Even though we don’t celebrate Christmas, we sure enjoy observing the quiet day off. Sometimes we take wonderful family trips to Paris, sometimes we go to Las Vegas and ignore the holiday because Vegas never sleeps (2008), and sometimes we chill out at the beach.

Jeffrey and I went to the panhandle of Florida with white sandy beaches, although too chilly to get in the water. It was so nice to have nothing to do, nothing to sightsee, and no where to go. And yes, it was nice to not have a puppy bark in the 6 a.m. hour to go outside. Lily went to Dallas to bother my parents and sister.

I have been here twice since I started the blog, once in June, and once in September. It’s funny to look at the same place in the summer, and also compare the quality of pictures with the new camera.

This time, we cooked, shopped a little (3rd largest outlet mall in the country!), read books, walked, and watched movies.

We are thankful for Santa’s holiday too.

Food pictures:

We are lucky to have a full kitchen, so we go to the grocery (Publix is the best grocery in the country!) and stock up to eat at home. I bought a box of Irish Steel Cut Oats packets, which I haven’t had before. The packets are pre-spiced, which was helpful so I didn’t have to buy cinnamon, honey, vanilla, etc. I combined one packet with 1/3 C water and 1/3 C milk. Then topped it with blueberries and a teaspoon of peanut butter. It wasn’t the most filling packet of oatmeal, which is probably why I don’t like packets. But it was tasty, and the peanut butter helped with staying power.

Another breakfast was one I have at least 4 days a week, but it looks prettier with the ocean in the back. And layered in a wine glass.

Fiber One, Kashi Heart to Heart, Blueberries, and Vanilla Oikos. This is my favorite breakfast.

My favorite wraps that I can’t find in Houston anymore are called Flat Out Wraps, Light. They are 90 calories, gigantic and very soft. So good! For lunch one day, I stuffed one with Boar’s Head turkey, Jarlsberg Swiss Cheese, lettuce and hummus. I had an apple and carrots on the side with peanut butter. PB is so good with carrots if you haven’t tried that.

And for dinner one night, we cooked a simple but elegant dinner. When we’re at the beach, I don’t really want to spend too much time in the kitchen, and I don’t want to buy a lot of ingredients that we can’t use up. We bought grouper, potatoes, corn on the cob and snap peas. We cooked them up to look like this.

For the grouper, we seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper and cooked it stovetop for about four minutes per side.

The potatoes were sliced thin but not all the way down, then rubbed with olive oil, salt and pepper too.

And the corn boiled away until tender, and I added the snap peas near the end to get soft.

Besides food, we played around outside too. The beach looked so eerie without hundreds of people on beach chairs like the summer. But the water was so calm and clean.