Good times – Page 12

April 14, 2011August 30, 2011

Winner winner, chicken dinner

I’ve never understood that phrase. Who wins something and gets a chicken dinner? What kind of contest do you enter that carries that prize? It’s never sounded very enticing to me either. Like oo yay, you won whatever you were doing, so here’s a big pile of chicken. I picture a heaping plate of fried chicken, of which I am not a fan. Maybe that’s why the whole saying is a bit perplexing to me. If I win, I want something good – cash money, bling bling, trophies along those lines. Not a plate of greasy chicken bits. Ew.

But anyway, it is a fitting title for this post because R made teriyaki chicken sliders for dinner last night, the second invention with his new meat grinder. Um, holy awesome!! These were some of the best mini-sandwiches I’ve ever had. They were made of ground chicken breasts, green onions, garlic, ginger, and real soy sauce, topped with cherry horseradish mustard, and served on pretzel dinner rolls.

I’ll just let the picture speak for itself. And yes, I had 3 of them.

April 12, 2011April 12, 2011

Limos are fun

For starters, what do you think of this layout for the blog? I can’t change the picture up top to put in my other ones like I used to have, but that shoreline picture is kind of neat and I like the color scheme and graphics of this theme. Good, bad, otherwise – lemme know. I’ll probably keep changing it around a bit too, so don’t be surprised if you see a different look a few more times.

Now here are the pics I promised from our anniversary limo ride this weekend. Like I said, R was totally surprised and had a great time. It’s amazing how much fun you can have pretending to be high rollers. 😉

anniv4 — Our last stop - it was a wonderful night!

And since the weather has actually been cooperating the past couple days, I got another jog in last night. Added a little distance this time – 2.09 miles in 19:21, which is a 9:15 pace. A little slower than last week’s pace, but I did add just over half a mile. I’ll take it. I didn’t walk, and my new running kicks felt great. Slowly but surely. I looked back at my past runs and the fastest I’ve ever done that same route was 16:13, a 7:45 pace. Yikes! I’ve fallen a long way in the 3 years since then. 😛

April 11, 2011April 11, 2011

Was it Summer yesterday?

Because it sure felt like it. 80+ degrees, sunny skies, hot breeze blowing, it was great! It was actually almost a little too hot for this early in the season, but I am certainly not complaining. I started off the day in jeans and a 3/4-sleeved shirt, then quickly changed into shorts, then again into a tank top. R grilled up some delicious homemade green pepper and Colby Jack burgers for lunch, then D and I sat outside for a good hour yesterday afternoon enjoying the fresh air and listening to the Brewers on the radio. Talk about the perfect way to spend a Sunday.

I did a garden survey too, and am happy to report that all plants appear to have survived the harsh winter again and are coming up nicely. I’m especially excited for one garden in particular this year – I created a new one in our backyard last fall and wasn’t sure how well it was going to fare. I dug up and tilled a row along our neighbors’ garage and planted 6 peony plants that one of my grandmas sent for D, then covered the whole thing with mulch. This was in October and the peonies were just roots, so I was afraid they were going to be destroyed over the winter. Fortunately I saw a couple of them starting to peek through yesterday, so I’m very hopeful that they’ve all made it and will be a beautiful addition to the scene. Peonies are one of my absolute favorites, and I planted these right next to one mature white peony bush that we already have in the back corner of our yard. I can’t wait to see these all in bloom together.

Oh, and the anniversary present turned out splendidly! I rented a limo to take us to dinner Saturday night and then out on the town afterwards, and R was completely surprised. He was so excited and we had a blast. I still have to get the pictures uploaded, so I’ll share those tomorrow.

Until then, here are a couple from our lazy, almost-summer afternoon yesterday. I can’t wait until the real thing is here to stay!

D pen — D playing in the shade while Mommy soaks up some rays. I need a pedicure!

D couch sleep — All worn out from playing outside

April 8, 2011April 8, 2011

FF & other random musings

Here we are again – TGIF! And an extra special one today, for it’s our anniversary!! Hooray! R and I have made it 5 years so far in the holy sacrament of matrimony. Yeah, I’m not so sure how holy we are, but you catch my drift. 🙂 I did finally figure out something to get him, but I’ll wait to divulge it until after today, just in the off chance that he happens to glance over here.

In other news, you remember that Supreme Court election I was all excited about because it had become so close and the person I’d voted for seemed to have a fighting chance? Yeah, not so much anymore. Apparently they *missed* an entire city in our area when they were tallying the votes, so now the candidate for whom I did not vote is ahead by like 7,000. Um, what? How does that happen?? How do you just miss 11,000+ votes? That is either a) a lie, b) a very convenient stroke of good luck for my opposing candidate, c) the latest scummy incident in what has become the shitstorm of politics in our state, or d) all of the above. Guess which one I’m going with? (hint – the answer is d) I hope that county clerk, or whomever is in charge of the ballots in that city, was fired immediately. Or at the very least has some sort of charges levied against him/her. That just can’t happen. Politics – yuck.

On a lighter note, here’s a good quote for this anniversary FF. I’m not sure what the problem is – I haven’t had any witty nuggets lately, so my quote book’s been getting a workout:

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” ~ Mignon McLaughlin

And here are a couple pictures from that wonderful day 5 years ago…

wedding3 — The beautiful church in which we were married

wedding1 — Taking off on our carriage ride after the ceremony

April 4, 2011April 7, 2011

Take 2

All right, Brewers. The season-opening series, well… sucked. Getting swept to begin the season with a 0-3 record isn’t the most wonderful thing, but we’ll give you another shot. Today is the HOME opener against the Atlanta Braves, so let’s do this!

Unfortunately the weather is crap today (wow, go figure) so the roof will be closed, but that won’t stop the Brewers faithful from getting out there in about 2 hours when the gates open and firing up the tailgating grills. R is going this afternoon, as are some of our friends, but I will be stuck at work again this year, unable to enjoy all the festivities. So to all of you at Miller Park today, raise a couple Shandys for me – I’ll be listening along on the radio.

And to you, Milwaukee Brewers, PLAY BALL!!

D is in the spirit again today with her new home opener outfit on.

I snapped that one mid-“sentence”, hence the open mouth. 🙂

March 29, 2011May 16, 2013

You guys, I am so excited

Look what’s back in stores:

Leinie’s Summer Shandy!! I just saw it for the first time this season last weekend and had to pick up a 12er. SM, really, again with the beer? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. But look, this is one of my favorite brews, it’s only around in the summertime, and I couldn’t have any of it last year. I promise, I’m not an alcoholic, I simply enjoy good beer, especially when everything about it just SCREAMS summer!

And a new added bonus with the Shandy this year is that each bottle neck label has a code that you can text in to win a “Trip to the Chip” or a Leinie’s canoe. A Leinie’s canoe?? Sweet! Sign me up. (side note – i had a couple bottles from that 12er this weekend and R already texted in all my codes. i’d love a leinie’s canoe!)

I love how the Leinie’s website has a Shandy countdown clock on it that still has over 2 days left. Apparently it’s not supposed to come out until April. I must be special. That, or else I just got the end of last year’s stock and they replaced the labels with the new ones for Trip to the Chip. 😉 Who cares, it still tasted good!

Ahhh…. summer here we come!

Too bad it’s still frickin’ 25 degrees this morning, ugh. 🙁

March 24, 2011April 7, 2011

20 bars, 20 beers (& maybe a shot or 2), and the rest is history

Here it is, the long-awaited, highly-anticipated Riverwest Pub Crawl 2011 recap. We made it to 20 bars, took about 9 hours, and walked almost 12.5 miles. They had originally advertised it as 24 bars, but there were actually only 20 bars on the official list – the other 4 places were listed under “Other Local Favorites”, so we disregarded them. We did take some liberties by bypassing 3 of the listed bars and adding 3 of our own past favorites. Much fun was had, many pictures were taken, and many memories were fogged by the sweet elixir of hops, yeast, and water.

Here’s the rundown of the order of our stops, along with the times we arrived at each bar. Surprisingly, I kept up with my time-taking pretty well, unlike in years past where I failed after the first handful of places. You can see that we tend to make this more of a sprint than a crawl, since the longest we stayed at any one place was about half an hour to 45 minutes.

The Gig – Noon
The Squirrel Cage – 12:30
Gee Willicker’s – 12:50
Rio West Cantina – 1:10
Uptowner – 1:30
The Tracks – 1:57
Klinger’s East – 2:23
Bosco’s – 2:50
Riverwest Tavern – 3:15
Art Bar – 3:45
TWO – 4:28
Riverwest Public House – 5:10
Club Timbuktu – 5:47
River Horse – 6:00
Stonefly Brewery – 6:20
The Foundation – 7:00
Falcon Bowl – 7:15
Club 99 – no time noted
Bremen Cafe – no time here either; I sense a pattern…
Rick and Donna’s – 8:10; ah, the time is back!

I seriously love this pub crawl – it is one of my favorite days of the year. Here are a couple shots from along the way. The beer’s effect becomes quite obvious by the end, ha! (hey don’t judge, it was 20+ beers, people. i’d like to see you try that) Until next year, RPC…