Happy Birthday, Mom!

For Mom's birthday, Mer and I cooked a fancy dinner. We made Filletes de Pescado a la Veracruzana (Fish fillets braised with tomatoes, capers, olives and herbs). We also made salad and cornbread. I was in charge of the cornbread. We decided to replace one half cup of the white flour with wheat flour. Mer got all the ingredients out for me and started working on the fish.

I started measuring out a 1/2 cup of wheat flour, and it smelled DELICIOUS! I was like "Mmm! This smells great! It smells like MUFFINS!" And Mer was like "mmm hmm." then I inhaled more deeply and said "MMM!! It smells like ROLLS!" and finally she glanced over and realized I was measuing out the yeast, not the wheat flour!! Oops! Good thing I didn't dump it in. That would have been some GIANT cornbread. It turned out delicious.

That is yeast:



Mer cooking the fixings for the fish.



Birthday champagne!



It was a special night because it was Mommy's first Irish Car Bomb!



Cheers!



Mom looks a little skeptical, but she sure did finish her Car Bomb!



Filletes de Pescado a la Veracruzana. FANCY! Also, cornbread and salad.



We got a cake from the Village Bakery.



Fancy!



It was chocolate with raspberry inside. It was delicious. Happy Birthday, Mom!

Twinkies

Today after work I went for some beers with my coworkers. Rose and J'aime planned to meet me at Casa, and then we'd go back to my house. When they arrived, they were totally matching completely. I said "AW!! Cute matching outfits! Twinkies!!" And both of their eyes got real big and they looked down at their outfits, only JUST THEN realized that they matched exactly! Hahahah! I guess they had just walked down Court Street eating matching ice cream cones, too. Hahah. They must've looked like the Doublemint Twins.

Happy Birthday, Anne!

I went to Dayton this weekend to help Anne celebrate her birthday! It was SO much fun. Friday night, Clark, Anne and I headed out for thai food. It was all amazing. The sushi was delicious! After that, we went bowling. I got to meet some of their friends, Sarah, Shad, and Ryan. We had pitchers of beer. I LOVE bowling alleys that serve beer and score for you.

On Saturday, Anne and I went to Little Saigon for lunch. I've been hearing about it forever and man, was it AWESOME! Then we did some shopping, then it was time for dinner. We had pizza and champagne! Marion's Pizza in Dayton is incredible. You wouldn't believe how much sausage they give you!

Then we went to this party at the F.O.E. Eagle's Nest. It was a great time. There were awesome snacks (Hanky Panky DIP!!), and I met some cool people. They had beer too. We smoked cigars. Afterwards, we played some poker at Clark's place. It was a super fun weekend!



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Happy 2006!

We had some folks over for a little NYE party this year! There were games, champagne, snacks, and fun! The only thing that was a bummer was that we headed up to Casa to enjoy the bubble machine that they were featuring, and it wasn't running due to technical difficulties! Oh well, Casa was still fun anyway! Happy New Year!



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Aquariums at the Pub!

I have this whole week off work, so I was excited to get an email from Summer saying that some Stew Mac folk were heading to the Pub at four o'clock! The Pub serves these GIANT beers called "aquariums," and neither of us had ever tried one.

Also, Summer's friend Sarah was visiting from San Francisco, and I'd always wanted to meet her! So we all hung out all evening long and had a great time. At the end of the night, Adam picked us up and we went out to Summer's for a dip in the hot tub! Ahhh, vacation.



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Hike at the Ridges

The weather was a tiny bit warmer today, so Adam and I went up to the Ridges for a hike. I have the whole week off from work, and it's great! There was this cool horse statue that I had somehow never seen before. We walked up to Radar Hill so we could check out the view.

Gratuitous Woody Photos!

So Mer had some buddies over tonight to help polish off some Xmas Dinner leftovers, and on the guest list were Kaleb and Woody! You know what that means. An evening of CUTENESS! As hard as I try, I just cannot stop taking pictures of that cute little guy. WOODY!



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Merry Xmas!

Xmas was fun this year! Uncle Mark came down from Ann Arbor, and Pete's dad Harry and his wife Kandee were in town as well! On Xmas Eve, Mom made turkey sandwiches and AWESOME clam chowder. We had a big Xmas breakfast with waffles and eggs and sausage, then opened presents. That night, Mer had us all over for stewed beef, carrots, boiled onions and peas! On top of homemade spaetzle. I had never had spaetzle before and I loved it.. Man, and the cheese. So good! Uncle Mark had gotten some old family films turned into DVDs, so we watched those and they were hilarious.



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Party Train! TOOT TOOT!

Doran traveled all the way from Arizona to visit us Ohians, so we formed a Party Train for the weekend! Kara, Clark, Doran and Anne all came to Athens for Thursday night fun, and then we all motored up to Akron for Kara's annual Xmas Party on Friday night! TOOT TOOT!



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Snow Charlie

We got some snow today, and Charlie sat in the window all morning watching it come down. He's so great. Aw.

Bizarro Charlie and Emma

Today, I was googling for an image of "confetti," and I ran across this picture of two cats that TOTALLY look like Charlie and Emma! It made me do a double take. These kitties, "Confetti and Tiger," are the bizarro world versions of Charlie and Emma.





I decided to investigate further and check out the web site of the owners of those cats. Look what I found! It's Shem and Chan. Check out that MULLET! I'm going to email them a picture of Charlie and Emma and freak them out.

Jingle Step!

As a holiday tradition in our step aerobics class, Mom and I make bells for the class to wear on their shoes! This is the last week of classes before winter break, so we're having holiday class Tuesday and Thursday morning. Kay brings in Christmas Aerobics music, and everyone attaches bells to their shoes! It sounds HILARIOUS, and also awesome.

This year, we made the bells more fancy than last year, with the addition of fancy ribbon and holly. The holly sort of fell apart during class, but boy were they loud! Each year, we learn from the previous year and attempt to improve our product. We sounded like a class full of reindeer! We'll be wearing them again during Thursday's class!