We bake sourdough!

Today I baked my first sourdough loaf. It all started with my friend Amanda treating us with some of her home made sourdough bread at dinner one time. Steve got so excited about the idea that ever since I couldn't help but look for an opportunity to surprise him. One night I did some research online on how this whole thing is done and so my journey began. 

I have learned that first thing to do would be making a 'starter'. Sourdough starter is a batter of flour and water, filled with living yeast and bacteria. These life-forms are exactly what gives the bread its sour taste.  It took me 4 days to raise my starter, feeding it daily with flour and warm water. The whole process went really smooth, just as described, none of those wrong things that I read about in comments online... I suppose the environment in my kitchen is very agreeable for yeast and other good microorganisms :) Anyhow, today came the time to actually bake the bread. It wasn't easy, took a lot of patience to see it rise in the owen, but it was all worth it, believe me.

My sourdough turned out just right and now half of it is gone - Steve and his older brother Andrey enjoyed trying it with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar. That's the story. Of course, I kept some starter for next time, so now I will be baking a loaf of my yummy fresh home made sourdough every week.

Unbelievable as it sounds but yesterday we got back from our quick trip to Grand Canyon. I say quick because everything about this trip was characterized by unusual promtness and lack of time:) Just as always, everything gets done in the last moment (some things never change!) and there's no way we can finally learn to do things in advance:) It was Thursday late evening that we finally decided we wanted to go see the Grand Canyon and the desire was so strong that even the fact that Grand Canyon is located in Arizona and we would have to drive for 8 hours straight to get there and then do the same to go back home didn't stop us. So, Friday afternoon we all - Steve, me, Andrei and Mary got off work earlier and at 5 pm we headed off eastwards! Yeh! Late night we got to Williams, AZ where a couple hours before our trip i have reserved a room at a hotel. We got some good sleep there and after a breakfast moved further to see one of the greatest miracles of Creation.

Having spent a whole saturday walking along the rim of the canyon and enjoying the view we headed back home after the sunset. Got home really late, i should probably say early morning...:) it was around 4:30 am when we finally got to lay down and catch some sleep, but the next morning (at 12:30pm! not so much morning, huh?) we did not regret a bit having done this crazy thing with over 16 hours of driving. It was all so worth it. The canyon is beautiful. So now we're thinking of going there for a few days for camping, hiking and white water rafting, but this sounds like a trip we'll have to thouroughly plan ahead...

Andrei is doing well, loving america and getting used to the new environment. It has been a month that he's here. Still a bit shy talking to people in English. Having spent some time in a summer camp for kids and in Bay Area after that helping the family as much as he could he got to experience the lifestyle here. During this time he has received all his documents and is all set in this respect. Now there's only a few things remaining... get his driver's license, buy a car and find a job... piece of cake, huh? So now he's diligently looking for opportunities for him to apply his megabrain and turn his overflowing programming ideas into some good cash. Not so long ago he also found himself, or i should rather say, created and ordered himself the love of his life - a laptop designed to satisfy his needs for programming and net-surfing, so now he spends days and days with his new lovable toy. He is generally happy discovering new things, looking for opportunities and still being amazed at how quickly you can download stuff here even with slower (and cheaper!) types of internet connection!

My little dwarf bunny Amber aka Koshka (she-cat in Russian) is about a year old now. I adopted her back in December 2007 when she was 5 months old. She's been such a joy to our household throughout this time. Koshka is such a cute and dear little creature, very gentle, softly fluffy and tremendously curious.

Yesterday was a big day... my brother Andrei flew in to LAX. That's his first time in America and I really want him to like it here which I'm hoping he would:) He'll be staying with us for now, what happens later, we'll see. It will take him a while to adjust even though he can speak English. But I'll do my best to help him settle and feel welcome.

My husband's family has a wonderful summer tradition. Every summer in mid-July they all get together at San Clemente Beach Park and camp out for a couple days. These summer family reunions are always a great opportunity to spend some time with relatives, catch up on everyone's lives; they are also a great excuse to take some time off work and just relax at the beach.

To many Americans Independence day is a highlight of the month of July. No matter how more or less devoted to their country people might consider themselves on this particular holiday everyone is quite a patriot. Given the privilege of living in this country, Steve and I did not miss our chance to join the nationwide celebration this year. We became a part of an all-American-style barbecue organized and hosted by our friends Katie and Jonathan. It was a wonderful evening that we spent with our friends. Although we had hoped it would also end with some cool fireworks. And I must say, I did not expect it to be so quiet.... we only saw a couple splashes in the sky. Oh well, we got it all made up to us once we came back home - firework shots wouldn't calm down till midnight! I suppose South Pasadena people thought it worthwhile 'blowing up' some extra money:):):)