Double Date Night

About once a month my brother and his wife go out with Jon and I. Our goal for these outings is to try a new restaurant and just hang out. Since we all have very busy lives it is fun to get together and catch up on what’s going on and enjoy good food.

So last night was a double date night. We had a craving for some really good pizza so we headed to downtown St Paul to fulfill our cravings. After parking in Jon’s work parking spot we walked the two blocks in the rain to Black Sheep. Even though the weather was cold and rainy it was totally worth it. We opened up the door and were met with warmth and the smell of garlic goodness.

The place wasn’t packed so we were seated right away. Our waitress was very help and always kept our water glasses full. We ordered a Spinach Bleu Cheese Salad to start which was simple but really good. For pizza we spilt 2 12inch pizzas between us. The first was Meatball, Ricotta and Garlic and the second was Fennel Sausage, Hot Salami, Onion and Cracked Green Olives. Both were AMAZING but you will have to try them for yourself.

I will warn you if you go there be prepared to smell like garlic when you leave. Here’s the website.

Once we got our fill of pizza we decided to go to Cossetta to get some cannoli. Jon’s first experience with connoli didn’t go over so well so our goal was to try and redeem the dessert and get Jon really good cannoli. Which Jon actually liked and ate all of his piece.

Needless to say we had a good time and our bellies were very full by the end of the evening.

One of those cute stories

This story happened 2 weeks ago but I just got around to posting it...

One Tuesday night I had a dream that Jon purposed to me again. It was kinda weird because we were already married and he just decided to do it again and give me a new ring. The ring he gave me in my dream was the most beautiful ring I had ever seen but that's besides the point. In my dream since I already have my engagement ring and wedding band on my left hand I decided to wear my "new" engagement ring on my right hand.

I woke up kinda wanting the ring I dreamt about.

So when I got home, I told Jon about my dream and jokingly told him that I would like the ring from my dream. We both laughed about it and said maybe one day I could get a ring for my right hand.
Fast forward to bed time and I am ready to go to sleep because I get up before Jon. And Jon decided to show me a clip of the song "Friday"

I get annoyed and turn around to go to bed. And Jon says "Hey wait I want to show you something else" So I turn back around and he's holding a bag from Arthur's Jewelers and inside is a RING! He told me that he bought it and was saving it for a special night with dinner and flowers but that this day was just too perfect because I had a dream that he gave me another ring. What a surprise! Totally was not expecting that. It's obviously not the ring from my dreams but it matches a necklace Jon gave me so that's pretty cool too.

PS I have like the most amazing husband ever. How man guys buy rings and stuff to plan to give to their girls on a random night? Like my birthday is not for 3 more months and Valentines day is over. Spoiled Rotten.

Sunday School

Today I had the opportunity to each Sunday school for some 4th and 5th graders. The lesson I taught was about Abraham and Isaac and how God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac. Pretty heavy stuff for a kid to wrap their minds around but I think it went ok. They totally seemed to understand that it was just an example and a test that God was putting Abraham through.

Now my favorite part of the lesson was the activity. Each kid gets to decorate a quilt square to be combined with the other Sunday school classes' quilt squares to make one big quilt. Each quilt square showed something that we love God more than. For example Abraham's square would say "I love God more than my son Isaac" (I decorated a square for Abraham)

I also got to decorate the big square in the middle to say "I love God more than anything else, even..."

I also got to make a square for myself. Now my square would probably say "my wonderful Husband, Jon" but as I was discussing this with my friend Rebecca, we thought it would probably be better to do something material instead of a person. So my square said "the necklace my mom gave me"

I am going to be honest with you. My mom didn't actually give me this necklace, I inherited it after she died. (but I didn't feel like explaining this to my Sunday School class) My dad gave this necklace to my mom (he had it specially made and everything) and I remember nights when my parents were going out and my mom would take out the necklace to wear. She didn't have anything to hang her necklaces on so it would usually get tangled up and while she was getting ready I would sit on her bed and untangle the necklace for her so she could wear it. I can't remember how many times I did that for her but it's enough that I always associate that necklace with those happy nights. That's why this necklace is so special to me but even though it is so special, I still love God more. :-)

Round Two

For Laura's birthday I made her a neck rice bag because she had commented on Linda's rice bag and sounded like she wanted one. Turns out she's been having a ton of Law School reading strain on her neck and the rice bag was just the thing to help take away that pain.

So as I was stalking Laura on her lovely blog I found out that her dog ate the rice bag I gave her (she'd only had it for 2 weeks!) So I decided to make her another one.

I have plenty of fabric and rice left over from the other rice bags I've made so I took some time tonight to make her a new bag because I will see her tomorrow.

Here's the fabric I used.

I made the bag part with plain fabric. Sewed seams along both sides and one down the middle.

Poured a little rice down each side and then sewed a "compartment" to hold the rice in one area.

I made 8 of these little compartments to hold the rice. This works great because since this bag is made to sit on the neck/shoulders you don't want all the rice to fall to the end of the bag.

Then I sewed a little "pillow" case together to make the bag pretty

 and now Laura has another rice bag that hopefully her dog wont eat.

Freezer Enchiladas

My weekends are usually spent making food for the upcoming week. Since I usually don't get home till late and I don't want to spend my whole evening making dinner, eating dinner, cleaning up after dinner and then going to bed. I like to just make a bunch of food on the weekends, freeze it and when Jon gets home he can throw it in the oven and by the time I get home dinner is ready. There's no prep work or extra dishes because I already did it on the weekend.

So this week we are going to enjoy some chicken enchiladas. This recipe freezes well and makes about 2 pans of enchiladas so you can have one pan this week and one in a few weeks.

Ingredients
2 Chicken breasts
Onion
Can of green chilies
Taco seasoning mix
Can of black beans
2 cups cottage cheese
1/2 cup of sour cream
Pepper
Shredded cheese
Corn tortillas
Enchilada sauce

Directions
Cook the chicken. Once chicken cooked saute chicken, onions and green chilies until onions are done.

Add taco seasoning mix and make according to the directions on package.

Mix cottage cheese and sour cream and pepper to taste.

Make enchiladas by adding a spoon full of cheese mixture, chicken, and black beans.

Fill pan with enchiladas. One tip (which I didn't do today, so mine are all broken) is to warm up the tortillas so they are easier to work with and don't break.

If you have remaining ingredients you can spread them over the enchiladas. Then pour enchilada sauce over the enchiladas and top with cheese. I used Montery Jack cheese this time around.

If you are making this for a later date then cover and stick in freezer.  Otherwise bake at 350 until done. Enjoy!

Caramel Apple Pie

Caramel and Apples are always a good combination.

This is by far the best apple pie recipe I have found. I got it off of AllRecipes.com. Here's the Link.

Start with you apples and caramel. I recommend using your favorite apples because I believe that if you like the taste of an apple by itself, you will like it in a pie.

Now this recipe makes a very sweet pie. Not only does it have a ton of sugar and the caramel pieces, it also has a toffee type mixture that consists of brown sugar, butter and flour.

Now I truly believe that a really good pie doesn't just have a really good filling but that it has an amazing crust. If your crust is too soggy then the texture of the pie isn't good or if the crust is too hard then it's hard to get it on your fork and it makes the pie seem really dry. I am a fan of homemade crusts but if you don't have time to make your own crust then I highly recommend using Cub Brand Ready Made Pie Crusts. (OR any SUPERVALU Private Brand Label) This crust has turned out perfect every time I've made it.

Put your pie together

Make sure you seal the edges of this pie really well because when the caramel and sugar liquefy and the edges are not sealed well then you will have a huge mess in your oven (So put a cookie sheet or something under it to catch drips)

Bake and serve warm with a big glass of milk

Basement - Part 1 Materials

Since we bought our house in May, Jon has been planning out how he would like to finish off our unfinished basement. This weekend we were able to start that project. Originally we planned to start working on the basement two weeks ago but due to some unfortunate circumstances (aka a dead truck) we were unable to start the project. Well on Saturday Jon was at Menards and he managed to get hooked up with a truck there. So we quickly got everything ready and gathered all the materials.

We managed to get everything in 2 trips… which was amazing because we bought a lot of stuff.

First load: 30 sheets of ½ in Sheet Rock and 60 2x4x8.  Jon unloaded pretty much all the sheet rock by himself while I unloaded the 2x4s. (seemed like a good deal to me)

Second Load: 25 sheets of 5/8s, 39 2x4x8, 2 2x4x10, 2 treated 2x4x10, 15 treated 2x4x8 and 25 sheets of insulation. Again Jon proved his superman strength on this load and unloaded all the basement board by himself (they were too heavy for me) while I unloaded some of everything else.

Since Saturday was a busy day for us and we had to hurry to get everything done so we could go hang out with some good friends of ours. We left the sheet rock on the main floor. So Sunday morning I spent my time organizing all the wood in the basement and making room for the sheet rock in the basement. Monday we moved the 5/8s to the basement and Wednesday we moved the 1/2 in board.

Here are some pictures of our stuff…