Our 5th Valentine's Day

Last week we had two fancy meals; on Sunday it was the 5th anniversary of us as a couple, Tuesday was of course, Valentine's Day.  On both days Zak had to close at work, but we tried to make the most of it!  It's hard to believe it's already been 5 years, since so much has changed, mostly for the better!  We were originally going to spend the day together, get a couple's massage, but it was really difficult to get an appointment for the week, and plus Zak had to work.  So we decided to still do that, just at a later date, and just exchange small gifts and cards.

On Sunday I spent most of the day in the kitchen.  It was a bit of an 'off' day for me, I don't know why, but I kept making small mistakes or not thinking things through.  But nothing huge and disastrous happened, and everything did eventually work out in the end.  I started off with making lemon chiffon individual heart cakes.  I was dying to use my heart pan, but I was disappointed when the cakes didn't turn out as pretty as I hoped.  But they at least tasted good and I managed to save a few intact heart cakes for dessert, and whipped up some lemon whipped cream to place on top, yum!

cute, but a pain to get out of the pan, even though I sprayed it w/Pam!

The next recipe was pretty adventurous; I made sweet corn tamale cakes, a copycat recipe of the Cheesecake Factory's delicious appetizers.  My mom made them for us in December, and they were a huge hit, so I vowed to try them out myself soon.  The salsas and sauces went just fine, using the hand blender was a huge help, but the corn cakes themselves were a bit more challenging.  We don't have a food processor, so I tried pureeing the corn with the hand blender, and spent the next ten minutes picking up pieces of corn from the counters, floor, stove, etc.  But in the end, they turned out alright; Zak told me next time to just make them with little mini corn cakes on the side.  He really loves this recipe.  I also made us a really good garlic & brown sugar chicken dish with mashed potatoes.  Everything was delicious, and we were sufficiently full afterwards.

tamale cakes, so delicious!

table w/corn cakes

On actual Valentine's Day, Zak had one class, but it lasted about half an hour.  After I picked him up from school, he suggested we go out for breakfast.  We haven't been eating out for awhile, so it was a real treat!  We lucked out, it was about 10 in the morning, so the Breakfast Club wasn't super busy when we were there.  We enjoyed a nice breakfast; Zak had a big skillet-type platter, and I got 'french toast eggs benedict', delicious!  Stuffed, we lazed about at home for awhile, and I admired the beautiful, colorful rose bouquet Zak got for me.  Eventually, Zak had to go into work, which was a bummer, but gave me time to prepare dinner.

my favorite rose colors: peach, pink, pink-tipped white!

so pretty :)

I made chocolate covered strawberries as a surprise dessert.  I was so excited, I haven't really done them too much, and I wanted them to look really pretty.  About half way through I decided to do half with milk chocolate as the base, and the other with white chocolate.  They all turned out really well; Zak was super impressed, he kept telling me how beautiful they looked.  He said they could pass for professional, so that made me feel really good!

ready to go into the fridge

I made us each a plate, totally worth it!

As far as dinner went, it wasn't overly complicated.  I tried out another new recipe, it was called the 'hasselback' potato; it's supposedly a Swedish version of a baked potato.  That went alright, but I'll make some modifications for the future.  I bought steaks for dinner, as a treat, and cooked them on the George Foreman grill I've had for a few years.  I used a fancy rub we bought for them, and although I was nervous initially, they had just the right amount of flavor and deliciousness!

table set, ready for food!

yum!

Zak came home and we had a lovely dinner.  I really enjoyed making special dinners for us, rather than going out.  It's more personal, and romantic!  So that was our Valentine's & Sunday dinner for last week.  Next year we hope Zak won't have to work, but we'll see how it goes.  We have made it work before, and will continue to do so.  All in all, I would have to say this might have been the best Valentine's celebration so far!  I have such a great Valentine; Zak is a very wonderful husband and provider who always loves me and tells me so.  He is a bit of a goofball, but it only makes our lives more exciting!  He is always trying to make me smile or laugh, and is a great supporter of my dreams and wishes.

Oh, I begged Zak to take a nice picture with me to put up here, since 90% of my pictures involve food now (I'm really trying to make my recipe blog nicer).  They're not the best pictures of us, but you'll have to forgive us since we were super hungry and we took them before we ate!

take 1

take 2

Our California Christmas (part 2)

Well, once the Christmas festivities were over, we had a day off to relax a bit.  We headed over to Kohl's and  Costco and then us kids took Kenny's car and went to the mall briefly.  We also played some video games while Mom made a really delicious dinner: homemade chicken tenders and perfect onion rings.  They were amazing!  Then we watched a favorite movie of ours: O Brother, Where Are Thou? (my sister and father can quote the whole thing, more or less) and played cards for a few hours.  It was a nice, low-key day.  Especially since my mom had a bit of a cold and on Tuesday we were headed into the City.

my dad commissioned Zak to draw a shark and a unicorn fighting for Jenna. yes, he specified that the unicorn was the clear victor, but both animals had taken heavy damage. needless to say, she was thrilled.

delicious Costco hot dogs

Our day in San Francisco was fun, the weather was perfect and the shopping wasn't too awful.  Zak enjoyed briefly popping into the Rolex store and another fancy watch store.  I enjoyed shopping with my sister at Sephora for some fun make-up to use our gift cards on.  Zak also enjoyed going to this music/entertainment store called Rasputin's, there are a handful of them in California, and they are always huge and have tons of music, dvds, etc.  He was like a kid in a candy store.  It was nice to spend some time in the City, and not being rushed around too much.  Around 5, Dad met us and we got all pretty to head over to the fancy restaurant we go every year, L'Olivier.  It is an absolutely delicious French restaurant and a major treat for everyone.  Zak has been once before, two years ago, and wasn't as thrilled with his choice then, but this year he understood why we rave about it.  Everything was perfect, and it was so nice to be all pretty and dressed up, talking with all of my extended family.

Jenna excited to be near a shark balloon

Zak wanted a picture by the Rolex store

Jenna with Annalise

we're hoping that one of the many pictures we took will be nice enough to replace our last nice picture...
from when I was 15...this one looks good, right?

meeting Annalise for the first time, unfortunately she was a little fussy. but cute!

Zak was brave and decided to try the escargot for an appetizer.  He let a few of us have one, and let's just say that I checked that off my bucket list.  We're glad we tried them, but probably wouldn't get them again.  I had a delicious appetizer of baked brie, which I split with my brother to get some of his awesome crab cakes.  Zak and I also split french onion soup and a really good Caesar salad.  My cousin Grant and his wife Ali had their sweet baby along, Annalise.  She's about 5 months old and it was fun to see and interact with her.  For our entrees, we decided to go for steak, I got the filet mignon, and Zak had a New York, both of which were divine.  We tried to eat as slow as we could to savor the flavors.  For dessert we each got a souffle, because we figured we might as well get it at a French place, right?  Zak got the Grand Marnier, and I had the chocolate.  Both are good, and while Zak may think he chose the winner, I will beg to differ.  Stuffed, we drove home, happy and exhausted.

with those snails, after popping on into his mouth

pretty girls: Allie, Sasha, me, Jenna, Ali & sleeping Annalise

Sasha, me, Zak, Jenna & Allie eagerly waiting for food

Kenny, Jordan, Brandon & Matt looking handsome

Wednesday was my (24th) birthday!  We had creamed eggs on toast for breakfast and I opened some very nice gifts.  Zak got me a beautiful ruby ring with diamonds on either side; I totally was not expecting it, although he has told me many times he wanted to get me that ring.  Doy.  Jenna and Kenny got me some awesome mugs, a cute one with elephants on it, and a nice bug one with the S.F. city skyline on it.  My parents got me a nice, fancy rice cooker that I've already used since I've been home and love!  Wednesday flew by too quickly, in my opinion.  Around noon, I headed over to Jamba Juice to have a little chat with one of my friends from high school; it was so nice to see her, even if it wasn't that long.  After, us kids met up with our Robison cousins and went bowling for a little bit.  No one was super awesome, but Jenna wasn't exactly great. :)  It was just a goofy, fun time and I was happy to spend time with everyone.

Zak made me wear ALL of my diamonds

L-R: wedding/engagement ring, newest ruby & diamond ring (24th bday), diamond ring (20th bday), blue and white diamond ring (23rd bday) == fancy, lucky girl

We had a family dinner at Grandma's, which was absolutely amazing.  My parents have perfected this recipe my dad made years ago for a Priesthood cook-off night for church (and won), Macadamia Nut Chicken.  It's essentially marinaded chicken coated with breadcrumbs and crushed macadamia nuts, cooked.  But then there is a papaya-mango-pineapple marmalade that goes on top that is wonderful.  Add sides of macaroni salad, rice and broccoli, and you're good to go!  I invited Amy over to dinner, since I wanted to spend time with her/I love her.  It was awesome.  Everything was just great.  We all had a great time and I got some wonderful presents, including some more Disney movies to add to my collection, make-up and lotion, as well as this book I've wanted for awhile, The Art of the Disney Princess, and the first book of the Hunger Games [side note: I made my family tell me about these books, since I knew nothing about them, and then my aunt got it for me, and I read it in mere hours.  I then found the next two books on-line (because I couldn't wait for the ones I ordered with a gift card to arrive) and read them in like, a day and a half. Awesome trilogy/can't wait for the movie!].  We had chocolate roll and German chocolate cake for dessert and oh, everything was just the best.  I enjoyed talking with my grandparents and aunts, and cousins, and just everyone.  It was a pretty rockin' birthday.

this was taken right after we took a nice one, but Zak covered his face with a balloon at the last minute!

cousin (& friend) picture, L-R: Matt, Jordan, Brandon, Jenna, Zak, me, Kenny, Amy, Grant, Sasha, Allie -- almost everyone!

Thursday arrived way too quickly, and it was a bit upsetting.  But Zak and I cleverly got everything packed and figured out for carry-ons for the plane early on so we could play video games and have fun with my family.  And, for the final food send-off, my mom made my favorite appetizers: (from Cheesecake Factory) sweet corn tamale cakes.  They were better than the restaurant's, and, oh man, we were in heaven.  Just amazing.  I'm going to try making them once I get a food processor/the ingredients.  Delicious!  We briefly said good-bye to the Robison cousins and headed off to the airport.

the best appetizers in the world, oh yum!

my mom's dad used to make handles for boxes to carry on plane; she made one for the rice cooker and was so proud of it! it was awesome and survived the trip!

Our journey from there wasn't bad, we were expecting snow when we landed, but the roads were clear and aside from some rain, uneventful.  As sad as it was to leave California, it was nice to get home to our bed and little place.  But I haven't fully accepted us being back here yet, as I've only sort of put away laundry washed from the trip, and some of the presents.

We want to thank everyone, not just in California, but among our other family and friends, for such wonderful and thoughtful gifts.  We are lucky to have so many loving and caring people in our lives and are grateful for everyone.  We loved our time in CA and can't wait to visit, like always.  And thank you for all of the birthday cards and wishes for me, too!

Our California Christmas (part 1)

Let me start off by saying that we had a fantastic trip to California.  The weather was beautiful, warm and we enjoyed all the food and company immensely!

me and Amy at lunch

Our first full day in CA was Friday.  It was nice to have a day that was somewhat of a relaxing one before the holiday rush.  We met up with my best friend Amy at the newly installed Five Guys & Burgers place a few blocks from home.  We sat outside, goofed off with the fancy new soda machine, and just enjoyed the delicious food.  We spent the rest of the day playing old school Mario on the Wii and laughing at the old mix CDs I made in high school.  Zak teased me for all of the terrible bands I used to listen to, but I found a few gems here and there!  Kenny and Jenna had some evening activities to attend to, but we had a quick family meal of salmon, yum!  While they were out, my parents and Zak & I helped put up ornaments on the tree and watched the movie Elf.

Christmas Eve with my family consists of a big family dinner, a little program put on by the cousins, and cousin gift exchange.  The dinner is more or less Thanksgiving dinner, with a few holiday bonuses.  Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, creamed spinach, creamed onion, yam & apples, rolls, raspberry fruit jello, oh everything is so wonderful.  And you always think if you get small enough portions of everything, you can go back and have a little bit more.  Nope.  I was stuffed and sad, because it's been awhile since I had my aunt Karri's famous rolls, or the gravy my grandma makes.  But we had enough for leftovers the next day!

a nice one of us, I just wished I hadn't messed up the exposure on my camera, oh well!

waiting for dinner with Sasha and Jenna

a nice picture

and a goofier one

our whole family!

When the cousins were little, one of the oldest ones, Sasha, would help put together a little Christmas program for everyone.  It usually involved playing instruments, singing, reading Christmas books or poems, etc.  This year we had a nice program.  My grandma usually puts on the Christmas program in the Cambodian branch in Oakland for church, and we did a simplified version of that.  I played the keyboard and sang with Jenna, my cousins Allie and Sasha and/or with Kenny.  The boy cousins read verses from the scripture, my aunt read a family favorite, The Journey of the Magi, a poem by T.S. Eliot.  It was a nice time.  We did the cousin gift exchange (Zak got a $25 Amazon gift card to do what he pleases with, I had to wait until Wednesday because Grant, Ali & Annalise were in Utah with Ali's family, but that was fine with me) and eventually went home and to bed.

On Christmas, my siblings and I always got up unnaturally early to go through our stockings and open our gifts from Santa.  Kenny was bummed that initially Jenna and I weren't having that, since we now want to sleep in.  But we agreed to a little pact to get up around 7.  It was hard to say no to Kenny, who has spent the last 2 Christmases in Sweden.  So we all got up early and looked through our stockings.  Santa brought us the game Taboo, as well as some nice soaps for Zak, a set of silicone whisks, new spatula set and measuring spoon set for me, and some Thai curry cashews for Zak as well.  Zak's co-worker's roommate is the manager at our Bath & Body Works, so he scored 3 big bottles of different body sprays, and a body cream for me, I was impressed with the good choices he made.  Jenna wanted to play the new Lego Harry Potter (years 5-7) on the Wii, so we did that until our parents got up.  We heated up the tea ring (similar to cinnamon rolls, but better) Grandma made for us, got dressed and went to church for an hour.  I think it was the first time at church with my family that I haven't gone up to play the piano or sing, it was so nice to sit with Zak the entire meeting!  It was nice to see old church members and friends.  My best friend very talented family sang/played instruments, which was beautiful.

decorated mantle

our pretty tree

still looking nice, after church

a decent one of us

in our "jim-jams"

After church, we changed back into our new pjs ('jim-jams', as Jenna calls them), and opened our gifts.  Zak got me some beautiful pearl cluster drop earrings that I've been in love with since they got them in the store.  He also got me the Sims 3 game for the PS3.  Neither one of us have played anything related to the Sims before, so we were excited to try it.  I got him a nice leather belt he specifically told me about, two visual companion guides to a show we love dearly, Firefly, and, unfortunately, the wrong cologne.  I felt really bad, but explained that there were four similarly named ones, but I was smart to keep the receipt and we exchanged it for the correct one back home.

I was excited to give out the presents we got for my family: Dad got all of the Oakland A's World Series games on DVD, as well as a cool puzzle with all of the vintage pennants from the MLB.  I made Mom a series of magnets from places and of people she loves: a scene of fall back east (she grew up in PA), Hawaii (born there), the Oakland Temple, Yosemite national park, a picture of all 6 of us from this summer at the California Academy of Sciences in S.F., and a collage of some pictures of all of us: a wedding picture of me & Zak, Kenny & Jenna at Disneyland, all 3 of us siblings at the airport when Kenny got home from Sweden, and a goofy one of us 3 trying to do one of the jumping pictures in S.F. right before Kenny left.  I was really pleased with them.  I made Jenna this cute calendar journal thing I saw on-line: I took a bunch of index cards, cut them in half, then stamped the date on them.  And then found 12 vintage postcards to use as month dividers.  So every day she can write on a card about something fun or significant that happened that day on that year.  And then the next year, do the same.  I made my mom one for her birthday and she loved it; I also made one for myself and it's a cute idea.  We got Kenny the show I mentioned previously, Firefly.  We made him watch it while he was here and he got just as addicted as we did!  He was thrilled.  They all were.

We opened some nice and fun gifts, including: the book Earth, by Jon Stewart (been dying for this book!), some brown 501s for Zak, a coat for me, a nice big saucepan, a California calendar, some weird art things my siblings found at a thrift store, and the movies Serenity & Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Jenna was pumped about her boys shark slippers from Old Navy (she's been super into sharks and marine biology, she's planning on majoring in it), Kenny was happy to receive a George Foreman grill (our cousins also got similar grills, oh the joys!).  My mom got these beautiful plates from Williams & Sonoma, it was so cute to see how excited she was.  After all the wrapping paper was thrown away, we lazed about for a bit.  Mom wanted to make her famous thick, soft Christmas cookies with eggnog for later, so I helped her frost and decorate them.  It was fun to help her with them; I had tried make them previously for our friends' party and while they were a success, nothing beats my mom's, who has made these for years.

pretty and tasty cookies!

We headed over to the grandparents' mid-afternoon.  We had waffles, sausage and quiche for brunch on Christmas day.  My mom recently got a fancy waffle maker, so she brought that and made delicious Belgian waffles.  The rest of the day was low-key.  We opened presents from my grandparents.  Well, actually, my grandparents sent us some money before we left, so we just enjoyed watching other people open stuff.  Although I was jealous of Kenny getting the complete Star Wars collection on Blu-Ray, sweet deal.  Then we played Taboo for awhile, which is always fun.  We eventually had the cookies and eggnog, leftovers from the previous night and stuffed ourselves, again.  And just sat around and talked.  It was a nice day.

Since that turned out to be a huge post, I will write about the rest of our trip later!

*if I can get my act together to get some pictures of our gifts, I'll post them, but you'll have to do with this for now :)*

Thanksgiving Break

the poster that Zak finished the day after they got here

We had a very fun, food-filled, family-oriented Thanksgiving break.  My brother Kenny & Zak's sister Delaney drove up from Rexburg to stay with us for the week.  We were expecting them by midnight on Tuesday, but they showed up at 9.  The posters we had for them weren't done, Zak wasn't even home yet!  But it was ok, the roads were clear and fine and we were happy they were finally in Moscow.  We stayed up and talked for awhile, and Kenny fixed our wifi that he had broke, haha. 

yes, there are 3 laptops there..he was trying to fix mine

yummy cinnamon rolls!

I had cinnamon rolls in the fridge, so the next morning we got up and had them with some cocoa.  Zak had the day off on Wednesday, so we took them to the mall and the bagel shop.  Then we just relaxed and watched some t.v., and had lasagna for dinner.  Delaney and I made the pies for Thanksgiving: pumpkin & lemon meringue.  We also introduced the game Guillotine to Delaney and started our tournament.  We had helped Chad & Bryan move into their new place on Tuesday, so Chad came over after work on Wednesday to pick up Hampton.  It was so sad to say good-bye to him, after a month of him living with us!  But we will visit them often and get to play with our favorite pig.

We got up early on Thursday and drove a few hours to Moses Lake for Thanksgiving at Aunt Ronda's.  We arrived a few hours early so we could hang out and socialize with the family.  Kenny and I got our hands on a puzzle and, like the pros we are, finished it quickly.  Everyone was so impressed, haha.  We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner/lunch.  Everything was so tasty and it was nice to be able to spend some time with Zak's side of the family.  But we had to leave so Zak could get home and get to sleep for Black Friday. 

siblings

spouses

siblings, sigh

nicer one

family!

Black Friday was a decent one.  Zak was very tired after his shift ended at 1 (he got to work at 4 AM), but stayed away long enough to watch a movie and eat lunch with us.  While he napped, I got dinner prepped: teriyaki chicken with vegetable and shrimp tempura.  After dinner, we played some more Guillotine and watched some t.v.  Zak opened on Saturday, so once Kenny and Delaney were up and showered, we went to get him for lunch and walked around downtown.  There's not a whole lot to do in town, but we had a good time.  We took them to Winco and they were so excited about the bulk candy, so they got a fair amount of it for $3 apiece.  We had leftovers for dinner and played some more Guillotine.  Zak ended up winning the tournament, I came in second, with Delaney placing third and Kenny ended up in last place (a rarity in our family).

Delaney VERY excited about getting all of the leftover jello salad

Since they had to leave Sunday, we decided to treat them to the Old European breakfast house before they took off.  It was worth it and everything was delicious.  Kenny & Delaney both got the Scandinavian breakfast plate [German potato pancakes, buttermilk pancakes, Swedish strawberry cream pancakes, stuffed sausage & harvati Danish aebleskivers].  Zak got the goulash with potato pancakes (his favorite) and I had sausage eggs Benedict.  Everything was fantastic and we left very, very full.  Then it was time to say good-bye.  I sent them back to Rexburg each with a loaf of bread from our bread machine, some freezer jam, and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. 

scarily excited about breakfast

pleasantly excited

appropriately excited

It was so nice to have them around all week.  They are fun to have around and it's easy to cook for four.  Thanks for visiting, guys!