Bees in Basil

History Repeats Itself

When I was a kid, there was a local woman that gave cooking lessons to the neighborhood kids. We would make entire meals from salad, to the main course to dessert. She even made us little cookbooks with the recipes in them to keep. I loved the classes because we were not making silly kid stuff. We made baked Alaska, chicken dinners and lasagna rolls. There are a few recipes that I use to this day. 

I also remember going next door to our neighbor who taught me how to make bread from scratch. That never quite took, because I still can't do it the traditional way. And please do not ask me to make a pie crust. I loved the lessons though, and they helped me foster the love of cooking and baking that I still have. 

I have a friend who has a daughter, who is so much like me, when I was her age, that we are kindred spirits.  She loves to draw, paint and cook. I am giving her a few cooking lessons this summer for dishes that she can take back and make for her family. Today was our first lesson. We made the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls that I make at Christmas time. They came out great. Our future lessons will be lasagna (with homemade sauce), blackberry ice-cream, chicken pot pie and Italian casserole. I am hoping she will use these recipes for years to come. Some of them are very easy, and some are pretty complicated. But what I want her to get out of this is that cooking is fun, challenging and useful. But above all, you can't be afraid to fail. 

Cuteness Alert!!!!

Please note that the human child is no longer in the carseat properly, but the bear is very snugly belted in.  Safety first!

(On a side note, this bear was given to AJ when he was about a year old by Shawn's sister, Stacey.  I love that it has been passed down and is over ten years old.)

Stow Away

The Hotel

We stayed at the Paco Diablo Resort in Sedona. Honestly, it was not great and I would not recommend it. It was a little run down.  A lot of details were missed that should not be missed if you are going to call yourself a resort. When we drove up, I remember thinking that they must have used stock photos on the web site because we were not at the same place. 

They had a restaurant that was recommended at the hotel that had gotten some good reviews. The views off the patio were very pretty and if our room had actually faced this direction, I probably would not have been so disillusioned.  However, the food was not that great. We did order a pretty delicious appetizer though that I will attempt to make at home.  It was asparagus wrapped in pastry with a spicy, creamy sauce on it. Yum.

Soccer Championships

To cap off the birthday weekend, Shawn gave me two wins in the adult league soccer championships. He is so giving that way. It was 108 out and they played for 2 hours straight. I would have more sympathy for him but he is only 40, instead of in his 40s like me. So I figured the young whippersnapper could suck it up and deal. 

The championship team:

Birthday Trip To Sedona

This past weekend we went up to Sedona to celebrate my birthday. The worst part about turning 41 is that I am no longer 40, but rather "in my forties".  Blah. 

I wish I could recommend our hotel, but it was kind of yucky. It was called the Paco Diablo. Although there were parts of it that were beautiful, it was a bit rundown and needed some major overhauling. 

Sedona itself was very pretty. My favorite part was the little shopping/gallery/restaurant area. It was beautiful. There were a lot of cute shops and they even had an acting troupe doing Shakespeare.  The second day someone was having a wedding. 

We went to a brewery the first night and they had this cool copper vat.

 On Saturday, we drove through Jerome to to go get AJ at camp in Prescott.  Jerome is a very tiny town situated at the top of a very steep mountain.

The main street in Jerome.

The view from Jerome.

On the way up, we were behind this cyclist. He was insane. Not only was the climb very steep, but the constant switchbacks made visibility really poor. I was glad he was at least wearing a helmet.

 I texted this picture to Jeff and told him that for his birthday I climbed this mountain and made this "J" out of rocks. He texted back that he had invaded a small country and had renamed it "Heatherland". I told him to stop showing off and thanked him for getting my phone tapped.

We stopped at this cute fruit stand on the side of the road in Sedona. They had delicious produce. You can't tell from the picture, but behind the sunflowers are stairs that go down the hill. The woman who ran the stand had to go down there to get the pressed cider. We think that was where her house was too.

Some pictures of the famous red rocks.