Dinner and cat nip

Dinner for tonight - spinach and strawberry salad with yummy homemade dressing, roasted veggies (corn, asparagus, and carrots), and mushrooms stuffed with blue cheese and leftover steak. Yum! A springtime-ish meal (asparagus, spinach, strawberries), plus the mushrooms were local!


Cat nip!! Emma lurves it! =)
Ernie in a post-cat-nip trance. He's actually cuddling with hedgehog, rather than kicking/pushing/throwing him off the cat tree!

Breakfast for dinner, Tex-Mex style!

Ever since Kyle's mom made us yummy breakfast tacos in Austin last Saturday (has it only been 5 days??), I've been totally craving them. The only catch though - they're only super-yummy with fresh tortillas. Fresh tortillas...like the ones that were made in our neighborhood HEB grocery store in Bryan, TX...the ones that I took for granted back then but have been unable to find here in Denver. I came home early from work today (the cats had their dentals today - but that's another post), so I decided to make some calls. It turns out that you can buy fresh, homemade tortillas from On The Border. So I placed an order for 8 (they come in increments of 4), and drove out there to pick them up. Imagine my surprise when they hand me a huge bag, and say apologetically (it seemed) that all the tortilla orders come with chips and salsa! So I got 8 yummy fresh tortillas, a big bag of chips and 2 things of salsa all for $1.58!!! Considering that a thing of 8 factory-boring tortillas from the store is usually about $2 here, I was way excited!!
Jon took over the cooking, and we had breakfast tacos for dinner: tortillas, scrambled eggs, crumbled bacon and spicy sausage, green onions, salsa, and shredded cheese for Jon. Oh, and a few sunflower seeds for me. Yeah, I don't really know why....in college I occasionally had eggs with salsa and sunflower seeds for breakfast and apparantly the habit stuck! (They do add a nice crunch though!) So, my Tex-Mex cravings are satisfied for another few days.... =)

Wedding pics

Buddy shot to add to our buddy shot album. The background (if you can tell), is the Austin city skyline from the reception. The handsome usher. He just loooves dressing up in a tux! =P

The church where the wedding was held. Very pretty and from the early 1900's.
I love pink and green!
The reception was held at The Headliner's Club - a ritzy club on the 21st floor a building downtown - amazing views at sunset! So posh! =)
View from the club.

Pics from the Wildlife Park

Wedding weekend

This past weekend Jon and I flew down to Austin (well - flew to San Antonio and drove to Austin due to fare rates) for his friend Lee's wedding. Jon and Lee met in college at Texas A&M and have been friends since, so of course we wanted to be there when Lee married Judy (even if Jon wasn't an usher!). We flew in Friday morning and drove up to Kyle's parents' house in Austin. Kyle is another of Jon's college friends - they were each others' best men (best mans??), and Kyle was also in Lee's wedding. Kyle and Alice now have a cute baby girl who we were excited to meet this weekend. We attended the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner Friday evening with them, and Kyle's parents were so nice and let us stay at their house Friday night (plus feed us multiple meals!) - we really appreciate it! Saturday was the wedding, and then Jon and I stayed at a hotel Saturday night. Sunday we returned the tuxes and ate lunch at a Taco Cabana - I used to love the Cabana in Dallas and especially during college, but there are none in Colorado, so eating a meal there was on my list of must-dos while back in Texas. On our drive back to San Antonio, we stopped at the Natural Bridge Wildlife Park - a big wildlife park with a road going through it. You drive through at about 3mph, and the animals (deer, llamas, ostriches, bison, etc) come up to your car so you can feed them (from your hand or from a cup). Super fun! Jon and I had a great time with this - the animals are so funny! Especially the emus and ostriches who attack the cups of food! It's an especially good idea to do this while in a rental car - then you won't be the one cleaning up the stray pellets of food (like say when an animal gets a little overzealous and a certain someone spills food! - yah that'd be me!).

Mother Nature can't make up her mind

This weekend, we enjoyed some wonderful weather. Saturday was a beautiful, sunny, warm day. We actually broke the record high by hitting 74 degrees. It was such a nice day, I couldn't resist smoking some pork ribs and chicken all afternoon. They turned out GREAT! Jen and I enjoyed them while sitting outside on our patio furniture.

Today, when we got up, there was 3 inches of snow on the ground! It has been snowing all day. From what the news says, we are supposed to get 6-8 inches where we live. It was so warm yesterday that much of the snow on the roads has turned into slush, but it sure does look nice outside with all that fresh white stuff covering the grass.

I'm taking advantage of the cold/snowy weather and making a new beer! This one is an Ale that should taste something similar to Fat Tire (a Denver beer). I'm currently boiling the wort (should take an hour), but will need to cool it down quickly to a fermentable temperature (65-70). So, what better way than to stick the boiling pot outside for an hour? :)