Summer Bucket List Check In

In early July, at the prompting of Joy the Baker and Tracy Shutterbean, of the Joy the Baker podcast, I created a Summer Bucket List. I thought long and hard about all the things I wanted my summer to be, the things I wanted to accomplish and the laziness I wanted to indulge in.

It is hard to believe summer is almost over. It went so fast! But it was full of all the wonderful things I dreamed up when I created my list, so I can’t even be sad. Let’s check in, shall we?

1. Go to the County Fair. We totally did this. We went to the Alameda County Fair for my birthday in July. It was soo hot. I ate a corndog and some chili cheese fries. We watched children racing sheep. We played a game on the midway. We checked out junior high science fair winners, brownies and pies in glass cases, award-winning flowers, and some pigs.

Then we came home and had cake. Which leads us to…

2. Bake my first layer cake. Check!

3. Go camping at the Russian River. Sigh. We didn’t get to do this. It ended up being nearly impossible to find a weekend when something wasn’t already going on. I did, however, get to go to the beach, and we’re camping in the Sierras next weekend, so I’m going to let myself slide on this one.

4. Grill. A lot. I think we can safely say that we grilled a lot. We probably fired up the grill at least once a week this summer. We made kabobs, steak, burgers, fish, corn, chicken, lamb, grilled eggplant, grilled pizza, and last weekend, my Dad grilled a whole dang turkey. And I do not intend to stop. After all, I live in California. I can grill all year round.

5. Get in the pool. Win! I managed to get in a pretty decent amount of pool time this summer (although I could always do with more). Our good friend Eunice had a pool party. I went swimming in Anaheim at my hotel. We soaked in a meditation pool at Cavallo Point. I even took water aerobics a few times at the gym just for the excuse to get in the pool. I’d still really like to become a swimmer, but I’m having a hard time with that whole controlled breathing thing. Lap swimming is hard, people! I think I’m more of a floater.

6. Meet my new niece. YES! Julia Lucero Krier was born August 27, and we were in San Diego three days later to meet her. She’s perfect. See:

7. Drink white wine spritzers. You know, I had a few this summer, but not as many as I thought I would. Because we had our beer garden. And we found some really nice wine that I didn’t want to dilute with sparkling water. It ended up being more of a rosé kind of summer. Who knew?

8. Discover our house salmon burger recipe. I guess I kind of did this. I ended up making salmon burgers often enough that I can do it without a recipe. But I also got kind of sick of them. What did happen, though, is that I discovered the best dang lamb burger recipe ever. Yes, I’m always going to love lamb more than fish.