Heading to Washington!

I am leaving on Monday for Washington to visit my family for the holidays! I last saw everyone in August and it will be nice to be back up north for the wintry season -- as long as there aren't any crazy snowstorms like last year!

I always love going home and there is something really nice about Washington during the holiday season that just doesn't exist here in Miami. I have to put some finishing touches on peoples' gifts once I get home, but I am almost all done with "shopping" this year -- the great thing about having a (mostly) hand-made Christmas was that I didn't have to brave the hordes of crazed loonies at the mall. Next stop...Washington!!

Holiday Nights with Wild Lights

Last weekend, Carlos and I visited the zoo (apparently one of our favorite past-times!) at night for the Holiday Nights with Wild Lights event. From 7-11 pm the zoo is open (but not most of the animal exhibits) and lights in the shapes of animals are lit up everywhere! It was really cool and pretty -- it was exciting to visit the zoo at night. There was even a little exhibit area with moving animal dolls and decorated trees set up inside one of the buildings. I think my favorite animal lights were the manatees, fox, and giraffes -- they were all really pretty though.

Pear tomato

The third and final tomato variety in our balcony garden is the pear tomato. This plant was grown from seed that Carlos brought back from Washington in August -- taken from tomatoes that we bought at the Redmond Farmer's Market. Though not as prolific as the Everglades tomato, this vine produces little (~ 3cm length) pear-shaped fruits that are quite tasty.

Early Girl tomatoes

All of the tomatoes in our little balcony garden are fruiting now -- it must be the cooler weather (even though it is still in the 80's!). This is the second of our tomato varieties: it's called Early Girl (tomato varieties have strange names). These tomatoes are the largest that we grow (diameter ~ 4cm) and are delicious. Though I like the Everglades tomatoes slightly better, these are easier to use in salads. There are tons of green fruits still on the vine so we will hopefully get to eat lots more of these before we leave for Washington in a week!

Asian snacks -- Soda candies

I bought these soda candies a reeeaaally long time ago (I also ate them a long time ago), so my review of them might be a little hazy. I remember that they were very good and I will buy them again if I see them. There were 6 flavors of candies in the package: purple = grape, aqua blue = ramune (a type of clear Japanese soda), yellow = lemon, orange = orange, clear = apple, and brown = cola.

All of the candies were fizzy (like soda) and had nice, strong flavors. My favorites were apple, cola, and ramune (but all of them were really good). Even the shapes of the candies were really cute -- they resembled little smiling imps!

Anyway, I am trying to go through some of the things I have put into my little "to blog about" folder that I have accrued over the year -- there are a lot of craft things I have been working on, but I can't post about them because I am doing hand-made gift-giving this year and I don't want to spoil any present surprises. Frustrating! At least after the holidays I will have lots to post about.

PS. Happy birthday Shannon -- see you in a little over a week!

Alpaca wool felt

For my birthday, my parents sent me a little box of thick, colorful, furry felt made from the wool of alpacas from Peru. The felt is colored with vegetable dyes and is really good quality. I am using it very sparingly in a few little crafts (including some Christmas presents for family and friends). It's hard for me to use it because I think I will mess up and waste this rare, lovely felt -- but what's the point of holding onto it and keeping a little pile of felt squares? I am transforming this felt into cool stuff!

Everglades tomatoes

We have an Everglades tomato vine in our balcony garden and it is starting to prolifically produce fruits! This tomato is native to Florida and is an heirloom (non-hybrid) that grows in the wild. The fruits are very tiny (~1 cm diameter) and delicious. These tomatoes are extremely sweet and "tomato-y" -- I don't really know what that means, but they have a lot of flavor for such a small fruit!

Another cool thing about this type of tomato is that it grows well all year in Florida -- most tomatoes can't handle the hot summers here. We planted this tomato when we re-started our garden in August and the vine is already huge and hanging over the balcony! Our other tomato varieties (we have three total) are also beginning to produce ripe fruits and I will have to talk about them as they are ready.

Another zoo visit!

After a little blog-break, I am back! Yesterday, Carlos and I took advantage of the sunny but cool (~70 F) weather and visited the Miami Metro Zoo -- one of my favorite zoos (and, apparently, one of "America's top ten zoos")! We looked at a bunch of the holiday decorations that are out (including scarecrows and animal-shaped lights) and spent most of our time in the Asian exhibits.

We stopped at a few exhibits along our way to the Wings of Asia aviary (one of my favorite places in this zoo, as I've mentioned many times before!). We were very lucky this morning since we saw lots of birds that we had never seen before and they were all really active and talkative! It was also nice in the aviary since it was still early (10 am) and no one was there, but us (and the birds).

From there, we wandered over to see the Asian small-clawed otters -- they were supposed to be fed Christmas pine cones at noon. They didn't get pine cones, but a keeper fed these three fellows live fishies and it was so cool to watch them swim, chase, and catch the fish.

By the time we were done watching the otters, it was getting hot and crowded so we left, stopped at Costco (it's near the zoo), and came home -- what a fun day!