Zoë giving kisses

Video of Zoë drinking some Jamba Juice, saying "ew-woe" and giving lots of kisses.

Pre-Thanksgiving

I (Skip) just got over a bit of food poisoning. I think it was a certain curry dish I had Saturday at lunch. But I'm feeling much better now.
For thanksgiving we are going to my parents for lunch, they are making a special vegetarian thanksgiving for us, which is extremely considerate of them to do. My mom said she didn't want Zoë to have to see a dead turkey and ask what it was. Then we are going over to Nikki's dad's house at dinner time. The photo is of Zoë at grandpa's.

The day after Thanksgiving will mark 8 years of myself and Nikki being vegetarians! My last bite of meat was Thanksgiving lunch at my mom's house in 1999.

Hello Moon

We were driving to the store tonight to get something to make for dinner and we heard Zoe in the back seat saying "Hello"(more like "eww-woe") over and over again. We turned around and saw that she was waving, looking out the window up at the sky. She was looking right at the moon, saying hello.

Graphic Design

This is Skip. I work 5 days a week creating graphic design, and it just dawned on me that most people I know don't really know or see examples of what I do, they just hear about my job in a short sentence. So I thought I'd take a blog opportunity to show some of what I do ever week. The company I contract for full time creates a lot of money lending sites. They send me the text (I just paste the text they send me into the web design, some of it can be a bit cheesy) and a general idea of what they want. I create the web page design and send it to the art director and marketing director for approval. I will also do some graphic and HTML advertisements/emails. Ive put a couple of web pages I've recently completed below, you can click the thumbnails to see a larger screen shot of them. I will typically do about 2 or 3 of these a week.
In addition to that company I freelance with an international conference company creating mostly banners and most recently HTML emails. I put a banner example below also. This is the same company Nikki worked for in New York about 2-3 years ago. Between them, and various other jobs Ive had (like WebMD) I have hundreds of banner examples, so I will spare everyone and show just a single banner (the banner Im showing is going up on Bloomberg.com later this week).
Plus I work other freelance jobs, including helping out with my friend Eugene's company's website Post Logic Studios. Another site example is Pure Pools. There are many other design examples I could show. Its hard to narrow down years of working to a few examples.
The best part of my job is being able to work at home and be with my family.

My fav banana bread recipe

I love this recipe because it doesn't have many ingredients and it is oh, so yummy.

* 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
* 1/3 cup melted butter
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 1 egg, beaten
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* Pinch of salt
* 1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

I got this from Simply Recipes.

weekend dishes

The recipe for Saturday was heaping helping of Whole Foods, walking in the pseudo woods with a hint of shopping at Ikea, finished off with a splash of dinner at Pei Wei.

Sundays dish started off with an appetizer of playground playing, followed by a nap. After the nap we have some jamba juice to drink, then a dash of visiting Dad's with a cup and a half of visiting Bubbie's, and a side of dinner at Cafe Brazil. We left room for dessert of course, eating some yummy soy pudding while watching British comedies after our little boogie Zoe went to bed.

Free Rice Game

freerice.com
Here is a great game Kara sent to Nikki, the sponsors donate money for the amount of rice you "earn" by getting the correct meaning of words.

Midweek Visits

It was in the 50s today, which is a nice temperature, but not when it dropped from the mid 80s a couple of days before. Angie and James came by for a visit. Zoe is very interested in the 2 month old James, she did the sign for baby when she saw him. Angie and Nikki made vegetarian Sheppard's Pie for lunch, very good. We also found out our friends Catherine and Eugene are expecting, congratulations to them.
Later that day Mammaw, Pappaw and Uncle Donovan stopped by for a visit. Zoe is always interested in Pappaw's mustache. After some yummy matzo ball soup Zoe went straight to bed.

Weekend Stuff

Saturday morning we made a trip to Whole Foods for coffee, ciabatta bread and a pumpkin muffin. From there we went to Arbor Hills Nature Preserve, walked in the pseudo woods then played on the playground. Zoe came back and took a good nap.
On Sunday our good friend Sheedeh came over for a visit. We went to Willow Bend Mall in West Plano where Zoe played on the plastic dinner table playground.


click on the photo thumbnails to see larger view & read captions

Our grandparents

Here are a couple of photos we have of our grandparents looking very hip and cool. The couple to the left leaning against the wall are Skip's grandparents on his mom's side. This was taken in West Virginia probably in the 1940s. The couple on the right walking in the street are Nikki's grandparents on her dad's side. This photo was taken in Poland after they got out of the concentration camps, also in the 1940s.

Halloween

Yesterday was Zoe's first Halloween that she could actively participate in. We went over to our good friends Angie and Jeff's house and their baby James (who is almost 2 months old) and Zoe went trick-or-treating together. Zoe was dressed up as "The Strawberry Sorceress". Nikki did a great job making Zoe's costume.
Earlier that afternoon Zoe had her first big fall. She was walking on the sidewalk outside our apartments when she tripped and fell, hitting her forehead on a handrail. A big goose egg appeared on her forehead and she cried for about 10 minutes. Then she stopped crying and started playing, everything was ok after that and now she just has a small purple bruise that will probably go away in the next day or so. Nikki and I were more upset than she was! Zoe is a very strong girl. Then later that night while trick-or-treating I jabbed my toe (wearing sandals) into someones pop-up water sprinkler while walking up the sidewalk. Not a good day as far as injuries go but overall a great Halloween.