Fozzie, Fish, and Tuxes

It's early on Sunday and Teddy and I are enjoying the ritual of breakfast at home, bill pay and lego buying (guess which one Teddy is doing! :) )  I'm happy that we still have the whole day ahead of us before heading back to work tomorrow. 

It has been a pretty good weekend with a few ups and downs.  Teddy & I both had a pretty rough week at work, so Friday night Teddy and I went to dinner at Coopershawk.  We are recent wine club members there and really enjoy both their wine and food.  I had their pistacio crusted grouper for dinner and Teddy had a chicken pasta dish.  It was all yummy.  We were able to pick up our March wine while we were there.  So, we had a nice low key night to unwind from the crazy week.

Yesterday when we woke up our little guy Fozzie was not himself.  He was very lethargic and seemed to be having a pretty bad episode.  He did eat and go through the normal morning routine, but he wasn't his typical self acting as our furry alarm clock by dancing all over us in the morning.  Here's a picture of him hanging out with his new buddy Watson (he's pretending Watson doesn't exist in this photo...)

Fozzie & Watson

So, Teddy and I were pretty worried because all he wanted to do was sleep, he was having difficulty walking around, and was just not himself.  We had a bunch planned for the day, so I was hoping him getting sleep while we were gone would help.  Reluctantly Teddy and I headed out to lunch with the family and for tux measurements.

We picked up Teddy's parents and met my parents, my sister and Michael at the Bass Pro shop to try their restaurant called the Fish House.  It was delish, and I guess I didn't get enough grouper the night before because I went for the grouper sandwich for lunch.  Teddy got the fish and chips. 

We had fun with the family over lunch and then we headed over the Men's Warehouse for Teddy, the dad's and Michael to get measured for their tuxedos for the wedding.  It was highly entertaining seeing all the men come out in pants far too short, shirts too tight and jackets they couldn't move in.  I have a feeling Sara might be posting some pictures from it on her blog over the weekend.  It was good to get yet another thing done for the wedding and cross something else off the list! 

After the tuxes, we took Teddy's parents to PaperWorks in downtown DG to pick out shower invitiations.  Teddy's mom found ones that she liked and we had them ordered and were on our way crossing off another item on our list! I love progress. 

When we got home from all of this activity, Fozzie was closer to himself and was jumping around excited to see us.  We fed him dinner and after he ate he started to act like he did in the morning, just not as bad.  So we scooped him up, picked out a movie and headed to bed so he would get some rest. 

Needless to say we were very excited when we woke up this morning to find him dancing on our faces, jumping around and acting like the Fozzie we know and love.  I'm hoping it was just some sort of bug he had caught and that he's making a quick recovery.  We're keeping close watch on him though and will be headed to the doctor if he reverts to not feeling so good.

Today I think we're going to hit up the grocery store, possibly might buy a new computer, and get a few more things crossed off on that wedding "to do" list. 

All in all, it's been a pretty low key weekend.  Let's hope this week is low key as well....

Every day feels like Monday

Is it just me, or has every day this week felt like a Monday.  This has been the longest week ever, and it's not even over yet!!  Here's to hoping the rest of this week wraps up fast and the weekend goes nice and slow! :)

Late weekend recap

Well, I of course didn't find time over the weekend to do my typical Sunday post.  Which is surprising, because it was a pretty low key weekend. 

I flew in Friday night from Atlanta for work and got home late.  Saturday was spent running errands and then Saturday night was a family party for Teddy's cousin Casey's birthday.  We spent a lot of the party talking and catching up.  Teddy was of course downstairs playing games with the kids most of the time.  :)  It was good to see the extended family since we hadn't seen them all since Christmas.

Sunday I had lunch with some friends and then came home and made some delicious short rib stew.  I sort of made up the recipe based on one I saw Brian Boitano (yes, that's the ice skater) demo on the Today show Saturday morning. 

I couldn't find his recipe on line, so I took what he said on the show and went off memory to put it together.  You'll have to excuse my lack of exactness with the recipe as this is how I cook, I rarely measure and go more on how it looks and tastes.

Ingredients:

5 short ribs
5 - 6 good size carrots peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
1 bunch of celery cleaned and chopped into bite size pieces
1 onion (I use vidalia) peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
1 red bell pepper cleaned and chopped
4 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
4 red potatos peeled and chopped (soak in water until ready to include)
1 container of baby portibello mushrooms cleanned and chopped
1 mini can of tomato paste
1 12 oz can of diced tomatos
1 cup or so of red wine
2 cups or so of chicken stock
1 bay leaf
4 - 5 sprigs of thyme
2 tbl of olive oil
salt & pepper (S&P) to taste

Heat the stew pot and add the olive oil.
Season then brown the short ribs on all sides and then pull out and set aside. 
Add the chopped onions, carrots, celery, red bell pepper and garlic to the pot (season with S&P to taste)
Let those cook to where the onions start to become translucent and the carrots still have some crunch left.
Add the tomato paste, mix it into the veggies and let it cook a little
Add the red wine (make sure you pick up all the tasty bits on the bottom of the pot from cooking the meat and veggies with your spoon at this point to deglaze - lot's of yummy flavor)
Let the red wine cook down for a few minutes to reduce a little and concentrate it's flavor
Then add the diced tomatos and chicken stock
Mix it all in and taste it for any additional S&P needed
Then add back the short ribs, the bay leaf and thyme (I just throw the whole stem and everything from the thyme in - the leaves fall off in the cooking process and you can pick the stem out later)
Let this cook on a low heat for about 60 minutes
After the 60 minutes, add the diced potatoes.
Cook for another 30 minutes
After the 30 minutes add the mushrooms
Cook for another 30 minutes
Then it is ready! 

Don't forget to pull out the bay leaf and the stems from the thyme.  You also may have some bones from the short ribs floating around since the braising got them so tender they just fell right off their bone!  While it was a long cooking process it was well worth it for a yummy Sunday dinner.  And it was pretty easy to put together - just not a 30 minute week day meal.  :) 

We invited Teddy's dad over to try it since Teddy's mom went up North to see his sisters. I think he liked it.  I'm not sure if I got all the components of Brian Boitano's dish, but his demo certainly inspired me to try something new.  It turned out great and we have leftovers to enjoy sometime this week.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Another week has gone by.  It was a busy one.  I spent most of it in London for work.  While I didn't have any time for doing any real sight seeing, I was able to have dinner with a friend, which was a lot of fun.  Otherwise, I spent most of the week on a plane or in meetings. 

This weekend has been fun filled.  Yesterday Teddy and I had a full day of activities planned to celebrate Valentine's Day.  We started the morning with a couples massage at Kaya Day Spa in Chicago.  This is one of my favorite places to go and relax.  Teddy has never had a massage before, so I was looking forward to seeing his reaction to it.  The room for the couples massage had flower petals and candles everywhere.  It was a great way to start the weekend.  Teddy and I were very relaxed after that.  If only every day could start that way!

Then we decided to go see that new movie Valentine's Day.

It was supposed to be the American version of Love Actually, which is one of my favorite movies (Top 10)

The promotional photos, number of celebrities, number of story lines and theme of love are about all these two have in common.  I personally thought Love Actually was much better and linked each character together more effectively.  Valentine's Day was pretty good, but I think because my expectations were at the Love Actually standard I over hyped it myself.  Taylor Swift's part was completely pointless to the storyline and it seemed like they added her just to say that Taylor Swift was in it, to attract a certain demographic.  The individual stories of each character were not developed enough.  And the main story line of Ashton Kutcher and Jennifer Garner was pretty unbelievable.  (spoiler alert!!!!)

The movie starts w/ Ashton proposing to his girlfriend, who later in the movie dumps him and then that same day ends with Jennifer Garner realizing she's in love with Ashton.  I don't know about you, but I don't think I would go jumping into something with someone that proposed to someone else that same morning.....pretty unrealistic. 

(end spoiler!!!)

Overall, it was fairly entertaining, but won't be a favorite of mine.

After the movie, Teddy and I tried out a new restaurant in Chicago on Michigan Ave.  It's called Mercat a la Planxa.  The head chef is Chef Jose Garces, who just won the Next Iron Chef competition.  The restaurant specializes in Catalonian cusine, which is basically Spanish tapas.  They had a chef's choice 3 course menu for Valentine's day, which was delicious.  His flavor combinations and textural combinations in each dish blew us away.  I definitely plan to go back there sometime.  It's a bit of a splurge but Teddy and I thought the food quality and quantity made it more than worth it.

Today has been a pretty relaxed day.  We went to breakfast and then decided to take a stroll through Downer's Grove's annual Ice Fest.  Each of the Downtown Downers shops sponsors an ice sculpture, and there are ice sculpture artists creating sculptures to be judged at the end of the ice fest.  Here are some pictures of some of our favorite sculptures.

Micky & Minne

Aww...love

Teddy with Popeye and Olive Oil

Me with cupid

Snowboarder in the Olympics

I was surprised at how detailed a lot of the sculptures were.  Many looked like crystal and not ice.  It is certainly cold enough today to keep them all in tact.  All in all, it was pretty cool. 

This weekend was a great one to celebrate Valentine's Day together!  I hope you all had a great V-Day too.

Props, taxes and superbowl sunday

This weekend started off similar to all the rest in that we did some things for the wedding.  Saturday we went to Party City to purchase props for our photobooth we're having.  There was a lot of fun stuff to choose from.  We ended up buying:  feather boas, flower leis, hats, sunglasses, tiaras, etc.  It should make a lot of the pictures people take in the photobooth extra fun.  Teddy and I even have predictions of who will gravitate to the different props we bought.  On thing is certain, the photo booth will be a fun addition and the pictures will be a great keepsake to capture the fun had by all at the wedding. 

Today we started the day doing our taxes....ugh!  The funniest part about that is most of my friends and family think this is super easy for me because I'm a CPA.  However, I'm not a tax accountant.  I'm an auditor, so personal tax returns are not my specialty.  So, like most of America, I need assistance in getting these done.  That's where Turbo Tax comes in.  Thank you Turbo Tax for making this fairly painless.  I think it only took us a couple of hours to get through this annual pain filled responsibility. 

Later today we'll be headed over to my sisters for their superbowl party.  I'm not all that interested in the game, but I'm cheering for the Saints.  The city of New Orleans could use the win and some good news.  Plus, it's their first visit to the superbowl.  Also I will never forgive Payton Manning for stripping the Bears of their chance at a superbowl win in 2007. 

Another week down, and not many to go until the wedding.  Next week I'll be in London for work.  Hopefully that'll be some fun!