Happy Bday to me!!!!

Wow, what an exhausting...but super productive weekend!  Friday night, Chad made dinner reservations at Michael Smith's restaurant in the Crossroad's neighborhood.  

Michael Smith is a James Beard award winner, so I was super excited to try the restaurant.  The staff was super friendly and accommodating.  We opted for the 4 course Chef's Tasting Menu...which was basically 8 different courses that Chad and I shared.  They brought you each different appetizers, different seafood entrees, different meat entrees and different desserts.  If you get bored with food pics, then you'll definitely want to fast forward through the next handful of pics.  Ha!

The first course was appetizers...Braised Rabbit with Gnocchi and Maryland Soft Shell Crab.  This was my first time having rabbit.  It was surprisingly pretty good.  Chad says that it tastes like dark meat turkey.  It's close, in my opinion, but it's just a slightly bit game-ier.

The second course was the seafood entree...Seared Sea Scallops and Pan Seared Monkfish...both extremely tasty!

The third course was the meat entree...Grilled New Zealand Lamb Rack and Braised Boneless Shortribs.  Aren't these dishes lovely???

The dessert course was also lovely...Chocolate Macaroons with Homemade Ice Cream and Lemon Chiffon Cake with Homemade Lemon Sorbet & Ice Cream.

Well, needless to say, we were both ridiculously stuffed after that tremendously yummy mean...one of the best I've had in a long time!


Saturday we had a packed day planned.  We started out the day with lunch and then a trip to the Coach store.  Believe it or not, we ventured there for Chad as his wallet was coming apart.  Coach is great with their customer service.  I've had a purse restitched in the past.  So we walked out with them agreeing to give Chad a new wallet and new sunnies for me thanks to Chad's coupon!  Woo hoo!  I finally have Big Girl sunnies!

We then went to the travel agent to decide on a honeymoon.  We've been trying for months to decide where to go.  We've considered destinations from Bali to Bora Bora, from St. Lucia to Turks & Caicos and even the Bahamas.  The meeting was quite helpful.  Stay tuned for the decision...


Then we headed to the jewelers to pick out our wedding bands, which we were quite successful.  Finally we ended the day with our friends, Jen & Jeff, and some Indian food...Chad's first "Indian experience".  

Today we tried out a new diner in the area for brunch.  Check out the size of Chad's pancake.  It was about 1/2-3/4 of an inch thick!  I think Chad ate barely over half.  Ha!

It was a super fun and super exhausting weekend.  No wonder all I wanted to do today was veg out.  I was able to accomplish a few things today though.  Now on to another week!  Cheers!

Go Yankees!

I can't believe the weekend came and went already!!  Is it really Sunday night already?!?!  I'm dreading this week at work.  Friday was probably one of the most difficult days that I've ever had at work, and the beginning of this week proves no different.  Oh well.  Let's suck it up and get on with it!!

We had a busy weekend filled with Yankee's-Royals' games to keep my mind off of everything.  Friday night our seats were in the Diamond Club.  These are the seats directly behind home plate.  They are not all-inclusive seats, but one does have access to an indoor area with better food.  Here's the view from the indoor area just above our seats...

...and another from our seats. 

We had tickets or Saturday evening's game also.  We tailgated before the game with our friends, Jeff and Jen, who are meteorologists and work in the same building as Chad.  It was sooooo hot that afternoon, which is ridiculous for May.  However, I still came away from the game as white as can be.  Ha.  Here's a pic of Chad before the game.  We unpacked the beer before we unpacked the rest of the car!  We knew that we weren't going to be able to celebrate Cinco de Mayo this weekend, so we did it up the best we could...Negro Modelo with lime!

Jen and I acting a bit goofy!

Today we took it easy.  We started off the day with brunch at The Farmhouse, which is a farm-to-table restaurant just down the street from us.  We'd been itching to eat here and so glad we did.  Lots of yummy options.  Chad got some French Onion soup and a BELT sandwich on sourdough.  I ended up with corned beef with potato & butternut squash hash and a fried egg.  Yumm-o!

To end the weekend right, we finally got the envelopes printed for our Save the Date cards which arrived this week.  They turned out sooooo good!  I can't wait for everyone to see them  So fun!  

I hope everyone has a better week than I'll be having!  Cheers!

Catch up...again

Man, I feel like I'm always playing catch up with my blog! I cannot believe that it's been over a month since I've posted anything.  I really enjoy blogging but it definitely isn't something that I crave doing after spending all day on the computer at work.  I envy my friend, Ashley, who is much more dedicated than I am about it.  I wish I could just think what I want to post and it would show up in my blog!  Ha.

Well, this last month has been filled with work, Easter, work, baseball, work, storm chasing, work and a bit of fun.  As you can imagine work has completely kicked my butt lately.  I have been super stressed about it and super exhausted.  It's really been bringing me down, but I'm going to try to go into this next week with a better attitude!  I just hope I can keep it up.  Fingers crossed.  Thank goodness that I have this patio to come home to.  It's the perfect place to kick up your feet, people watch and have a glass of wine or a brew!

Here's a few fun things that we've done...

April brought about my inaugural storm chase!  I've been wanting to do this for quite a few years now, but the opportunity just hasn't presented itself.  Moving closer to the vastness they call Kansas has helped though.  Storm chasing is a lot of planning & driving (hours and hours to be exact) for about a 30 min rush of adrenaline if you get lucky.  I'm told that I was very lucky, because many times storm chasers don't even see a tornado.  I'm so glad that we did!  It was my first sighting while chasing (second sighting of my life) and Chad's second sighting.  Here's a pic of our tornado.  This was at dusk and almost impossible to see unless it was lightning.

 ...and if spotting a tornado wasn't enough, we also spotted the Dominator!!!  Yahoo!!  (You must be a fan of the show Storm Chasers to have any idea what I'm talking about.)  I was almost as excited to see them as I was the tornado.  How exciting to be chasing the same storm.  Here's a video from Reed of the same tornado we were chasing in Heston, KS. Very cool!!

April has also brought us the start of baseball...and while I was bummed to miss out on all the Cardinals' Opening Day festivities that I've religiously taken part in the last 10 years, we were still happy to attend the Royals' Opening Day.  The hype was much less than in St. Louis, but it was still a good time...and much, much cheaper.  It was my first experience with tail gating, which I thoroughly enjoy now.  We also were able to take in one weeknight game while my St. Louis work friends were in town.  Here's a couple pics...

Geno's last trip to KC as a HCUSA employee.  We'll miss you Gene!

Here's me and Rebecca!  She's been "visiting" me at least one a month to help me with training at work.

Last weekend was the first Delaware Wine Walk of the season.  This event is pretty awesome because it's on our street!!  For a small fee, which goes to charity, you visit local businesses on the street and they pour wine for you.  This month's wine was from a local KS winery...Somerset.  While I cannot say the wine was very good, it was definitely a fun event.  We found businesses that we didn't even know were near us.   Here's some pics from this event...

The line outside our building to visit the business

that's on the first floor.

A lady drawing a mural at the salon where we get our hair done...The Glam Room. 

Another pic of the venue across the street from our building...Cafe al Dente.

This weekend my Mom and Judy came to visit and help me pick out a wedding gown.  I will not be posting any wedding dress pics on my blog, but feel free to email me if you want to see the dress.  It was so wonderful to have them here with me for this special day.  Thanks again, ladies!!!!

Dum dum da dum...

The wedding planning vacation was a success...unless you're talking about how I came home just as white & tanless as I left.  LOL!  Unfortunately, there wasn't a bit of time for the pool or the beach...but at least we were near the beach and in the warm weather!!!  

We toured 3 facilities on Friday.  Boy, was that exhausting...but super fun!  We finally decided on the Sandpearl Resort in Clearwater Beach, FL.  So now I will overload you with pics of the resort.  Settle in.

The outside and the lobby.

View of the resort from the beach.

Our wedding would be on the beach between the two dunes.

(The yellow beach chairs wouldn't be there in October...just for Spring Breakers now.)

Here is the veranda where we would have the cocktail hour after the wedding.

(The chairs would be moved.)

Here's the view from the veranda.  Gorgeous!!!

Here is the room where we'll be having the reception.  There is a balcony for guests to step out on to enjoy the fresh air.

Just a few more pics...promise!

Here are the super cool pool lounge chairs.  Check out the awesome shade that you can pull up to shield you from the sun!!  Most of the chairs have a flag to put up when you need a beverage...rock on!

One last pic...this awesome cabana that you can rent out for a day!

So things are finally coming together as I hoped they would once we secured the venue.  We booked the photographer tonight...Neil Shannon Photography.  We have entertainment and a florist pending.

I will leave you with this one last photo...a sunset, of course.  A bit cloudy but still B-E-A-UTIFUL!!!

More catch up...

This one might be a long one.  Lots to catch you up on...again.  If only I would get into a rhythm of blogging each day or at least every other day.  I'm sure it has something to do with spending all day at the computer and coming home just to get onto the computer again.  : )

Last Saturday was my Dad's birthday.  He and my stepmother were scheduled to come up for a quick visit.  That ended up being postponed as my Dad was a bit under the weather...and on his birthday at that.  

Here's a recent pic of us.  Happy Birthday, Dad!

So with a whole weekend to ourselves, we decided to get completely crazy...and hit up the normal Saturday night ritual...wine tasting and dinner.  We chose a new place for dinner in a neighborhood called Volker, which is next to Westport.  Volker reminds me of The Loop in STL, and Westport reminds me of the CWE.  Both are very cool, and only about 10-15 min from the condo.  Saturday night we went to Thomas restaurant...very cool with super yummy martinis!  

Sunday we headed to the convention center for the KC Cake Fest.  This is an annual event highlighting the art of cake decorating.  The general admission was free, which is what we took advantage of, but they had special tickets that you could buy for cake battles both days.  That would have been fun to see...but not for $40 a ticket!  Patty Cakes from Highland was part of the battles.  Fun!  Here's pics of some of the cake that we saw.

The Cupcake Lady

Sorry, Jude, no Miller Light...

...but there's vino!

Not for the faint at heart.

This dragon even blew smoke out of his nose.  Definite first place!

This one is about the Power & Light District...a very trendy, fun district a few blocks from our place.

Here's something for my mom...Wizard of Oz and...

...a little Alice in Wonderland.

Fun...but it only made me want to eat about 20 cupcakes. LOL!

This week has been a bit busier for us, since it's a 3-day work week.  We're heading down to Clearwater Beach to FINALLY make some wedding plans!  Ha.  We're sooooo far behind, but oh well.  I'm sure everything will work out.  I'm super excited to be heading to FL.  We won't have much time to relax.  We have meetings scheduled the majority of the time that we are there.  At least we'll be near the beach and in warmer weather!!  Yahoo!!  Hopefully I'll have good news when we return!

However, I'm now finding out what it's like not to have family close to me.  I've been so lucky (and spoiled) to have my family so close to me my whole life to help me!!!  They've always watched the cats when I was out of town previously, but that's not the case this time.  We'll be gone 4 days, which is a bit too long to leave cats by themselves.  So we've hired a pet sitter to come over for about 30 min each day to feed, water and scoop the litter box.  I'm a bit nervous to let people into our place when we're not here, but the company seems pretty professional.  They have 24 sitters on staff that cover areas from Lawrence, KS to Columbia, MO.  They offer a variety of services, but we're just going to have them do the short day visits.  They send report cards each day to let you know how they're doing.  Keep your fingers crossed that things go well...both at home and in FL!!!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!!

Catch up...

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted and we are still on the mend.  It seems like it's taken this long just to get ourselves back to where we were before we got sick.  Funny how that is.  Chad is finally starting to breathe a bit better, and he sees the pulmonologist tomorrow.  If there is any bright side to our sickness, it's that it forced both of us to get primary doctors...and Chad a specialist for his asthma!

Judy was supposed to come out for a visit the weekend that Chad was released from the hospital, but it was just too much.  So we rescheduled for the next weekend.  We enjoyed the visit immensely and had lots of fun.  Judy came out on Thursday evening, so we had a girls day on Friday as Chad had to work.  Judy is a big fan of the Chiefs, so we decided to check out Arrowhead Stadium and take the tour.  Here's a few pics...

Just left on Saturday afternoon as her work week starts on Sunday.  Sunday is our day to cook for the week, which we try to do most weekends.  This weekend, we decided on chili!  I HEART chili...but I haven't been able to make it much this winter given all the goings on.  We picked a Rachael Ray recipe that turned out to be super spicy...and super yummy!  Here's the recipe:

Roasted Poblano & Sliced Steak Chili

• 3 large poblano peppers
• 2lb sirloin shell steak
• 3 Tbsp. EVOO
• 1 large red onion, chopped
• 5 garlic cloves, chopped
• 3 jalapenos, seeded & chopped (optional)
• 1 tsp. smoked sweet paprika
• 1.5 tsp ground cumin
• 1.5 tsp ground coriander
• 1 Tbsp. chili powder
• 1 dark Mexican beer
• 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
• 1 lime, juice & zest
• Salt/pepper
• Corn tortilla chips  

Directions:

1.     Preheat the broiler to high and place the poblanos on a broiler pain or baking sheet.  Char and blacken the skins all over under the hot broiler, about 15-16 min.  Leave the oven door cracked.  Set the poblanos in a bowel and cover the bowl with plastic wrap.  Let stand 10-15 min.  When the peppers have cooled, peel off the skins, discard the seeds and cut the peppers into large bite-sized pieces.

2.     Trim the steak and cut into thin bite-size strips about 1 ½ inches long and ¼ inch thick.  Heat the EVOO in a stew pot over high heat.  When it ripples add the beef and sear on all sides, seasoning it with salt and pepper. 

3.     Add the onions and garlic and reduce the heat to medium-high.  Cook the onions for 5 min.  Stir in the smoked paprika, cumin, coriander and chili powder distributing the spices well.  Deglaze the pan  with the beer, scraping up the browned bits.  Cook for a minute to reduce.  Add the tomatoes and lime zest.  Stir in the poblano and jalapeno peppers.  Reduce the heat to low and simmer the chili for 15-20 min.

4.     Squeeze the lime juice over the chili and turn off the heat.  Serve in the shallow bowls garnished with a few crushed tortilla chips.

llllYou definitely must try this recipe if you like spicy chili!  Yahoo!  Hopefully, I'll catch you all up on this weekend tomorrow.  Baby steps.  Hope everyone is having a great weekend!!