Valentine's Day 2014

I saw this idea here and have wanted to try it for a couple of years, so this year I did!

True to form, I waited until the day before to make them, but what can I say...

I think they turned out super cute. My sister Marcy really liked them too and I told her they were pretty easy and offered to make some for my nephew Holden.

The Valentine's were a hit. Everyone seemed to like them. Marcy told me that Holden's teachers and peer tutors went crazy over them :)

Grace, Isaac and Anna each were supposed to make a box to collect their Valentines also.
Grace and Anna had fun decorating their boxes (it's a good thing I have a pretty good supply of shoe boxes)

I saw the idea for Isaac's box on my friend Frances's facebook page, she had made one for her daughter. Isaac loved the idea, so we did it. When I went in to his classroom later that day to help out, I found out that his teacher had made him turn his around because it kept freaking her out. She would look up at the kids and see Isaac's box staring at her, ha ha!

In the evening I went out to dinner at Tepanyaki with my parents, Greg and Blythe and Marcy and Norm. I was able to facetime Mike so we could have a Valentine's Day date :) Technology is pretty awesome!

I think my food was better than his though, he just had a protein shake since it was breakfast time for him.

I had delicious filet and scallops, yum!

Flowers, Bum bread, and The Prime Street Grille

Some Valentine's Day stuff

©Flowers from Mike©

He knows that the iris is my favorite flower.

So pretty, thanks honey!

©Bum bread©

I tried to be a creative fun mom and make some heart shaped rolls for the kids. That way they could have Valentine sandwiches for dinner while Mike took me out.

I colored the dough pink and then tried to shape the rolls like hearts. They kept splitting and they looked pretty funny. The kids all thought they looked like bums! We had a good laugh over it.

Usually in our house "bum bread" is the end of the loaf, or the heel of the loaf. I'm not sure why we call it bum bread, other than I think I grew up calling it that. Anyway, now it took on a whole new meaning, ha ha!
...I think the fact that they were pink made it worse...just sayin!
Grace also laughed when I buttered them, she thought the shiny bums were funny!

I will say though that they tasted great J

©The Prime Street Grille©

We kept it pretty simple this year, no gifts (except the flowers of course.) Mike took me to dinner at a nice place here in town. He had been there once for a business dinner, but I had never been. He thought it would be a good place to go for our Valentines date. It even has purple on the walls. 

Anyway, the service was excellent and the food was delicious. I think we we definitely go back.

I had a filet (shocker) and Mike had stuffed rockfish.

For our dessert we had a strawberry crème brûlée...I guess I was too excited to eat it, so there is no picture of that. It was good, but I think I prefer the regular crème brûlée. 

It was a pretty good Valentine's Day. The younger kids had fun looking at the Valentines they got from school, and they said that they Angry Bird Valentines were a hit! They also enjoyed all the candy of course. 

Fear Factor?

On Friday the 13th Mike and I went out with some wonderful friends to Morton's for dinner (can you say restaurant week!)

Wish we would have gotten a group shot, but oh well. We went with Karen and Jason, Linda and Blaine, Kevin and Crystal, and Nanette.

We had such a great time. There was delicious food, good conversation and laughter...not to mention a fabulous free crème brûlée

(for details ask Linda, haha!) ...and a not so fabulous metal salad (for details ask Jason!)

Now to the fear factor part. Linda and I decided to try anchovies. 

We did it and we survived. They were very salty and I don't think I love them.


Anyway, we have gone to the past 3 or 4 restaurant weeks and we look forward to the next one...there's nothing like great food at a reasonable price. Think you might want to join us for the next one, just let us know :)

I have been changed...

For Good!

That's right, I finally got to go and see Wicked and I loved it! (If the title of my post makes sense to you then you have probably had the pleasure of seeing it too, if not...then you should definitely remedy that!)

Mike and I, along with some good friends of ours, have been planning to go see it ever since last year when we saw Mary Poppins. We bought the tickets back in March and then had to wait patiently (or maybe not so patiently) for August 16th to get here.

One thing that was kind of a stroke of luck for us, was that we unknowingly bought our Wicked tickets during restaurant week. During restaurant week, you can get a 3 course meal at participating restaurants for only 35.11, next year it will be 35.12...you figure out why :) So we all decided to try Ruth's Chris Steakhouse since we wouldn't normally go there because it is sooo expensive!

On Tuesday it was finally time for our big night out! We headed to Ruth's Chris with a bunch of good friends for an absolutely delicious meal.

Thanks to the jogger who was kind enough to stop and take this picture for us.

and to our waiter Sean for this picture...

and for putting up with our humor (or attempts at humor)

Anyway, my steak was the best steak I have ever had! So tender, juicy and flavorful...I think we may have to go back next restaurant week :)

Then it was time to head over to the Kennedy Center to see Wicked. I have always loved musicals and I have listened to the soundtrack of Wicked and I have performed a song from it...I was just so excited to see it finally and well, it was amazing.

Mike was parking the car so he didn't get in this picture.
I think it's kind of fun that you can see my friend Tina in the reflection. 

Like I said, I loved the show, the talent was pretty amazing and I think I will definitely want to see it again sometime...maybe even in New York :)

We really had such a wonderful night out with great friends. I'm looking forward to next time!

Oh, and thanks to my good friend Tina for the pictures!
I think I said the same thing back on the Mary Poppins post...I need an iPhone 4 just so I have a better phone camera, my good camera is just to big to lug around to stuff like this (but maybe I'll have to start lugging it anyway)

Adventures in Tasting

I use to be afraid to try new things and I would avoid putting myself in situations that required me to be adventurous, but as I have grown older (even though I'm still going to say I'm young!) I have become much more willing to try new things. Maybe it's partly because I have tried to teach my kids not to turn their noses up at something if they haven't ever tried it. (Practice what you preach, right?!)

Well, on Friday night Mike and I had the opportunity to go to a tasting dinner for an upcoming event. I was excited to be invited to this one after hearing about Mike's experience at the last tasting dinner he went to.

We went to the Mayflower Hotel in DC, beautiful hotel!! (and I'm not just saying that because they had purple flowers out!)

We started out in the appetizers and hors d'oeuvres room, where we had about an hour to sample quite a few different things. The had hot appetizer section and a cold section, then a Mediterranean section, a pasta bar and also a tapas section. (They also had an alcohol section, but we didn't have to worry about that one.)

Here's one of my plates from the appetizer room.

My favorites on this plate were the scallop, the pecan encrusted chicken stick, the shrimp with the mango salsa and the blue tortilla chip with the salsa.
I did not care for the crab cake or the cherry pastry thingy. The beef tart was just so-so.

I couldn't resist trying the purple potato with caviar on top.

My first taste of caviar. It was ok.

After the appetizer portion of the evening was finished they took us into the Grand Ballroom for the dinner tasting. It was a beautiful room! I could totally envision a beautiful wedding reception in there. (Maybe by the time our girls are old enough to get married, we can afford something like that...who knows!)

We then proceeded to taste 3 different salads and 10 different entrées 

(2 chicken, 3 fish, 3 beef and 2 vegetarian.)

salads

My personal favorite was B, but C was good too and more unique so it won out.
I didn't like A at all and I also thought raw peanuts would be a bad choice since so many people have peanut allergies.

the beef dishes

The one on the far right (the short-ribs) was my favorite, though the filet in the middle was also good.

After that, we sampled desserts from their dessert table. Tough job...I know, but we had to do it :)

My favorites were

the crème brûlée

(though it wasn't the best crème brûlée ever,

it was still good and better than jello, ha ha!)

the mint chocolate cheesecake (the mint was very subtle, it was tasty)

and the edible white and milk chocolate cup filled with chocolate cinnamon mousse

(again the cinnamon was very subtle)

We were so full by the time we left!

It was a fun night and we got to eat a lot of good food without having to pay for it, and our valet parking was validated too, yay!

*For anyone who wants to know, here are some of the things that I tried for the first time.

Purple potato
Caviar
Edamame potstickers
Crab cakes
Chocolate bbq sauce
Forbidden rice

Night out with Greg and Blythe

Mike and I got to see Greg and Blythe one last time before they headed back to Utah. We met up at Fogo de Chao (lucky us!) for dinner. I know you're jealous!

We talked, ate, laughed, ate, ate...ate...ate. It was so good. The last two slices of filet that I had were particulary good, and the cheesy bread...delicious. 

The best part was getting to go out with my sweet husband and spend some more time with my super cool brother and his beautiful wife. 

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Last night we had a wonderful night out with great friends, the Stevens and the Volks.

We started our evening with dinner at a place called Dish+Drinks in D.C. (Well, that's not exactly true, our evening started as we rode together and visited... and dealt with traffic.)

Anyway, we got to the restaurant and were seated immediately. I think this is the first time I can remember in a very long time when everyone at the table ordered seafood dishes. The service was great and the presentation was very nice. The food was delicious. Mike had a salmon dish and I had scallops served over mushroom risotto...so so good! I even tried some of Lincoln's calamari, which wasn't bad. I also tried a taste of a salad that Tina ordered (I think it was a caprese salad) pretty good. Mike and I shared a delicious chocolate truffle cake for dessert, yum! I think everyone was pleased with their food. I would go back.

After dinner we headed over to the Kennedy Center to see Mary Poppins.

It was so fun to watch. I mostly liked it, there were just a few things about it that I didn't like, but overall I thought it was good.

It made me want to watch the movie, and it made me want to be in a show again...(sigh) maybe someday :)

What a great night. Hope we can do it again sometime. 

Sidenote: I really need to get a little camera that I can carry in my purse to things like this...or do I need the iPhone 4 with it's great camera, hmm...  :)

Am I really THAT old?

This past weekend we traveled down to Georgia to attend my 20 year high school reunion.

20 years!

Yep, I guess I am that old...

I actually had a great time, a better time than I thought I would.

On Friday they went on a tour of the high school, unfortunately we didn't make it to town in time for that, but we went to Meldino's to hang out after the tour.

Oh yeah...there was some karaoke involved!

Sorry Ian, I know you are trying to forget the karaoke ever happened, but I'm afraid it did :)

Saturday we went to the family picnic at the Robins Museum of Aviation. It was a scorcher, but still a good time.

Dallin is missing from this picture, he was in the bouncy castle, and apparently we didn't get another family shot.

The kids enjoyed the museum too. I think we also enjoyed  the air conditioning :)

Saturday night was the main reunion gathering.

We had a great time. It was fun to reconnect with people and catch up. Mr. Dyson even made an appearance, he was our principal.

They gave out some awards and I got a few.

I tied with Philisa for having the most kids, 5. I tied with Beth for living in the most states, 7. Jay and I got the awards for the most changed.

I guess I have to post my old high school picture, try not to make too much fun of it...well go ahead, it's ok :) I don't have one, so I just took a picture of the one from the yearbook.

This is the picture that was on my name tag at the reunion.

Here's the group shot.

What a fun time!

Glad that Mike and I got to go.

Thanks to my Mom and Dad and my sister Jan for letting us stay with them and for taking care of the kids both nights.
My one regret is that I didn't take enough pictures...

Dinner Cruise

On Saturday night, Mike and I attended the GRS Dinner Cruise. It was a formal event so I spent some time before hand shopping, hoping to find a good dress at an affordable price. My good friend Sylvia was kind enough to come with me and help me shop.
After trying several stores with no luck, we went to Sears. They had a few racks of special occasion dresses for 75% off the original price, so I knew I could afford something. The next task was to find someting modest...that is almost impossible! I saw a beautiful dark plum dress, but it had spaghetti straps so I passed it over and found a black and silver dress that met all the requirements. I tried it on, and it fit and it was marked down from 165 to 34.99, so I bought it and brought it home. I tried it on again and I just didn't really love it. I was a little frustrated and bummed. So the next day I went to a thrift store and found a long sparkly green dress that fit for 9.95...only problem was it didn't have sleeves, but I started thinking that I could probably find a black shrug or jacket and make it work. I went to a lot of stores to try and find something and found myself back at Sears. I saw that long beautiful dark plum dress again, and this time I decided to try it on and see if it fit and maybe it would work with a shrug. I tried it on and I loved it! It was originally 134 marked down to 64.99 but I thought it might even be less because all the other dresses on that rack were marked down more, so I checked, and yes it was! I got it for 24.99!
Anyway, now I knew I had to find a shawl or shrug or something to go with it. I looked everywhere and couldn't find anything that I liked. I was starting to worry that I wouldn't be able to wear it. Then on Saturday morning, the day of the cruise, I started thinking that maybe I could make one. I looked on the internet for shrug patterns and found some free ones at modestprom.com. Why not? I went to the fabric store and got the fabric I wanted and came home to try and make one. It turned out to be so easy to make. It took about 1/2 yard which was $5 and it took me about 10 minutes to make it. I even dressed the shrug up a little more by adding a gather to the back of it.

So after all was said and done my outfit for the evening, including my shoes (I got them on clearance at DSW for 9.99) cost about $40. Not bad, huh? And it's a good thing I was able to get such great deals, because Mike's tux was not as cheap, we decided to buy one for him because we know there will be times in the future when he will need one.

Anyway, I guess I should write a little bit about our night out too, instead of just the prep for it :)

When we arrived in D.C. we boarded the "Spirit of Washington."

We socialized a little and found our seats. It was a wonderful evening, good food, good conversation, and a little dancing too.

We didn't have to worry about our kids either, we left them in the very capable hands of Roger Munns and knew they would be fine. They loved him and had a great time...and I think he really enjoyed himself too.

It was so fun to have a fancy night out, I could get used to it!