Ingredients

• 1 head green cabbage
• 1/4 head read cabbage (optional)
• 1 carrot, shredded
• 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 2 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 3 tbsp white sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil replace with extra virgin olive oil! use less than 1/2 cup
• spicy brown mustard to taste

Instructions

• Combine vinegar, surgar, salt, pepper, lemon, juice, oil, and optional mustard to make dressing
• In large bowl, combine dressing with veggies
• Let sit for at least 3 hours – I let mine sit overnight

Notes

• I love brown mustard in my cole slaw, but it is totally optional
• I can’t imagine not using olive oil, but I guess you could use vegetable oil. Also 1/2 cup seems like a lot… I used less

Day 1 – Flying In

Thanks to some generous friends (who are also watching our menagerie of pets), we were able to get to the Fly Away and head off on our awesome adventure to S.F.  As always, we couldn’t just stay in our hotel room once we got there, so we set out to explore the city and discovered a fun little coffee shop along the way.  It provided great coffee, a place to rest our feet, and Scrabble to stimulate our minds. 

We walked down to Fisherman’s Wharf to explore a bit and visited the fascinating Musee Mecanique.  After  playing with the contraptions, we headed back up to Union Square where Macy’s had the largest display of wreaths we had ever seen…and a beautiful Christmas tree and ice rink, too!

Day 2 – Exploratorium, etc.

One of the things we love about San Francisco is its public transportation system.  You can get anywhere here by just hopping on a cable car, bus, trolley, or underground train.  Of course, it helps to have a pass.  Day 2 found us meandering down to the Palace of Fine Arts where the Exploratorium is located in a beautiful park.

Thanks to our City Passes, which we recommend everyone get if you come here, we get free admission to five different museums/places here in S.F. – the Exploratorium being one of them.

We spent the majority of the day  competing with 7-10-year-olds for control of the different gadgets, learning strange things about electricity, sound, sight, etc.  It has become somewhat of a tradition for us to visit any science-center-type place we come across in the cities we visit.  Sure, museums and famous attractions are great, but science centers are just freaking awesome.  Oh, and don’t forget to bring hand-sanitizer with you lest you catch something from one of the little critters.

After the excitement of the Exploratorium, we headed down to Fisherman’s Wharf to catch some lunch and the free Bay Cruise that came with our City Passes (told you they were amazing).  The Bay Cruise was probably the coldest thing we’ve experienced here yet.  Needless to say, we were grateful that we brought along our heavy coats instead of our light jackets for the cruise!

For about an hour, the boat goes all around the Bay, hitting highlights such as Alcatraz, the Presidio, various boats, the islands, and – of course – going under the Golden Gate Bridge.  So…amazing!  And so cold.

Our brief sail around Alcatraz has us really excited to go explore on it tomorrow night.  Yes, we got the night-time Alcatraz tour…spooky!  It looks so abandoned and ripe for adventure.  The tour guides probably won’t let us wander too far off the designated paths and areas, but it’ll still be fun!

Day 3 – California Academy of Sciences

Can we say again how amazing San Francisco’s public transportation system is?  Cable cars have been our favorite way to get around, and here you see us with one of the cars we take almost everyday to get down to Fisherman’s Wharf.

Since we managed to sleep in on Day 3 (a big surprise for us), we decided to grab brunch down at the wharf, and what better brunch is there than…CRAB!!!  Crab everything!  You can get crab for around $7 from these awesome stalls lining the streets.  So delicious!  With all the walking and exploring we’re doing here, one crab is not enough.  Actually, regardless of what you’re doing, one crab is never enough.  Crab meat – aside from salvation and coffee – was one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind.

The California Academy of Sciences was pretty cool with all its animals and exhibits.  The aquariums are based on the Philippine coral reefs, and it was fun to see familiar fish and flora.  The academy even has a rainforest replica inside their building, complete with humidity and free-roaming birds and frogs.  Thankfully, they don’t allow the large snakes and bugs to roam free.

One of the most fun animals we found was the albino alligator.  Poor guy just sat on his log most of the time, but he did swish his tail occasionally.  Yes, he’s real even though he looks more like a plaster model.

Guess what?  San Francisco has penguins!!!  That was a treat!  While you can’t get as close to them as you can at Sea World, it was fun to see the little guys waddling around and being penguin-ish in general.  San Francisco just keeps getting better and better…

We walked around some more, poked around in cool gardens, and finally took our awesome transportation home.

One thing we haven’t really mentioned yet is the food, which is just amazing.  Maybe we’ll post some pictures of that later.

We’ve also been loving Corinne’s new T-Mobile MyTouch 3G with Google Maps and Navigation.  In addition to providing us with amazing maps, it pulls up bus schedules and tracks our location, so we can get directions from right where we’re standing to anywhere.  It’s definitely been a life and time saver while we’re here.

Well, it’s Christmas Day, and we’re off to continue the annual Thomas family tradition of watching a movie before noon and then exploring the city.

Have a wonderful day celebrating!  Or sleeping in…whatever your traditions may be. :)

Cheers,

Mike and Corinne

Our Christmas picture this year is a play on the duality of our lives. We are teachers and students; professionals and professional nerds. Hopefully, these pictures will give you a glimpse into our lives over this past year! Without further ado…

January – entertaining friends and homemade hot apple cider

January was pretty slow and involved lots of apple cider, gaming, and having friends over. Then, the semester started back up again, and we were back to teaching/working/being generally sleep-deprived…

February – a new friend…

Inara was the nicest rat we ever owned. She was utterly friendly. She also didn’t use her claws. At all. Quite a nice feature. Sadly she died within the year from internal tumors. An easy way to die for rat, but she isn’t the kind if rat that can be easily be replaced.

March – a couple new fish.

Two more in the long line of “Communist Freaking McFascist Pants”. “Pants” was such a fun goldfish name that we decided to name all future goldfish “Pants” in the spirit of the Pharaohs of Egypt…Ramses I, Ramses II…Pants I, Pants II…

April – birds and poppies

We acquired these two beautiful, skittish diamond doves. They enjoy: flying around our house (a little), finding high places to sit in our house (a lot), talking to us (quite a bit), and playing with us (not at all).

We also headed out to the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve and got some great pictures and had a lot of fun in the wind :)

May & June – summer vacation

We traveled through up through Sacramento (board meeting for Corinne), Northern California, the Oregon coast, Washington, took the ferry to Victoria BC, met Corinne’s friends in North Bend, and checked out Portland. Tons of hiking, exploring new cities, water falls, horses, book stores, a castle, so many beaches. It was beautiful.

July-ish

Then, a quick trip up to Crestline, CA with some friends…

Then, an overnight camping trip to the Salton Sea (weirdest place visited this year)…

August through September – Prudence, work, and school

Our latest (and now only) rat, “Prudence”, joined our family. We frantically tried to enjoy the end of our summer break before beginning a busy semester. Corinne taught 4 sections of Intro to Spoken Communcation at TMC, took two classes as GWU, and continued working in the IT department doing Educational Technology. Mike is still working as a Software Architect at TMC and is working to finish his degree…

October – a fun trip down to the beach cities to get us through the semester.

We discovered that taking short, fun trips really helps break up the pattern of daily life and relieve some of the stress. It also provides great opportunities to catch up on sleep and do some exploring…

November – we celebrate Corinne’s birthday in San Deigo and visit the Penguins!

Yes, that is Corinne touching a real, live penguin. Said penguin also jumped out of the trainer’s arms and tried to go home with the group. If only…

December – rain finally comes to Santa Clarita and it’s a little cool. Time for Christmas vacation!

Santa Clarita finally got some rain, and it was such a treat. Our dirty car definitely appreciated it, too.

And we’re off to San Francisco this year since…well…San Francisco is a cool place to visit! We’re really looking forward to downing lots of clam chowder (maybe even crab!) and walking all over the place to discover new and exciting places.

We hope you have a wonderful Christmas this year, full of good fellowship and good food!

Cheers,

Mike and Corinne

If all goes to plan, in 12 hours this should be quite delicious…

• 4 parts water
• 1 part medium/coarse ground coffee
• 12 hours at room temperature

near a cemetery in DC – light, looking up

California has skyscrapers, developments, and buildings in general. Condos, office complexes, and light-industrial. Shopping malls, suburbs, “town centers.” But it doesn’t have *anything* on DC. I think I understand, just a little, why Baudrillard focused on the southwest and California…

Burning clouds in Burbank (CA)

At 5am the sun was already waiting for us. We took a walk around the campground, inspecting it for the first time by light. It was beautiful. Over 80 degrees at 6am, 90 by 8am, and quickly over 100. The flies were already out, and we could smell rotting fish.

That’s the thing about the Salton Sea. For every weird and beautiful and unexpected thing there is the heat and the smell and the flies. But when you think that the heat and the smells and the flies are too much, there is something else unexpected and beautiful and weird.

I want to head back once it cools off – assuming that it ever cools of at the Salton Sea :)