I bake a lot of desserts with apples, especially in the fall. I always end up with tons of apple peels that I feel really guilty about throwing away. But honestly, you can only eat so many apple peels. So, imagine my delight when I saw a suggestion online that, instead of throwing away apple peels, you toss them in cinnamon and sugar and bake them until they are crispy around the edges- making apple peel "chips."



I decided I'd try this today after making Autumn Cheesecake. Sadly, they taste just like you'd think baked apple peels taste- dry and crunchy and fairly tasteless (except for the cinnamon and sugar). I did eat them all though, which is better than throwing apple peels away? Probably not- more like a waste of perfectly good cinnamon and sugar. Try it! You're sure to be disappointed, just like me.

Yesterday, I had the joyous experience of visiting the DMV. I now have a California driver's license, and my Texas license had a big hole through it. I guess that means we're officially staying here (because signing an 18 month lease didn't really make that official). You can make an appointment for the DMV online, which is a great idea. However, when I tried to make an appointment, the next available time was at the end of November, so I just decided to go and risk being caught at the DMV all day long.

The DMV wasn't as bad as I had expected. I took water, coffee, knitting, a book, a crossword puzzle, and a notebook to make lists in with me. They ended up just weighing me down since I spent less than 5 minutes actually waiting and needed to fill out a long form during that time. Though I didn't wait long, going through all of the steps necessary took almost an hour. First, I spoke with the people at the "Start Here" line, who confirmed my paperwork and handed me a number. Then I waited until my number was called and spoke with a woman who entered my information into the computer and took my money. Then I walked to another desk and waited to have my picture taken. My new picture is decidedly worse than my last one. After that, I walked to a roped off area where I waited to take a written test. After I bubbled in all of my answers, I waited for the test to be graded. The three people in front of me failed, so I wasn't feeling overly confident. I passed, though, and then waited in line one last time. Finally, a woman entered my testing information into the computer and printed out my temporary driver's license. In all, I spoke with 4 people and waited in 6 (!) different lines/waiting areas. I also saw one man completely lose it (he was angry they were charging him $18 to replace his title), saw a woman in a full burka, and a man talking on his cell phone while driving in the DMV parking lot (illegal in the state of California).

All in all, it was interesting, though not an experience I'm excited to repeat any time soon.

I forgot to mention this, but Richard had a paper accepted for presentation! He will be presenting his paper called “Excavating the Significance of Nazareth Via the Church of the Nazarene” at the Wesleyan Theological Society meeting in Spring 2010. Conveniently, the meeting is right down the road in Pasadena. I'm so proud of him- this is a huge achievement!

Joshua Tree National Park

We went camping this weekend, and it was quite eventful!

Rich and I left early Friday afternoon and headed toward Joshua Tree National Park. Charlie was comfortably being boarded, as he is the only dog in the universe who hates camping. Joshua Tree is only about two hours away from us, and it was a fun drive down I-10. We saw lots of windmills and saw towns we never knew existed, including Beaumont, California!



When we arrived, we quickly set up camp- we’re pros at putting up our tent now! Dinner the first night was chicken, carrots, potatoes, onions, zucchini, and peppers cooked in foil packets over the fire. Richard and Boy Scouts nationwide call these silver turtles, but no one knows why. We were so hungry while dinner was cooking, we busted out the s’mores early. S’mores are easily the best thing about camping, especially when you’re starving. We made the mistake of eating these around the fire. Our crumbs attracted two, rather bold, mice. So we took bites of dinner between making loud noises to scare off the mice. They kept coming back, though- I guess graham cracker crumbs are more delicious than we are scary.

The next morning, a couple (from Texas, even!) in our campground was escorted off the premises due to an all-night domestic dispute. I slept through the whole thing, but according through our neighbors they were very loud. And annoying.



Breakfast was pancakes cooked on the camp stove. Mine were banana walnut, and Rich’s were plain. After cleaning up, we headed out for a leisurely 4.5 mile hike to Lost Palms Oasis. Just kidding! I thought it was a 4.5 mile hike, but turns out that was only one way! We made it to the oasis, and then rested in the shade, munching on trail mix. After about an hour, we decided to head back to camp. It was a long way back, but we made it- sore, hot, sun burnt and completely out of water.



We spent the afternoon laying in the shade, reading and napping (and recuperating). That evening, we had even more excitement as someone had to be life flighted out of the campground! There was a fire truck, an ambulance, police cars, and at least eight park ranger vehicles. Then a helicopter came, and circled and circled, looking for a place to land. After about 15 minutes, they finally found a spot and got the person out.



We had vegetarian chili, veggies, and cornbread for dinner, followed by s’mores (again). We were smarter this time and ate at the picnic table. Our mouse friends came back, but stayed away from our feet. We got into our tent rather early, and star-gazed through the open tent flap.

Sunday morning, we got up early, packed up camp, and headed home. On the way back, we stopped for breakfast at McDonalds. There’s no better way to end a camping trip than with hot coffee and an Egg McMuffin. Richard seems more relaxed than he’s been all semester. Charlie, on the other hand, is exhausted and has been asleep all afternoon-- according to the people at the boarding facility, he was a “party animal” all weekend.

The one thing that is cheaper in California is produce- probably because everything is grown here. This is a good thing because we eat LOTS of fruits and vegetables these days. We've been drinking smoothies for breakfast lately. Every day they are a little bit different since my "recipe" consists of throwing some fruit in a blender. This morning's smoothies were raspberry, blueberry, banana, and orange. Yum!

Lesson learned...

Last night, Rich went back up to school after dinner to get some work done at the library. I read Dracula in an attempt to stay awake until he got back. At around 11, I gave up the fight and tried to go to sleep. Turns out, if you read Dracula before bed, you won't be able to go to sleep. I kept thinking of gruesome scenarios and how I would react. It was like my very own Worst Case Scenario Handbook being played out in my (very vivid) imagination. In case you were wondering, I am really not qualified to write one of those books. Rich finally got home (after midnight, poor soul), and I finally was able to fall asleep. Dracula is creepy!!

So, if you didn't know we lived near mountains, you also may not have known that we live in the desert. Or so they say. There seem to be an awful lot of trees and green lawns for this to really be the desert, but what do I know? There are some big differences from Dallas- like for one thing, it never rains here (see two posts ago).

For another thing, instead of "palmetto bugs" (aka giant mutant cockroaches) there are giant, mutant black widow spiders. One currently lives under a ledge to the left of our front door. Every time I open the door after dark, I shudder a little thinking of its eight spindly legs. We haven't been able to squash it yet. Hopefully before Thanksgiving, right Mom and Dad?

And instead of the friendly green anole lizards that hid in bushes in Texas, here the lizards are brown and dart in front of you as you walk down the sidewalk. Kamikaze lizards. Lizard guts on the bottom of your shoes are always fun! (Disclaimer: I have actually not yet stepped on a lizard. But I have no doubt that it will happen one day.)

On the bright side, since there is very little standing water in the desert, there are also no mosquitos! Or maybe, the black widow outside my front door eats all of the mosquitos. Either way, I haven't gotten bitten once since we moved. Hooray!

So, no dice on the snow. The weather has turned warm again, and I think there is time reading by the pool in my near future. Rich had to work the conference for his program at school this week/weekend, so he was super, super busy. And NOW, because he spent so much time working the conference (and not so much time working on, you know, actual work), he will be super busy this week catching up. Sounds like fun, right?

I, on the other hand, am blissfully un-busy, though I am getting busier every week, it seems. I have a confession to make to my Dallas knitters- I joined a new knitting group. I only feel like I'm cheating some of the time. It's a really neat group- called Knit for Need. All the projects we work on at the group are donated to the United Way, who distributes them to non-profits in the area. Pretty cool, right? I definitely miss my old group, but I'm enjoying meeting new people and working on some interesting projects.

I was talking to my mom on the phone a few days ago, and she seemed very surprised by how close we live to the mountains. We live really, really close to the mountains. As in, less than 30 minutes from a ski resort. We even have a great view of the mountains from our balcony. Here's a picture of what that view USUALLY looks like (more or less):


That's actually the view from the "village" we live right next to. However, for the past three days, the mountains have been completely obstructed by very ominous, gray clouds. It finally rained here yesterday! The first time since we moved in July. And supposedly, upper elevations around us got pretty heavy snows, so I'm hoping that when the clouds finally clear (tomorrow maybe? I hope!), our view will look something like this:

We had our first "dinner party" in our new apartment last night. Dinner party is in quotes because it was quite casual- just our neighbors coming over to eat dinner with us. We had a great time, and I think our friends did too. Here are some pics of the table/centerpiece, including one in which you can see a tiny sliver of the living room. I will post pics of the entire apartment someday, but not today.