LET IT SNOW! Oh, wait it did...

"Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people's legs like house cats. It was magical, this snow globe world.” - Sarah Addison Allen, The Sugar Queen 
"“When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure.” -Alice Hoffman
        On Friday night, most people had plans but the weather seemed to have other ideas. Jack Frost swooped over my town and most of Northern California with only a grace and dignity he can uphold,and blew puffy gray snow clouds our direction. These soot-stained clouds made the weather drop considerably three days before the real fun and left everyone with rosy cheeks and way too many layers. Although the calm before the storm left the air chilly and full of static and every radio and weather channel told everyone the snow was coming there was still absolute panic. 
        "OH NO! We are going to be snowed in for less than 24 hours! We need to stockpile- TO THE STORE!" I'm pretty sure that this was the overall consensus of my small town, as when I went grocery shopping Friday evening the shelves were clean and cart traffic jams were happening left and right. Funny how a change in the weather leaves everyone panicked as if they would lose all connection with the outside world once that fluffy frozen water started coming down...and come down it did. I happened to brave the cold at about 10:00 to snap some pictures:

       Surprise, surprise the weather channel was right and I woke up Saturday morning to 5 inches of glorious, glorious snow. I pulled open my blind and what did I see? A world awash in white, sparkling at me like a freshly painted fence.(funny how we have to compare natural things to man-made creations and vice versa isn't it?) 

We're walkin' in a Winter Wonderland!

I think my favorite part of the snow is how it looks on the trees...

I think someone has some cold coffee... ya you're right that wasn't funny.

       I quickly got up and threw on the warmest outfit I could put on and set off with my Dad to drive around and see the snow! Unfortunately, our old car broke down at the gas station...so why we waited for someone to jumpstart us and the snow started to fall again and much harder then it had the night before...

I amused myself with an icicle and picture taking of course!

Lucky for us within five minutes someone pulled in and helped out and we were back on our way... we drove all the way up a small mountain and wound our way back down to do some errands before heading home.

SNOW! SNOW EVERYWHERE!

 Once home I armed myself with my camera and set out to do the one thing you are never too old to do...build a snowman. I don't want to hear that I am 15 years old and shouldn't be building snowmen because I don't even care.

His name is Howard(courtesy of Maddie and her mom) and he is adorable.

I happened to catch my cat, Olive,(yes, her mother's name is Pizza) tromping through the snow, snow-leopard style.

WARNING: Snow angels make you ridiculously cold.

Rattlesnake Creek was a sight to see and made me fall in love with Winter a little more...

I hope everyone stayed warm(wherever you are) and that you are able to enjoy the snow as much as I have! It is officially starting to feel like the holiday season!(my favorite time of the year) I can't wait for Christmas and hopefully more snow(not likely)as of now all that snow has turned to ice and I'm pretty sure the high for today was 38(I suggest layering, a lot of layering). I would love to hear your snow-covered experiences!(these parentheses are just for fun because I have a whole bunch in this paragraph). Jewel. 

Turkey Day...YAY!

Is that the smell of sweet potatoes, Pillsbury rolls, and a turkey cooking? Yep, you guessed it, that's the smell of a good old fashioned Thanksgiving! Personally, Thanksgiving has never been one of my favorite holidays, just something that just came and went as a small bump on the Peppermint Lane to ChristmasLand. However, this year I was really looking forward to the annual giving of Thanks and was not disappointed! The food was good, the family nice, and the tranquil peace of thankfulness settled over all of us...after our 5K run. Ok, you caught me, 5K walk......trot?

     
 This year I joined my sister and her friend, Brooke, on the eighth annual Michael Bratton II Turkey Trot, a 5K to raise money for suicide awareness and prevention in our county and honor the loss of Michael Bratton. Every year this 5K has gotten a little bit bigger and almost 2,000 people ran this year!

And we're trotting...and we're TROT-ING.

We then headed home to watch the one and only MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE!  To be honest, it's one of my ultimate Thanksgiving-themed goals to be in the crowd or on a float at the parade and let me tell you, am I trying! After thoroughly enjoying the parade we got in cute(and cozy) Thanksgiving outfits before skedaddling to the kitchen to cook every Thanksgiving food ever....yams(marshmallows included), green beans, mashed potatoes, and of course the TURKEY!

23 pounds of tasty...PLEASE NOTE: the froggy chip clip, yes it stares into your soul.

Yes, Kenna this is stolen from you...so props but I didn't have a picture of everybody!

Dad carving up Mr. Turkey

My family: Mum and Dad, Kenna, and the grandparents all sat down to an amazing dinner and remembered how thankful we were for everything around us and each other(cue the 'awww's). We had a great time together and even enjoyed some musical stylings from yours truly.(no, they don't happen often and when they do....stage fright knocks on my door and invited itself in.) This year I was really thankful for all the great opportunities presented to me, that were taken and the memories that I've made. Whether good, bad, hilarious, scary, or beautiful, this year's memories have been great and I've been lucky to have such great people to share them with! I hope everyone had a great Turkey day! Share your experiences and thanks down in the comments, I'd love to hear about them! Jewel

The Gingerbread Incident of 2013

         Sometimes we underestimate our abilities, in this case, I overestimated them. Due to a wealth of gingerbread pictures online,my sister, Kenna, and I decided that if the internet could do it then we could obviously do it. For years we had wanted to build a gingerbread house and enter it in the Christmas Fair but she was never home soon enough so we could meet the deadline until....SURPRISE! I walked into my closet and there she was, hiding behind my jackets. She had come home early and finally we could build our fabled gingerbread house.
        We set to work brainstorming, looking up every picture and recipe we could find, and buying ingredients before finally deciding on the crown jewel of gingerbread.......buses? What could be more unique, never before seen, and wonderful as a London Tour bus complete with gummy bear passengers and oreo wheels. Sounds wonderful right? Well it started well, we sketched our picture(yes, I'm quite the artist)

           

          We got out our ingredients and...

Secret Gingerbread Recipe off the internet....

          mixed them up in not-so-record time...

We discovered molasses is terrible.

            And finally our gingerbread was out of the oven.....seemingly perfect. We were having fun, feeling good, and ready to start frosting. However, Problem #1 hit: London tour buses are red and you can't make red frosting out of pink-tinted food dye. So our gingerbread was put off until the next day, when we could acquire red frosting dye and thank goodness it worked!
           

It was then that the gingerbread montage began. from 7:00 to 11: 00 we frosted every inch of our gingerbread bus and then Problem #2 hit: The lights went out. Of all the nights for such a thing to happen! Mid-glue, we were swamped in darkness and left to fumble about as we tried to glue a bus together at 12:00 at night. Then Problem #3 hit: Our 'seemingly perfect gingerbread'? Yah, not so perfect and apparently too thick because frosting wasn't holding it together anytime soon. And that brings us to Problem #4: After two different recipes, and way too much powdered sugar,we had to give in, our frosting wouldn't stick. So long story short, at almost 2:00 in the morning we gave up on our gingerbread-coated dreams and went to sleep leaving a very sketchy gingerbread house bus left sitting on the table. 

Take note of the personalized license plate J & K

Our gingerbread bus at its best

 But by morning it had depleted to this...

     And when I got home from school, this...

     Now you would think we would be done with gingerbread but not just yet... we had gingerbread men to frost ASAP! Luckily, those went much better then the bus and we now have the 11th Doctor Who, Olly Murs, and all of One Direction because they are all ridiculously British of course! 

Little Frosting buttons almost as cute as gumdrops

From left to right: Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Lilac Niall, Liam Payne, Louis(the child) Tomlinson, Olly Murs, The Tardis, and Matt Smith: The 11th Doctor.

     Although, I have no idea about Doctor Who or the doctors, or the Tardis...we still had a wonderful and interesting time making way too much gingerbread and we've finally learned out lesson: We actually DON'T want to make a gingerbread house, we just want to keep thinking about making one with the skills we don't actually have... I hope everyone has had a wonderful December so far and I'd love to see your holiday creations! Jewel.

     

Calistoga to Healdsburg.(Our own Route 66)

              The sweeping valleys, acres of vineyards, fall colors splattered across the trees......the description of California Wine Country in mid-October. How about we don't talk about how it is November and I'm posting this and I'll instead give you a reminder that high school teachers seem to think if they don't give you homework they are not doing their job. But lucky enough for me, my school has a October Break and I was able to take a short road trip to beautiful Calistoga, in the heart of Napa Valley. Complete with signature hot springs(of course tried) and  a winery every few feet, my mom and I had a wonderful time trying out everything the small town had to offer.
             After a rigourous and hair-rising drive over the steep and windy Calistoga Mountain, we dropped straight into wine country, looking exactly like a postcard. First off, we ate lunch at Checkers, a darling Italian restaurant with cozy window seats perfect for watching the downtown area out of. I enjoyed ravioli and cheesy garlic bread, while my mom enjoyed a Greek salad.

We quickly polished off everything except that second serving of bread

               We then walked around and enjoyed the quaint shops, art galleries, and beautiful murals spread throughout downtown Calistoga before checking in to our tiny and homey bed n' breakfast, Christopher's Inn.

                 We hit the road again to visit the beautiful wineries for their charm and amazing architecture. We started with the Beringer Brother's Winery, one of the oldest wineries in the Napa Valley. This beautiful winery has been walked by the likes of Clark Gable(Gotta love Gone with the Wind) and Carole Lombard.

The Rhine House 

"Are those Artichokes?!?" "No, Jewel they don't have artichokes growing as landscape."

Mom in front of the beautifully detailed fountain.

                 Next up was only the coolest winery/building ever. Castello di Amorosa. A medieval castle tucked away in the hills of California, a exact replica of a castle from 13th century Italy even built with European materials and complete with drawbridge, moat, cellars, a well, a chapel, and torture chambers.What could be cooler then a castle 30 years in the making? The answer is nothing. It practically has every winery in the valley beat just by its building.

Not my picture, but here's the whole effect.

Gargoyle Sentries

OHLORDJESUS. That is a drawbridge!

The top of the tower!

King Arthur's Table. Duh.

Handpainted walls

I'm a princess. I'm in a castle and I'm a princess. No, questions aren't allowed.

Every castle needs creepy underground passages.

The next day we continued our road trip to Healdsburg and tracked down the one and only donut muffin. 

Half donut.... half muffin...covered in a sweet cinnamon and sugar blend. Hands down amazing.

OM NOM NOM NOM. Be jealous.

After and amazing and ridiculously fun road trip, we drove home to a fall signature, the Harvest Moon. I hope you all had a wonderful and spooky October! Jewel.