of our very relaxing weekend, we decided to take a walk. along the way, little lamb decided that she wasn't ready to go back to redlands. she wanted to spend more time in visalia visiting with her friend oinkers. eva didn't know about little lamb's plan, but about two hours into their trip home, she realized that her sheep was missing.

ben and i went to go look for little lamb, but it wasn't long before we could hear her bleating happily. she was rolling down the hill, just as she and eva had earlier on our walk. this is exactly where we found her.

 

after rolling down the hill two more times, we headed inside. together we watched the san francisco giants defeat the texas rangers in game 4 of the world series. little lamb is more of a colorado state fan, but she didn't mind watching some mlb.

 

after the game, it was time for bed. little lamb had a hard time going to sleep without eva, but after getting out of bed three times, we finally convinced her that eva was ok and having fun in redlands with her friend tucker. 

and knowing that, we can ALL sleep a little easier.  

stay tuned for more adventures from our week together with little lamb.

roughin' it

two weekends ago we spent a few days camping up in sequoia national park with our friends the vanden bergs and doornenbals. it was very relaxing, and we enjoyed spending time together, exploring the campground, sitting around the campfire, and playing games.

breakfast: scrambled eggs and sausage!

ben relaxing in his hammock

 john and alecia playing mancala

our humble abodes: doornenbals', vanden bergs' and housewards'

looking downstream

 

the boys found a piece of drift wood and created a game. each player had to defend their side of the river (there were only two places where the current went through). they each got five rocks that they could throw to alter the path of the wood.

bun in the oven

no, i'm not pregnant. but our friend lisa is. a week and a half ago, she and her husband jonathan went for their 20 week ultrasound and found out whether they were having a boy or a girl. i offered to make cupcakes for a sort of 'revealing party' in the faculty lounge at school.

it's a girl!

congratulations jonathan and lisa. we look forward to welcoming annie in february!

(White) wedding: part 2

In August we took a quick trip back to Michigan for Nate and Christina's wedding. We were only in Michigan for 50 hours. We took a red-eye so we could make it in time for an out-of-town-guest brunch at Christina's parents house in GR:


We had a fun time catching up with friends we hadn't seen since the summer we graduated, and got to spend some quality time with the bride and groom. We spent the rest of the day checking out our old friend Grand Rapids. We made the requisite trip to Jersey Junction, and spent some time in easttown and by reeds lake. We also went to check out our Alma-matter with Carrie and Jorge. He was a good sport listening to all of our memories from our time at Calvin.

We spent the night at Jodi's parents' condo where their Hungarian friend Anekó was also staying. The next morning she made us an authentic Hungarian breakfast of palacsinta, crepes filled with chocolate, cheese, berries, etc.







Ben's parents came for breakfast too, and Jon brought the kids later.




After breakfast, we went downtown Holland and caught up with Ben's parents and Katy and Daniel. That afternoon we showered and got ready for the wedding. We clean up nice, don't you think?
 (Mike, Mandie, Ben, Jodi, Jorge, Carrie) 




The happy couple after the ceremony at Calvin Seminary chapel.





Carrie, Jorge, Mike, Mandie, Nate, Christina, Matt, Jamie, Jodi, and Ben. What a great weekend, being all together again!