Sylvia's Scenario

This is a recipe that I've made three times already because everybody loves it and it's minimal work for me; a win-win situation.  I serve the beef and vegetables over quinoa since this recipe has a lot of juice that is perfect for the quinoa to soak up and adds a wonderful flavor.  When people walk in the door, the aroma coming from this recipe is amazing which is what I like about using the crockpot.  The whole house will smell great all day as it cooks.  I made this recipe when my sister and her husband came to visit and I knew I'd be busy on their first day, picking them up from the airport, plus I had a hair appointment the same day (which was convenient since my hair salon is close to the airport) but I did not have time to cook.  So, I just threw everything in the crockpot in the morning and done.  When we got home from the airport, they said, "Oh, what smells so good?!"  My nephew and his wife also came over for dinner (my sister's son) and eve...

Our first winter storm of the season has hit after a summer of only 0.13 inches of rain. Bummer.  Summer was fun while it lasted.  My sister came to visit from Colorado just in time for the bad weather, too.  Another bummer.  We knew it was coming so on our last day of sunny weather, we headed to the gorgeous  Bloedel Reserve  on Bainbridge Island, just a 30 minute ferry ride away.  It is one of North America's 10 best botanical gardens, all 150 acres of it.   It was a perfect way to begin her visit since we always have lots of sister-talk to get caught up when we see each other again.  The trails at Bloedel Reserve are listed as 2 1/2 miles but there are a lot of back-trails and view points to wander off on so we did a lot more than that.  And all the trails are immaculately maintained.  You can choose to spend a lot of time here since there are numerous benches to sit on and we often did that to take pause of all the natural beaut...

We spent our Labor Day weekend celebrating Bruce's birthday.  His actual birthday isn't until Wednesday but it was easier for everyone to get together this weekend.  So, we picked Saturday to celebrate with dinner, cake and presents at Lauren's house.  Since she lives so close to the zoo, we also decided to go to the zoo on Saturday.  But the festivities started on Friday when we picked up the grandkids for another sleepover at our house.  We all absolutely love sleepovers at our house.  We get so much more time with them and there is no rushing to get them back to their house.  We love it.  We took them down to the beach at Alki and spent most the afternoon there.    They can play a very long time there. We are getting better and better at knowing what to bring as far as snacks, toys, and now we also have a beach umbrella to provide us with some shade.     We were there so long that we took them home and went straight int...