Weekend Recap: Movies, Yard work, Family, Meritage

Friday night we went to the movies, The Hunger Games to be exact. I read the three books back in 2009 and 2010, so I don't remember exact details of the first book in order to compare it to the movie. Sometimes that's a good thing though as you aren't sitting there nit picking everything in the movie. I really enjoyed it, as did Adam (surprisingly). It was kind of long, but went by really fast.

On Saturday, we had a somewhat lazy day of watching movies and relaxing. Free STARZ movie weekend on DirecTV! Then we had Adam's family over in the evening for dinner. Adam grilled some delicious steaks along with asparagus and garlic bread. I made a Caesar dressing for our salad. Robin brought a yummy lemon dessert. We haven't had them over in a while, and it was nice.

Sunday we did some dreaded yard work. I think we FINALLY have all the random tires-used-as-landscaping-in-our-yard up. Thank goodness. We even discovered some in the lawn we didn't even know were there! We also worked hard on removing all the mutant vines along the fence. It looks better already, but there's still so much to do. We inherited a bit of a yard disaster when we bought the house.

Why yes, all these lovely tires were buried in our side yard. Lovely. The branches in the back are about 1/3 of the
vines we pulled off the fence. Whose fence is it though? Ours or our neighbors?

That evening, we went out for dinner just the two of us to our favorite restaurant, Meritage in St. Paul. It was delicious, as usual. To start, we each had an order of Soupe à l’Oignon Gratinée which was delicious but huge. I was practically full with just that. I also had one of my favs, a Foie Gras Macaroon. For our main course, I had the Moules Frites (Mussels steamed with smoked pancetta, garlic, tomato & white wine. Served with house-cut pomme frites) and Adam enjoyed the Lacquered Breast of Wild Acres Farm Duck (Vanilla scented winter fruit, pomegranate gelée, celery root, cabbage, pomme dauphine & sauce Madeira). I didn't try his, but mine was amazing. There are so many wonderful things to try on their menu, but I would still get it again. Yum.

Self portrait of us after Meritage - not the best of me, but I'll deal