October Challenge Part 4

On Sunday I also made M&M Meringue cookies as part of my October challenge. I believe the recipe is from the West Family, but it doesn't say on it so if it is from you please let me know. I used fall colored M&Ms to make them more festive and they turned out really yummy!

Pumpkin Carving

Today I finally gave in and got a mani/pedi. It was so nice to have some pamper time. To get into the Halloween spirit I got my nails painted black with a Boo! and a ghost on my toes. :) I came home and after doing all the normal weekend activities (dishes, laundry, cleaning, etc.) I started baking! I made delicious meringue cookies and chicken rice olive soup (both recipes are from my mom). The meringue cookies have a hershey kiss in the middle and I briliiantly made 1/2 of them with pumpkin spice kisses in the middle. They were so festive and delicious!! When Nic got home from his basketball game we ate dinner (I made another round of mummy dogs as an appetizer since they were such a big hit!), we watched Hocus Pocus and we carved our pumpkins. It was a really fun night!!

Spooky Meal

Last night we had a Halloween themed dinner. We made mummy dogs and candy corn pizza!

Mummy Dogs
To make the mummy dogs I just wrapped halved hot dogs with crescent roll dough cut into strips. Leave a space for the face and bake according to the crescent roll recipe. Use mustard or ketchup to make eyes and viola! You have a simple and delicious spooky appetizer!

Candy Corn Pizza

To make the candy corn pizza make or buy a pizza crust (I used pillsbury pizza dough, which I don't recommend. Next time I will either make my own or try a different pre-made dough). Spread with marinara sauce, sprinkle with a white cheese like mozarella in a circle in the center, then sprinkle the surrounding circle with orange cheese like cheddar. Bake according to dough directions and slice into candy corns. ;)

Football

On Friday night I went to Tyler's football game. The night before he asked if I wanted to wear his home jersey and it made my day! I got all teary and was so excited and honored that he was sweet enough to ask his sister to sport his #10 jersey.

The game was out in Mojave so I knew it would be pretty cold. I raced home after work to put on some long underwear, a few long sleeve layers, and a big Mammoth sweatshirt. I also grabbed a hat, scarf, gloves, umbrella (thankfully it didn't rain), and come treats for Tyler (chocolate chip cookies and cupcakes).

Tyler played the entire game! He literally did not come out once! He had some great plays in the first half including a great catch and a few tackles. At halftime the score was 9-6 Mammoth (if memory seves me correctly). The second half wasn't as great for Mammoth. Mojave came out a whole new team after half time and scored touchdown after touchdown. Tyler still had soem great tackles in the second half (you should have seen his flying tuck roll he perfected by the end of the game...I think he did it about 3 times throughout), but Mammoth just couldn't get that touchdown. The final score was 28-9. :( I was so proud of Tyler though and I'm really glad I was able to watch him play!!

Halloweentime

On Thursday night I met Rachelle for dinner at Gyu Kaku. I still can't get over how amazing the happy hour prices are! We ordered beef, rice, 2 sushi appetizers, and smores (which we toasted over the mini fire at our table) for only $10 each!!

When I got home I was greeted with Halloween lights in the yard!! My amazing husband put them up during his hour off in between jobs!! Isn't he the best? Next year I think we will add some purple lights to the front and maybe each year add one or two decorations to our Halloween collection.

I made some Halloween cupcakes to bring into work on Friday for my birthday! I really love this time of year!!! :)

October Challenge Part 3

I'm on a roll. Tonight I made spinach artichoke dip! The recipe is from my college roommate Amy and it was really yummy. I definitely think I have made up for the fact that I didn't make any housewarming recipes last week. ;)

I also made Italian pomodoro burgers and we still have cookie dough from last night! (Sorry about the quality of the second burger photo...I was really hungry and didn't have the patience to keep trying for a good photo).

The real bonus of the day though is that Nic won $100 at work and his company held their annual auction this afternoon where he won a Panasonic DVD/Blu Ray Player that streams Netflix and a rolling cooler!! I'd say it was a pretty good day! :)

October Challenge Part 2

I was planning on making some meringue cookies on Sunday, as my second recipe for the October Challenge, but then it started raining....and meringues and rain don't go well together so I decided to wait.

Today was such a beautiful fall day, with the rain, lightning and thunder. When I got home I thought it was perfect chocolate chip cookie weather so I made the recipe Rachelle gave me at the housewarming party. It was a perfect dessert to end a wonderful meal of herb crusted flank steak, chalet vegetables, and rice. The cookies were delicious and went perfect with today's weather. Thanks for the great recipe Rachelle.

Oktoberfest

We decided to have an Oktoberfest themed dinner tonight. We made Bavarian Pretzels, which were really fun to make and tasted delicious too. We bought traditional Nuremberg Bavarian bratwurst from Trader Joes (this was our favorite bratwurst while traveling in Munich). We also used Oma's sauerkraut recipe to make some delicious sauerkraut and we of course had beer. It ended up being a lot of fun to make and eat! :) Here is the Pretzel Recipe in case you want to have your own Oktoberfest celebration!

Giant Bavarian Pretzels

From Rachael Ray

Makes: 6

………………………………………………………………………….......................................................................................

1 ½ cups lukewarm water

1 package active dry yeast

4 ½  cups flour

2 tablespoons light brown sugar

2 teaspoons table salt

1 large egg, separated

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

2 tablespoons baking soda

Coarse salt for sprinkling

…………………………………………………………………………........................................................................................

1.       Preheat oven to 400°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. In a small bowl, whisk together the water and yeast; let stand for 5 minutes.

2.       Using a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine the flour, brown sugar and table salt. Mix in the egg yolk, butter and yeast mixture on low speed until the dough is smooth and elastic, 5 to 7 minutes. Let the dough rest 5 minutes.

3.       In a large, shallow baking dish, combine the baking soda with 2 cups warm water. On a work surface, divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. Using your hands roll out each piece into a rope about 42 inches long; dip in the baking soda mixture for 30 seconds. Using the prepared pans as a work surface, shape each rope into a pretzel.

4.       In a small bowl, beat the egg white with 1 tablespoon water. Brush the pretzels with egg white mixture. Sprinkle with the coarse salt and bake until deep golden, 12 to 15 minutes.

Gourmet Food Truck Festival

Last night we went to Valencia's Gourmet Food Truck Festival. They had over 20 trucks at the event including Srpinkles, Fry Smith, Dosa Truck, The Border Grill Truck, Great Balls on Tires, the Dim Sum Truck, The Sweets Truck, Tapa Boy, Ludo Truck, Lake Street Creamery and many more. We had planned on getting there nice and early, but we skyped with Nic's parents instead (which was way worth it) and left the house around 4:45. We walked down using the paseos and were shocked to see how packed the event was when we arrived at 5:45!!! We expected lines and a crowd, but not like this!! It was pretty apparent the event planners weren't expecting that huge of a turnout either because the event space was filled to the brim with people! Nic and I decided to seperate and I stuck with my original plan of getting Sprinkles cupcakes first because I knew they would only have so many, but when I saw the line was about a 2 hour line and they were already looking close to running out of cupcakes I realized it would be way easier to drive down to Beverly Hills after work one day to get my Sprinkles fix. So I instead got in the Fry Smith line and Nic got in the Balls on Tires line. Almost 2 hours after we both got in line we finally had some delicious truck food to eat. I got Rajas fries: french fries topped with angus steak marinated shawarma style with roasted poblano peppers, carmelized onions, jack cheese, lime and cilantro. Nic got 2 Incredi Balls: ground kobe beef, applewood smoked bacon, gruyere, wild arugula and garlic aioli on a toasted brioche bun. Unfortunatly, we were so hungry that we found a curb to sit on and scarffed down our food without taking a single photo. The food was delicious, thankfully, because I'm sure a lot of people would have been extra grumpy if they waited that long and the food didn't even taste good. We walked around a bit longer....we almost got Dosa's...the line was really short, but they didn't have any dipping sauces for the Dosa's and after having that amazing Dosa in SF we decided against trying these ones. We got in line for Ludo's truck, which wasn't too long either, but decided we weren't really super hungry anymore. I grabbed a DJ AM Toffee Rice Krispy Treat at the Sweets Truck and we began our walk home. Although, it would have been nice if it hadn't been quite so crowded it ended up being a pretty fun night.

Pumpkin Patch

We went to the Lombardi Ranch pumpkin patch yesterday. Just as we were about to pull into the parking lot I realized I forgot my camera so we had to go all the way back home to grab it....ooops! Although these pumpkin patch visits will be much more fun when we have kids we still had a great time finding our perfect pumpkins.

Count Chocula

This is one of my favorite things about October!!!

Company Picnic at Magic Mountain

While I made pumpkin cookies Saturday night, Nic and Justin ate chips and played video games. On Sunday morning, I made Halloween cinnamon buns as a festive end to our sleepover with Justin.

Then we headed off to AFP's Company Picnic at Magic Mountain. Nic and I squeezed in a ride on Viper before heading over to the Picnic. My dad, Justin and a few others waited an hour and a half for X2 and almost missed the picnic! At the picnic we had lunch, played a few games, and caught up with co-workers and met their families. :) It was a lot of fun! The highlight was the annual Bingo game!

After the picnic ended, I went with Stephanie and Levi on Viper and Tatsu. Then we met up with Nic and went on Riddler and Goliath. We said goodbye to Stephanie and Levi and went on X2 (there was no line!) and Tatsu one last time before heading home. We thought we might stay for Fright Fest, but Nic now has the cold I had last week so I'm actually very impressed that he lasted as long as he did. It was kind of nice getting home at a decent time. We watched House and the Amazing Race and went to bed early so Nic can get over this cold and feel better.

October Challenge

Last January we asked everyone who came to our Housewarming Party to bring us one of their favorite recipes. Well, I am embarassed to admit that until last night I hadn't made a single one. :( So, I have decided that I am going to make at least one a week for the rest of the month of October. Thanks to everyone who shared recipes with us...hopefully I do them all justice.

The first one I tried out was a recipe for Pumpkin Cookies from Amy Jackson (Varon). They were a perfect treat to kick-off the fall season. They were pretty simple to make and myself, Nic, and Justin (who came over for a sleepover last night) all really enjoyed them. I will admit that I think my frosting glaze could use some improvement. I only had fat free milk in the house and I think that is what caused my glaze to be a little too runny. It still tasted great and luckily appearance wasn't a huge issue since I wasn't making them to impress anyone. It was a lot of fun to try a new recipe and I'm looking forward to this week's recipe challenge. :)

Cutest Nephew in the World!

I know I may be a little bias, but I think I have the cutest nephew in the world! Can you believe he is almost 9 weeks old already?!! He is growing up so fast! I get so sad that we aren't able to be in Australia watching Ollie grow, but thank goodness for skype. We at least get to see him, hear him, and feel like we aren't completely missing out on his life. It amazes me how much we can love someone so much who we have never met in person! Hopefully we can change that soon, but in the meantime I appreciate all the photos, videos, and skype dates from Australia!

Here are some of Ollie's most recent stats:
At 8 weeks he weighed 11 pounds 12 ounces
At 6 weeks he was 23 inches long

This one of my favorite pictures of Oliver and his proud grandparents:

Social Butterfly

I have been a social butterfly the last couple of weeks. Last night I met up with Ashley for Happy Hour in Burbank. We went to one of my favorites...Granville. The Mac~n~cheese is heavenly and I love their sweet potato fries too! Another must try is their Tipsy Lemonade, mmmmm. Of course the best part of the meal was catching up with Ashley. I feel so blessed to have so many wonderful friends who I get together with on a regular basis. :)

Dinner with my LGs

I went out to dinner with Vivian and Jessica tonight. We went to this really cool restaurant called Gyu Kaku. If you are ever in Sherman Oaks I definitely recommend it. It was Japanese BBQ (where you cook your own meat) and the Happy Hour prices were amazing! We got a spicy tuna volcano sushi for $3, plates of chicken and beef for $3-$5, and delicious fried rice for $4. How affordable is that?!! The best part though was catching up with my girls. I feel so blessed to have so many wonderful friends from different chapters of my life.

Home Sick

Yesterday, I went to work and I was still not feeling well. I have been stuck since last Thursday in that place of not sick enough to stay home, but too sick to be working all day! So I have been forcing myself to go to work and last night it caught up with me. I came home feeling exhausted again and was falling asleep on the couch by 8pm. Of course that made me grumpy because I had a lot of stuff I needed to get done and had used all my energy to get through the work day. I went to bed around 9:30pm and when Nic woke me up at 7 this morning my throat was still killing me and I still felt extremely tired! So Nic forced me to stay home. I really didn't feel sick enough to stay home and I have so much to do at work that the thought of staying home made me feel so guilty, but Nic felt really stongly about it so I agreed. I guess he was right because I fell back asleep and didn't wake up until 10:30 and didn't drag myself out of bed until 11! I have been up catching up on my blog for a few hours now, and I already feel tired again. My throat is still really sore and I think this afternoon I might force myself to go to the dr. and get some antibiotics so I can get myself better.

Good Neighbor Day

On Sunday morning we met my family and the Staffords at IHOP for breakfast. Then I drove down to the Grove to meet my friend Lauren for lunch. We walked around, grabbed lunch at the Farmer's Market and sat and talked for hours. It was so nice to catch up with her. I really, really miss Lauren.

When I got home I put out some of our Halloween decorations and forced Nic to finally make the rounds and meet our neighbors. I read in my Better Homes and Gardens magazine that Good Neighbor Day was September 26th. Since we just celebrated one year living in our house (We closed escrow on Sept. 22, 2009 and spent our first night in the house on Sept. 27th, 2009) we thought it was about time we met the neighbors. I figured this was a perfect excuse so I made little bags of candy for all the houses on our street. Even though I was a bit under the weather and Nic was exhausted we ventured out with our goodies. We were already a week late (last weekend Nic had his basketball tournament and got home really late) and the cards said "Happy Neighbor Day" on them so we couldn't procrastinate any longer.

At first it was a bit awkward, especially when we would ask a spouses names only to find out the couple is divorced or getting divorced! :/ It got better and better though. One couple invited us in and we sat and talked with them for a while, which was really nice. They offered us wine, but we knew we had a bunch of houses to get to so we declined the offer and continued on our way. The next neighbors invited us in and after chatting for a while just started opening drinks leaving us no choice but to have some. We toasted to good neighbors and really hit it off with them. :) They moved in about a month before us, they have young kids, and there house is the same layout as ours, which led to many question like, "What did you do with that annoying media niche?" and "How did you set up your furniture in this strangely shaped room?" It was really a lot of fun and Nic and I are so glad we did it. We still have a few houses left so we will have to finish up next weekend, but it feels really nice to be making some friends in our neighborhood. :)

Emotion in Motion

All week I felt really tired even though I kept getting plenty of sleep so I wasn't surprised when I woke up sick Thursday morning! :( Just in time for all the business that surrounds the annual dance recital. I left work early and met Celena on my way up to Lancaster for our stage rehearsal. I had to sit and do all my lighting cues while my dancers got one time to practice their spots on stage. The lighting was so stressful! I had already spent hours writing out all my cues and I got questions like, "What do you mean pink and blue lights?" Really? So needless to say it was somewhat stressful. The lighting people has so much trouble that we had to start the dance after only figuring out 1 or 2 cues and my dancers in darkness on stage. I was so proud of my girls though. Luckily, I had warned them about lighting problems and they just kept on dancing. It was the best they had ever done the dance!! My second dance went much better. I think since my first dance was 4th in the show they were a bit unorganized, but by my second dance they seemed to have things under control. Again I was so proud of my dancers and really looking forward to Saturday!

On Friday I felt even worse!! All day at work I was congested, I kept getting hot then cold, and I felt completely drained. I went home used my last bit of energy to rhinestone my shirt for the closing, packed up my costumes and gifts for the show and went to bed praying I would wake up feeling 100% in the morning. At 3:30 in the morning Nic and I woke up to huge flashes of lightning and roaring thunder. The light was blinding through my closed blinds and eyelids! Our lights flashed on and off a few times and the power briefly went out. It was kind of exciting because we don't usually get that kind of weather here in California.

It's Showtime!! I woke up early Saturday morning still not feeling well and attempted to put on my make-up. (Constantly runny nose + watery eyes= not much success) I picked up Celena and we were off the LPAC. I finished up my make-up, passed out the gifts I made to all my students and got ready for the opening number. Right before the show started one of the girls asked me if I was nervous since I hadn't performed in so long. I honestly wasn't nervous at all, which is a little surprising since I literally haven't danced in over a year! Our dance went really well and it felt good to be performing again. :) I went and got my girls gathered up and honestly got a little choked up giving them a pre-performance pep talk. I was really impressed with how hard they tried and how much they all improved. Then waiting in the wings for them to go in is when it happened....I got so nervous! I guess when I'm performing I can control what will happen. I know my dances, I know my own ability, I know nothing is going to go drastically wrong on stage. I had no control over what they were going to do up on that stage. I had seen how hard they worked all year, how much progress they had made (even in the last few weeks), I wanted so badly for them to show everyone else what they had learned. The worst thing, in my opinion, is for a dancer to forget their entire dance and miss their one shot to show what they can do and that was my biggest fear standing in the wings. Thankfully they didn't let stage fright get the best of them and they all did a fantastic job!! :) Next up was Lindsay's daughter Brooke! She was the cutest thing I have ever seen!! I was tearing up watching her dance thinking I can't believe my friend's kids are already in the recital and thinking about how fun it will be to hopefully someday watch my own daughter in her first dance recital. My lyrical girls did great like I knew they would, I guess because they aren't beginners and have so much experience on stage I never worried about them like I did with my beginners. All in all it was a successful show!

I went to say hi to Nic, my mom, Tyler and Justin who all came to the show and then went to dinner with Cindy and Theresa. (Nic took the boys to Universal Studios Fright Night). After dinner we came back for round two of the show! Thank goodness my classes were in the first show because my show 2 I was not feeling very good. The chills and hot flashes were back and my head was pounding. I did the opening number and then I had a huge break before I had to be back for the closing. I had the pleasure of watching Ruthe, our dear friend who celebrated her 90th birthday this year, perform in her last recital! She is just the most inspiring person I have ever met. She danced so brilliantly and I of course got choked up again. Afterwards I went and had a long talk with her which of course made me tear up all over again. I feel so blessed to have grown up with a role model like Ruthe. Then before I knew it, it was time for the closing and in a blink of an eye the curtain closed and the show was over.

We went to Don Cucos like we do every year after the recital to Party, and Party, and Party, and Party, Party! It was so fun to catch up with so many of my Acton friends that I don't see too often. It was a really fun night!