Mother of the Year

Many people blog about how cute their babies or children are, but since we don't have children this blog post will be about our baby girls...Madison and Izzy.  Last weekend I ordered a supply of doggie chews and a few toys.  Not that they needed any toys (trust me), but of course I had to get them a few new toys.  The box arrived to me at work on Wednesday and I was pretty excited to go home after work with the box of goodies.  I was seriously looking forward to seeing the excitement on our girls faces when they smelled the box as I walked into the door.  Of course they did not disappoint as I walked in they got immediately excited after one good sniff of the box.  I decided to enjoy this excitement so I put the box of goodies on the floor and watched them go crazy. 

Madison is the first to dig into the box.

Both dogs are now in the box exploring all the goodies.

Izzy carried her toy around with her everywhere she went.  Probably to keep it away from Madison.

...and from this I was instantly mother of the year in my baby girls eyes!

This was so much fun for me that I can't wait until I come home with another box of goodies.  Is this what parenthood is like?  When parents come home with a toy for their child do they get excited over the anticipation of seeing the joy on their child's face when they walk in the door with the toy?   Hmmmm...if so, I just had a fun "parenting" moment!

Sushi & Pinterest

Since we didn't have much planned for the weekend I thought it would be fun to go to the food truck festival in Scottsdale.  I don't believe I have ever eaten from a food truck, but I have seen the reality shows on tv and the festival was going to have 20 different trucks there with a variety of food along with entertainment...so, why not?  Basically, I just wanted something to do.  This is the second year for the festival and it was from 10am - 4pm.  We thought it would be nice to go for lunch so we got down there about 11:30 and to our surprise everyone else in Phoenix had the same idea.  The line just to get in to park was insane.  We sat in the line for about 20 minutes and then just said screw it.  If it was that bad just to get in to park what was it like inside?  We decided to skip out and head back north for some sushi and drinks.  We do plan to go next year; however, we now know to get there at 10am when they open as the line might not be so bad.

Besides skipping the festival I utilized my Pinterest account and made two awesome meals.  The first was a veggie sandwich that tasted awesome.  First I made the salad that consisted of tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado and lime juice.

I then made a mayo dressing with 1/2 greek yogurt and 1/2 mayo with onion and chive seasoning.

I put the salad and dressing along with some sprouts in a whole wheat pita.

This was so yummy that it will be my lunch for the week too!

The second meal I made was a chicken marsala over angel hair pasta.  This was very yummy.  It was so easy too.  The only thing I will change for next time is to make the marsala sauce thicker.  Other than that it was fantastic!

Now that I understand Pinterest I am always on there looking for new recipes to make.  I must say, Pinterest is making me more domesticated.  If you have not signed up for Pinterest yet, be warned, as it is very addictive!

New Year

First, I hope everyone had a great New Year's.  I know I am a few days late at New Year's, but it's better late than never. 

We started our New Year's weekend at the Insight bowl here in Tempe.  I just want to say this was not my idea, but I did go along with it.  We had to get up early the next morning to head to LA for the Rose Bowl weekend and I still hadn't packed my bag yet, but I gave in because I am a super awesome wife and I want to make my husband happy since he really wanted to go.  :) 

Thanks to our friends we had good seats in ASU's "club" section.

The following morning we woke up early and headed to LA with our friends Mike and AJ to ring in 2012 and attend the Rose Bowl.  Once we got to our hotel the room wasn't ready so we headed to Santa Monica pier to walk around.  While there we saw Jim Belushi on the boardwalk...that was our one star sighting while we were there.

Andy and I on Santa Monica pier.  Kind of cool that day and cloudy in Santa Monica.

For New year's we headed to the City Walk at Universal Studies and got a table at a dueling piano bar.  Now our friend Josh was with us and the five of us had a great time just like the old days back in Madison.

Happy New Year from the City Walk!

This year there was a day in between New Years Eve and the Rose Bowl so we all had a nice day to recoup and see the sights.  Once we all got out of bed we headed to the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.  This was kind of neat, but also very dirty.  The whole time we were walking I kept thinking of the movie Pretty Woman.  We then headed to Rodeo Drive to "window shop" since we cannot afford anything.  We also saw some pretty sweet vehicles that we will never be able to afford.  Once we did the walk up and down we had to walk out of Beverly Hills to catch a cab.  Note to self: next time we go to LA don't get dropped off by a cab in Beverly Hills unless we are prepared on how to leave Beverly Hills.  There are no cabs in Beverly Hills.  This caused us to walk two miles to catch a cab.  I was so exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel that we just went to dinner, had a couple drinks and called it an evening.

The next day it was Rose Bowl day.  We headed to Pasadena on the train which took us about one hour to get there.  Once we got there we met up with some friends at the Badger Bash, which was a lot of fun.  We all had a great time at the game for our second year in a row.  Even though the Badgers lost again it was still a great time and a really good game. 

The Beautiful Ticket!

With our friends at the Badger Bash!

The stadium.

Andy and I at the Rose Bowl.

We had pretty sweet seats!

Following the game I was the one who had to get us back to the train station.  Unfortunately I asked a security guard how to get to the train station and he directed me in the wrong direction.  Yes, we walked an hour in the wrong direction until we ended in a really nice neighborhood (with no other football fans around) where a couple stopped us to see if we were lost and then gave us the correct directions.  They probably saw us in our Badger apparel and just wanted to get the Rose Bowl riff raff out of their neighborhood.  No, they were really nice and friendly.  They also felt bad that we walked so far in the wrong direction because of a security guard.  After our long journey back to the hotel we were all super exhausted and I called and ordered us pizza.

It was a great New Year's and I am glad to have spent it with Andy and our good friends.  I hope yours was as good as ours.