Good Eats

Thursday night I tried a new recipe - portobello red pepper broccoli melts.  It was also my first experience using the broiler.  You toss the veggies with olive oil and roast them in the broiler.

There's a garlic mayo you make and spread on some bread.  Then just stick these veggies on, put some cheese back on and stick them back in the broiler to melt the cheese.

Yum!!

Time flies

Six years ago Keith and I started dating.

We celebrated with snuggling and going out to dinner.

Life is good.

October Happenings

Saturday, October 16th, when Keith and I woke up, he asked if I would like to take a walk because it was such a nice fall day.  I said yes, of course.  Keith said that he wanted to drive to a new place, so we did.  When we got out of the car, he asked if the destination looked familiar at all, but it didn't... until I saw the street signs.  We were at the intersection of Ashley Lane and Keith Avenue in Waukegan, a place that Katy at my work had told me about back in the spring.

We walked around the neighborhood for a little bit and ended up coming back to this intersection and then... Keith proposed!!!  :-D

I was so surprised!!  I was not expecting that AT ALL.

Also, Keith told me that he had met with my dad when he was in town and I was at the Stars concert and talked to him, which I didn't expect him to do, so that was a surprise.  Sneaky Keith & Dad.

Keith proposed with a ring that was my grandma's that my grandpa had given me.  Later that same day, he took me to a jewelry store and said that he would like me to have an engagement ring, and that he wanted me to help pick it out.  We decided not to tell anyone about the engagement until we had the ring, so a week went by, and then we started telling people.  We are very excited!!

Even though Keith and I have known for quite some time that we are going to get married, it still meant SO much to hear him ask me.  I love him so much, and couldn't be happier!

Also, we carved pumpkins with friends.

This past Saturday we had a Halloween costume party. That's me as Ariel, Keith as Popeye, and our friend Rachelle as Jasmine.

Lots of good times!! :)

Vegetable Enchiladas & Fall

I made vegetable enchiladas about a week ago.  I got the recipe from Martha Stewart.  They were delicious!!  Keith liked them so much he told me that he felt like it was a special occasion.  They are on the menu again for this week.

Fall has been very wonderful to us. :)

I am a big fan of Halloween. And so is Rio.

This Day By The Lake Went Too Fast

Keith and I took the train to Chicago on Friday. It started out as a chilly, windy day, so we stopped and got some hot chocolate.  We walked around and went into a couple of stores before stopping at Giordano's for lunch. Mmmm.

When we left there, the sun had come out, so we went to the Sears Tower. 

The view was nice.  :)

 

It was really neat to walk out on the glass ledge and look down at the city below.

They take your photo up there, and we ended up buying one because we thought it was neat. Our house will get homier one step at a time.

Hot Stuff

On a normal weekday, I am just waking up when Keith is leaving for work.  Today, however, I was covering the earlier shift and was up with Keith.  When I came out into the living room he told me there had been an "incident."

He woke up at about 2am to get a drink of water and smelled a weird burning smell, but could not figure out what it was, then came back to bed.  This morning, as he grabbed a clean bowl out of the dishwasher, it became clear.  A lid for a little tupperware container had fallen onto the heating coil thing at the bottom of the dishwasher and melted.  So, he was smelling burning plastic when he got up.

I am so happy to live in the age of the internet where I can Google "how to clean melted plastic off a dishwasher" to solve my problems.  (By the way, the answer, which was what I was thinking of doing but thought it would be best to look before doing something that would ruin my dishwasher, is to turn the dishwasher on the drying part of the cycle and let it melt more of the plastic.  Then wipe with a wet rag.  I'm pretty sure I got most of it off and it was not difficult.)

This evening we watched Survivor, which had a pretty intense tribal council for it only being the second show of the season.  I think this season's going to be pretty good.

For dinner, I added tofu to some frozen veggies with teriyaki sauce.  This was my first time cooking tofu, though I've had it out at restaurants plenty of times.  The tofu was so good.  I don't know what took me so long to make it myself!  I'm definitely going to be looking up some new recipes.

The beginning of fall

Keith and I are taking advantage of the nice fall weather recently and going for lots of walks.  We also have been watching football and agonizing over our fantasy football teams. Plus, we have had some fun hang out time with friends.

We have some fun stuff coming up, so the blog should get a little more exciting soon. :)

A Quick Update

My mom and grandma came over on Thursday.  My grandma brought dinner (Mexican lasagna mmmm) and my mom showed off her new car.  We like having guests, especially when they bring us food.  hehe

Sorry for the lack of posting.  I have been busy hanging with friends, watching LOST, going to craft fairs, and watching football.  I will get back in the groove soon!

First Day of a Long Weekend

Today Keith and I slept in, which felt very nice.  We decided to go to Ikea to look for a chair for our living room.  We had one in mind, but when we sat in it today, it just was not comfy enough.  So, it's back to the drawing board on that.  After Ikea we went to Woodfield and walked around there for a bit.

Once we got home, it was dinner time.  I decided to make veggie calzones, which I don't have a recipe for so I was winging it.  When we started to eat them, we decided they could use a little more time in the oven, so the 2 extras went back in for a little bit, and I think they will be a little better.  They weren't amazing, but they were good, and it's always fun to try something new.

cheesy veggie goodness inside

After dinner, we did our grocery shopping, which is excellent to do on a Saturday night.  It was pretty empty.

Tomorrow we are going to a cousin game night, and Monday we are possibly having dinner at Keith's parents' house.  I like when weekends are a mix of plans and just relaxing.  Good stuff.

A Fun-filled Weekend

Keith and I visited our friend Fern who lives in Evanston this weekend.  It was a beautiful day!  We walked along the lake and went out to lunch at Siam Pasta.  Thai food is one of our newer favorite things to eat.  This place had a great lunch special with a taster and then an entre for only $6.95!  I had spring rolls and pad thai.  As much as I always want to try new things... I end up getting pad thai because I love it so much.  haha  This restaurant had an rooftop seating area, which is where we ate.

Afterward we walked around downtown Evanston. I got a smoothie from Red Mango.  It was a wonderful day!


Sunday we had our fantasy football draft.  Some friends came over to hang, even though the draft is online.  It's fun to be in the same room while the draft is going on. 

Keith and Kevin are doing some last minute research.

All in all, a wonderful weekend!

New Noms

We tried a new recipe yesterday from a 5 ingredient vegetarian cookbook.  It's a pasta dish where you put roasted red peppers and tofu in a food processor to make the sauce.  This makes it creamy, but full of protein-y goodness!  I have a teeny food processor guy, so I had to put the peppers and tofu in separately and then stir them together. It worked fine, of course, but I might be asking for a bigger processor for Christmas.  It will just make my life a little easier since I have been using it more and more lately. 

Saucey!

Ready to eat.

I had somewhat high hopes, so I was a little disappointed.  It just ended up being a little bland.  (I guess that's what I get for only using 5 ingredients?) So, next time I think I am going to add some more veggies and maybe even just some straight up marinara sauce.  I like the idea... it just needs to be tweaked a little.

Birthdays and cupcakes

Keith and I were busy this past weekend celebrating a friend's birthday.  On Friday I went to the city with her to see the Bean and hang out. When I got back I made cupcakes for her party the next day.  She enjoys Scrabble, so I decided to make some Scrabble themed cupcakes.

I made Scrabble tiles out of marzipan and used an edible ink pen to draw the letters and point values.

Then, I stuck these on some chocolate cupcakes.

My new cupcake carrier, really came in handy!  I was pretty proud of the way the cupcakes turned out. :)

For her party, we had dinner at Giordano's then went back to her place to play games.  It was a wonderful time!

Pizza

Keith and I tried a new pizza place, and we both enjoyed it.  The waitress talked us into getting a big pizza though.  At least we had leftovers to eat.

vegetarian special: spinach, mushrooms, zucchini, tomatoes, garlic

A short post to get back in the swing of things

Sorry for the lack of updates.

Last weekend Keith and I went to Michigan for his family get together.  We went tubing, played games, ate lots of food, and basically just hung out with everyone. 

We have some fun things coming up, including a (short) homecoming of a friend, a birthday party, visiting a friend in Evanston, and a scavenger hunt.  

New Addition

Here is our new fish - Rio:

He has a lot of purple (which you can't exactly see, and the flash brings out the blue more) so he is named after the boyfriend of Jerrica from Jem and the Holograms.  He had purple hair.  Plus, el rio is river in Spanish, so it is somewhat water related.  Rio's a very pretty fish.  Perhaps the prettiest one I've had!

Almuerzo

My fish Sebastian died over the weekend.  We now have a new aquatic friend, and I will properly introduce him soon. (basically when I can get a better photo of him. He's quite energetic!)

Keith does not like doing "before bedtime chores" which includes making his lunch for the next day.  So, many nights we make our lunches together and keep each other company.  I recently had to get a new lunch box because my dinosaur shaped one became extinct.  I now have a grown-up looking lunch box, that I'm not ecstatic about because, hey, a fun lunch box just fits me better!  But this new one does have a lot of room for tasty lunches, which is good because I tend to eat a lot of little things throughout the day.  And I need to make sure I'm not hungry while I'm at the gym after work.

This lunch includes: pb&j, sugar snap peas, pink lady apple, red grapes, marble jack cheese stick, oats & caramel fiber bar, and a red velvet cake flavored yogurt (first time trying that... it was alright.. my faves are still vanilla, banana cream pie, and orange strawberry sunrise)

More Birthday Celebrating

Keith's birthday was celebrated with presents and going out to dinner with our friend who shares a birthday with Keith.

The monster bag made another appearance.

We have been celebrating birthdays for about 2 weeks now, and I think it's starting to wind down.  This will (hopefully) be good for some fitness related goals.

Tuesday

Tomorrow is Keith's birthday so there is more celebrating on the horizon.  :)

In other news, Sebastian is not looking so good.  :-/  
...maybe he'll come around?  *crosses fingers*

Birthday Celebrations Just Keep On Coming

This weekend we had friends over to celebrate our birthdays.

Our friend made a cake that looked like a big cupcake and was a layer of chocolate sandwiched between 2 layers of funfetti.  Delicious.

Birthday Celebrations

On Saturday we went to Navy Pier with Keith's family to celebrate both of our birthdays.  Keith, his mom and I rode the Ferris Wheel.  I was looking forward to it because when we went in the winter it was not running due to rain.

a view from Navy Pier

 Keith and I in front of the Ferris Wheel

View from the top

We also took an architectural boat tour, which was very very good.  I recommend it.

Trump Tower as viewed from the boat

sneak peak at the Sears/Willis Tower

On Sunday, my actual birthday, we celebrated by going paddle boating at Independence Grove with my mom & sister.  After that, we went out for Thai food for lunch.  Mmmm.

Then I opened presents from Keith.  One was wrapped in our monster bag.  I pointed the bag out to Keith at the store once, about 4 years ago.  He ended up using it to wrap my gift in, and we have been wrapping each other's gifts with it ever since.  

One of those packages contained SingStar for the PS3, which is what I have been spending my free time on ever since.

I had a very wonderful birthday.  It was a fantastic way to kick off this 25th year!

Yummy!

Tonight for dinner I made one of my favorite easy dinners - vegetarian tacos.

After dinner I made treats (chocolate covered peanut butter balls) to bring to work tomorrow to kick off birthday celebrations galore.

Celebration plans for this weekend include: going to Navy Pier with Keith's family, paddle boating at Independence Grove and out to eat with my family, and opening some presents.  I love birthdays! :)

Happy Fourth of July!

I've decided to try and keep up with this blog again.

This was the weekend of the Fourth of July.  We did some pretty summery things, like getting sundaes & malts, watching The Sandlot, walking around the Mundelein Community Days & getting lunch at the Mundelein Munch.  We swam in our neighborhood pool and it was quite refreshing.

Of course, we also saw the Mundelein fireworks, which we wonderful as always.  The finale was really good this year.  Very cohesive.

It's been a great long weekend!