Weekend Recovery...

My houseguests have left and I have finally recovered from the weekend and have time to update. I got up early on Friday morning and headed for some pampering and a pedicure. It was absolutely wonderful. I have extremely ticklish feet and some parts of a pedicure are torture for me, but the scrubber that the girl I go to uses is really gentle and doesn't tickle at all. So, it was an hour of pure relaxation and a great way to start my day. Then I headed to HyVee, grabbed a decaf, non-fat iced caramel macchiato, and picked up all the items I needed for my salad and dessert for Friday night. Well - everything except for a yellow pepper, which looked horrible at HyVee so I had Matt pick one up for me at Target.

I spent all of last week craving chocolate pecan pie (which is strange considering that I had never had chocolate pecan pie before) so I decided to give it a try for dessert of Friday. The recipe for the pie was fairly easy, but I wanted to try making homemade pie crust for the first time. I checked several different recipes before finding one I felt comfortable with and gave it a try. I found it to be easier than I expected and will likely never buy pie crust again. The crust turned out flaky, buttery, and really good - and the filling wasn't bad either. I also made lemon bars and Matt made homemade vanilla ice cream. I was really excited about trying a salad recipe I found with lettuce, red pepper, yellow pepper, onions, artichokes, blue cheese, and a really good viniagrette dressing. It turned out really well and I'll definitely keep it on my list to make again. The artichokes and blue cheese made a really interesting flavor combination.

My mom's birthday party was a big success. It was a fairly small party, just my family, the Hoodys and the Witters. Matt's parents decided to not attend so Matt and his brother came over for a little while, but left before we ate. Brenda got her new fridge delivered about 2.5 hours before everyone was scheduled to arrive. Her old one had slowly been losing the ability to keep cold. Brenda felt that the situation was likely aggravated by the fact that they lost power in the storm in June and the fact that their fridge was over 20 years old. I headed over early to help her set up as her afternoon was a little topsy-turvy. We enjoyed great food (including fabulous bruchetta from a local Italian take-out place that I will be visiting soon!), with great friends. I didn't arrive home until almost midnight!

We got up early on Saturday morning and headed to the Farmer's Market with Matt's folks. I don't know what they really thought of it, but I enjoyed it as always. I picked up some fresh sweet basil, fantastic tomatoes, green beans, and we picked up some of the pre-made enchiladas that we love to keep on hand because they are easy to warm up when we don't feel like cooking. We grabbed some breakfast at the Parthenon. I had an elephant ear that was perfect - flaky, sweet, wonderful. I also enjoyed a fantastic cup of homemade root beer.

The farmer's market was really our only excitement during the rest of Matt's parents visit. We cooked them dinner on Saturday night and my parents joined us for dessert. Then we took them to Summer Kitchen Cafe for a great Sunday morning breakfast. They left soon after breakfast and then my mom, Sarah, and I took my grandma to see Momma Mia! It was a cute movie and I think Grandma enjoyed it.

Work has been crazy the past two days. I've received more emails than I can keep up with and I am trying to get everything set for travel this fall. There are just not enough hours in the day. I'm hoping to get completely caught up tomorrow, but I will likely have to shut myself in my office to make that happen.

Houseguests!

Matt and I are being invaded by houseguests! Matt sent me an email at work today to tell me that his brother would be staying with us tonight. He is supposed to pick up Lauren at a camp at KU on Saturday so he headed up this way today to stay with us for a few days. Matt's parents are scheduled to arrive tomorrow afternoon and will stay until Sunday. For two people who only had one houseguest between November and June, we have certainly had an increase this month. My parents stayed with us while their floor was being done, Brent stayed with us when he came to see The Dark Knight, and now Matt's family will be with us this week.

I took tomorrow off of work so I have time to prepare for my mom's birthday party. However, I start the day with a pedicure to pamper myself a little bit. I hate painting my toenails, and I love getting pedicures so I schedule myself for one every once in awhile just for a treat. Then I will head to the store and then home to make chocolate pecan pie, artichoke salad, and lemon bars - my contributions for the dinner. We are also having steak, pasta salad, bread, and homemade ice cream. I'm looking forward to the evening.

We celebrated Matt's birthday on Sunday with dinner at Zio's - Matt's choice. We enjoyed good pizza with my family (Mom, Dad, Sarah, Jim and my Grandma). Then we came back here for some birthday carrot cake. In general, it was a pretty low-key birthday. Matt liked the Scheell's gift card that I gave him.

Matt's parents confirmed that they will be visiting this weekend. We will have my mom's birthday party on Friday night and then entertaining for the weekend. Luckily, Matt's parents don't require much entertainment, but it will still be a busy weekend for us. I think we are going to head to the farmer's market on Saturday morning, possibly lunch at Jimmy John's (which Matt's dad informed us one time he really likes) and then dinner at our house with the item we purchase at the farmer's market (sweet corn, green beans, tomatoes) featured on the menu. We will likely head to Summer Kitchen or FarmHouse on Sunday as they have been to both and have mentioned many times that they like both. This works well for us as we like both as well, but hardly ever visit either one.

The last two days at work have been crazy for me. Our phone and email volume has been up significantly this week. I'm also trying to work on some travel arrangements, and finish up some other projects. Additionally, I'm moving offices (just down one office) on Thursday. Stephanie completed her move across the hallway so I am taking her old office which is closer to the front desk, next door to Mackenzie, across from Stephanie and allows our new admission counselor to be next to Kim. I came home yesterday exhausted from everything that has been going on, and I am exhausted again tonight.

Matt called while I was at work today to tell me he hurt his knee playing basketball at the gym. He was at home at the time icing it, but wanted to know if I thought he should go to have it checked out. I told him I would rather him have it checked out and find out that nothing is wrong instead of not getting it checked out and having major problems later. He went to the urgent care place not far from where we lived and came home with a knee brace, a prescription for some painkillers, and instructions to return in 4-5 days if it still hurts. X-rays did not show any major tears or anything like that, but she also said that x-ray would only indicate major problems which is why he has instructions to return if it continues to bother him. Hopefully, he just needs to stay off of it for a few days.

The start of the weekend...

We had Stephanie's office shower yesterday afternoon at the Twisted Fork. The decor was very eclectic - an industrial ceiling, chandeliers, and animal heads hanging on the walls. Dayo did not make it to the shower because he wasn't feeling well yesterday so Kim told him to stay home and not risk getting Stephanie sick in her final weeks of pregnancy.

We ordered drinks and appetizers to share. The menu is also very ecclectic - we shared fried dill pickel spears, a cheese plate (with goat, sheep and cow cheese, with apples, pepper jam and candied walnuts), and dippin shrimp - which were shrimp in buffalo sauce served with chunky blue cheese dressing. They were served in a martini glass - so much fun!

Kim and Mackenzie both ordered fun drinks. Mackenzie is a big fan of Bloody Marys and Kim got a passion fruit margarita.

Yes, Mackenzie's Bloody Mary was served with a dill pickle spear on top.

We gave Stephanie a Vera Bradley diaper bag. She mentioned at one time to me that she would really like one and I was fairly certain she would not spend the money to buy one for herself.

We had a small scare yesterday because Stephanie did not feel well all Thursday night, and sometimes that can be an early sign of labor. She has had some complications in her pregnancy and her labor will be complicated because she is taking blood thinners that she has to get out of her body before she goes into labor. So, if she is in labor, she needs to know ASAP. But, her sickness disappeared so hopefully it was just a bad reaction to something she ate. We are all excited to meet Alice, but I think Stephanie would like a few more weeks before she makes her appearance.

We shared dessert - a s'mores brownie - which was divine!

Matt and I enjoyed a quite night at home last night, except for a walk we took around our neighborhood once it started to cool off a little bit. We ended up heading to bed early, and I got to sleep in this morning. After heading to the gym for a bit, I took off to do some shopping for Matt's birthday. Sometimes I really struggle with knowing what to get him, and this birthday was defintely one of those times. I wandered around for awhile, managed to figure out a gift for him (a giftcard that I know he will use) and ended up finding a couple of items for our kitchen. We had received a giftcard to Pier One and I usually like to find something special to use a giftcard for and had not found anything spectacular at Pier One in awhile. However, I did today - found glass containers for my kitchen counter to hold flour, sugar, tea, etc. I plan to get them set up tomorrow and will definitely take a picture when I get them set up.

Matt and I watched the Cardinals game tonight - a 5 hour, 14 inning marathon. The Cardinals ended up on top, which is great because they had lost their last five games after sweeping the Padres starting the second half of the season. Hopefully this changes their path for awhile. Chris Carpenter is supposed to get a start this week!!!

DMB

I saw Dave Matthews Band live for the first time last night. The show was good - I was a little disappointed by his lack of enthusiasm for the crowd, but the music was very good. I was supremely impressed by the fact that Dave himself introduced the opening musician, Ingrid Michaelson. I've never been to a concert where the headliner walked onto the stage and introduced the opening act. I prefer and am more familiar with DMB's older stuff, and there were some newer songs he played that I had not heard before. I think I would like to see DMB again to see if the lack of interest I saw from the band was just a one-time occurrance.

Mackenzie and I did get the opportunity to people watch at the show. This included the couple right in front of us who made out and were all over each other throughout most of the show (and stood up for most of it!), the woman in the row behind us who appeared to be extremely stoned, and the guy a few rows in front of us who had zero rhythm and who bopped his head around like a duck throughout the entire show (he and the group he was with stood up the whole time also). Fun stuff.

I'm currently working on plans for Matt's birthday and for my mom's birthday. We will be celebrating Matt's birthday on Sunday night with pizza at Zio's and my mom's carrot cake at our house, and then we will be celebrating my mom's birthday next Friday night with dinner at the Witters. I'm taking next Friday off to help prepare. Matt and I are fairly certain his parents will be visiting next weekend as well. It will be mid-August before we know it.