Semlor!

Baked these goodies yesterday. Took orever but it was worth it! Found the almond paste at Pavillions to the rip off price of $7, the yeast at the Italian supermarket in Tustin, 250 gram $ 0.90. Cardamom took the prize, a tiny bottle $13!! Why the heck are spices so expensive here?

Turns out my oven is not so great when it comes to baking, it heats from below so the buns got nearly burnt before getting brown. Grrrrr. Kind of ruins my plan what to do with the remaining 200 grams of yeast?

Beach Day

Weather has been a little chilly lately, we were a little puzzled on Saturday about what to do. I know I know, we are so spoiled but weather is usually so good so when there is overcast we are kind of taken by surprise!

After doing the normal Saturday stuff at home we drove down to Aliso Creek for a short walk a long the beach. It is one of my favourites; cheap parking next to the veach, playground close by, easy to get to.

Newport Beach Restaurant Week

The other night we decided to try something new, we picked Tamarind of London, a fairly new upscale Indian restaurant in Crystal Cove. Being big fans of Indian food were super excited!

Food was pretty good.. until the cheese naan came along..CHEESE NAAN folks!!!! what restaurant serves that???? Of course it was super disgusting just like a crappy pizza hut pizza.. What an anticlimax. It didn't get better - we had to wait nearly an hour for the bill, normally you get it thrown on the table the minute after you put your fork down. Nope, not at this place.

The restaurant week itself is a fun thing, the participating restaurants offer lunch and dinner menues to a set, cheap price, such as 3 course lunch for $15 or dinner for $30. A great opportunity to try new venues.

Pappadoms Caliornia Style?

                                                        Spicy Crabmeat, must be American style

                                                         See that big cheesy cheese naan?

                                  The curries! Prawn masala, chicken masala, spicy spuds and lentils.

 

Mango ice cream, Indian style, yum!

Scary Stuff

Last night we got around to watch the pilot of a new TV-series - The Following, starring Kevin Bacon. Scary stuff! It is a thriller and kept me on my toes for the whole hour, phew, I was nearly relieved once it was over, but at the same time I can hardly wait till next week. Just as many of our favourite shows just have come to an end and we needed something new this one starts, it is going to be some interesting 13 weeks.
Did you know there are currently around 300 active serial killers in the US?  Yikes.

Good Stuff!

Ouch

Went for a power walk this morning. NICE. Been way too long since the last one. Obviously too long because I have now a strained muscle, all the way from my neck down to my bum! Or was it all the cleaning I did today? Had a bit of spring cleaning going on. Kicked hubby and babs out of the house to go and have the car washed so I could clean in peace...

Let's hope it is just a Sunday syndrome and it will be gone by tomorrow morning!

Girls Day Out

On Friday we drove up to one of my favourite places in EL LAY, The Grove, to have lunch with Beth.
The chilly weather we recently is gone with the wind and now we have a nice 24 degrees C and blue skies again. Need to stop using Tom Tom. On the way back I missed a turning and whoops, TomTom needed a whole half'n hour to recalculate and I ended up in mini Mexico somewhere downtown. I don=t get it why TomTom always ends up taking me through the dodgy (well, semi dodgy) areas.

Sky doesn't get much more blue than this,

Only in LA...dogs with sunglasses 

Emily racing to the shops

The Grove...best Farmer's market, I could have lunch here every day. Wish there was something just a little similar here in OC.

Rachel Zoe on E!

Annoying fountain. Everytime the water show started, loud music started playing,

Don't Sail Drunk

Saw this in Laguna Beach the other week, luckily it was a dull day and no people in the water..the guy was not charged.

Los Rios

On Saturday we drove down to the historical Los Rios district in San Juan Capistrano. A little chilly outside but it was nice and sunny so we decided to take Emily to the petting zoo. I am completely in live with the Los Rios district, it is such a contrast to the fast growing cities around here and it feel like you have been thrown back in time.

One of my favourite restaurants, Los Ramos. Unfortunately they only serve brunch at the weekend, not lunch.

Cactus! 

              Went to a petting zoo, overpriced and crowded, but our cowgirl enjoy the pony ride!

                                           
                                                     Of all the places, we ended up at Ruby's.

 Perfect place to stroll. There is a nice little tea house along this street, think we'll try it next time.

Weekend is within reach!

Slowly, we are back in reality. Not getting much sleep (babs is teething, evil evil teething). It has been a long, long week. Phew.

• Still trying to get used to 2013. 2012 was such an overwhelming year. First year as parents. And we survived it. The first three months were a real drag. I kept thinking, had I known how hard it would be, I may had say no to kids. In the meanwhile, one year olds are so much more fun than newborns. I remember how I kept googling exactly a year ago - " it must get better?". Yep, it did.

• How am I not supposed to gain wait when there is chocolate all over the house? Bad chocolate. Not just any chocolate, Ferrero Rocher. Little devils. Know what I mean? They are screaming "eat me".

• I am done with the cold. 3 weeks of winter and cold - just what I needed. Lots of tea and cozy nights in on the sofa. Now: sun, please come out again, I am ready for the summer. This winter showed up late but it seems to be a lot colder than last year's.

• Suddenly there are lots of good films out there. Don´t know where to start. Lincoln, Les Miserables just to name two.

• I have missed Mexican food soooo much. Give me more! Currently I could have enchiladas, tacos, quesidillas every night. And so we are. Nearly. Both cooking and take outs. May have to ditch our long time favourite La Sirena though, NOT living up to their standards at the moment.

• FLU. So tired of watching the news. YES, it is flu season, and people are getting it. But comparing it to terror attacks (what if this was a terror attack...how would we react, blah blah), yawn. And let's not get started about the advertisement in the supermarkets about the shots. Must be a great business. In this family we not take the shot. Never. No flu shots. And we never have the flu.

For some reason I cannot upload photos at the moment. Looks like I have to dig out the old laptop and see if it is this crapy Dell or blogger that is messing about.

Happy weekend!

Cinema

We managed to go to the cinema twice during the holidays, once in Sweden and once in England.
In Sweden we went to see the Hobbit, I didn´t have any expectations so I ended up really enjoying the film. Normally I get a numb bum after the first hour but not this time, that is how much I enjoyed it. What I didn´t enjoy is that they have made three films out of the damn book. I already know the second film will be so so (ALWAYS the case when there are three films), and I hate, HATE cliffhangers, especially when you have to wait another year for the next film.

  The second film we watched was Jack Reacher, with Tom Cruise. Not that I am a fan of him, it must have been years since we watched any of his movies but it was the only half decent choice we could find. Have to say, not bad, not bad at all.

Something I really enjoy in both Sweden and England is that you can reserve seats. Takes so much stress away and you can show up last minute. In Liverpool we enjoyed sweet popcorn again (why can you only get this in Germany and England?), and in Sweden there was so much sweets to choice among! Sweden must be the "sweetest" country, and it is hard not to eat too  much, yummie yum yum. What I did find a little odd was that you can online buy tickets either online or at machines in Sweden, there are no "real" persons anymore selling the tickets. And you can only pay by card, not cash. This is something annoying in general, cash seems to be getting abolsihed full stop.

Jet lagged to Bits

Still in this jet lag bubble that doesn't want to burst. Last night I once again fell asleep around 8 pm in front of the telly. So the pain continues. Been trying to beat the jetlag since we landed by spending a lot of time outdoors during the day. In vain, so far.
While we are still trying to recover, enjoy some of the winter pictures from Sweden - what a Christmas, I think it snowed every day while we were there (in comparison, it rained every day while we were in Cologne and Liverpool LOL).

Having some fun at the slope, while we had lots of snow, it was only around -4 celsius, not so cold.

Hot dogs and hot chocolate. What a treat. Luckily I have organised friends, all we had to do was drink and eat.

Strömsbro, Gävle. This is what Christmas always should look like. Lots o snow. I enjoyed it for one week, but am well happy to be back in the sun again. It was nice to enjoy hot chocolates, glögg, lots of tea, deinitely got my fix for the winter. Now; happy to drink cold sparkling water and wear no socks!