New Year’s Eve Eve adventures

Today was quite the adventurous day with many photos taken, so I thought I’d make a special post for it !

During Thanksgiving, there was a sort of creatives’ fair that took place in downtown Modesto. The event basically had people walking around many blocks of the downtown area to discover and interact with the local businesses there (as well as interact with local artisans in certain locations). From this event, I discovered that there was a coffee shop I had not yet gone to there – Penny University – as well as a bakeshop I had previously passed by – a bakery simply called “BakeShop”.

I feel like Penny University may easily become my favorite coffee shop/cafe in Modesto. It is so nice inside, and since we stopped by during the holidays, the Christmas decor made everything feel festive but cozy. There is lots of natural lighting which I love, and also a lot of seating (although we managed to find chairs for 2, it was at one of the giant, shared tables). I understand the popularity of this place though, so it’s not surpising that by 9:30 am on a holiday that most seats would be filled. They also have some outdoor seating which look nice too, but since it was cold the day we went, I was insistent on sitting indoors, which is why we compromised on sitting at the giant, shared table.

I wanted to order something unique to this coffee shop, so I ordered their seasonal Maple Rosemary Latte with oat milk. It was a good and sweet latte, but it did not taste too different from latte’s I’ve had elsewhere. I appreciated the actual ceramic dishware with the latte art though ! For breakfast, I ordered the avocado toast with egg (that cost extra), and Jacob ordered the breakfast sandwich with bacon (that cost extra, too). The food was a bit pricey in my opinion, but I also just expect that from coffee shops in general nowadays. In any case, their food was quite good ! I really liked the avocado spread on the toast, and Jacob enjoyed the breakfast sandwich he ordered. Service was also friendly, and since we ordred food and drink, they gave us a number to hold on to for someone to bring our food to us, which was nice. I’m not from the area but do come here often for visiting family – but I would absolutely love to come to this coffee shop again to read and try other coffees and smaller snacks:

Next, we briefly stopped by the bakeshop. I did not want to spend too long at the bakeshop since we had already eaten breakfast and had something to drink, so the plan was just to buy something quickly. However, I feel like this bakeshop would have been a lovely place to sit down and have a coffee and breakfast snack, too. I love the brick walls of this place, as it gives the shop a slight rustic vibe. I did not feel like the shop had many bakery selections when we went. I was hoping to find more savory things, but mostly sweet things were on display. Since my husband and I were going to make a gingerbread house later, I decided to buy 2 macarons to hopefully use for the gingerbread house. They were definitely on the more pricey side of macarons – even in the Bay Area and Paris, macarons have not cost as much as they did at this bakeshop, but they tasted festive as we ordred green macarons with a peppermint filling. I also realize I should have asked for a box to contain the macarons, as macarons are fragile so I found it a little strange that they gave me a bag. In any case, service was friendly, and I don’t know if I would go out of my way to come to this bakery again, but if I’m in the area and am carving something sweet, perhaps I would stop by !

After our downtown stops, we headed to Calaveras Big Trees State Park. I was hoping to see some snow there, as last year during Thanksgiving we had seen some snow. Although I don’t know if it snowed Thanksgiving this year at the park, it was too warm for any snow this time. In any case, it was still an enjoyable time at the park. Last year, we walked around the “paved” trail close to the entrance of the park that showcased a lot of the big trees. This year, we went to the scenic overlook trail and indeed did reach a very beautiful scenic overlook area, with mountains and trees and some fog resting among the trees. That trail was pretty short – 1.6 miles round trip. On our way back to the parking lot, as it was getting dark, some fog started descending quickly into the park so it gave a nice, haunting atmosphere to take photos of. We initially were not prepared for how cold it was going to be – that is, I had a really warm jacket with a nice hood but would have preferred to wear a beanie instead. The gift shop has beanies but a very small selection, so I ended up just wearing my hood hiking. In any case, I warmed up real quickly while hiking the scenic overlook trail. I would love to try to catch some snow again for any future visits !:

Finally, the last task of the day was to make a gingerbread house ! Jacob and I had wanted to make a gingerbread house for a while but had difficulty fitting it into our schedule. So before the month of December ended, we wanted to make sure we made one. I also wanted to use ingredients that were healthier (e.g., no perservatives and no dyes) and luckily, Whole Foods had a perfect gingerbread-making kit of this, filled with cookies, icing, candy, and sprinkles. I’m still wondering why I was trying to be so perfectionist about it in the beginning, but I eventually was able to relax a bit more and make whatever designs Jacob and I wanted, not following the instructions exactly but using it as inspiration. We made the gingerbread house while watching one of Jacob’s favorite movies – Megamind. We ended up not using any macarons from the bakeshop as they had cracked and were too big to use icing to stick onto anything, but we still enjoyed tasting the macarons! Here is the end result of our gingerbread house !: