Headache from Hell

This weekend has sucked! My weekend revolved around the headache from hell. On Friday night after we watched our Netflix movie, Just Go With It (Funny by the way), I went to bed with a nasty headache. I woke up on Saturday with the same headache, but worse, so I stayed in bed until I had to get up to go get my nails done. While sitting there for the hour (which I thought would be no big deal) I was feeling absolutely awful! I didn't know how I was going to make it through the appointment let alone head to work afterward. Yes, I had to go into work for about four hours as I agreed to for a presentation. Of all the Saturdays I work (I normally don't work on the weekends) I had the worst headache of all time. It was borderline a migraine because it was causing me to be nauseous, very irritable and just feeling sick to my stomach. I drove down to Chandler just talking myself into this saying that it was only a few short hours. I got home at 5:30 and went straight to bed. Andy woke me up at 7:30 to eat dinner and then it was back to bed at 8:30 until I got out of bed at 9am on Sunday where I was starting to feel better. I don't feel 100% today, but it's much better than yesterday. I can't believe I slept so much and stayed in bed as long as I had. It makes me think my body was just telling me to slow down and relax a bit or it was telling me never to agree to a Saturday work day again. HA HA! I didn't get much done this weekend, but I did sort of get the house cleaned and laundry done today at the slowest pace possible. I was definitely not in a rush as I did not want that headache to come back full force. It has lingered all day today, but at least I could deal with it unlike yesterday. Tomorrow is always another day and I always have next weekend to have fun when my mother-in-law is in town. It's weird to say mother-in-law!

Viva Las Vegas

Andy and I got a good deal on a weekend to Vegas so this past Friday we were on a plane for a weekend of shenanigans! We landed in Las Vegas around 6pm and we were ready to have a good time and since this is the weekend before my birthday we decided to call it a birthday celebration as well. Everybody knows I like to make a big deal out of my birthday, but for some reason this year I am just not feeling it. I wasn't as pumped to celebrate the birth of Jaimi. Actually, the reason is because I am OLD! Yup, very old. Let's just bust out the velcro shoes and the icy hot to celebrate the birth of Jaimi. Ok, that is a bit dramatic, but I am feeling old.

Anyway, I don't have much to say about Vegas because as everyone knows what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. I do know that I am happy that I can go to Vegas with my husband and have an absolute blast all weekend with him.

One thing I can share is that we did watch at least one Bellagio fountain performance.


Here is the only other photo I will share. This one is of us at the new Cosmopolitan hotel having a good time together in their club.


Besides the fountains and bar hopping we did a little shopping and had some fabulous food. We hit up Sushi Samba the first night and that was YUMMY! We also found ourselves at Coyote Ugly, Spago for dinner and Pinks hotdogs for some food at 2am. Other than that it was a typical weekend in Vegas for Andy and I with some crazy shenanigans! Until next time Vegas!

Slow Weekend...Tarragon Chicken

Andy and I did not do much this weekend. I got my house cleaned, ran errands, nails done and we visited Tom and Karen for a bit. I also managed to lounge in the pool on Sunday for an hour or so while I soaked up some rays in the 110 degree heat.

Since it was a slow weekend I busted out the Chicken cookbook and prepared a fabulous Tarragon Chicken. This is what happens when I get bored...I turn into a mediocre chef. This was a very good meal and I will definitely make it again. I served this chicken with fresh green beans that I sauteed in EVOO and salt & pepper. I also made my red smashed potatoes...YUMMY!

Ingredients
4 Boneless chicken breasts
Salt & pepper
1/2 Cup dry white wine
1 1/4 Cups of chicken stock
1 Garlic clove, finely chopped
1 Tbsp dried tarragon
3/4 Cup heavy cream
1 Tbsp chopped fresh tarragon

Directions
Season the chicken with salt and pepper and place in a large skillet. Pour in the wine and just enough chicken stock to cover, add the garlic and dried tarragon. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and cook until the chicken is cooked through.

Remove the chicken, cover and keep warm. Strain the liquid into a clean skillet and skim off any excess fat from the surface. Bring to a boil and cook for 12 - 15 minutes or until reduced by two-thirds.

Stir in the cream, return to a boil and cook until reduced by about half. Stir in the fresh tarragon. Slick the chicken breast and arrange on plates. Spoon sauce over chicken and top with fresh tarragon.


My sauce turned out runny and that is why it doesn't show up well in the picture above. I didn't know what I did wrong until I sat here and re-typed the directions. I believe I put in way too much cream so my sauce never thickened. It tasted great anyway and now I know what I did wrong so I can fix it for next time.

Wedding Photos

Our professional wedding photos and video arrived at the house less than two weeks ago. I was so excited to come home from work to a box filled with our photos, marriage certificate and the wedding video. One of the things we purchased was the disc to all the photos that were taken. At first I was kind of nervous about this because I was worried the expense wasn't going to be worth it because I had no idea how many photos would be taken. Once I popped the disc in the computer I was shocked to find 1289 photos on the disc. It took at least an hour to go through all the photos and I was more than happy with the results and every penny we spent on the photos was well worth it. I told people I would share the photos with them; however, I didn't realize I would have 1289 photos to share. I spent a few hours going through all the photos and narrowing it down to about 340 photos that I uploaded to my Shutterfly account to share with those that attended the wedding and others that asked me to share them. If you did not receive a link to the photos it might have been human error or I didn't know you wanted to see the photos. If you do want to see the photos and did not get a link just email me and I will get a link to you.

When we watched the video of our wedding it brought tears to my eyes all over again when we said our vows. It was a short 15 minute video but the expense was definitely worth it. I just loved watching the video and reliving the most important day of my life.

Here are a couple of my favorite photos from the photographer.

Happy 4th of July

We just returned from camping in Big Bear California for the long holiday weekend. Normally every year we would camp in Payson, which is a short two hour drive. This year there was no place in Arizona to camp since all the camp areas are banning fires. This is totally understandable since it seems as if the whole state is on fire these days. It was the guys idea to make the 5.5 hour drive to Big Bear and stay longer since we had to drive so far. I am not a fan of long drives, especially to park it in the woods for 4 full days, but Andy really wanted to go so I sucked it up and went. This was my first time in Big Bear and it was such a neat little mountain town. I would love to go back and rent a cabin as it is very beautiful there. I also have to admit that it was nice to get out of the Phoenix heat. This past Saturday it was 117 in Phoenix and we were happy to be in Big Bear where it was a beautiful 85 degrees.

Many activities happen while camping. One is beer darts among Andy, Amber and Brian.



We also played cornhole where Andy and I kicked Brian and Amber's butt.


Then there is always good ol' beer pong. On Saturday we beat Brian and Amber, but on Sunday they came back and beat us.


While camping Izzy was just in love with Stella. It was so cute to watch Izzy get so excited to see Stella and give her plenty of kisses. Izzy was all about Stella that I think she found a new best friend. Madison was more just interested in Stella possibly dropping food for her to get. I got Stella to say "Hi Beez." This is what we say to Izzy all the time. Stella constantly kept saying it all weekend and when she was done getting kisses by Izzy she would say "No Thank You." It was pretty cute!


Cutie Patootie Stella was lucky that she was able to get a daily bath. I was kind of jealous of this!


Here is Andy grilling our meal one night. For our dinner we made marinated grilled port tenderloin and potato packets. We were also supposed to have corn on the cob, but I forgot that in the refrigerator...oops!


Of course I brought doggie treats for all three dogs. Zarady is used to me bringing dog treats that this time she was stalking me wherever I went in case I had dog treats on me.


Until the next long holiday weekend for camping...maybe!