comings and goings

Recently, we decided it was time to up our coffee game. We normally love our brewed coffee, and we'll sometimes make a poor man's latte (extra-strong coffee with hand-beaten hot milk). So I finally ordered us a real setup. We picked up the Italian espresso maker (for the stovetop!), and a milk frother to get our milk nice and foamy:

As you can see, the frother definitely works. I like my nice, thick layer of foam!

This weekend was pretty exciting. Birthday party on Friday night, then while Nolan slept off his nightshift, I got up and went mountain biking with my friend Erin at Arastradero Preserve, and it was amazing! I'm definitely in the market for my own mountain bike now.

After that, Nolan and I went to our favourite Indian buffet in Sunnyvale, and tried out geocaching for the first time! We found two geocaches, but are definitely going to try some trickier ones next time. We felt a little bit like James Bond or something, pulling out hidden cylinders in bricks and finding hidden messages. Fun!

What the app looks like while using it. The blue dot is us, the green is the geocache.

Our first geocache! It was literally a cylinder hidden in a brick that we had to find.



Our second find - it was tiny! Hidden stuck under a bench.

  

On Sunday, we randomly drove up to the ranch to visit with my parents and get in some whitewater rafting, tasty food, fun, roasting marshmallows over the new firepit and stargazing during the last bit of the meteor shower. The super-relaxing night was somewhat broken up by the boys trying to figure out a complicated math problem. It started with my dad asking Nolan random questions and ended with a question that stumped them both - something about what latitude you'd have to fly at while going 500mph to keep the sunset on your horizon. I don't know. The stargazing immediately ended and they both rushed inside to scribble formulas on paper and finally deciding to just drape a piece of yarn over a globe and find their answer. That was my cue for bedtime.

Last week I found a delicious recipe and had to share the pictures because it was that good! I'd been craving my mom's tomato tart, but didn't have the recipe and wanted to make a clean-eating version (more or less). So I started with a delicious almond meal crust, using sea salt, coconut oil, italian herbs, etc.

Before baking the crust.

Then I added a super thin layer of plain, nonfat greek yogurt. I covered it with fresh minced garlic, and sprinkled mozzarella cheese over that. Then I put freshly-sliced tomatoes on top of that, covered with fresh basil leaves (yum!), and another sprinkle of sea salt.

  

It was so delicious! I'm totally making it again this week.

 We tested out our snorkels when we were up there in the pool, and practiced using our masks and equalizing our ears, etc. Our scuba class is next week, and I'm already feeling nervous! So much to remember! So little time to do my coursework! But it will be so worth it - our vacation is just a week and a half later! EEE!!!