Snow Day!

Sorry for my delay in posting. We've been pretty busy.

First, my little sister, Lindsay, is having a baby girl! We're so excited. Now both of my sisters are having girls! My mom predicts that we'll all three have girls. Guess we'll know around late January/early February!

Tuesday night we went to the Fifth Avenue Theater in Seattle and saw...

The guy in the green could really kick! It was great - I loved it. The dancing was incredible and they did a pretty good job with the original songs even though they didn't sing the "June Bride" song. Of course, I grew up watching the musical at least once a year if not more so my expectations were high! I'd love to own the musical someday (hint, hint, Santa!). Anyway, I couldn't take pictures of the show but I snuck a few pictures of the theater. It's a really awesome place. D & I are going to make going to the theater an annual tradition around Christmas time. We love going - we have such a good time together. Last year we went and saw "Jersey Boys" at the Fifth Avenue Theater.
The first picture is of the stage. The second is the ceiling of the theater.


Today, my husband and I are on our laptops on the couch, sipping hot chocolate in front of the fire. Snow started falling early this morning and didn't let up. There's not much on the ground, maybe an inch, but the freeway by our house is impassible. That's how we roll in Seattle. The littlest amount of snow and the whole city shuts down. Then there are those who try to get out and they stop in the middle of the freeway to put chains on their tires. Or, better yet, those who just stop in the middle of the freeway and abandon their vehicles. Smmaarrrrt.

My sweet husband saw some birds flying around the trees in our front yard so he put out some luke warm water for them and defrosted our bird feeder so they could eat. Isn't he sweet?
The first picture is the view off our back deck. The second picture is of my sweet husband putting the water out for the birds.


In other news, I'm 12 weeks pregnant today! Baby is the size of a plum! My next ultrasound is on Monday and I'm really excited. I can't wait to see him/her again!

Snow is still coming down. It would be nice if we could get a 4 day weekend out of this! Actually, I'm working from home but I'd rather be working at home rather than working at work! :)

Have a good Thursday!

NOT Vintage Thingies Thursday

I made up a recipe.

It was actually eatable. Not only was it eatable, it was good. I usually don't like recipes with someone's name in them, but for my very first completely made up recipe, I'm going to put my name on it. I admit I got the general idea from a few different recipes, but what makes it mine is that I had no clue how it would turn out when I was making it because of all the stuff I threw in there. If there's a recipe out there like this one, don't tell me. Or, do tell me so I don't get sued.

Chicken Chimechangas a la Jamie

8-10 10" flour tortillas
2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (Depends on how saucy you like your chimechangas. I used 3)
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup (I used the Campbell's Health Request kind)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 T butter
1 T dried minced onion (I'm sure fresh onion would taste even better. D & I are not onion people so I don't have fresh onion in my house)
1 T chopped jalapeno (I use the jarred kind)
1 T salsa (I used my homemade salsa which is more pureed than, say, Pace, so just eyeball it)
2 T taco sauce (I bet enchilada sauce would be really yummy as a substitute)
1/4 c shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
2 T butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350°
Boil & shred chicken. Set aside.
In medium saucepan, melt 1 T butter over medium heat. Add garlic and onion and saute until soft. Add soup and stir well to combine. Add jalapeno, salsa, and taco sauce. Stir to combine and let simmer for 5 minutes. Add the cheese and stir until melted. Add the cooked chicken.
Fill each tortilla with about 1/4 cup of the mixture and roll pretty tightly. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and brush melted butter on top of each tortilla.
Bake at 350° for 30 minutes.

I scorched the roof of my mouth biting into one of these last night, so be careful. They may not look/feel hot, but they are pretty much an oven on the inside. They're so good - very flaky, buttery on the outside. The chicken on the inside was super tender and the sauce was so flavorful (kind of spicy!).

So, D wanted me to share with you all what he got me for our anniversary. He said he didn't want you all to think he was a chump and didn't buy me a card! He gave me the sweetest card - I almost cried. I love when our anniversary or Valentine's Day comes around and I can see what eloquent words he thinks of to describe how he feels about me. It really melts my heart.

Along with the card, he got me my favorite candy in the entire world... See's Bordeaux chocolates. If you don't live in the Northwest you probably have never had See's chocolates. You are missing out. If I ever make any money from this blogging thing (which is unlikely to happen), I will give away some of this chocolate. It's that good. Bordeaux, specifically, are like little pieces of chocolate heaven. The inside is a rich blend of brown sugar and buttercream, and the outside is either milk or dark chocolate, depending on your taste. I'm a dark chocolate girl all the way. The best part, in my opinion, are the chocolate sprinkles on top.


We had a really great time at The Melting Pot. SO much food! It never looks like a lot of food, but D always has to practically roll me out of there when we're finished eating. We had 7pm reservations. Since it was a Tuesday night and we assumed they wouldn't be crowded, we arrived at 6:50. The hostess told us it would be just a few minutes. A couple that walked in after us were seated a little after 7pm. I won't go in to the questions of why a couple who had reservations for 7pm but walked in after D & me were seated before we were seated. But anyway, we finally got a table around 7:10. Turns out they were short-staffed so our waitress was not only our server but she was also the busser. We chose one of the "Big Night Out" meals for two. It comes with a salad, your choice of cheese fondues (all fondues come with "the trimmings), your choice of broth or oil for your main course (we chose broth - the oil is way too heavy!), and then your choice of dessert fondue.

The salads are good - I wouldn't say they're anything special.

For the cheese fondue, you get to choose from a list of about 8 different kinds of cheese fondues. We chose spinach artichoke fondue with Fontina and Butterkase cheeses. It was very, very good. They bring out bread, raw veggies, and green apples to dip in the cheese. D & I weren't big on the apples - they were way too tart and tasted funny with spinach artichoke cheese on them.

Our main course platter had filet mignon, Memphis BBQ pork tenderloin, Key West shrimp, honey dijon chicken, spinach artichoke ravioli, and some fresh veggies and potatoes. It came with salmon, too, but we subbed more filet mignon since D isn't a fan of seafood. I have to tell you the story of D and his favorite dipping sauce. The first time we went to THe Melting Pot and he tried the cocktail sauce, he quite literally fell in love with the slow burn of the horseradish in the sauce. I'm pretty sure the only dipping sauce he uses is the cocktail sauce and maybe some of the cream cheese and chives. He puts the cocktail sauce on everything. Last time we went to the Melting Pot, the cocktail sauce had lost its burn - apparently one can get used to the burn and have it not really effect them anymore. Kinda like a drug addict. This time, the waitress offered to bring D some horseradish on the side so D could add more to the cocktail sauce. Throughout the meal, D got more and more used to the burn. Finally, for one of his last bites, he loaded up the cocktail sauce with more horseradish and literally piled it on to his piece of pork. The following pictures were of this bite...

I love that it looks like the steam is coming from David's head.

For dessert, we ordered "Cookies and Cream Marshmallow Dream" fondue. It's dark chocolate topped with marshmallow cream, flambeed, stirred together, and topped with crushed Oreo cookies. And to dip in the fondue, we had strawberries, bananas, cheesecake, marshmallows, pound cake, Rice Krispie Treats and brownies. But you probably want to see a picture...


I'll leave you with pictures of our trip to the pumpkin patch. Just because it's my blog and I can.
First, this is our pumpkin that we picked out at the patch. I LOVE this pumpkin - it was love at first sight. I laid eyes on it and I said "That's the one!" I feel like we were meant to be together. The second picture is the stuff we picked up at the pumpkin patch this year. The popcorn is kettle corn.

Here's D getting us some roasted corn on the cob. I'm salivating now just thinking about it. They even had Cayenne Pepper to sprinkle on your corn...D was happy about that.

The next picture is D picking up my pumpkin of choice. Oh, he's showing his dirty underbelly. Excuse me. I know it looks like D has on a Michael Jackson-era coat, but that's what D calls his "getting dirty jacket". It's in the trunk of his car at all times (along with blankets and a homemade emergency kit - isn't that cute?) in case he has to get dirty and it happens to be cold outside. The pumpkin patch is usually notoriously muddy, but this year it was great!


That's all I've got.

I wish I could work on headers/banners at work but I can't. All of my fonts and image uploads are on D's computer at home. Sidenote: Don't download Microsoft Vista. It rots your computer. Okay, it doesn't rot your computer, but it makes it slower than molasses which is highly frustrating!

D & I were invited to a couple of Halloween parties this year. At one of them we have to actually dress up. Any ideas?

Have a happy October 16th!

Picnic, Musical, and Dessert

Too many things to post about. I have to pretend I have profound thoughts and then scurry to collect them and put them in writing before they disappear. They always disappear.

I won't pretend to know what kind of ship I took a picture of last week out my office window. But, there it is and it's big and amazing and there were at least 200 people on board. If I could have zoomed in to show you, I would have. But, as it was I was attempting to shoot a photo of the boat through a window and I wasn't sure how it would turn out.

We had our company picnic last Friday and I would call it a success. I was one of 8 members of the "picnic planning committee", which I only did for the free ice cream at the meetings. I made the posters to promote the picnic (at right) and made a few other miscellaneous signs they needed for the day of. I also got there early to help set up, which was a perk for me because I could work from home that morning (I got up at 8am instead of 5:30am!) then headed over to the park around 10:30. I love that David has Flex days. He works enough hours over 2 weeks to allow him to take every other Friday off, which the City of Bellevue supports fully. Why aren't all companies that way? He was able to attend with me what is usually just a very socially awkward situation. I've always been the kind of girl who liked leaving work (and the people from work) at work. Forcing us to engage socially outside of work can be a little daunting. I am thankful to have David as my buffer. We stood in the buffet line together, talking quietly about what food we were unceremonioulsy piling onto our plates. Boy, did those plates get heavy. David loaded up on enough Caesar salad to sink a small ship - the man loves him some Caesar salad. I really should make that more...actually making it once would be a first for me. Poor underfed husband.

There are times I'm thankful to be in the "support staff" category. Just a measly Executive Assistant in a sea of people who are fully educated and know much more than I do about telecommunications. Support staff don't "talk shop" when they are forced to get together outside of work. We talk about real things. The receptionist's wedding, the other EA's pregnancy and the impending birth of her baby boy, etc. Talking about expense reports and ISO maps would send me running for the hills, and running for my car. So, thankfully those who joined us at our lunchtable were my fellow support staff who enjoy talking about things that matter.

After lunch, despite our bellies dragging on the ground, David and I played a rousing game of one-on-one badminton where I pretended not to know how my raquet missed hitting the birdie.

Why is the birdie on the ground? I know I hit the dumb thing! David, why?

The weather was beautiful. It was maybe 75° and alternated between being a little overcast and then really sunny. I'm sure you're tired of hearing about our company picnic now, so I'll move on.

Friday evening we decided to head over to Kentridge High School (even though very few of the performers were young enough to be in high school) to watch a performance of "The Music Man". A couple from church were in it so we thought it would be nice to support them. I don't know who I'm kidding - I LOVE musicals. David is not a "musical" type of guy. Don't get me wrong - he can sing in the shower with the best of them (not with, you understand) and he likes to make up his own words to songs he hears on the radio or, ugh, on commercials. But as far as watching other people sing and dance onstage, I'm fairly certain he'd rather have his eyes dug out with spoons. I'm fortunate in that he hides his displeasure very well. On Sunday, when we approached the couple to tell them how wonderful their performances were, David said, "I don't know how you memorize all the lines! I kept looking for the teleprompter." Sweet David. I had to laugh inside a little. Or a lot.

Saturday morning we woke up later than usual and I fried some eggs and popped some of my homemade frozen waffles into the toaster for brunch. Then we headed for Lacey, which is a little over an hour south of us. Some of David's dad's side of the family live down there and there were also family members visiting from Chicago (David and I saw them when we went to Chicago in May) so we wanted to drop in and say hello to them. We only stayed a couple of hours and, although I was not asked to bring anything, I didn't want to arrive empty handed so I tried my hand at a new dessert I found. I'll leave you with the recipe.

I should return tomorrow. I do want to leave you with this... I Grocery Game'd again last night and saved 59%. I saved over $70 and only spent $58! It was wonderful. My freezer is now full to the brim and I don't think I'll need to go shopping for a while.

Chocolate Peanut Bars

1 (18.25 oz) white or vanilla cake mix
2/3 cup quick or rolled oats
1 cup peanut butter, divided
1 egg
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup peanuts (optional - I omitted)

In a mixing bowl, beat the cake mix, oats, 2/3 cup peanut butter and egg until crumbly. Press into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan. In a mixing bowl, combine cream cheese and remaining peanut butter. Gradually beat in milk and sugar. Carefully spread over crust. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and peanuts.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until edges are lightly browned and center is set. Cool completely before cutting. Store in the refrigerator.

Lesson #1: Make bars way ahead of time before attending the event in which you plan to take said bars. If you cut them too soon before they are cooled, they will look like mush (as is evident in the above picture). If you do not chill these bars for at least long enough for them to solidify a bit, they won't taste as good. These tips courtesy of the girl who makes enough mistakes to start numbering them and hoping they are useful to you in this recipe. You're welcome.