Our House

Here is is :-)

Here it is... our little house in France. It is still a work in progress... bust so far, so good... the stairway is a little sketchy... with the lack of handrail and all... and check out the awesome light fixtures!

Cassis

Saturday, we got the urge to jump in the sea, so we drove down to Cassis. It is lovely. Very small, very romantic. We jumped in the ocean, looked at fish, got cut up on the rocks, then had some lunch on the docks.
We took a boat tour of the Calanques, which you can get to by hiking & rappelling or by boat.
The water is such a pretty color,we wanted to jump in, but the boat tour people weren't havin it. People were cliff diving, which we have discussed trying... well, I discussed trying. MM has done this before.We had planned on staying till sunset, but we were both sunburnt, tired & happy, so we bailed. We will, however, be back.

Misleading photo...

When Mike got home from work on Friday, he found a map leading him to me on the side of the river with Champagne. :-)
This photo, however, is misleading, cause inside the canister is not Moet, but a lovely cremant, which I have grown exceedingly fond of :-)
Champagne used to be known for their cremant, but can no longer produce it there.
Interesting, eh?

LAVENDER!!!

Mike had Bastille day off yesterday, so we drove your to the lavender fields. They were lovely. The smell is wonderful, but when you run out in the middle of them... the sound f bee's is rather unsettling.
However... totally worth it. We smelled like lavender when we got back into the car.


Next month, the Sunflowers will be in full bloom.
Yay, France!

Shocking results with Ratatouille

Fancy French Pot--------------->


It may be a pain in the butt to make, and it may not look like much... but somehow, all of those stupid steps magically transforms eggplant & zucchini into something delicious.
I recommend trying this one.

Ratatotouille in 20 easy steps

Instructions for making Ratatotouille…

Step 1: Your neighbor who speaks French only, offers up 2 zucchini over the fence. You don’t know how to say politely in French, “I’m sorry, but my mom scarred me for life with zucchini, and now I’d rather eat worms.” So you say "Merci beaucoup."

Step 2: Stare at the zucchini and weigh the karma between doing something with it, and throwing it away.

Step 3: Decide this is a great opportunity to cross another French recipe off the list.

Step 4: Go to the store with the intention of buying peppers, onions and eggplant, forget your list at home, and come home with no eggplant, as you really don’t know what to do with eggplant. Go back to the store.

Step 5: Begin chopping the eggplant and zucchini into very precise pieces… 1/8” x 1” x 3”. Salt the zucchini & eggplant and let sit for 30 minutes.

Step 6: Chop onions, peppers and Garlic. Sauté. Set aside.

Step 7: Slice the tomato goo (recipe on page 86) Seriously??? Grrrr.

Step 9: Get out the last of your bowls and pans to prepare tomato goo. Your kitchen should be thoroughly destroyed by this time.

Step10: Make stupid Tomato goo.

Step 11: Check on eggplant & zucchini… see that it is now in a sea of salty squash goo. Pat each piece dry… there are about a million pieces. Have fun.

Step 12: Sauté Eggplant Zucchini mixture one layer at a time for 1 min on each side. This sounds exact, but you will quickly find this task impossible, and begin trying to flip them… this will not work. You try your best and move on.

Step 13: Read the directions about the tomato goo about 50 times with zero comprehension about what it actually wants you to do. Consult other recipes online and just thrown the onions and peppers into the tomato goo and simmer the heck out of it.

Step 14: Realize you forgot parsley & go back to the store. Come home and chop Parsley.

Step 15: Enter your destroyed kitchen, shake your head, clear a spot, wash & chop parsley.

Step 16: take 1/3 of your tomato pepper mixture and put it at the bottom of your fancy French pot.

Step 17: Add ½ the sautéed eggplant/zucchini

Step 18: Add another 1/3 of the tomato mix, realize you forgot to put it on top of the first layer of sauce, growl, curse to yourself, and add parsley to the 2nd layer.

Step 19: Add the last of the eggplant/zucchini and top with remaining sauce and parsley.

Step 20: Read that it says to put it on the stove, but your stovetop kinda sucks, so put it in the oven.

The dish will be ready in a about an hour and you kitchen will take about that ling to clean.

This is supposed to be delicious but it also has a good chance of being vile.

Bon Appétit.

Jumping!!!

We went to Gap, France yesterday, and I finally got my jump on. I missed it. We had a great jump & a super fast landing! I landed on my butt :-) Slid in like I was Safe!
We are currently planning our trip home, and there's a lot to pack in to one week... Bah!
I plan on taking pictures of the house today... will post tomorrow.
B

Fox 5 San Diego likes me.

Alrighty! All the trip pictures have been posted and we are back up to date.
4th of July Was a bust. We woke up early to watch fireworks, and the link was broken. I was very crabby.
I sent them a grumpus email, and told them they ruined 4th of July.
They actually wrote back. I requested they put the whole show on their video page...
And they wrote back, and told me it was now posted... I choose to believe if was solo to appease me.
So I got Fireworks afterall :-)

BOOM!!!

Yay.

I get Fireworks live next week for Bastille day :-)

B.A.S.E. & Mont Blanc

We stumbled back to the hotel last night, and talked to some base jumpers... Went to bed, and slept SO well. Woke up to open the door, and find someone packing their canopy in the hallway. Rad.
We take the tram to the top of the cliff, and as we are getting out of the car, see people hucking off the cliff. Despite my non interest in base jumping myself, it is darn cool to watch.
We hike around looking for exit points, and then we were back in the car.
. Exit signs in Switzerland are funny.
Our final destination is Mont Blanc.
We drive to Geneva... stop for gas, and go to Burgerking to get a coke... and then drive as fast out of Geneva as is possible, fearing that just being there will be expensive... No, we did not get the $15.75 whopper value meal.
Seriously!
Mont Blanc is Lovely... We had Raclette for dinner, and tried unsuccessfully to break into the hot tub.
We dropped Travis off at the Train Station, and now we are home. We are going to BBQ and in the morning we will watch Fireworks live on Fox 5.
Happy 4th of July.

Small world in Switzerland

So, Mike suggests we go to Switzerland... and I think, "Cool... CHocolate!"...
So we drive through the Alps, up and down the craziest roads you can imagine... I think they must film BMW commercials on these roads...

...Behold... Blue Steel..
We end up in Lauterbrunnen, which is a charming little swiss town... So, we are exploring the town, and as we are walking up the street, we see a familiar face coming towards with a big bag on his shoulder... He greets us by name... and then I figure out where we are.
The man we saw was one of our wing suit skydiving friends, and the bag on his shoulder contained his B.A.S.E. rig and his wing suit. We have not come to Switzerland for the chocolate. We have come to the bestest place in for people to jump off of very tall sheer cliffs. Legally.
*sigh*
Type Lauterbrunnen into you tube and you will see what I mean.
Still being a bit stunned about how small the world is, we check into "base paradise", The Horner Pub Hotel. They are very nice to us, and let us stay there even though we are not base jumpers.
We go down the street for dinner, and find that it is the local hangout for the crazy swiss singers. We drink a lot of beer and have bratwurst and fondu for dinner. Then, we got a little Surprise... we hung out there till Midnight. It was wonderfully bizarre.

Bellagio! Not just a hotel in Vegas...

Today we found breakfast, and took the boat to Bellagio. A lovely boat ride checking out all the celeb cribs around the lake.
Bellagio is very pretty... we shopped around, I found a GEORGOUS orange silk pashmina, and we had lunch... pasta, pizza, champagne, and wine... This one is for your Mom, Ann...
We are now back at the hotel, and I'm trying to sort out my lost credit card, which I left at the hotel in Milan. Boo.