Category: Family

Easter & E’s Birthday

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Easter was a low key affair this year. Joe and I declined my mom’s offer to come over for Easter dinner and we didn’t have the kids so we didn’t plan ahead. In fact we ended up running to Dominick’s (since Target was closed) to buy a steak which Joe cooked on the grill. I made mashed potatoes and green beans to go along with it. I made the green beans “Chinese buffet style” which came out pretty good. It was a bit depressing, to be truthful, but I didn’t want to drive an hour to my parents and waste all that gas just for two hours of visiting time. It doesn’t seem worth it when we can’t stay over late which we definitely aren’t able to do on a Sunday when we have work the next day.

The following weekend we celebrated E’s birthday and Joe’s sister came over. K had a band event so it was just E but we had fun playing Dance Party 2 on the Wii with him. I made him brownies and chocolate cupcakes to satisfy his chocolate craving.

Wii redux

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What did the past two weekends have in common? We used our Wii more than usual after borrowing some games from the library.

Saturday the 7th Brother #2 came over and we played a game called Let’s Tap. It’s a really fun Guitar Hero like game except you turn the wiimote over, place it on a box, and tap the box to the beat of the trance music. You gain points according to accuracy and the intensity of your tap compared to the size of the note (bigger is a harder tap and smaller is a lighter tap). While playing there’s all sorts of visualizations swirling around in the background which can be distracting, but cool to watch if you’re not the one playing. There’s also a multi-player race where you’re a stick figure who has to navigate an obstacle course in a Tron-like setting. We really enjoyed that one. The games sells for $13 at Amazon so we might buy it.

For dinner we ordered Dominos which I used to abhor but their pizza really has improved lately. They had a deal going – 2 medium 2-topping pizzas for $5.99 each – so I got half a pizza made Hawaiian style (ham and pineapple) which was really good. I like the zesty pizza sauce they use and the Parmesan bites are damn good. I also love placing my order online and being able to dictate which toppings I want on which half of the pizza. They put PizzaHut to shame (although saying that doesn’t really express how much I enjoyed my pizza since PizzaHut sucks).

This past weekend we borrowed Just Dance 2 and Joe, E, and I had a blast “dancing” (if that’s what you call three uncoordinated people with no sense of rhythm) to all the great songs in there. It’s a fun new way to workout, and my arms are sore! It motivated me to break out the Wii Fit board yesterday which has been gathering dust for nearly a year. It was kind enough to remind me that not only did I fail to meet the weight loss goal I had entered a year ago but that I’ve gained weight since then. Ah well, maybe I can dance it off.

Movers

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Yesterday Joe, the kids, and I helped Joe’s sister, who just moved back to Illinois after living in Arizona for 12+ years, unpack her moving truck. It took longer than expected (doesn’t it always?), the weather was colder than would have been ideal, and we’re both sore today, but it still wasn’t that bad because we got to spend some time with Joe’s brother and sister as well as his nephew and his nephew’s girlfriend and son. We all had dinner together before everyone went their separate ways which was nice. We’ll probably be seeing his sister a lot more frequently now that she only lives about 40 mins away. In fact we’re inviting her over to celebrate E’s birthday in two weeks so that should be fun. I plan to invite my family as well.

The weekend was rather dull thanks to the cold overcast weather. I’m sure it will be beautiful now that it’s back to work.

Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom

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I feel like all we did this 3-day weekend was gorge ourselves on (mostly) good food.

Friday evening we stopped at Meijer and picked up two whole roasted chickens for dinner. The chickens seemed to have more meat on them than Target’s version, so even with the kids in attendance we only ate one. We ended up taking the other one and shredding it to make chicken salad the next day; it was soooo good! I also made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner on Saturday and my meatballs came out extra yummy for some reason.

Sunday we met up with an old friend for breakfast and I tried Eggs Benedict for the first time. OMG, they were delicious! Later that day we brought pizza and fried chicken over to my parents’ house to celebrate Brother #2’s birthday.

Today we went to the outlet mall where I scored a nice sweater from The Gap for only $12 and then afterward we had lunch at a Thai place I had bookmarked. The soup, egg rolls, and crab rangoon were so good that by the time our main dish was served we were both nearly full.

I’m surprised that I’ve only gained a single pound this weekend with all the food I’ve eaten. The sad part? I’m feeling hungry right now, so if you’ll excuse me…

My Birthday

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Considering the fact that I worked both days this weekend I still had a nice birthday. Thursday evening Joe surprised me with an early birthday gift – an iPad 2! He really wanted to get me something nice because I’ve been so stressed at work with a recent promotion and last year when I came into some extra money I didn’t buy anything for myself but bought him a PS3. It was really sweet and despite my reservations about the 10″ screen being too large it is actually the perfect size.

He got me the 32 GB version since I had mentioned regretting only getting the 16 GB iPhone. I’m in love. With Joe, of course, but also with my iPad. I knew I wanted to get one eventually but I wasn’t in a hurry. Little did I realize just how much I’d love it since I had described it as nothing more than a oversized iPhone on this very blog. Which it is in so many ways but it’s much more fun to use than I could have anticipated. Not only can I type better and faster on it (I’m typing this entry on it right now), but the apps designed with the iPad in mind are amazing. They are both functional and beautiful. I’m also really digging the multi-tasking gestures to move between apps and whatnot. But I digress…

E is sick so we only had K this weekend. Friday we went out for dinner to our favorite Chinese place since K loves the place as much as we do. Saturday between me doing some work we visited two different malls – one for K so she could look for clothes and I could visit the Apple store for a case for my new toy, and another so I could redeem my free birthday burger from Red Robin where Joe made certain they knew it was a special day for me so that they would sing to me. Talk about embarrassing! My entire face was bright red and my sister in law was there too since she’s visiting from Arizona. Luckily there is no video evidence of the event because Joe didn’t think to record it on his phone until it was too late. Whew!

Between the two mall visits we bought cake mix at Target and K baked me a lemon cake. I thought that was very sweet of her. Later that evening we rented Mr. Popper’s Penguins which was a cute movie. Then I worked some more before going to bed.

This morning a coworker came over for training since I’m transitioning my billing duties to her and moving into a new role. I’m excited because this means I will actually be able to take time off during the beginning of a month which I haven’t been able to do in six years due to my work schedule. In fact Joe and I are already planning a two week trip to the East Coast in early October.