Raining Cats and Dogs and…Rain

All of our crazy and fantastic weather usually happens when I am far away from home in an airplane. I even get pictures from Hubby of snow on his car windshield or of terrible thunderstorms.

If I hadn’t seen photo proof of these things, I would question whether they really happen. I’ve rarely been able to witness crazy weather in our parts myself!

But a few weeks ago…all of my wildest, stormy dreams came true!

For some reason, we were blessed with a thunderstorm in March. Which is just the craziest thing ever. We weren’t nearly warm enough for that battling hot air rising to mix with cold to create such a storm. This was just a freak event!

And, oh boy, was it awesome! We had good, solid rain for about two hours. In the desert, where water can’t hide, we had a river running outside in no time at all!

Can you see all of that water pouring off the roof? Luckily, this happened just after Hubby patched part of our roof to fix a sneaky leak. His timing couldn’t have been better! This storm would have caused quite a bit of damage otherwise!

There were pools and puddles of water all over the backyard, which is still very much a work-in-progress. Someday, this will be a lush oasis for us.

And this rain was helping a little too much in the wrong direction for that…we don’t want weeds!

At least we can gaze at this picture and see where we still need to do some leveling before the sod goes in, huh?

The tiller has since gone back to its home with Hubby’s dad. But it sure helped us while we had it!

Hubby was using this barrel to level things for a while. It has since been relocated to a storage spot near the shed. After the mud cleared out from this storm, that is! Look at all that wet stuff!

Since the water barrel was in the way of Hubby installing sprinklers a few months ago, it wasn’t in place when this downpour hit! Which only meant that we had a whole lotta water hitting our backyard today!

We might as well get some fish to put in this pond back here! It was a foot deep in this part of the yard! Holy smokes!

A not-as-mean storm a week before had made these little lovely weeds pop up. Before I could manually get rid of them, this monster storm hit and made a whole pool of water near our sitting area. Can you see all of that standing water?!

But out front, the storm was taking an even greater toll. Can you see how our entire planter box here is filled with water?!

Other than some of our mulch floating away to a better life, this actually wasn’t a bad thing. These little guys need water. Even in March!

After just a few minutes of this, there was certainly a river flowing down our street! The desert isn’t very good at handling lots of water in a very short amount of time.

And you can see all of that water coming off the roof, too.

I actually love weather like this. Mostly because I know that it is very short-lived, but also because this is perfect pajama-and-book-reading-and-hot-chocolate weather. And I happen to love pajamas and reading and hot chocolate.

Bonus.

Even our little solar-powered house numbers light was drowned enough to lose its focus.

Does anyone have any inner tubes? This river shouldn’t go unappreciated for long.

Disneyland…Here We Come

It all started harmlessly enough. I requested a book from the digital library to enjoy while working so much these past few weeks. I thought that it would be rather enjoyable to read up on what I certainly consider The Happiest Place on Earth.

I had no idea the damage that would come as a result

While sitting in Van Nuys last Saturday, mostly minding my own business with my tablet in hand, I was reading the book and occasionally gazing out the window with glazed over eyes. When will I get there to enjoy all of these wonders again? I can honestly say that the two days that I got to spend there with my Mama last year were some of the best two days of my life! When can I rinse, later, and repeat?!

And then it hit me. I happen to have a week in April when I know that we won’t be flying. El Capitan has taken some time off officially, and the airplane won’t go far without him. So I know that I have that week off as well.

Oh my goodness. Could I really do it?!

So I called Mama to see if she was game. Of course she was! And, even better, my little fourteen year-old brother was going to come along for the ride, too! He was bitten by the Disneyland bug even more after their visit this past November as a family.

I am just amazed at how everything has fallen into place for this trip…once we decided to just make it happen. I was able to use some special bonus hotel points for free rooms, so we are only paying for one night out of our five! And the hotel, which is just two miles away, ranks fourth in a list of over a hundred in quality, right behind a few of the fancy Disneyland hotels! Not too shabby for free, huh?

I ordered tickets for the Art Shuttle to take us to Disneyland each morning (crazy early, of course). And then I scheduled Super Shuttle (my credit card information got stolen the next morning, and I’m guessing it was from this phone call. Creepy, huh?) for a ride to and from LAX. Mama used their credit card points to practically buy both airline tickets for them! And my flights on Southwest were very affordable! We land within an hour of each other and will even be able to spend most of our first day in town at the parks!

An investment that I’ve always wanted to make was an annual pass, and my wishes came true for this trip. Besides, I have some very serious plans to return to do this all again in September, so an annual pass was a wise decision indeed. Mama has an annual pass, too, and Kip’s ticket will be cheap with the help of a local friend of mine who offered some Disney points that are about to expire! How awesome can friends get?!

Do you see how all of these stars are aligning? I think it’s meant to be!

Best of all, that week in April is one of the best times to go. Because of school, most normal people won’t be able to attend Disneyland for an entire week. We will have short lines but will be far enough into Spring that the weather will be gorgeous. Seventy-five degrees, in fact.

So it’s all set. And now we are just enjoying emails and phone calls back and forth, talking about what we are most anticipating!

Is it the songs of Splash Mountain?
Is it a breakfast burrito in California Adventure?
Is it the fast-paced lunacy of Indiana Jones?
Is it the nostalgia of The Jungle Cruise (since it was closed on my last visit)?
Is it the Dole Whip Float outside of the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room?
Is it the ghost hitchhikers in The Haunted Mansion?
Is it Soarin’ Over California, or Screamin’ there instead?
Is it a sourdough bread bowl lunch of heaven at the Pacific Wharf?
Is it the cannon blasts of Pirates of the Caribbean?
Is it the abominable snowman in the Matterhorn?
Or is it Peter Pan, which is always our first ride of the day and certainly a favorite?

I guess the answer to those age-old questions is…yes. It’s all of them. I love it all and can’t wait!

After working so much these past two months and being gone almost constantly, it will be a fun way to recover from my busy winter. And I can’t think of anyone else who I could possibly enjoy such a trip with other than my Mama and Kippy. We had such a nice time in our crash two-day course there last July. It will be wonderful to have five days there to really enjoy the place!

Eek! Come on, April!

Have you been to The Happiest Place on Earth lately? Apparently, I’m not the only one who loves it there…

A Homemade Caramelized Onion Tomato Tart

On a drizzly day in Vancouver, I watched a neat Food Network only-in-Canada show called Chef Michael’s Kitchen. I’ve enjoyed watching his laid-back-but-informative style previously on trips to Canada, so I was excited to see one of his episodes.

And then he made this. And I couldn’t wait to get home to try it!

I felt uber fancy when making this tart because I even made the dough from scratch! I rolled it into a ball and wrapped it tight before letting it rest in the fridge for half an hour.

While it was thinking about future life decisions in the refrigerator, I got to work cooking down some caramelized onions, one of my favorite things in the world, and slicing some tomatoes.

When the dough was rested enough, I rolled it out and placed it into my removable-bottom tart pan. Ha, it’s kind of fun to say removable bottom!

We enjoyed it with dinner of grilled chicken and salad, and it was so good! I highly recommend giving the recipe a try. Especially if you’re feeling fancy enough to make a dough from scratch, which ended up being really easy!

What I really want to do it buy tiny removable-bottom tart pans and make one for each guest when we have a dinner party. Wouldn’t that be fun for a little personal tart to arrive on each plate for dinner?

Man, I need to get out more.

Even Hubby liked it, and that is saying something for how many vegetables were involved!

Let me know how much you like it!