Happy Anniversary!!

This weekend we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. It is hard to believe that we are no longer newlyweds!

We started the weekend by going to ww and losing 9lbs between the two of us!! This turned out to be a good thing because we probably gained it all back with the celebrations.

Saturday tc made me dinner, he started about 9am and finished right before we ate about 3:30pm. That is a lot of cooking! While he was doing that I recreated our grooms cake (pictures to come) I am no cake decorator so it wasn’t as beautiful as the originally but it certainly tasted great!

Sunday morning I made breakfast and we went to see Ring of Fire, the Jonny Cash musical. It was pretty good, it started out slow but got better as the show progressed. After the show I surprised tc by taking him to the Grand Hyatt at DFW. Even though we were in town it felt like we got to get away for a little while. It was very relaxing. We ate dinner in their restaurant which was excellent and when we got back to our room there was strawberries and champagne since we were celebrating our anniversary, so nice!! After relaxing for a while we went and worked out in the gym which is on the top floor and overlooks the airport, then we swam in the rooftop pool at sunset.

Sunday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel and after we got over the stick shock we laid in bed the rest of the morning. Piranha was for lunch and Fireside Pies for dinner. Yep, we are definitely going to have to do some serious running to match last week’s weight loss. We had such a fun weekend celebrating, now I can’t wait for our trip next week!!

Here is the cake that I made, I told you I am not a cake decorator!!

Here is the meal that Travis made me, yummy!

Sunday Evening

We had my brother, sister in law and niece over dinner on Sunday evening.

We made a berry cobbler that his aunt had made for us the last time we were at the lake, with our own modifications of course. It still turned out really yummy!

Very Berry Cobbler

1 Box Reduced Fat Vanilla Wafers

2 bags of frozen mixed berries, I used one bag of raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries and on bag of strawberries

1 stick light butter

1 C brown sugar

Butter the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Layer the wafers on the bottom. Top with mixed berries. Melet the butter and mix in brown sugar, pour over the berries. Cook in 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. Serve warm or room temp. We served it with 1 pt fat free ice cream.

There wasn't much left

The best part of the night was not desert however, it was spending the evening with my niece. It is so easy to make her laugh, she is just a joy to be around.

Getting kisses from uncle t

She already has great taste

Love the shirt!

uncle t and ema have a lot to talk about

This is how we got to spend our Sunday evening, doesn't get much better than that.

Wheat Flax Seed Banana Bread

·                                 I know this sounds really weird, but before you turn your nose up, read on.  I started the banana bread recipe from Cooking Light and realized I was out of some of the ingredients they called for so I decided to make a few substitutions and hope for the best.  It says on the side of the flax seed meal box that you can substitute it for any fat in a recipe, and since the only thing I had on had was shortening, I gave it a try. I ended up having to add in a little shortening and some milk because the dough was too dry.  It basically tasted like a sweet wheat bread.  Very good!

·                                  

·                                 1 cup all-purpose flour

·                                 1 cup whole wheat flour

·                                 1/2 tsp baking powder

·                                 1/2 tsp table salt

·                                 1/2 cup sugar

·                                 1 C Sour Cream

·                                 1/4 cup ground flax seed meal

·                                 1 Tbsp shortening

·                                 2 egg whites

·                                 1 egg

·                                 1 cup banana(s)

·                                 Fat free milk, as needed

Mix the first 5 ingredients.  In separate bowl, mix the Sour Cream and next 5 ingredients.  Pour the wet into the dry and mix to combine.  Add milk as necessary to turn mixture into a doughy consistency.  Cook in a 350 degree oven for 60 minutes or until the bread as passed the toothpick test.

 

 

Faux Egg McMuffin

I want everyone to know about this because it is delicious, easy, and so much healthier than the real thing.

 

What you’ll need:
¼ C egg beaters

1 slice 2% America cheese

1 slice Canadian Bacon

1 Light English Muffin

 

Toast the English muffin.  Put the Canadian Bacon and egg beaters into a microwavable cup or bowl (I use either a coffee mug or short glass glass) and cover with plastic wrap.  Microwave for 1 min. Place the cheese over the eggs and put on English muffin.  4 WW points.

*note: in the picture I used egg white and no meat.

Habitat for Humanity

I had the great opportunity of working with Habitat through my job . It is something I have always wanted to do. You get to give back and learn a little something along the way, what a deal! If you look at the picture below, you can see where the wood is covering part of the roof, that is what I did for 8 hours one Saturday. Literally put a roof over some one's head. It was very scary but definitely a learning experience. More than anything I learned to look and see what the tasks are on the days I am signed up and avoid roofing day.I went back a few Saturdays later with my team to help clean up. They are definitely making some good progress.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you special ladies out there. This is the part of the blog entry where I would love to be able to say something eloquent about the awesomeness that is my mom. All I can say is she is the most patient, fun, beautiful, amazing woman I know and some day I hope I can be half as good of a mom as she was to me and my crazy 5 brothers.

The Wedding Singer

Travis and I went to see The Wedding Singer musical this weekend.  It was very entertaining, but is pretty much the movie played out in song.  I love that you can go see musicals for about the price it would cost you to go to the movies, so we will be going to a couple more this year. 

Scarborough Fair

our costume turned out great:
tc and the in laws with a lovely castle in the background

People who take their job too seriously:

This year was my first year to ever attend. It is the kind of thing where I always wanted to go but never had a chance.

Here are my observations about Scarborough Fair.

First, if you need to feel really good about yourself, this is a very good opportunity for you to do just that! There are some people there who have some unwarranted very high self esteem. It is not that they aren't great people, mostly it was just a lot of them might want to consider a little more fabric.

Second, if you have problems with personal space, this is not the place for you. Strangers with really bad English and Scottish accents I mean REALLY bad accents will come up and talk to you, grab you, give you a hard time, and correct you if you misspeak about historical times. For the curious Henry the VIII only had one wife, the first was annulled so it didn't count.

Third, there are some very entertaining shows. There are also some very entertaining side shows. Some of the time you can't tell the difference.

All in all, I am glad I went and I am glad to know it is a once and a lifetime experience. I only hope I experience it once in my lifetime.

Saint Paddy's

tc and some guy on the parade route

Luckily we ran into some Ghostbusters that were there just in case

Saint Patrick's Day was quite an adventure for us this year. More than just the usual Rueben sammies and talking about my Irish ancestors. We went to the St Patty's parade on Gville. For those who have never been, go! It is a blast!!

We parked at tc's friend's apartment about 10am and we walked about half a mile to the meeting place where we found one of my coworkers and about 10 other people she knew from work. After we enjoyed the parade, the male strippers, the Ghost Buster team, and a few Smithwicks we found out the coworkers had rented a party bus. We hopped on, drove around the neighborhoods stopping and talking to the local party goers along the way and ended up at a house with a keg and lots of brats. Party Time! We made some friends and about 4pm decided it was time to go.

Unfortunately in hopping on the party bus, we hadn't considered how we would get home. Okay, so we did consider it, but I guess we just didn't care too much, until it was time to go. Since we had no transportation, we just figured we would walk. How far could it be, right? After walking probably about an hour, making a few stops (gay bar, thrift store) along the way we start asking people how far it is to our destination. We got a lot of laughs and some oh, you are faaaaaaaar. Yeah so it was time for a cab. Some cheap dude sitting in the front (tc) told the cabbie to stop at the nearest intersection instead of taking us all the way to the apartment, so after walking another half mile, we finally got to our car!

Finally we got home, I inspected my sunburn that so bad it was purple and then crashed!