Tom & Laura

Marks Dad and Sister came to visit this past weekend. It is always good to have visitors. We went to an Italian restaurant on thursday at The Grove and then walked around a bit. On Friday Mark took them to The Beverly Center to look at some of the higher end shops and then to Sprinkles in Beverly Hills to get the most delicious and maybe a little overpriced cupcakes. The line that day was only 20 minutes long.

On Saturday we headed to the Glendale Galleria and Americana at Brand, two places that Mark and I go to a lot to window shop and people watch. Laura got some new school clothes and we all got ice cream. Don't let Laura fool you, she is quite thin but could definitely out eat all of us in ice cream. Mark made dinner that night, chicken and pasta, and a gourmet pb&j for Laura. On Sunday we ate at the Farmers Market and then headed to the beach. I worked on Ebay with Andrea while Mark, Tom, and Laura sat on the beach, walked around, and went to the 3rd Street Promenade. We hung out at the apartment a bit before Tom and Laura had to fly back.

It Never Ends

The clothes just keep coming. So keep checking in. As always, our store link is in the right hand corner.

Banana Cake Recipe

I love love love banana cake. This is my favorite recipe. You can use it to make a whole/normal cake, I just made these smaller muffin ones so that they would be easier to take to work. You can also frost them with a simple vanilla frosting which is amazing with the banana flavor.

1. Put 2 teaspoons of lemon juice in the bottom of a 1 cup measuring cup. Then fill the cup with milk until it is 3/4 full. (so 3/4 cup of lemon/milk mixture). Let this sit while you mix the rest so that the milk sours.

2. Mix together 2 1/3 cups of flour, 1 2/3 cups of sugar, 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon of salt.

3. Mash up two large extra ripe banana's and blend into dry mixture with 2/3 cup of shortening. (HINT: when bananas start to go bad just throw them in the freezer. Then when you need them in a recipe you can unthaw them a bit and cut the banana out. Then they are already mushy.)

4. Add soured milk and beat for two minutes. Add 2 eggs and beat for two more mintues.

5. Pour into lightly greased cake or muffin or cupcake pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-35 minutes. It's important not to over bake it because it tends to get dry quickly.

Random Update

I thought that it was time for a random update on what Mark and I have been up to. So here it goes:

Mark got a fancy new Mac computer and ipod touch. He has been uploading new applications for the ipod touch on a regular basis, some of which include:

• Shakespeare (the complete collection)- but for some reason there are sometimes updates for this application which makes no sense to me because it's supposedly "complete".

• Urban Spoon- It determines your location by GPS and you shake it and it picks a restaurant close to you. This solves the whole "where are we going to eat" argument.

• Knock On Wood- For those hopeful statements you can make your whole screen look like wood grain and avoid potential bad karma.

I am planning a trip to Ohio over Labor Day Weekend. I will spend a couple of days in Columbus hanging out with friends and visiting my favorite spots (UDF for soft serve, Northstar for burritos, Tigertree for eye candy). Then I will be in St.Clairsville for a couple of days visiting my family, checking out my brothers house that he is building, and seeing my friend Kristen who I have known since.... basically forever.

I am currently reading Eat, Pray, Love which is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend. Mark is reading Ulysses and is enjoying it so far. I think that he mentally prepared himself for the journey through James Joyce's insanity and may actually make it to the end.

The kittens are doing well. Mary enjoys flushing the toilet every few hours, which is pretty adorable. Oscar caught a moth the other day, then ate it, then proceeded to look for it because she couldn't find out where it went (she's a little slow).

That is all for now. More later.

This Week on Ebay

Here is a sampling of our items up on ebay this week. Check them out and more by clicking the link for the Sassafras Ebay store in the right hand column.

Friends and Cupcakes

Both Mark and I had friends in town this weekend. Matt and John's band, Tin Armor, were here on tour and stayed with us for a night. I made it to their show which was awesome and they hung out with us at the beach on Sunday. And it was actually nice enough for all of us to jump into the ocean.

My good friend Ali and her husband Levi came to visit as well. They are living in Denver and took the loooooong drive here. After arriving and on very little sleep I showed them around the city, on foot of course. We crashed in a Starbucks for a bit and headed back for some sleep. On Sunday they joined Andrea and me for the dollar sale and then went to the beach with us. Sunday night Mark made us another AMAZING meal. Appetizers were shrimp and scallops wrapped and baked in tortilla's with a creamy mango rum dipping sauce. The main course was a HUGE steak, asparagus, mashed potatoes, and a gravy like meat dipping sauce.

To celebrate the summer olympics Ali came up with the idea to have out own olympics. Cupcake olympics. We each had six cupcakes and we could put really whatever we wanted in them. Some of the choices were peanut butter cups, baker chocolate, blueberry's, mt.dew, oranges, and jam.

Mark and I really appreciated everyone coming to visit. It was one of the best weekends we have had out here so far.

Jazzed up Ebay store

Check out this weeks items as well as our jazzed up store. Andrea is becoming an HTML nerd and has figured out how to put our logo and cute fonts all over the place. We also had a little fun with these awesome black glasses that were left here by our friend Cat when he was traveling through on tour. The link is in the right hand column.