San Carlos Summer Concerts 2010

Be sure to attend one of the summer concerts this year at Burton Park! They take place on Friday evenings starting at 6:00 PM, and the first concert is this coming Friday! Here is the schedule so you can plan in advance:

July 9
The Distractions- Rock 'n Roll Classics

July 16
Big Bang Beat- Ultimate Party Classics

July 23
The Bell Brothers-Country Rock

July 30

The Refugees- Tom Petty Tribute

August 6

E-Ticket Band -Oldies Rock n' Roll

Fresh recipe of the month: Meyer lemonade

Our Meyer lemon tree produces fruit year-round, leaving us with too many lemons. And what do you do with too many lemons? Make lemonade of course! In these summer months lemonade is particularly popular and today we are bringing it along to a July 4th barbecue.

- 3 cups of water

- 1 cup sugar

- 1/4 cup honey

- 1.5 cups meyer lemon juice

Boil the water and add the rest of the ingredients. Pour in a pitcher with ice and add cold water until it reaches the desired level of tartness. For fun, you can also squeeze in the fruit of a few blackberries to change the color!

San Francisco family-friendly museums

San Francisco is full of great museums for your family to enjoy. Here are some of my favorites:

California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park
The recently-reopened California Academy of Sciences is in one word phenomenal. It is located within Golden Gate Park, and is home to an aquarium, a planetarium, many natural history and science exhibits and more. Most extraordinary of all, the roof of the California Academy of Sciences is actually a living roof with California native plants and a drainage and daylighting engineering system!

de Young Museum
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive
Golden Gate Park is home to another great museum, the de Young Musuem. The building itself is architecturally beautiful and the collection of contemporary art is fantastic as well.

Exploratorium
3601 Lyon Street
A second great science museum in San Francisco is the Exploratorium, located in the Northern part of the city. It holds many exciting exhibits that explore science with a hands-on approach.

Aquarium of the Bay
The Embarcadero and Beach Street
To enjoy marine life you can head to Aquarium of the Bay on Pier 39. Some highlights include the touch pool and the tunnels that take you directly underneath the San Francisco Bay. Don't be surprised if you see several sharks lurking around the Bay!

Zeum
221 Fourth Street, San Francisco, California
Finally, Zeum is a great place for children to enjoy hands-on activities, like making their own music video, designing digital art, or making their own claymation film.

As you can see, there are many great museums to enjoy with your family!

Fresh recipe of the month: Blueberry muffins

With all the fresh blueberries from our yard, we decided to make a batch of blueberry muffins.

- 1/2 cup butter

- 2 cups flour

- 1 cup sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1/2 cup milk

- 2 teaspoon baking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 2-1/2 cup blueberries

- 2 teaspoon sugar (for topping)

- 1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream butter and sugar and add eggs. Sift dry ingredients and add alternating with milk. Mash 1/2 cup berries and stir in. Add the rest of the berries whole. Pour in muffin pans and sprinkle sugar on top. Bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees F. Cool for at least 30 minutes.

Jack- the newest addition to our family!

Jonathan William Gosse (better known as Jack) arrived last Monday evening (June 14th), weighing 7 lbs 15 oz, and measuring 19.5 inches long.

Almost due: spending the day at Half Moon Bay

I'm due in less than two weeks, but starting to feel a little home-bound. Nate and I decided to get out of the house and spend the day at Half Moon Bay.

We first took a stroll along the Half Moon Bay State Beach. It was our first time visiting this particular beach, and we found it to be really nice. There were several families out playing frisbee and volleyball. We just soaked in the sun and read for a bit on a blanket.

After enjoying the sand, we head to Barbara's Fish Trap for a bite to eat. I'd been here once before with my parents and really enjoyed it. It has a typical seafood shack feel, casual yet with delicious food. I ordered the salmon burger and Nate had traditional fish and chips. Both of our meals were tasty! We made the mistake of forgetting to bring cash however (they don't accept credit cards), so Nate had to sprint across the street to hit an ATM.

If you head to this restaurant, be sure to take a stop in the bathroom (if you are a woman). The walls are painted with a beautiful underwater theme, and are worth taking a look at!

After a nice day out, we head back to San Carlos for the evening.

Fresh recipe of the month: Steamed artichokes (from our garden!)

We have been growing an artichoke plant for two years now. That's right, two years and no flowers to show for it. This year, with all of the rain, the plant really took off, and for the first time we had two beautiful artichokes arise. This weekend we decided to finally enjoy them. We went with a simple recipe, steaming the artichokes and eating them with a nice lemon butter.

- 2 fresh artichokes

- 2 tablespoons meyer lemon juice

- 1 tablespoon butter

Rinse the artichokes, remove damaged leaves, and trim the stem. Steam artichokes on the stove using 6 cups of water for about 45 minutes. For the dipping sauce, melt the lemon juice and butter in the microwave. You are ready to eat and enjoy!