Beef Pasta Bolognese

We started our delicious dinner in the crockpot this morning, so all day while we caught up around the house, we could smell it cooking. While we watched the amazing race, we enjoyed our beef pasta bolognese, garlic bread and red wine. It was a great way to end the weekend.

Aunt Susannah's Bridal Shower

On Saturday, my mom, Sheri, and I went down to Orange County for my Aunt's bridal shower. We had delicious appetizers, a live pianist, salad, delicious cupcakes, and wine. We watched Aunt Susannah open her gifts and I had a wonderful time catching up with Carlie, whose attendance was a complete surprise. After the shower we went to Papa's house. It was really nice to play with Sophie and see Papa, Uncle Nick and Papa's gorgeous house. We watched the sunset over the ocean before heading home. It was a really great shower and a wonderful day.

Linkin Park Concert

On Wednesday night we went to the Linkin Park concert (Prodigy opened) with Miri and Chris. They were so good live! I was quite impressed andreally enjoyed the show!

Miri's Birthday Dinner

After work on Tuesday I braved the 405 to go to dinner in Huntington Beach for Miri's birthday. Although it took a long time to get there, it was well worth it. We went to Sushi on Fire, which I have been dying to try for a while now (one of the sushi guys from my local sushi restaurant Kisho now works there). I got the most amazing roll ever called the "White Roll". It was a tempura roll with lobster, shrimp and avocado inside, spicy tuna on top, with special mayo and eel sauce! I haven't stopped thinking about it since!! Yummy! The best part of the night though, was catching up with all of my girlfriends. It makes me sad that I don't get to see them that often, but it sure does make me appreciate them that much more when I do. I made some really amazing friends in college and feel so blessed to have them in my life.

Mark's Funeral

Sunday, February 20th was a very sad and difficult day. I felt that same sinking feeling in my stomach all morning that I've been feeling every time I think about Mark since he passed away. The funeral was such a  beautiful celebration of Mark's life though, and I felt much better when I left than I did when I got there. We went to Mark's house after the funeral and spent time with Mark's friends and family sharing memories and comforting one another.

RIP Mark Denver Wood

01/24/57-02/1/11

"It's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

-Abraham Lincoln

Scrapbooking

On Friday night and all day Saturday my mom and I scrapbooked at Remember When. It was a lot of fun to spend the weekend with my mom enjoying a hobby we both love. I don't get to spend as much time with my mom these days and really appreciated the time we spent scrapbooking together.

Survivor

On Wednesday night I went to my friend Natalie Tenerelli's Survivor premier party at BJs. It was so fun to see a bunch of my DIA friends and it was really cool watching Natalie's first episode all together. She is the youngest person ever to be on the show and I can't wait to keep watching to see how she does.

Valentine's Day

After work and the chiropractor on Monday, I raced home to get to work baking up Valentine's Day treats. I made strawberry rice krispy treats, red velvet cupcakes with chocolate chips and a peppermint cream cheese frosting, goat cheese and onion flatbread and heart shaped ravioli with a pink sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and peas.

I walked in the house to find a beautiful surprise from my thoughtful hubby: gorgeous red roses, a card and brownie bites!

I didn't quite finish the cupcakes in time, but I think Nic was still impressed with my spread when he got home. We had some white wine and ate our dinner by candlelight. It was a very low key and romantic night.

Mammoth

Nic and I went to Mammoth this weekend. We haven't been up there in forever so we were really looking forward to it. Of course, I was a bit nervous about skiing because of my back injury, but my chiropractor gave me the ok. On Friday night, my dad, Justin, Nic and I went to Austria Hof for dinner, which was delicious.

That first night, I slept horribly! I could not get comfortable and I was having major pillow problems and woke up with my back really hurting, which made me even more nervous about skiing. Nic was nervous too, but for different reasons...he had only skiied twice before and the last time was about two years ago.

On Saturday morning, we went to this thing called "early ups." We took the gondola up to the parallax restaurant and enjoyed breakfast with gorgeous views of the moutnain before heading out early to enjoy the first run down the mountain by ourselves! It was really cool!! It was very nice to ski without worrying about anyone else being around. My back didn't hurt any worse than it was already hurting when I woke up so that was a plus! We cruised all over (I was extremely impressed with how well Nic did) and watched Justin in a skier cross race. Then we went and had lunch at Main Lodge and watched Justin's award ceremony (he got 2nd place).

That afternoon we went snowmobiling. I have a good story about that adventure, but I will save it for another day.

The next day, we got up early again to ski some more. We went all the way to each end of the mountain and Nic even skiied off the top!! At one point I thought he was going to slide off a trail down a rocky hill and the course we wanted to take was closed forcing us down a much more challenging trail than planned, but I guess it was all part of the adventure and Nic handled it all very well. :)

That afternoon, we walked sown to the village for lunch at this most delicious restaurant, before flying back to LA. Overall, it was a pretty fun weekend!

Roasted Potatoes

On Thursday, I made the easiest and most delicious side dish, I just have to share it with everyone. At the cooking class I took a few weeks ago, we made roasted veggies, which I already knew how to make, but the "aha" moment was that I was introduced to a potato trio pack that is sold at Trader Joes that takes this simple side dish to a new level. For $2 at TJs you get a bag of 6 potatoes: 2 regular, 2 red skinned, and 2 purple potatoes. SInce it is just the two of us, this is a perfect way to get variety without having to overbuy. I just quartered the potatoes, tossed them in olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted them for 30 minutes at 400

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

I saw a friend post on facebook yesterday that she was baking oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies for a superbowl party and I was instantly intrigued. I love oroes and I love chocolate chip cookies, so the idea of combining the two got me very excited. I've been thinking about them ever since....so tonight I decided that I deserved to splurge and make these cookies. (I didn't sleep much last night because I was so uncomfortable, my back has been really bothering me, and the lady at my chiropractor accidently cancelled my massage appointment that I had been looking forward to all weekend, so I decided that I definitely deserved and NEEDED these cookies tonight ;)). I was a bit concerned by the sheer enormousness of the cookies as I was making them, and they baked up to be gigantic muffin size cookies, but they were delicious!! Nic thought they had too much going on, but I really liked them!

Here is the recipe in case anyone wants to try them:

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks (1 cup) softened butter
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
10 oz bag chocolate chips
1 pkg. Oreo cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream butter and sugars together with a mixer until well combined.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.

In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda.  Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined.  Using a cookie scoop take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie.  Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo cookie.  Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo cookie is enclosed with dough.  Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Makes about 2 dozen VERY LARGE cookies.

Happy Half Birthday Oliver

Can you believe it has already been 6 months since Ollie was born?!? The time has just flown by! I can't believe how much he has changed and I especially can't believe that I still haven't met him. The good news is we get to meet Ollie in exactly 6 months! :) Happy Half Birthday Oliver! I can't wait to meet you and celebrate your first year of life in person!

February Challenge

My challenge this month is to organize and de-clutter! I started off this week by cleaning out our "pantry". Nic and I both have this bad habit of just piling new groceries on top of the ones already in there and just kind of pushing stuff in until the new items fit. There was no organization and we always had to search to find things. Now that I have cleaned and organized the pantry it actually feels like we have tons more room in there plus we can actually find what we need without searching. Now we just have to make an effort to keep it that way.

Here are some before and after pictures.

Superbowl

After a rather tough week, I was very disappointed that I didn't end up making it to Rebecca's birthday celebration on Friday night. :( There were tons of accidents and it would have taken us over 3 hours to get down there. Then we spent all day Saturday cleaning the house and running errands (which actually wasn't too unenjoyable). On Sunday, my phone decided to surprise me by shutting off. It has been doing that quite a bit lately, but I can always turn it back on. Not this time. :(

We were supposed to go to a superbowl party at Ahsley's new house in Huntington Beach, but after such a draining week we decided to stay closer to home. We went to Lindsay's house to watch the game, which was really fun. It was nice to get out of the house for a bit and chat with some friends (and enjoy delicious food). After the week I had, it was much needed.

RIP Mark

I got a call at 7am this morning and as soon as I heard the "You're My Best Friend" ringtone, my heart sank. I knew it was Rachelle calling and I unfortunatly knew why. When Rachelle told me the news, I just burst into tears. I still can't believe Mark is gone. It just seems so unfair that such a young, wonderful person had their life cut so short. I hate cancer!

Mark has been such an inspiration throughout his battle with cancer. He fought so hard and was so humerous and positive throughout. Although I am devastated by the loss of such a wonderful person, and my heart aches for Rachelle and Ryan, part of me is comforted by the thought of him no longer being in pain. I feel very grateful that Mark was surrounded by family with Rachelle holding his hand in those final moments. He was so loved and will truly be missed.

Car Accident

I got in a car accident last night. I was stopped at a red light (in the right lane) with about 4 or 5 cars in front and a few stopped behind as well. When the light changed to green the first car, who was turning right had to wait for a pedestrian to cross the street. I leaned back against my headrest patiently waiting when BAM!! Apparently the car behind me saw green and decided to nail it without noticing that no other cars were moving yet. The second the car hit mine, I felt shooting pain spread all through my back. Immediately after I was very shaken up and my back started to throb. We both pulled off the road to exchange info and I was quite surprised by my car's rear end. Judging by how hard the guy had hit me and how bad my back was hurting, I expected major damage to my rear end, but there isn't much. The guy that hit me didn't have much damage either. I took some advil right away, but it didn't help the pain at all. After filing a claim with my insurance and driving home, I sat on the coach and tried to distract myself, but I kept thinking about the pain. I called my mom's chiropractor to find out their hours and was shocked when they answered and said they would wait for me if I came in right away. Thank goodness I did. I felt so much better after. My back has still been aching all day today, but I really think the chiropractor helped tremendously. I still can't believe it happened. It's crazy how fast things like that happen!

Vegas

I will write about my weekend in Vegas and post pictures as soon as I can. With everything that has happened in the last 24 hours, I am just not up for it. :'(