A Warm January Weekend

Saturday (9AM!) we organized a tailgate for the Villanova game.  Mike spent part of Friday night cooking up some chili, which I actually only got a spoonful of, since it went like hotcakes the next day.  He also made the best breakfast burritos ever made.  It helped to console our broken hearts when Nova lost a near 20pt lead to lose the game.

Also, we debuted our homemade beer which everyone seemed to like a lot.  Either because it tasted delicious or because it was free beer.

One of the (if not THE) first tailgaters 

Chili and breakfast burritos warming up

 We also enjoyed ladder golf, courtesy of Chris.  I became addicted after my first well over-thrown toss.

I think this about captures how good the food was.

Some of Miggy's friends showed up as well

Sunday we did our first Chopped night - our version of the cooking competition show on TV, where contestants are given 4 surprise (and surprising) ingredients they must use to make either an appetizer, entree or dessert in a given amount of time.  I decided that Mike would be amazing at it, and we are always curious how the dishes on the show taste.  I chose these four ingredients for Mike to make an appetizer:

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Pasta salad with pear-raspberry baby food vinaigrette, and fried smelts over a sour-cream and onion spinach dip

The fried smelts and sour cream and onion dip was fantastic!  I would definitely order it somewhere.  The pasta salad was actually pulled off quite well and earned an -A.

First taste of the baby food revealed it definitely required some creativity to make it work

Tonight we have band practice at Mom and Dad's and this weekend Mike's coworker, Chris, is treating us to a day of skiing at Elk Mountain as a wedding gift.  Meanwhile, I shall work on some baby gifts (wink wink!) and study for the FE exam.

What the New Year Brings

The New Year brings...

• More car problems--which my husband brilliantly figured out and fixed for $40. Now let's just ignore the "Service Engine Soon" light that came on after it was fixed.
• Band practice--Mike and I are practicing with a few friends for an upcoming (and to-be-scheduled) local gig. It feels good to play again and bother Mom and Dad with noise. ;)
• Studying for the FE exam in April. Yay for brushing up on differential equations. It only cost $180 and 8 hours of a Saturday to take the darn test, do I really need to study?
• Continued job hunt, as I've had no success yet. It's time to get a part-time job to help pay for my dead weight in this marriage.
  
• Rectangular pizza? How do we not have a round pizza pan?
• Sneaking into the gym already. I swear we thought Mike had 3 guest passes! But you're saying we showed up with all our racquetball gear on a freezing Friday night and you can't let us in? Thank goodness the lady had a heart and a soft spot for allowing liability risks. Not to worry, I always wear my protective eye gear even if it embarrasses Mike. I also yell when the ball looks like it's going to hit me, which prevents injuries.
• The Australian Open--great for starting stimulating conversation, such as "Would you rather be a famous and talented professional athlete, but you're unattractive, or a famous and very attractive model?" And "Why are the shirts/under garments of professional women tennis players not thicker?" Watching the sport going on in a warm hemisphere makes me really want to play.
• Football, target practice and steaks at Mom and Dad's. It's always good to bum around with the 'rents. My sharp shooter husband knocked off some bottles, I myself annihilated one.
• Planning visits with families--Mike's parents are coming the second week of February, so we have to figure out what we're going to do to while they're here! And schedule when to visit Chrissy and Zack and Kelly and Sean. Zassy and Seanelly.
• Home brewed beer! Which we bottled on the 7th and is ready this coming weekend (though we have already drank almost an entire case). A second batch is already done fermenting.

Bottling the first batch.................and sampling completely flat, warm beer.

Steeping the um......hops balls

Also, I want to finally get around to sharing our first few hours of the New Year.

New Years

Michelle arrived on Thursday and the three of us have been keeping busy this weekend!

We started our beer on Friday - the home brewing kit was a Christmas gift from Mike/Gammy.  By next Friday we should have our first batch (5 gallons) of pale ale.  =)  Also, a new Christmas present arrived - my Eagle's jersey! It says Wife. Have we crossed a line brewing beer at home in cut-off t's and sports jersies?................



I'm measuring out 4 gal of water and Mike is actually brewing the beer.

Then we played Creationary which was a blast!  Michelle IS having fun, she's just concentrating...

 



You can tell what this is supposed to be, right?

Michelle and I had gone for a mani/pedi earlier while Mike painted the kitchen.



The ugly ones are Mike's



New Year's Eve we went to the Devils-Penguins game in Newark.  Our seats were AMAZING - third row.



We were so close to the action!



***Click on read more to see more pictures

 

Later we went out to the East End Ale House for a few drinks - we were able to walk there by a trail from our apartment complex.  Then we smoked cigars on our way back and topped off the night with a little champagne.  It was an adventure!