The OC

Last week I went to Ocean City, Maryland with Austin to meet his family.

We played on the beach...

We went to the boardwalk...

We ate delicious food...

We tried on sunglasses...

We hung out with the Biebs...

Did I mention that Austin has the cutest cousins ever?

The trip was a blasty.  I've been anxiously awaiting meeting Austin's fam for many many moons, and I'm so glad I finally got to see everyone!  Austin kept asking me who my "favorite family member" was, and I would just say, "well, you know I like your mom, and your grandparents are so sweet, and your uncles are cool, and your aunts are super nice and fun, and your cousins are cute and so fun to hang out with..." And he'd reply, "so you like everyone?" Bingo.  The Harmons/Simpsons/Abernethys/Lehmans are wonderful.  I can't wait to see them again.  

Another great part about the trip was the food (obviously).  Seafood for a week?  Yes please.  We had fish, crabs, shrimpies, sushi...if it was under the sea it was in our bellies.  I am now a master crab-eater, and could shuck you a crab clean in about 2.5 minutes flat. 

Now it's back to reality.  And Carrabba's.  And dealing with the lovely people over at Time Warner Cable.  Meh.  I wish I was back here:

To see the rest of the pictures (I took a lot) you can go here.

GOOOAAAALLLLLL!

Ok whew!  This week has been a little bit crazyyy...I won't bore you with all the deets, but I've basically been running around like a chicken with my head cut off because: I've had work every day, our dryer broke and I was up to my knees in wet clothes, I'm taking my teacher certification test tomorrow (!!!), we're leaving for Maryland in two days, and there's a million other little things.  So, I'm finally getting around to telling you guys about my weekend...yay!

So, this weekend we headed down to Houston for a couple of festivities.  On Saturday morning I got to go to a beautiful wedding shower for my friend, Sarah.  Sarah was my Fish Camp co-chair in 2008, and I am so happy for her and her sweet fiance, Wes!  The shower was so much fun, and so gorgeous!  At stuff like this you know I'm all about the food, and this spread definitely did not disappoint.

YUM :)

Neither did the giant pile of presents:

Sarah's favorite color is P!NK, so we all wrapped our presents accordingly

While Sarah unwrapped all of those I munched on this:

That was the best chicken salad I've ever had...way to go Alyssa :)

Here I am with the bride to be:

Love you Sarah!! Congrats :)

Sarah and Wes are getting married this Saturday, so I can't go since I will be in Maryland...sad :( But I know their wedding will be gorgeous, and I've heard through the grapevine that Sarah's dress is pretty much the most amazing thing in the world.

After all of the wedding festivities it was time for something sporty, so Austin and I picked up two of our favorite sports nuts: my uncle Scott and my cousin Shane and headed to the Dynamo game.  We stopped at Wendy's along the way...

...and met the employee of the year for sure:

There she is on the right sleeping while 3 customers are up there waiting to order 

Haha good times at ol' Wendy's.  After that lovely experience we were off to the game!

Me and Austin were kind of slacking in the orange shirt department. Whoops.

The game was really fun, and Shane made a new friend :)

In the end, they tied 1-1.  Better than losing I guess...

It was definitely a fun weekend in H-town!  Like I said, this week has been crazy, and I'm off to go study study study for my test tomorrow morning and pack for va-cay.  I can't wait to head off to Maryland to meet all of Austin's family from around the country!!!  I hope y'all have a great weekend/week...I'll be back next Saturday, so look for some tales from the beach!

Ole!

Last night for dinner I made these:

Austin's favorite food is Mexican, and I am always trying to think of new ways to for him to get his "fix", and for me to eat the same kind of food all the time without getting bored :)  Enter mini taco salads!!  These little guys are relatively simple to make, they taste great, and they look so cute!  So here's how I made 'em:

Mini Taco Salads

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts

Salt

Pepper

Cumin

1 package of taco seasoning

1 can of rotel

Shredded lettuce

Mexican blend cheese

Tomatoes, diced

Avocado, diced

1 can refried beans

Salsa

Scoops tortilla chips

Here's the loot all laid out...

Directions:

First, bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Season both sides of the chicken with the salt, pepper, and cumin, and then drop them in the boiling water for about 10-15 minutes (I did mine for 12, but it depends on the size of your chicken).

While the chicken is cooking, shred the lettuce, and dice the tomato and avocado.  I like to make my toppings pretty small because after all, these are mini taco salads.

Once the chicken is done, let it cool down for a bit and then shred it up!  I use a fork, and it works pretty well.  This part is what takes me the longest, but it's worth it in the end.

Once the chicken is all shredded up, put it in a large pan and add the taco seasoning, 2/3 cup of water, and the rotel.  Cook according to the package instructions.

In the meantime in between time, heat up your beans...

Now it's time to start assembling everything!!  You can layer these anyway you want, but here's how I do it: Line a cookie sheet with foil, and throw on some scoops tortilla chips.  Then add beans, a little cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, chicken, and a little more cheese.  Pop them in a 375 degree oven for about 5 minutes, or until the cheese is melted.  Then, top with the salsa.

Ole!!

This recipe is really simple, and you could change it up a million different ways.  Use taco meat instead of chicken, add guacamole, jalapenos, sour cream, onions....whatever you have on hand or sounds good to you :) These would be great as appetizers for a little dinner party, or perfect for game-time snacks.  I just like them because when I'm eating them I feel like a giant.

Spontaneous Weekend

This weekend we had plans to stay in Dally bar and keep things relatively low key, but that changed really quick after dinner on Friday night...more on that later though.  First I want to tell y'all about date night!!!

On Friday after Austin got off work he picked me up and we went to eat sushi!  Yum yum yum :)  We decided to go to this place called C-rolls...

But, before we left the house Austin had to deal with a little bug problem.  We were sitting on the couch, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a HUGE wasp just chillin' on the blinds.  I screamed at Austin to "kill it!!!!", and so exterminator Harmon jumped into action.  His weapon of choice?  The microwave cover.  

This was quite the adventure...

Once Austin had the beast trapped he brought it down to the floor and then smashed it with a candle.  After all of the insect drama we finally headed out to go get that sush!  We started with some edamame and chicken fried rice, both of which were delish. (How can you really screw up edamame though? haha)

Austin doesn't like these little soy beans, so more for me :)

He stuck to this rice instead...

After the apps we shared two rolls:

This one was basically like a California Roll, but a little jazzed up...it was just ok

The Frankford Roll...this one was a real winner.  SO yummy!!!

I think we will definitely be back here when we are craving sushi again.  Way to go C-Rolls! 

So onto the spontaneous part of the weekend.  After dinner we went to Barnes and Noble (so romantic) to look at study guides for my upcoming teacher certification test.  While I was browsing the 4-8 generalist books Austin bounds up to me and says, "How spontaneous are you feeling right now?"  I responded, "Where do you want to go...", and then he told me his big plans to drive to San Antonio and float the river.  I got my Sunday shift covered at work, and we were off!  It was already 10:15ish by the time we left Dallas, so we didn't get to San Antonio until about 3:30 in the morning.  So, we were sleepy, but on Saturday we perked up real quick once we got in that river.  It was so much fun, and we were really glad we ended up going!  We stayed at our friend Paul's house, and I think my favorite part of the weekend was Paul pulling out his old stories that he wrote in the first grade.  There was a story about a "shrinking machine", another about manifest destiny, and (my personal favorite) a horror story called The Man With the Bony Knees.  I was crying I was laughing so hard while Paul read these aloud to us.

On Sunday we met my friend Rebecca (aka Gabe) and her sisters for a quick lunch, and then we headed back home.  It was definitely a long, tiring weekend, but we had SO much fun :)

I'm making some quick and easy (but delicious) dinners this weekend, so look out for some how-to's later this week!

I'll leave you with Austin and my "sushi faces":

Have a great week!!

A Wonderful Wednesday

Today was an exciting day!  It started out like any other, but then I went to get the mail (one of my favorite activities), and there was a package waiting for me!!!  Inside was a graduation present from one of my favorite Sugar Land families, the Dianiska's:

The card says, "the future's lookin' pretty bright" :)

Inside the pineapple box was a gift card to one of those stores that I go in all the time but never buy anything because it's wayyyy too expensive...Williams Sonoma!!! I was SO jazzed, and I've been pondering what I should get ever since.  So thank you thank you to KK and her family!  After my mail adventure I went to work out at our lovely apartment gym.  Luckily I was the only person in there today (last time I went to work out there was a 6-year-old on the elliptical machine and a guy wearing jeans on the treadmill--who wears jeans to work out?), so I got to watch what I wanted on the TV and didn't have a denim-clad weirdo watching me do crunches.  After the gymbo I hit the showers and then went to get my oil changed.  That part wasn't very exciting.  I think oil changes and stuff like that are so dumb.  Why do I have to spend 40 ducks for some smelly guy to change my oil when I could be spending it on something way more fun...like Whole Foods goodies.  Oh well.  When the smelly guy was done probing around in my car I went to the grocery store to get supplies for dinner and the rest of the week.  Once I got home I started dinner and watched So You Think You Can Dance (aka the best show on Earth).  Then Austin got home and came bearing gifts!!!

Yay for clean water!!!

Our tap water here is, well, disgusting, so we've been buying water bottles, but we figured a Brita water pitcher would be a lot more economical.  And it has that pretty green top!  Two presents in one day...it felt like Christmas up here in Dallas.

Tonight for dinner I made a recipe out of one of my favorite cookbooks:

Austin got me this for Christmas last year, and I <3 it!

Here's what I made in case any of y'all are interested...

Lemon Basil Chicken 

Ingredients:

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1/3 cup dry white wine

1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano

8-10 basil leaves, chopped

the zest and juice of 2 lemons

1 teaspoon salt

4 chicken breasts

salt and pepper

1 whole lemon, cut into 8 wedges

Here are all of my ingredients laid out:

I made roasted asparagus and mashed potatoes on the side, so that's what those 2 things are doing there...

Directions:

In a small saucepan, heat the olive oil and add the garlic.  Cook for 1 minute, and then take off the heat.  Add the wine, oregano, basil, lemon zest and juice, and salt.

Pour this little pan of love into a 9x13 pyrex dish, and put the chicken in there as well, making sure both sides are covered with the sauce.  Sprinkle the chicken liberally with salt and pepper, and then tuck the lemon wedges in between the chicken.

Stick this in a 400 degree oven for about 30-40 minutes (depending on how big your chickies are), and take it out when the chicken is done (I only had to cook mine for about 31 minutes).  After you take the pan out of the oven cover with foil and let sit for 10 minutes.  Then serve these puppies up!  

Like I said...I made some roasted asparagus and mashed potatoes for side dishes.  Both were easy peasy. For the mashed potatoes I just cut some small potatoes in half:

Then put them in a large pot.  I covered them with water (the most important thing that I've learned about making mashed potatoes is to let the potatoes heat at the same rate as the water...don't ever add potatoes to boiling water--it makes them taste gross), let the water come to a boil, and then let them cook for about 10-15 minutes.  As soon as you can stick a fork in them and it feels tender they are dunzo.  I drained the taters, and then mashed them up with a fork.  You can use a potato masher, but I don't gots one of those. Once they were all mashed up I added about 3 tablespoons of butter, a splash of milk, and some salt and pepper.  I mixed that all up, and bada boom I had some mashed potatoes baby!

For the asparagus I snapped off the ends of a bundle, and then lined then up on a foil-lined baking sheet. I drizled a little bit of EVOO on top and then sprinkled on some garlic salt, salt, and pepper.

Pop these guys into a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes, and you'll have some crunchy asparagus!  Here's what my plate looked like after I was done cooking all this stuff up:

YUMM :) My tummy is happy now.

Alrighty, I hope everyone had as wonderful of a Wednesday as I did.  Tomorrow night I have to work, and then it's the weekend baby!  We don't have any plans right now, but I'm sure we'll cook something up :)