The Inlaws Are Coming, The Inlaws Are Coming!

Should have changed that to "The inlaws were here, the inlaws were here!"

The day after my 3.5 week trip back to California (here, here, here, here, and here) Jamie's dad and stepmom arrived in Hanover and we had a few days to show off our little town. We took them to all our local hot spots, spent some time on campus, introduced them to our favorite Dean, took them to dinner with some friends, and even attended an official Tuck event where groups of students pitched entrepreneur ideas for a $10,000 start-up prize.

And then there was Fort Ticonderoga.

we got front-row tickets to Lewis's gun show.

Lake Champlaign was a-flooding.

Major detours from washed out ferry crossings, washed out roads, and high levels of water all around the lake we were trying to get across. It made for a pleasant time to catch up while road-tripping across New Hampshire, Vermont, and upstate New York!

Finally, found a ferry.

Kind of hard to imagine folks looking onto the same landscape so many years ago.

These boys were captivated.

These re-enactors were not as captivated...
But they do cook their lunches everyday ala the 1700 fort dwellers.
That day's special = salt pork + cabbage broth.
Mmmmmmmm. 

We took in some great weather, terrific views of the over-filled Lake Champlaign, and even learned a thing or two:

A picture of a picture.

Regarding the photo above, the Englishmen and Frenchmen were arguing...warring?...battling? Blue jacket on the right is Ethan Allen. That's right: "an unusually flamboyant farmer-turned statesman from Connecticut"...turned inspiration for furniture store Ethan Allen. See? I learned stuff.

Thanks for the visit, Kanters. Looking forward to seeing you both again soon. 

I went-went back-back to Cali-Cali....(part 2)

Fourth stop = In Corona (s.cal) with these crazy kids.

Alan + Kim (sister-in-law)

Jamie's sister and new husband moved into their newly built home after we were in NewHamps. They had sent plenty of cell phone photos during the progress, but it was v.sweet to see their place in person. I even helped pick out some plants and did some gardening for them! As much as I'm enjoying our fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants lifestyle right now, it'll be nice whenever we stay in one place long enough to plant stuff ourselves. Also got to squeeze Uncle Joel who lives around the corner from them.

If you're keeping track, I had been away from Jamie + Hudson a week at this point.

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Fifth stop = In Camarillo for one night with the in-laws.

A quick visit because they had already scheduled a trip to come see us later on in the month.

Breakfast and playdate with niece + nephew.

Bella cheered up a few minutes later....promise.

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Sixth stop = A few days in Santa Monica at Smith's.

me + smith, last year.

Jennifer Smith (smeed, smitty, smitters) and I met in the dorms, freshman year. She was my first college friend, remembers so many details of my life since, and is just a solid/solid/solid amiga. I heart her and whenever I visit Santa Monica, it feels a little like "home". I attribute this to the lengthy friendship and faux-resident status she gives me. 

ahhhh....traffic, palm trees, huge/expansive freeway lanes.
feels just right.

Nails + meals and overall awesome catch-up with Sarah Lyman.
I got to see her adorable abode!

walking 'round Venice while friends were at  work.

Coffee with Catherine:

This was our first time meeting each other, but while she was out of town last year, she let me use her house for devon's baby shower! The first photo in the devon's baby shower post still makes me tear up a little. Ok, a mutual friend was there (sarah lyman), but I was floored that she let a wild group of crazy girls party it up in her home without her.

We forgot to take a photo to commemorate our first meeting, but next time we're straight-up GlamourShots-ing it....watch out.

Up next: Southern California (cont.)

Best Part of Waking Up.

Ok, so there's really no best part of waking up at 6am. Those of you who have ever lived with me, or simply had the pleasure of being around me in the morning, know that I'm not exactly one to rise with the birds. Let's just say I can appreciate a great sunset, but sunrises? Well, they don't really do anything for me. Undergrad was particularly delightful....the ability to adjust one's schedule according to natural sleep-in patterns? Perfect.

Yesterday morning, however, I leapt out of deep slumber at 6am with zero difficulty because...

It was Jamie's first day of class! 

Well, technically classes won't start until Labor Day (seriously, who starts school on l.b.?) with orientation not commencing until next week. But a lucky group of students were gently required to participate in what is formally known as the "Pre-Enrollment Program"....aka MathCamp....aka "it's-been-so-long-since-you-were-in-college-old-guy". And since it's no mystery that Jamie graduated from Arizona seven decades ago, he was one of the lucky chosen ones to attend MathCamp.

Preparing to get his think on.

Have fun, make lots of friends, and learn a bunch of math, Kanter!

Students are called "Tuckies" or "Tee-insert grad year here" (T'12).

p.s. I might have embarrassed him a little by taking this shot....WHATEVER! There were TWO people in the whole area who could even see us; we were there so early! But there was definitely a bigger crowd out front this morning (2nd day) and I was asked to do a more distant drop-off ("uh...you don't have to pull all the way up front") WHAT? Have I already become that embarrassing mom who rolls up to pick up her kids in curlers and a bathrobe?? 

Almost forgot...

I didn't know which place card would most appeal to the newlyweds, so when we get down to them this weekend, I'm planning on giving them a choice:

There are also the following combinations:

hubs & wifey

hubbie & wife

his & hers

mister & ma'am

mine & also mine

Or because they're doing a sweetheart table and I'll be helping with set-up,

I can give them zero options and just put ALL OF THEM on their table.

Bwahahahaha. 

And now you're wondering why anyone would allow ME to have anything to do with a venue set-up? :)

In nine days...I'll have In Laws.

Jamie's mom (lucy) and stepdad (jerry).

Jan 2008

 Jamie's dad (lewis) and stepmom (terri).

April 2010.

Hung with Care.

We've been playing the part of busy little elves over the past few weeks, preparing for the First Annual Kantahara-nukkah Dinner.  I was really looking forward to letting Jamie's dad + stepmom off the hook this year; cooking + hosting wise!  We also figured it was a great chance to hang with  soon-to-be family members in northern california as Jamie's sister's soon-to-be in-laws reside about an hour north of San Francisco.  Thanks to all for giving me advice on how to pull off a holiday dinner party in our place (ahem, Vetter-arthys and Tyler Florence....much more on this later). 

I'll do a separate post on how the food all turned out, as I tried to channel my inner Devon + Christine and would like to share it with you. Just know that some folks seemed to have to roll out of here post-dinner (is there such a thing as too much food?), rubbing their full bellies, and some may or may not have been in a deep food coma....forgetting their purse right by the front door....uh....mrs. mcbroom?!

 Kim Kanter + Alan McBroom

 photo stolen from their wedding website.

Jamie's sister and her fiance have recently moved back to California after a few years in Vegas and a brief stint in New Orleans.  They'll be based in Orange County/LA; a quick flight to  pop on up to our place (yay).  The graciously excited Alan-parents (& Kim's future in-laws) drove down from Petaluma to meet up with the kids and found our typically crowded city to be relatively barren and parking to be a complete breeze (seriously = wahoo!).  So many San Franciscans vacate this place during the holidays....it's a great time to come visit with amazing rates on some of our nicest hotels (4.5 stars for $89, no lie). The McBroom parents were a complete hoot and we truly enjoyed getting to know this future new part of our family.  Hope ya'll had a great time here and that you feel welcome to come by anytime.

Annabelle + Hudson

holidays, last year. 

Hudson did some inviting himself, making certain that his little friend, Annabelle, would join in on the fun.  Mr. McBroom took a strong liking to her so I'm hoping that doubling the number of animals in our place didn't bother the other guests too badly.  They ran around in circles under the table during the entire meal, providing much entertainment.

And that'd be Annabelle and Hudson doing the running around in circles under the table, not Annabelle and Mr. McBroom....please pause for funny mental imagery.

Holly, pointing @ Gavin Newsom (mayor of SF).

photo stolen from Facebook.

Annabelle's parents were also here for the festivities and while Arik is Jewish and Holly is not (yet), she was the only one who was able to take us through the candle-lighting prayer.  Both Kanters were completely useless and you know that Alan and I had zero to contribute, so Holly is a total champ in my book.  A Total Champ.

Ok, now that you know who made it to dinner, onto some of the non-food details:

What's an annual Kantahara-nukkah dinner without Christmukkah Shirt Stockings??

On a random whim, I made coordinating stockings out of some of Jamie's shirts.

They were en route to Goodwill and I totally intervened.

Here's the evidence....see, they all started as regular shirts.

Little pockets were fashioned from french cuffs or directly with the shirts' own pockets.

The tops were constructed from the intact collars of the original shirts.

Don't worry, they were all super clean.

Reasons for JK getting rid of them?  Weird fit, dislike of style, and I think one had a pen stain.

They were familiar in shape yet atypical in style and I'm happy that everyone took theirs home.

It leaves room to come up with something else for next year!*

The shirt stockings were packed with:

• house-made** vanilla bean marshmallows,
• house-made** fleur de sel caramels,
• some graham crackers + chocolate + cocoa to accompany the marshmallows,
• and a tray of breakfast cinnamon rolls to enjoy in the morning (those didn't exactly fit in the stockings).

Hope ya'll scored great and yummy things in your stockings as well! Anything notable fun or different this year?

*And yes, Jamie did worriedly confirm that these were being made from the Goodwill pile and not ones I ripped down from the hangers.  Eh....what he doesn't know, can't hurt him, right?  Bwahaahahaha. :)

**Have you noticed that restaurants use the term "house-made" when referencing items made "in house"? Can I do the same thing or should I call it "homemade"?  They both seem technically correct as they were made both in our home and our house....wait....we kind of live in a flat.  "Flat-made"?  Bleagh. 

Sorry for hiatus!

Just getting around to sorting through our Thanksgiving week photos, blogger was out of service for me the past couple of days (you too?), and our wifi is totally lagging here.  I could type out all sorts of reasons for not writing to you guys and all you'd hear is, "wah.wah.wah."

Don't worry, tons of stuff coming up soon!

In the meantime, enjoy this shot of Jamie hangin' with his little niece last week.

Melt.my.heart.

Somewhere in the Greater Los Angeles Area...

...is where we're planning on getting married in the spring.

remember, it's still a secrety surprise!

More wedding-related news....

Some of you may have already read this over on dev's blog, but I thought I'd make some sort of effort at maintaining updates on the wedding front for those interested!

I have an M-of-Honor!

~me & devon in 2002 ~

Two classy broads kickin' it in Oklahoma for Lauren + Brad's wedding.

While there are a million ways to ask someone to be in your wedding party (some cute, some not), I hadn't really come up with a universal way to ask the girls I wanted in ours.  My thought was to come up with something organically and be satisfied with various way for the various girls.  Buck tradition, I always say!

Ok, I almost never say that.

Anyway, I was in a one-of-a-kind boutique here in San Francisco, just browsing around, when I came across this apothecary jar:

It automatically reminded me so much of my pretty friend.  It's girlie, french, and classy, isn't it?  Ok, so devon's not french at all, but I feel like she could be. C'mon, follow me here.  She likes wine and cheese and berets and bicycles.  All things culturally french, right?

I couldn't rightly just hand her a jar and ask her to be my matron of honor (don't think I didn't consider it).  So it sat in a bag until I was inspired, just before I flew out to Chicago.  I had to do some hardcore brainstorming as she  had set the standards pretty high with mini preparedness packages arriving on her bridal party's doorsteps a couple of years ago!

As cliched as it may sound, this was inspired while I was in the shower.

I have been making some fabric flowers lately and my favorite one seemed to fit perfectly on top of the little jar once it was flipped upside down.  I added a little tag that explained the flower's purpose and what she was supposed to do next.  Then I got working on the innards.

I played with her "title" for awhile.  

Ya'll have to agree with me on this one.  Maid-of-honor sounds so much cuter and younger than MATRON of honor.  I mean, take a look at the definition of Matron:

Breeding??  Really?  Actually, the formal definition of Maid ain't better (trust me on that one).  I'm going to be sticking with MofHonor for now.

Little bits of cardboard guaranteed an easy fit in the jar.

I wrote out my little message on strips of recycled cardstock and used red & white striped bakers' twine to tie each word to each other, like a strand of vocabulary.  Then, I tied the top of the strand to the inside of the lid so it would all pull out word-by-word by the recipient:

devon, would you be my m. of honor?

See?  She would lift the lid and pull out the message.

The string of cardboard words was anchored by a mini Scharffenberger chocolate bar (local here to SF) with a mini cardboard bird and an arrow pointing to a printed word on the chocolate to indicate how I feel about a positive response:

Sweet!

Thank goodness she said yes.  That could've been awkward.  :)

Yurty Yurt Yurt.

A couple of weekends ago, we went to a wedding for jamie's friends

who are planning to LIVE IN A YURT.

We drove to the northernest tip of California and put in many miles on a dirt road....

 Uh....seriously?? 

Waited for some wild pigs to clear the road....

Walked past the guy in the skirt....

  A few more steps past the guys in dress shirts,
digging up cooked animals from the ground.

That'd be a domestic pig, a one wild pig, and one lamb.

Hooked a left at the pumpkin decor, little kids, and pasture of sheep...

Then witnessed a beautiful wedding:

Holly Meyers Dawley and her husband, Tyler.

That's right, kids!  We know someone named HOLLY DOLLY.  How kickass is that?? She's a classmate of Jamie's from theUniversityofArizona and according to him, probably the last girl he could ever imagine settling down on a ranch....in a yurt.  Yup, you read it correctly the first time. Our friend Holly Dawley is going to move into a yurt.  They're waiting until the utilities are officially hooked up, but once it is, they'll be going Mongolian on their living style.  Amazing, huh?  Click here for a visual explanation.

 Logan, baby Willa, and me!

Logan is another UofA wildcat alum and Jamie's college girlfriend.

After a Facebook consultation about how to dress for "attire: barn chic" wedding, I decided on a knee-length strapless bcbg dress I had last worn at Devon's bridal shower.  It's a little flowy on the bottom, I decided that the browns made it appropriate for fall, paired it with some short, brown boots, a jcrew for kids headband, and a long strand of gold chains.  Was I wrong in thinking that barn people wear chains and flower headbands made for children? 

We loved the opportunity to see Jamie's friends and watch as our dog got along SO WELL with their kids.  Hudson totally dug the little ones and it was reassuring to see him do well with an infant grabbing at his tail.  Phew.  We don't get to play around with kids very often so I become a teeny bit nervous.

Nervous and apparently, a bit clingy.

It got super chilly that night.

Jamie brought me the closest child-blanket he could find.

And in wedding-related news......

It's official, folks.  The wedding planning is in full swing and we're pretty pleased with the progress made thus far.  Some big decisions have been made, but it took a few "how goes the planning" email hints to drawn my attention to the fact that I have yet to update ya'll about it.  So, here goes....We have secured a date and a venue! 

scheduled date:

May 2nd 2010.

and the location:

Ala Devon+Patrick and Brangelina, we're pulling the "secret" stunt and will hopefully be able to keep the location hush-hush!  If you end up discovering it, try to help us out by not telling anyone else.  I promise, it's been a blast so far and has already become an ongoing family joke (do you know what you want for dinner or is that a secret too).  We LOVE every second of it so help us out, ok?  And for the record, it was totally Jamie's idea.

One thing we have been liberally announcing is the smallness of the wedding...and the fact that 5/2/10 is a Sunday.  And that it's going to be a small wedding. 

More updates to come!

Fall's a-coming.

yummy strawberry popsicles
summer '09

Fall...or ""autumn"", depending on how pretentious you're feeling today...is met with mixed feelings from me this year. Traditionally, the anticipation of pumpkin pie and caramel apples and new notebooks and backpacks have made my knees buckle. I mean, really...New Notebooks?? Oh geez. I.love.new.notebooks. This year, however, I've been enjoying the crap out of summer-time and I'm having difficulty knowing how to look forward to cooler weather and so much more indoor time.

picnic with annie @ dolores park.

Sniff, sniff.
Maybe I'll just desperately hang onto some of my favorite images of this summer while making the transition into fall? Find my inner-chi while coming to terms with no.more.barefeet.on.grass?
Sniff, sniff.

grassy green park time.

Things to look forward to...in no particular order:

Fall tv is coming back in full swing --yay for 'theOffice' and '30Rock' -- minus a few of my FAVES. Damn you, CW, for canceling 'Privileged'. I have a long list of crafting and baking I want to do. We haven't used the crockpot all summer...chili cook-off? Jamie has an increased "workload" over the next little while aka "fairytale football". He'll be glued to the computer + tv for the next few months. We also have a close friend's wedding to attend in a few weeks up in the northernest part of Northern California - barns!farmlife!tractors! oh my!

does it get more SUMMER! than this?

Follow us as we transition into a series of "savings months" as we prepare for our upcoming wedding. Any assistance or advice in the savings department will be much appreciated. One thing is for certain, our typical travel-llanting (travel+gallivanting) will have to be kept relatively local for awhile. Isn't it advantageous that there are plenty of things to do in our immediate area?

more strawberry popsicle.

oh, that strawberry popsicle.

The Kantahara B&B is officially open for any visitors and surprisingly booking up quickly. Let us know if you're coming into town and want a free place to crash right smack dab in the middle of SF. Needless to say, we'll plan on keeping just as busy even if we're tethered a little bit more to the homestead. Happy Fall, Ya'll.