Another wonderful weekend expedition

Even though my weeks are a little slow, Phil makes it up to me on the weekends with some really fun adventures! It seems that every weekend there is something brand new and mind blowing to explore. We visited the national reserve Point Lobos, which for me was like a mystical, enchanted forest. We only scratched the surface this weekend on this gorgeous reserve but what we saw made us want to come back for more! 


This little spot is very famous. It is the inspiration for various artists and, before it became a reserve, over 50 movies were shot here. Beside the beautiful scenery, there are is a wide variety of wildlife. We didn't make it to the sea lion cove or the pool where the otters play but you can bet we will next time! 

                                                                      

This program is so difficult to put pictures up in any kind of interesting looking way. 

If you get the chance to visit before we have to leave here, it wouldn't be a hard sell to get us to take you exploring through this beautiful mixture of forest and ocean. 

As soon as Phil and I can get signed up, we are going to learn how to scuba dive! This reserve has one of the best spots for diving around. We were able to see just some of the cool sea life just in pictures around the reserve and I am SOOO excited to get in that water! Learning to scuba dive will be a lifelong dream come true. 

I am trying to prolong finishing this blog so I don't have to go run...but I'm running out of other pertinent information :-) I would love to hear from you!

Good luck teachers with your back to school craziness! I wish I were in it with you...and at the same time I am jubilant that I'm not!

Sniff this!

This last week has been full of fun and breakthroughs for us. We have decided on a church that meets in an old theater downtown. "It just so happened" that when we asked the small group coordinator about joining a couples group, she said that there was a new group revving up and the first meeting was that night! We met some really nice people that love Jesus and want friends as badly as we do. I have very thankful for God's providence in this, my week has been and will continue to be the fullest it's been since we got here. My extroverted-ness was going crazy without friends!

This last weekend we also got the opportunity to take a trek up to Gilroy for their annual Garlic Festival! We were really unsure of what to expect but when we got there we realized what a  HUGE production this thing is. There was loads to do, to look at, and to eat :-) The whole fairgrounds smelled wonderfully garlic-y.

As we walked in to the festival, we saw a man using a pole that had fresh rosemary on the end to lather these large pieces of meat with mounds of some fantastic garlic topping while they slowed cooked on the grill. Such a wonderful smell!

There was a celebrity cook at the festival from the show Top Chef...

we grabbed some garlic beer and waited for the show to start!

Just kidding about the garlic in the beer ;-) The Top Chef contestant we went to see was Angelo Sosa...he talked about himself the for 20 minutes and didn't even mention his food...needless to say we had more exciting things we wanted to experience so we left. But we got a picture!

Here is the large flaming garlic bulb...Gilroy weather is much warmer than Monterey 

so this sucker made it feel almost like Tucson when you got close enough.

Garlic roasted corn!

Can you see the PILE of garlic on that fry!!!! 

We had dragon breath for days and it was so worth it!

Of course, we had to try out the garlic ice cream (no joke this time). 

It definitely tasted like garlic but it wasn't bad...it left you mouth feeling kind of tingly.

 It's worth trying if you ever get the chance!

He really did like it, I swear! We also tried some very tasty garlic bread...

but it was gone too fast for us to get a picture

I am very grateful for all of the fun and exciting (maybe sometimes challenging) adventures we are getting to have. Thanks for checking in! 

Love Love Love! And a Happy Birthday to my very wonderful Mother-In-Law! I hope you are enjoying your day!

Erin's Excellent Enchiladas

Today, I am thankful for forgiveness. It is amazing how asking, receiving, and giving forgiveness from or to someone allows for great healing and renewal.  I asked for forgiveness yesterday from a friend and it has really helped me pull out of a "woe is me," super selfish attitude. Thank you Jesus for bringing me to a place where I can genuinely ask for forgiveness when I have wronged someone and for providing me with the humility to also forgive.

Recently, Phil and I have been trying to eat foods that give us good energy and encourage us to live a healthy lifestyle. We choose to eat as much fresh food as possible without preservatives, a lot of protein, etc. If you want more info on the specifics of our food choices, you can look up Paleo or Primal diets. Within the last year, we have been struggling with eating this way because it means cutting out a lot of our staple foods such as pasta, bread, any grainy or gluteny foods, etc. We felt at first very limited (and myself sort of bitter) in our choices of meals and snacks so we bought a few cookbooks to help broaden our food-rizons. I have gotten to experiment with a lot of great recipes that are SUPER healthy and tasty.

This meal turned out to be Phil's favorite so far. It was meant to be tortilla soup...but turned out to be Excellent Enchiladas with a side of Cauliflower Rice and Refried Beans (and no refried beans are not Paleo but DELICIOUS!). They are super easy to make and very very tasty. Here's a quick ingredient list:

~2.5 lbs chicken (breast or other)

~as much onion as you like

~as much celery as you like

~as many carrots as you like

~1 can of enchilada sauce (28ish oz)

~a little chicken stock if you don't want super strong enchilada sauce flavor

~3-4 cloves garlic

~1/2 a lemon's juice

~cayenne pepper for heat

~garlic powder

~black pepper

~salt

~cumin

~Let it sit in the crock pot 6-8 hours and you have tasty enchiladas. 

~Serve with avocado and cilantro...and of course cauliflower rice and refried beans.

If you want to know how to make Cauliflower Rice, I would be happy to share...but this blog is already getting long :-)

Below is an example of a not so awesome recipe...Eggs Houses where the house is a tomato. Blech.

I love you!

Recipes thanks to http://everydaypaleo.com/