Dear friends and family!
We hope this holiday season finds you all healthy and happy, with warm hearts and homes.
We’ve had a busy year and we’re excited to share some of the highlights with you.
We’re both so pleased that Patrick is now a full-time permanent employee at Electronic Arts in Redwood City. The job is great and Patrick has had the privilege to work on video games such as James Bond and The Godfather. To see his work, please visit his website at www.PC-3D.com.
Electronic Arts is a wonderful place to work with some really fun perks. We’ve had the opportunity to see free screenings of Star Wars Episode III, Batman Begins, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and King Kong. They also have a health club on-site where we both enjoy complementary memberships. Patrick is very blessed to have found such a good job, doing something he really loves, working with kind, interesting and creative people.
The commute from Oakland to Redwood City however, was fairly brutal – and we recently made the decision to relocate to be closer to Patrick’s job. We found a great place in Mountain View, which is on the peninsula, about 45 miles south of San Francisco and about 20 miles north of Santa Cruz. Mountain View is home to approximately 70,000 people – and definitely has a small town feel. We’re just blocks from downtown, which has a beautiful library, cute little shops, lots of restaurants &n! dash; and a bountiful farmers market, where we shop every Sunday morning.
We moved mid-November, so we’re still settling in a bit – and definitely have lots of exploring to do! But we feel very comfortable in our new place – and very much at home here in Mountain View.
Our new apartment is much bigger than our place in Oakland. We have a sunroom and a laundry room and a yard! My favorite room in the house, though, is our huge kitchen, with an old vintage stove.
In my new kitchen, I plan to make lots of new and wonderful recipes, as well as some old favorites. My goal is to put together a cookbook – and if anyone would like to contribute a favorite recipe, I’d be honored to include it in my collection. It’ll be vegetarian, of course, so please send me recipes for meatless dishes or yummy baked goods.
For now, here’s a sample of one of the recipes from my cookbook – and one of my all-time favorites. I call it Apple Friendship Bread, because it’s best shared with people you love. It was inspired by one of my favorite cooks ever, Mollie Katzen – and is borrowed from and embellished upon her recipe from the Enchanted Broccoli Forest.
*~*~*~*~*~Apple Friendship Bread *~*~*~*~*~
2 cups grated apple (no need to peel them)
3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup brown sugar – or 1/3 cup honey
2 egg whites
2 Tbsp melted butter
1/2 cup white flour
1 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup cooking oats (uncooked oatmeal… but not instant oatmeal or minute oatmeal.. the kind that takes like 5 minutes…)
2 teasp. baking powder
¼ teasp. baking soda
1 teasp. cinnamon
½ teasp. pure vanilla extract
Optional
Nuts, raisins, cranberries…whatever you feel like!
Preheat oven to 350. Spray a medium sized loaf pan – or muffin tin (makes 12 muffins).
Mix all the dry stuff… then add the not-so-dry stuff.
Bake about 20 minutes for muffins… 45 or 50 minutes for bread.
This will give you enough time to relax and read the Sunday paper as you savor the wonderful aroma you’ve created in your kitchen. Enjoy warm with someone you love and a big mug of hot chocolate. (real hot chocolate… not Swiss Miss… unsweetened cocoa, sugar and milk…yes!)
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I look forward to hearing from you, so please send me a recipe at michellecavender@yahoo.com or our new address, which is 716 Mountain View Ave. Mountain View, CA 94041. I strongly believe that food is love… so please feel free to share stories of love and friendship along with your recipe. Thanks very much!!
We hope to self-publish this cookbook and offer it for sale. We’re dedicating the profits to help fund an international adoption of a baby from Guatemala. We hope to begin the adoption process early next year. With luck and love and money and prayers, we may be writing this letter next Christmas to announce that we’ll soon be welcoming a new baby into our home. This is a very exciting decision for us – and we’re counting on your love and support as we forge ahead. We promise to keep you all posted as things progress. : )
I’m still doing massage – and looking forward to getting new clients in our new city. I’m also coaching an after-school running program for girls called Girls on the Run. You can find out more by visiting their website at www.gotrsf.org . Coaches volunteer their time to help young girls in very poor, inner city neighborhoods train to run a 5K. I’ve volunteered during two seasons in Oakland – and was very happy to learn that there’s a program close to here in East Palo Alto. I look forward to working with this school starting in February.
Patrick and I are still running together and we’ve done a few races this year. I finished a half marathon in February – and Patrick and I did a race called the Bridge to Bridge Run. This particular race covers the area from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s nearly 8 miles…(but I tell Patrick it’s only 6!). Click here to see us at the end of the race.
We also did the Run to the Far Side race on Thanksgiving weekend. This event is sponsored by cartoonist Gary Larson and participants (not us!) often dress as Far Side characters for the 10K run through Golden Gate Park.
We always love seeing friends and family – and this year we were so blessed to have our friends Laura and Kevin visit us in July. They brought their beautiful little boy Noah with them – and we had the amazing experience of showing him the ocean for the first time!
Our friends Heather and Brian came for a visit – and stayed! They moved here to California almost exactly 3 years after we did. They live in Oakland in our old neighborhood – and they’ve both found work they enjoy. We love having them close by and are spending tons of time with them!
And the highlight of our year was being able to come home in September for Heidi and Ryan’s wedding. It was so good to see everyone! The ceremony was absolutely beautiful and the reception was so much fun!
Lastly, we are pleased to announce that we’ve added another furry member to our little family. Just in time for Christmas, we welcomed a sweet puppy into our home. Charlie is just the cutest, softest, sweetest little guy! We hoped he would keep Casey company in his old age – and so far, they’re getting along pretty well. They’re very cute together, but every once in awhile we have to tell Charlie to “leave Grandpa alone!” : )
Just like any proud new parents, we’ve taken tons of pictures!
We wish you all the very merriest Christmas and peace and happiness in the new year! You are in our thoughts and our hearts!
We love you so very much!
Michelle, Patrick, Casey, and Charlie 
p.s. Thanks for the presents! Charlie can't wait to see what his Grandma and Grandpa Cavender got him for Christmas!!
