Grill

We finally got a grill! We are pretty excited about it and we think that you should be too cause now we want to invite everyone we know over for a BBQ. This grill was pretty much given to us by one of Jon's friend's parents, so it's older but it works great. For lunch today Jon's grilled up some bratwursts to test it out.

Harry Potter

Yes, I'm that big of a nerd...

I went and saw the final Harry Potter movie last night at midnight. It was pretty great. The Mall of America was doing a Harry Potter movie marathon so I was able to see the previous movie before that and then I got priority seating for the next movie. We sat in the VIP theatre, which is 21+ and I've decided that's the way to see a movie. They have servers and stuff who will serve you food and drinks. The chairs are big and comfy and there are small tables between each seat (not good if you are on a date and want to cuddle but great if you are just there to eat junk food and watch a movie)

I highly recommend going to see this movie but I also say that you should read the books first. I feel that if you just see the movies there are so many small things that you will miss out on and things you don't understand. Not only that but it's good to read and everyone should read. :-)

Wine

For those of you who know Jon and I well, you will know that Jon doesn't drink any alcohol but I do. So far it hasn't been an issue. Jon doesn't mind that I enjoy a glass of wine once and awhile and I make sure he's ok with me drinking when I do. I'm a fan of wine and Jon has started a tradition where we go buy my supply of wine for the year at Surdyk's wine sale. (I think it's so he doesn't have to buy my wine all year and instead we just do it in one day)

The tradition started right before we got married and Jon, knowing that I like wine, went to Surdyk's because they were having a wine sale. He bought me a nice bottle for our wedding and a few big bottles for me to drink throughout the year. Last year he took me there to pick out my own wine for the year and we bought 24 bottles (5 of which I still have, and 4 I gave away). Not only do I like drinking it, but I find it really handy to have wine on hand so I can just grab a bottle and go to a dinner party, birthday, etc.

So this year, we bought a lot of wine. The nice part about going to Surdyk's is that we can pick out cool looking bottles of wine and still only pay 5 bucks for the bottle. We bought 29 bottles this year.

Some of them Jon picked out just because of the name of the wine.



"How to Match" Chart

When I started dating Jon, he didn't own a button up shirt (not even a polo), T-shirts and shorts is all he wore. Since then I have gotten him button up shirts/Polo's/etc and have been slowing teaching him how to look nice.

Well last February he got a new job where he has to dress up for work daily and occasionally wear a suit & tie. This job has greatly increased his clothing options. I want to be able to help him pick out what he should wear but I leave before he gets up so I can't help him. Instead I borrowed a great idea I learned from a friend, modified it to fit our needs and came up with Charts! I'm updating them today cause I bought Jon more cloths for his birthday and he admitted that he's avoided wearing them cause they are not on the charts yet.

I made two charts. The first chart matches pants with shirts. One row has all of the colors of Jon's pants. The other has most of his shirt colors. The second chart shows which ties go with which shirts. I just used colored pencils and tried to match the colors as best I could. As long as Jon can read it, then it's all good.

Chiang Mai Thai

Last week we mentioned to some friends that we went to Sawatdee and that Jon actually found something to eat there. One of those friends loves Thai food and suggested (since Jon will eat Thai food now) that we all go out for Thai food.

So last night we went out for Thai food.

The Restaurant: Chiang Mai Thai
Recognized by City Places as being a "Best of Thai Food Restaurant", this place offers a wide selection of fine wines and beverages in combination with flavorful Thai food. City Pages describes it as "Chiang Mai's odd combination of crowd-pleasing food and connoisseur-pleasing beverage has resulted in a hopping time for all." Check out one of the articles and reviews: City Pages

The Location: Uptown, Calhoun Square
Described as "an urban mall in the heart of Uptown", this place has a ton of fun stores and good restaurants in and around it. It's a nice to place hang out if you've got nothing else to do cause there is always something cool to check out. (I can spend hours in the Kitchen Window)

The Atmosphere: We sat outside so I can't give you an accurate account of the atmosphere in the restaurant. But sitting outside was fun. There's always an interesting crowd walking around Uptown so plenty of people watching.

The Food: We ended up getting their date night deal... which in my opinion really isn't that great of a deal. You get two appetizers, one entree and a bottle of wine. With Tip the total came out to $50. And we had to spilt an entree. For the appetizers we got Spring Rolls and Cream Cheese Wantons. The Spring Rolls had big chunks of chewy meat in them which made them hard to eat. The Wantons were very good and I wish we would've just gotten two orders of those. For the entree (since Jon is picky) we got Thai Fried Rice. Which was good but a little greasy and there wasn't anything else in it besides rice, eggs and tomatoes. So I wasn't impressed.

The Service: There was only one waiter serving the tables outside, which had to be at least 10 tables. So it was slow but we were busy enjoying each other's company so we didn't notice it that much.

Would I Recommend? This restaurant is only ok. Cool location, Some good food and lots of good drinks. So if you want drinks and appetizers, then yes I would recommend. If not, there are a ton of other great date night deals happening at other restaurants around the cities.

Grand Ole Creamery

Another expiring Groupon that we had to use this weekend was for the Grand Ole Creamery. The Groupon was good for one pizza and a pint of ice cream.

Apparently there are a lot of other people who needed to use their Groupon before it expired cause it was super busy and they even had a sign warning us.

We took our pizza home to eat. We also started up a favorite summer past-time where we eat dinner and play Scrabble on our front porch (we sound like an old married couple but we have fun)

We weren't even able to finish a game when it started pouring and Sweetie started to freak out. We took him to the basement where he gave us a presentation.

Not really, but that picture looks like he was. Instead we Netflicksed Alice in Wonderland that came out in 2010. It was actually pretty good. Way better than I thought it was going to be.

Transformers

At 12am this morning Jon had his first layoff, not permanently, just for a few days because the politicians are stupid and can't make up their minds.

Which means he gets today off! So in "celebration" of his random day off, we went to see the midnight showing of Transformers. It was a little late, considering I still had to work today, but we met some friends and it was fun.

I thought that this movie was way better than the second but not as good at the first. They did a better job in this movie with separating the Autobots and the Decepticons. During fight scenes in the second movie, I would get confused as to who was who cause most of the Decepticons had colors too. Plus in the second one Megatron seemed like a wuss which didn't fit into his character from the first movie. I could go on about this but I wont... So overall I recommend seeing the 3rd Transformers movie.