I'm just trying to walk myself home.
Chocolate and peanut butter have long been happy companions at our house, so when I saw a recipe in All You magazine for homemade chocolate peanut butter cups, I knew I had to try it. Ben and Mary Polly were all over this project! They both jumped in and helped, which was …
To Market, To Market by Anne Miranda has been a favorite silly story at the Chino House for years. It’s a modern take on the old nursery rhyme by the same name. A lady makes multiple trips to the market for animals that keep running away. She loses all control of her purchases. The animals …
I hope you had a wonderful Labor Day weekend. Ours was full of food, friends and squeezing in those last summer memories. Labor Day officially marks the end of summer for me. Even though we hit 100 degrees yesterday and we have not yet seen the end of the three digit temperatures in Little …
Every time I pack a bag lately, I am mentally taking notes. In some ways, all my summer packing has been preparation for packing for our upcoming trip to Europe. I am looking to find a balance between a very minimalist approach and including enough ensembles to make it fun to dress for dinner. I …
While we were in Colorado in July, Taido took tons of pictures of the sky from the same spot in our campsite in Crested Butte. I am thankful that he and my dad are always keeping an eye on the changing skies when we’re camping and hiking. Being caught in storms while hiking has bestowed …
My husband Taido, who we also like to call the Gearhead, owns these trekking poles for when he goes backpacking. He is usually carrying a decent sized pack in the mountains, so the poles help take some of the weight off his knees and land his feet a little lighter in spite of his heavy …
I couldn’t wait to introduce Cole to Mr Putter Books when he was little. I would get them in piles from the library and at first, he would flip through them and find all the modes of transportation. He really liked trucks. But soon he fell in love with Mr. Putter and Tabby the cat, …
We took a morning to hike and bike the Snodgrass Trail in Crested Butte, Colorado on our summer vacation. Taido has wanted us to do this trail for a while, but it’s a fairly strenuous single track trail for our young mountain bikers, so we’ve put it off in the past. This year we decided …
In honor of my daddy’s birthday today, I thought I would share this sweet little picture that Simon brought home from school. It’s his favorite summer memory. Riding a motorcycle with Grandpapa. My dad has this off-roading motorcycle that he rides when we are camping. He can be gone for hours on it and you …
Oh Be Joyful. That’s the name of the valley we camped in near Crested Butte, Colorado. We’ve camped here several times before, so it was all shouts of joy in the van when we decided to return there for the last leg of our summer vacation. My parents met us there and the kids …
I borrowed Lauren Winner’s new book, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, at the beginning of the summer from a friend. And I still haven’t returned it. It’s one of those books that you can read in one sitting if you don’t stop yourself, so after I read about half of it, I sort of …
After a couple of busy days in which we were all running different directions, we decided to spend Saturday evening together as a family. Everyone wanted to watch a movie, but Taido and I decided we all needed to get out of the house. The summer heat has given us a little relief the last …
Black Bean Confetti I am crazy for all the ingredients in this Tex-Mex bowl of yumminess. Also, all the colors make me happy. Every once in a while my friend Rhonda and I cater an event for someone. Mostly we do it because we love cooking together so much. We recently made two huge bowls …
What to Wear to Dinner on a Cruise One of my favorite parts of our girl cruise last year was dressing up for dinner. At first I wondered what to wear to dinner on a cruise, but then we planned it all way ahead of time at our cruise meetings. Also, I should mention that …
Today my only girl is 13. She has grown up so much in the last year, and yet I still have so much I want her to know. I want her to dream bigger-than-life dreams but I want her to stay close to me. I am alternately bursting with pride in the young woman she …
While we spent most of our Utah time in Arches National Park, we took one day to see a portion of Canyonlands National Park. I say a portion, because Canyonlands is a huge National Park. The canyons in the middle of the park make it impossible to cross to the other side, so in order …
I picked up Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire by Rafe Esquith about his years of teaching in a rough Los Angeles neighborhood because I am always intrigued by stories about teachers who are able to have success in schools where the odds are against them. Some of my favorite movies have a similar storyline. …
One of the reasons I was remembering my friend Laura yesterday is that our families met up this summer in Utah at Arches National Park! We did this one other time when we were traveling in the Pacific Northwest in 2008 (we like to call that summer Living the Dream). It’s so much fun. Our …
I was new in town, living on the south side of Seattle. Renton, to be exact. We had lived less than a year in a relatively uninspiring mint green townhouse. I was new to motherhood, new to staying at home, new to leaving the house with everything but the kitchen sink. I hadn’t really met …
Here’s an easy treat we made in honor of the Olympics this week! Patriotic Pretzels! We dipped pretzels in melted almond bark and then Simon sprinkled them. They harden in about 20 minutes on parchment paper. Then you can scoop them up and serve them in a bowl. So easy! And we decided they almost …