Milwaukee Road Trip Photo Book

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Shutterfly was running a special, so I finally put this photobook together from our road trip to Milwaukee last May. I'm a bit behind on my photobooks... I still need to make one for our Europe trip, Vegas trip, and (embarrassingly) for our Montana/Canada trip from the summer of 2011. I usually only making photobooks for trips we've gone on, and really enjoy putting them together and looking through them later. Lately, I've been using the copy that I write for the blog (with a few edits) for the books. It makes them a lot easier to do! Thank you blog!

Weekend Recap: House Projects + Food

This recap is a bit delayed as I stayed home from work yesterday (for the first time in my 5 years there) with a migraine. It was pretty horrible and my medicine didn't work. Fortunately, Chester was very well behaved even though he was a little confused as to why his mom was in bed all day and not interested in playing. And it wasn't for lack of trying - he kept jumping up onto the bed with different toys.

Our weekend was full of good food and house projects, with some relaxation mixed in. Friday night, we made the delicious mahi dish I blogged about a few weeks back, and had it with kale and ciabatta rolls. Yum. Then I spent a few hours organizing and going through things upstairs, while Adam and Chester watched some Gophers hockey.

On Saturday morning, I was up bright and early to take Chester around the block. It was a beautiful morning! I also made some chocolate crêpes filled with Nutella and cookie butter. Delicious! Adam claimed they were too sweet, but I think he liked them! 

I'm still working on my crêpe technique. This is my second time making them (Adam usually does), and I didn't make a huge mess this time. Note my giant jar of Nutella from Sam's Club.

I spent some more time upstairs, but then developed a headache and had to lay down for a few hours. I still didn't feel the greatest, but we had plans to go out to dinner at La Fonda's for date night since we had a Groupon, so off we went. I thought the food was pretty mediocre and wouldn't go back, but Adam enjoyed it. There are so many good Mexican restaurants closer to home though, so I think we'll stick with those. I did enjoy my giant peach margarita though!

After dinner, we made a brief stop at Trader Joe's where we picked up a bunch of random things like kale, artichoke hearts, plantain chips, daffodils, and edamame crackers. I love Trader Joe's!

Adam got up with Chester on Sunday, so I got to sleep in for a bit. I was feeling motivated to get stuff done, so we dragged down all the empty cardboard boxes from upstairs, and Adam broke them down to put out for recycling.

Then we tackled the tiling of the space behind the stove. I was sick of it just being a gaping hole, and the piece that came with the stove to put back there wasn't wide or long enough. We still have to caulk, but it looks much better already!

Once all our chores were done, we relaxed and watched the movie we had from Netflix; Act of Valor. It was decent even though there wasn't much of a storyline and some pretty bad acting in my opinion. Lots of action though. Adam said it was like one of his videogames, Call of Duty, brought to life.

We all took a nap out in the living room, which was delightful. I'm pretty sure that getting to snuggle with us is one of Chester's favorite parts about "stay home days." I love this photo Adam took of Chester snuggling in my arms!

For dinner, we made mini gnocchi with red sauce, lemon kale, and more ciabatta rolls. We're really loving kale lately!

Foodie Friday: Ham & Cheese Crêpes

I had saved some ham from our dinner on Sunday to have crêpes this week. I heated up the ham on the stove, and sliced up some smoked gruyère cheese to put in it. I did take the easy way out on the crêpe batter and used some of the mix I bought when we bought the crêpe maker. All I had to add was some cold water and eggs, and then whisk it together.

I'm pretty horrible at making these, so Adam had that duty. He's good at it.

They were delicious! And it was a pretty quick meal. Next time, I'll make a nice Béchamel or Mornay sauce to put over the top. YUM!

I had some chocolate crêpe mix that Adam gave me for Christmas that I wanted to use for dessert, but we were too full. Maybe another night! 

Weekend Recap: St.Paddy's Day & Laura's Shower

After work on Friday, I did some shopping before picking Adam up at work. We've really been enjoying carpooling. I went to Macy's to get a gift for Laura's Wedding shower, followed by Target to pick up a few items including a game requested by Adam - Settlers of Catan. It was the day we officially broke our diet, so we picked up some TopperStix on our way home. Amazing. That night, we played the new game a few times and did some housework.

I was up bright and early Saturday morning, so took Chester around the block for once while Adam slept in a bit (until Chester woke him up!). Usually he's the one letting me sleep in! I swear reintroducing carbs has given me more energy!

I left around 12:30 to head to Laura's first wedding shower at her step-mom's. Being able to go was kind of a last minute thing (originally I was supposed to be at a work function), so I'm glad it worked out. It was fun to see her and participate in some pre-wedding festivities!

I gave her the peacock Fiesta platter from her registry. It was really pretty. As soon as I saw it on her registry, I knew that's what I wanted to get her!

On the way home I stopped at PetSmart to try to find Chester a St. Paddy's day outfit, but had no luck. They didn't even have Easter outfits. Outrage!

At home, I finished doing some housework and then we prepped our food for our little St. Patrick's Day gathering. When I planned it last minute, I didn't realize a lot of people would already have plans, but I stubbornly decided to still have it. It ended up being really low key and a lot of fun.

For food, we had Reuben dip, Reuben sliders (Adam's awesome idea),

and chips with guac (it's green!).

For drinks, we had the Big Ginger (Two Gingers whiskey + ginger ale), and grasshoppers (like a yummy alcoholic Shamrock shake).

We visited and had fun playing Trivial Pursuit - the 90's.

Chester enjoyed sitting next to me on the couch and chewing on my sweatshirt's drawstring. Silly boy.

On Sunday, once again I was awake early and took Chester around the block while Adam slept in. It was nice to return the favor for once! We watched a movie, In the Land of Blood and Honey, which was well done but really sad. It was a foreign language film about the Bosnian War.

That afternoon, Adam hung the curtain rod and curtains in our upstairs guest room #1. Ignore the wall color, I'm currently working on my color scheme for that room as well. So many ideas....

Chester came upstairs with us too (he's normally never allowed up there), and had fun exploring.

Eventually I found a bone for him to chew on while we put up the curtains.

Then Adam went back downstairs to hang out with Chester while I did a bunch of organizing and putting things in tubs and a donate pile. I'm working on it...

Foodie Friday: Garlic-Lemon Mahi

As some of you may know, Mahi Mahi is my favorite fish. And I'm a fish girl. Give me some seafood over steak or pork any day. We even had Mahi at our wedding reception (along with steak).

With our new Sam's Club membership, we picked up a 2 lb pack of Mahi Mahi fillets. I especially appreciate that they come individually packed.

Since we didn't feel like getting out the grill, I looked for some recipes online and found this one from the Food Network.

We made a few changes, and it was DELICIOUS. Probably my favorite meal I've had in a while.

So while you should definitely check out the recipe I linked above, this is how I did it (original recipes with my changes) -

Ingredients:
Vegetable Olive oil, for sauteing
1 2 (6 to 8-ounce) mahi-mahi fillets (the ones we got from Sam's are a little smaller, but worked fine)
1 tablespoon 5 cloves   chopped roasted garlic, smashed
1 1/2 lemon, juiced (and even then it was pretty lemon-y)
1/4 cup white wine (we used our cheap $3 Chardonnay from Trader Joe's that we use for cooking)
1-ounce 2 T unsalted butter, melted or cubed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

In a large saute pan, heat the oil. Add the mahi and cook until the underside is golden brown. Turn the fish over and add the garlic, lemon juice, and white wine. Once the wine and lemon juice have cooked down some, add the butter. Finish cooking (if needed) and season with salt and pepper.

You guys, it was seriously so good. Please try it. I wish I would have taken a photo, but I forgot until I was halfway through it. I must have been hungry! We just had it with some roasted vegetables on the side, but it would be good with some garlic bread.

Dang Household Updates

I haven't had much to blog about lately, so here are a few updates from our house-

We're enjoying our living room rearrangement, and watched Skyfall, the latest Bond movie last night. I've been wanting to see it for a while now, and still can't figure out why we didn't go it when it was still in the theaters? Regardless, it was entertaining even though I didn't love it as much as I thought I would.

Our Washington, DC trip with my family in June is mostly booked. We've been wanting to go there together for a few years now, so when the Twins schedule came out and they were playing the Nationals in DC, it was a no brainer. Bonus is that it's over my dad's birthday and he enjoys going on trips then. We're all going to the game together on his birthday night. Then on Saturday, just Adam, Christine and I will be going. I can't wait to see another ballpark (#6/30 together), and share the experience with my fam. Plus, we're going to visit a lot of the museums and monuments while in DC. We should have a good amount of time to see a lot as we'll be there for 5 nights. I already booked the air and baseball tickets, so now we're just finalizing our hotel selection.

I've also been busy trip planning for our anniversary trip to Seattle! Once again, when looking at the Twins schedule, they were going to playing the Mariners at Safeco the weekend after our anniversary. Since we always like to do something special to mark this date (1st anniversary in Duluth, 2nd anniversary on Madeline Island), we decided to go for it. It will be ballpark #7/30. We hope to see the Twins play at them all eventually. I have our hotels for Seattle and our visit to Mt. Rainier booked, and just ordered our baseball tickets today. We won't have a lot of time to see things since we'll just be there for 4 nights (3 in Seattle, 1 at Mt Rainier), but I have our itinerary all planned out. I just need to keep watching that pesky airfare. It's super high right now, and I think it's because July is a popular time to go to Seattle. Plus a lot of Alaskan cruises are leaving from there in July. I'm hoping to find a decent price... we'll see...

Otherwise we're just looking forward to the snow melting and warm weather! Chester is adorable as ever, and loves the new antler I gave him while Adam was in California. He's such a good boy.

Weekend Recap: Movies + New TV Stand

I won't get into what a selfish jerk I think Percy Harvin is (demanding to be traded and all), but do I wish bad things for him with Seattle? Why yes, actually I do.

Onward to the weekend recap...

After work on Friday we went over to Sam's Club to get our new membership. There was a great deal on LivingSocial, so I took advantage of it. I would much rather be a Costco member, but there's not one really convenient to us and there's a Sam's right across the street from my work. Getting our member cards was a painful 20 minute + process, but otherwise it was fine. And it'll be nice to not have to bug my mom to take me over there every once in a while when I'm visiting them.

We've been trying a 2 week low-carb diet (last day is next Monday, I'm definitely counting down the seconds), so Friday night we each allowed ourselves one drink. Otherwise I think we would have snapped and abandoned said diet. It seems to be going okay so far, but I'm hating it. Pretty sick of veggies and meat by this point... and it's only been a week.

That night we watched a movie and relaxed with Chester. We grabbed American History X  from our stash. I had never seen it before and really enjoyed it. It was sad and messed up, but good.

Adam was restless on Saturday, so we ventured out of the house in the rain to do some errands. We've been looking for a different TV stand for a while now, and decided to intensify the search. We even drove the Terrain, so we meant business! We did some measurements of the space before we left and brought the tape measure along.

First, we stopped briefly at Target so I could get pick up some on sale totes/tubs for my upstairs cleaning project. Three to be exact. Remember that as I would be regretting it later. Next, we stopped at the Slumberland Outlet and looked around. They had a few TV stands, and one we kind of liked and loved the price of, but we decided to keep looking.

Next, we drove up to Dock86. This is where we found our leather couches. It's a discount furniture store, but their prices aren't that great in my opinion. They do have a large selection though. There we found one! It's a corner stand, so we thought that would work really well with the space we were thinking. It's about 53" at it's widest, and our TV is 50" so we knew it would work well. Our old one was really long, something like 72". We checked out and then waited in the loading dock for our name to be called. Adam back up the Terrain and they loaded her in. Except they had to take out the 3 tubs to do so. And those three 18 gallon tubs found a home on my lap. For the 15 minute ride home. Not so special.

We got it home and dragged it inside, which was an adventure in itself as it was heavy and I am not strong. But we made it.

And then Adam started his long afternoon project of moving the cable and ethernet lines from one end of the room to the other. This involved cutting a hole in our wall, digging through the walls, and a trip to Home Depot for supplies. He did great though and it looks so much better than our old cords did coming up from a hole in the floor by the radiators!

Then it was time to move over all our equipment and power cords and cables which was pretty time consuming as well. Chester was helpful, as always.

When we were done, we made a delicious dinner of Lemon Chicken with Artichoke Hearts. Recipe here.
I would definitely make it again; next time with some egg noodles (when we're finally off this stupid diet).

After dinner I played around more with the furniture placement before settling on this layout for now.
This is the angle from the front entry (ignore the junk in the dining room, I was still organizing)-

And from the dining room -

 I would like to find a big square ottoman and then have the two couches perpendicular to each other so they can share the ottoman (so basically switch the loveseat with the man chair).
 
I really LOVE the new TV stand and layout! I find myself gazing at it and marveling at how much bigger it feels. I can't believe we didn't do it sooner.

I'm totally kicking myself for not taking a full room before shot. I found this old photo and edited it to show where everything was. I love how it really opens up the space!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Here's a comparison of the set-up-

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I'm really glad we went for one with doors to hide all the junk and keep it less dusty.

Even Chester seems to like it! And now it's too high for him to scratch at the TV when there are dogs/horses/cartoons/cats/bunnies, etc on.

Finally, it was time to settle in and watch a movie on the new set-up - the new Total Recall. Adam fell asleep halfway through, but I actually enjoyed it.

Sunday morning I enjoyed lounging with the pug while Adam cleaned up a bit downstairs and prepared to smoke a pork loin.

Then I did some picking up around the house and spent some time organizing downstairs. Someday it will get done. I just need to keep chipping away at it.

That afternoon, we watched another movie. Reservoir Dogs, which was also from our collection. I thought it was pretty boring for most of it, but got good at the end.

The rest of the evening was for lounging and watching The Walking Dead. Such a good show. It was a pretty laid back weekend, which was nice as I had battled migraines off and on all week. The first 8 days of March I had a headache every.single.day. It was rough.

My New Work Office

Our office is in the upstairs of a building. This upstairs did not have any windows for the first 5.5 years I worked here. Quite depressing. Is it snowing? Is it raining? We never knew. Not to mention the fact that when I came downstairs where there were windows, I felt like a mole coming out of it's hole, all squinty eyed.

And then in November, the owner decided she'd have windows installed for us! Hooray!
I didn't realize this project would take on a life of it's own, so I didn't take many before photos. Sadface. I'll post what I have.

The project began mid-December, so we had to pack up our desks,

dismantle the cubes,

and go to our temporary workstations. Mine was in the downstairs Conference Room with 2 other people. I also got a new computer in December with duel monitors. Amazing.

By mid-January, the windows were in. However, this project had snowballed, and pretty soon we were getting new carpet, paint, cubes, desks, and chairs. I was the "Project Manager" and helped the owner with a lot of the decisions and then organize and coordinated everything. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work.

Here's how it turned out.

I LOVE my new space. It's a lot bigger and more functional because I can meet with people at my desk instead of down in the Conference Room or Lunch Room (when the Conference room is taken... super awkward).

I even have a plant on my bookshelf now that wasn't there yet when I took that photo.

The walls are a little bare, so we need to get some artwork up. We have some ordered, and we're gradually working at more.

I love the space now and really enjoy looking out the window to see blue skies. It makes my workday so much more enjoyable not feeling like I'm in a cave.