Ellen,Good morning ladies,
I am back after a very nice week off. I have decided that every 4 years - I will take this week off. I absolutely love the Olympics and was able to watch all day long. I didn't even plan it that way, but when I realized it, it was perfect. Monday I cooked and baked all day. My favorite thing to do. Then we were able to pick and choose the rest of the week. On Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon I went to the pool with the boys. They were thrilled and I REALLY enjoyed it. But I got sun burned on my back and shoulders. I even had 50spf on but it was in the high 90's. The water felt glorious and we had so much fun. I even went down the huge slide with Liam. On Thursday I went and picked out new carpet for the bedroom. Friday I literally watched the Olympics all day. I even played hooky from church on Sunday - I was still on vacation.We got the bedroom primed, ceiling done, inside of the closets painted white and the walls a putty color. We love it!! It is so hard to tell what it will actually look like from a 2" by 2" piece of paper. So all in all a great week, and I was ready to get back to work.
I have just a few days until I am off again. The girls and I are flying to Chicago on Sunday. Jay and a friend had gotten Pearl Jam tickets, flights and rooms but he is now at the Police Academy so he couldn't go. Elizabeth asked Stephanie and I if we wanted to go and we both jumped at the chance. They are trying to sell the tickets but since the room was already paid for we decided to make it a girls trip. I love Chicago and pretty much know my way around - at least on the El. It will be a nice little trip. We are getting very excited.
Alison ~ Oh how I wish I could have shared that bottle of wine with you. Was it good?
How is the cleaning out of the apartment going?
Brandi ~ I was jealously following you on your whisky vacation. That would be something Doug would absolutely love to do. Bucket list right there.
PIO ~ I know you are busy with your new student, but I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your beautiful pictures. You really do have an eye.
WFDT ~ BBQ brisket sandwiches, tomatoes, cucumbers and onion salad (oh how I love summer) and corn on the cob.
Make it a great day!!
Have a wonderful time and enjoy!
Oh Alison your meal sounds and looks amazing.... Did I tell you that I ate some bison last week? It was good but not as good as I remember.Ellen - It sounds like you ladies will have a great time and a big whirlwind weekend!
We went out for a wonderful dinner on Monday night. Fran had bought me a special bottle of wine about 10 years ago. I found it in the wine cabinet sometime last year and said that we should drink it as it was "ready". She told me that we should go out to drink it because if I made a meal fitting of the wine, I would be too tired to enjoy it. So I made us a reservation at one of our fantastic steak houses in town and we had a great meal. They didn't have any oysters that I would really like, so I skipped my normal vodka gibson and just went straight for the wine.
I got an Iceberg Wedge salad which I split with Fran and we ate the leftovers last night. And yes those brown chunks are bacon!
Fran got the warm Feta Cheese with sourdough crostini. There's also roasted garlic and tomatoes to go with the Feta.
We split the French onion soup. It was really good, but I wish they had used 1 large bread crouton instead of "salad" croutons.
Then we split the 42oz. Tomohawk Ribeye Steak. It was huge, and we hardly ate any of it, but we also had that for dinner last night. I've never had it delivered sliced before. Normally they cut it tableside and not in so many slices. That's OK, it's easier to make sandwiches out of it!
We also got a baked potato to go on the side.
It came with a ton of fixins! I only ate a quarter of my half of the baked potato. Fran ate all the insides of her potato but we took all the leftovers home including her skin. I made potato skin appetizers out of hers and then I had the other quarter of baked potato with my steak and she had the half of my piece of baked potato.
One reason we took the steak home instead of fill up on that was dessert. I really wanted the butter cake when I checked out the menu a week before. So we ordered that. This was soooo good! It had a crunchy sugar exterior, but the cake inside was so moist and flavorful, it was such a delicious dessert!
But when we opened the menu, we saw that they had a chocolate souffle which I could not resist either! It was also delicious, but if I had to pick one, having tasted both, I would choose the butter cake.
Tonight WFD?
I'm making frozen pot pies. I've already done over 13,000 steps. My legs hurt and I'm dead tired. I was going to make homemade burgers, but standing up to cook sounds awful. Fran is going to have a sandwich made with more of the leftover steak to go with her chicken pot pie (it's the small version).
Have a great trip Ellen!
Brandi and PIO - hope everything is OK.
And can you believe they want to work too...
ALison, I am getting my girly parts removed.... I have a mass on my left ovary, and 3 on my cervix, the mass on my right ovary has gone away but an come back.
That sounds like a wonderful time! Glad you had so much fun!
