week fifty

Oh yes, there's more. I'm up to week 50!

That Saturday was a busy one. Steve and I met Pei for brunch at Foreign Cinema, where we (Pei and I) pointed cameras at our food. Then, after Elsa's second nap, I headed to the Presidio with Dan and Carmen's gang to take some Christmas card pictures. When trying to determine the perfect location for holiday portraits in not-so-snowy San Francisco, I thought somewhere foresty would be ideal. I don't know that many woodsy places in SF, but I remembered seeing pictures of the Wood Line in the Presidio. We managed to find it and took advantage of the quickly fading sunlight, despite the chill. It was challenging to get a shot with all three of them looking pleasant, though, especially when Enzo was added in. He and Elsa were easily distracted. We also had to keep putting Elsa's shoes (and occasionally socks) back on; she kept kicking them off. In the end, Dan and Carmen went with this shot for their Christmas cards. I, however, had trouble getting past the fact that that picture's focus was a little soft, so I went with the one below for my picture of the day.

344/365 family portraits

On our way back from brunch on Saturday, Steve and I stopped by Sun Fat for a couple dungeness crabs. It was time to take advantage of crab season, since we've been bad about that in the past. Steve used one of the crabs on top of carrot soup that night, and he used the other for crab cakes on Sunday. We had to choose between a couple styles/recipes for crab cakes, but Steve decided to try out the one from Ad Hoc at Home—a crab cake of the panko-coated persuasion. I was happy that, unlike a few weeks before, I had time to spend on plating the thing for my picture. The greens are little sparse in the back, but I liked this frame better than the ones I took after tinkering with it. Oh, and the crab cakes were tasty. Steve made them again for our Christmas Eve dinner with Dan and Carmen.

345/365 crab cake

Monday was devoted to baking several dozen snickerdoodles for a cookie party that I attended that evening. I spent about an hour in the morning throwing the dough together, and then it had to rest in the fridge for a while. The whole afternoon was spent doing the cookie shuffle: scoop, sprinkle, bake, rotate, bake, rest, transfer, repeat. I had chosen snickerdoodles, because they were the easiest I could think of. But using the small cookie scoop, the doubled recipe made way more than the necessary 6 dozen. I actually baked the last few dozen the next day, because I was running out of time and had plenty of cookies already. For the picture of the day, I shot some ranunculus flowers on the table with snickerdoodles cooling in the background. Coincidentally, I took a picture of snickerdoodles and ranunculus the year before too. 'Tis the season, I guess.

346/365 snickerdoodle production

After baking the rest of the cookies on Tuesday, I went downstairs to work with Carmen on a Blurb book of Elsa's first 6 months. The good thing about being so behind in blogging is that I can admit that that's what I was doing that day. :) The book was a Christmas present for the in-laws, as well as for Carmen's parents. And since it was all about Elsa, my picture for the day was her new stocking.

347/365 elsa's stocking

Wednesday was the continuation of the Elsa Blurb book work. This time, I took a quick picture of her toy bag on the kitchen counter.

348/365 toy bag

And Thursday was the day that our Christmas cards finally arrived. (Cutting it close...) I would have liked to take a picture of them for that day, but Steve was bringing the box home from work that evening. So I did the next best (easy) thing and taped up some of the other Christmas cards that had come in the mail. These are the people that were more on top of things than I was this year.

349/365 christmas cards

Carmen and I did a bit more work on the Blurb book on Friday afternoon, but I also went for a walk down Valencia Street to look for birthday and Christmas presents for Carmen. Unfortunately, I was too busy with the present finding mission and didn't take many pictures. One of the few I got was from the window of The Curiosity Shoppe. Apparently bears ♥ SF... Curious, indeed.

350/365 bears <3 sf