This Weekend

This weekend was a good one.

We went to dinner with Nate's friends on Friday night for our late wedding present.
Public Service Announcement for those in the Twin Citise: DO NOT go to r. Norman's. It is not good at all and incredibly overpriced for whta you get. If your itching for a steak stick to Manny's because r. Norman's was horrible.


Saturday Morning we woke up to this:
Yep..gotta love MN. But it didn't phase us. I caught up with the girls over brunch and Nate cleaned the house (good deal for me huh?). We ended up having a few people over to play some games on Saturday night which is always fun.

Sunday brought a 15 mile run for Nate, a school paper for me and SECRET DATE NIGHT! Nate's secret date was to make merengue's. This may seem a little weird to the outsider, but those who live in the walls of 3905 Yosemite know that merengues are my new obsession so it was very cute of Nate to have us try our hand at making our own.

The verdict at the end of the night was that ours are not as good as the store bought kind, but we are holding out hope that they will continue to dry out today. For some reason they had a little mushy inside. Maybe we needed to bake longer? Any advice out there?

Hunker Down

Well word on the street is that we are supposed to get an inch of snow tomorrow. But more than that it is supposed to get down to 15 degrees overnight. Are you kidding me right now? We had like 2 days of nice weather and it is crappy again.

I considered unpacking my spring/summer clothes last night, and opted not to once I got the weather news. I think I may just burn my winter clothes instead of packing them away this year.

I realize the local weather forecast does not an update on our life make. However, right now our life is the weather. People are getting maniacal up here in the Twin Cities. I hope it doesn't hit me, although if you talked to Nate he may argue that it already has.

Fun With the Fam

We went home this weekend to hang out with the Fam. It was great fun, especially because Finn was there and has all sorts of new tricks----or developmental milestones as Becca like to call it.

I brought Finn these crayons designed for little one's hands. It may have been a tid bit early to introduce them to Finn as he mostly just played with it. But hey...it made for a good photo op.

I also brought Finn one of his birthday presents since I didn't want to haul them all down to Chicago on the plane. Check out the pink skull shirt and madras short! SO BIG!

Uncle Nate and Finn had a great time too. Nate was the lucky one that received the most kisses from Finn. For some reason Finn wasn't really interested in giving his big kisses to anyone else.

Birthday Surprise

So the surprise of the big birthday party was that Nate bought me an I-Phone for my birthday. It was a great gift, but what made it the best is that he went to the effort of contacting my family and friends to get a ringtone that they felt would remind me of them.

Then, in front of everyone at the party, everybody called me one by one and I had to guess who was calling. It was a little nerve-wracking and a little embarrassing but definitely memorable.

One of my friends was smart enough to grab my camera and captured this moment on film.......

Say Cheese!

This weekend was our "Iron Chef America Birthday Bash" where our secret ingrediant was CHEESE. Yummmm.

It was so impressive to see what everyone brought, and lets just say we were not in a lack of food situation.

Here you will see our initial spread of food. Note: There was so much food it wouldn't all fit on our table.

At the center of this picture you will find the Bleu Cheese Spirals who was the winner of the "Best Presentation Award". Thank you Rachel Rosen...her souffle was also amazing.

Also, check out the delicious mini-cupcake lollipops that could only be made by one Summer Chevalier. These took home the "Best Sweet Prize"

What you can't see on the table are the Marscipone Cream Puffs that were handmade by one Katie Wong and took home "Most Creative Use of the Secret Ingrediant." I mean seriously, who thinks of Marscipone for a cheese challenge? Way to go Katie!

Best Savory Dish was a homemade Mac N Cheese that was to die for (literally...probably could have a heart attack if you ate to much of it).

And finally, the Birthday Girl's Favorite award went to this delicious orange cranberry cream cheese cheese ball that tasted like a dreamsicle...or what I like to call "heaven in your mouth".

There were some creative entries like Easy Cheese in a can with crackers, entries that were nostalgic (i.e. Mac N Cheese Ian's Pizza) and entries that just weren't very good (i.e. our black bottom cupcakes.....). The sad thing is we didn't taste them before putting them out so we didn't realize they were horrible until the next morning! CRAP! Not sure what happened there, but sorry to all the people who had to fake their deliciousness.

It was a great time, and Nate and I are already planning the next one so stay tuned and keep those creative cooking skills practiced up!

Me with the "Most Creative Winner"

Debra and Nate taste testing

Stay Tuned tomorrow for the big surprise...............

First Box!

It's my first promotion on Cheerios!

So Nate and I were shopping tonight for a a few items for the big Iron Chef party this weekend and came across my first Cheerios promotion to actually hit the shelves. This was the project that was on my desk the very first day I started up in Big G. It is so fun to see it in grocery stores.

So pick up a box, and go online to play the book donation challenge. Cheerios is giving away 100,000 books!

One Word

A good friend sent me this thing today where you get asked a bunch of questions that you can only answer in one word. My first thought was..."what is this a lesson in brevity?" but when you start to do it you realize how hard it is. I find myself wanting to qualify, expand, justify and "humorize" my answers.

Here are a few examples and how I answered:

Your significant other? Rock
Your mother? Thoughtful
Your father? Generous
Your favorite thing? Home
Your favorite drink? Mojito
Your dream/goal? Happiness
What you're not? Simple
Your pets? Old
Your life? Chaotic
Missing someone? Nephew


So everyone, since we got a taste of summer on Saturday, please tell me in ONE word, what your summer will consist of.....