We knew the day was supposed to have some rain, so we made sure to do the tram tour first thing, so we wouldn't get wet. We then saw a few other things before Dave and my parents decided to do the Jurassic Park ride. I skipped it, because it's like Splash Mountain and I don't like large drops. It's a good thing too, because while they were on the ride, it started POURING! When they came down the drop at the end, they were all soaking wet! Even worse, it had started to HAIL. The hail was quite large, and when they emerged from the ride, they were totally covered in bits of ice. I haven't seen it rain like that in a LONG time!

After that, we went to the indoor location where they were serving complimentary coffee and hot chocolate to warm up a bit. We then hit up a few final attractions (including the House of Horrors where people in costume jump out at you to scare you. They totally zeroed in on my mom and this lady ahead of us--scaring them the most! I was glad to be in the middle of them, which meant less chance of being completely startled!)

After our day at the park, we showered and changed and went to visit my sister at work. After dinner, we went to go see Shutter Island, which thankfully was indeed more psychological and not really as scary as the trailers made it look.

All in all, a pretty full day! As for today...in a little bit, my mom, sister, and I are heading to the bridal shower.

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Another bonus of the gathering was that it allowed the remainder of my chocolate bars to be consumed, since the note on the recipe made it sound like they didn't stay good for more than a day or two. They still tasted fine, but maybe the consistency turns weird after a few days or something. At any rate, that just means it was good that people were able to enjoy them and that none of it went to waste!

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We had a decent turnout, and since some of the new girls in the group like to bring fancy food creations to the club, I have decided to step it up a bit as well. Last month was lemon bars, and this month was Chocolate Dulce de Leche bars. I had to go to 3 different grocery stores to find a can of dulce de leche--finally finding it in a market that had more Mexican products. As a backup, I had bought a can of condensed milk so that I could make my own, but that was a way more time-intensive option and would've been cutting it close to have it finished in time for the meeting.

Anyway, even though the bars were kinda messy to cut with their shortbread crust and thus the presentation was somewhat lacking, they did taste quite delicious. I didn't take all of it to the meeting and so there are some leftovers, which is good. I think the dulce de leche flavor is pretty subtle, but the resulting chocolate is somewhat mousse-like and quite tasty. I would totally make this recipe again.

Unfortunately, there are no photos, because I made it so last-minute and forgot to take pictures before I left. Maybe next time!

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While watching the games I've also been crocheting (yes, crocheting!) a blanket. It turns out that, while I have always been a tight knitter, I am also a tight crocheter and it's looking like this blanket is going to be twice as much work to get it be the right size! The pattern calls for like 46 rows or something to be just over 5 feet, and my blanket with the same number of rows is less than 3 feet. So I guess that means I have to keep going! I have a ton of yarn left over after doing the rows, so at least there is that, but I think I will probably have to buy some more in order to complete it--the pattern calls for every row to be slightly bigger than the last, and thus each row takes more yarn! Guess I should've bought a crochet hook 7 sizes bigger or something--live and learn!

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I had gumbo to start, and then I had their chicken dish (I can't even attempt to spell it off the top of my head), finished with their Chocolate Souflee. Dave got their Bread Pudding Souflee, which is also delicious, and provided me with the opportunity to have a bit of both items!

It was a fun excuse to have a random nice meal spontaneously. And of course, you can't beat the fact that some of the restaurant patrons came dressed all crazy with sequins and hats and masks and such to celebrate!

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It started out this morning with him bringing me a dozen roses and making me some crepes with whipped cream and strawberries. After a bit (and because we ate earlier than normal), we walked down to McConnell's for me to get some frozen yogurt and then across the street to the Daily Grind so he could get a sandwich. After that, we took a walk over to the Alice Keck Park Gardens and walked around for a bit before heading back.

We had pretty late dinner reservations (9:45!), so when it got to be evening we walked around Paseo Nuevo and then went and saw the movie, Valentine's Day. I knew it would be cheesy and not all that good, but what other time of year could I get him to see such a movie?! It wasn't bad, but it certainly was no Love Actually. I enjoyed how many men seemed to have been dragged into the theater by their significant others--all the show times for the day sold out!

After the movie we headed over to Opal, where we had our dinner reservations. Like most places in town, they were reservation only and had a fixed menu. I had never eaten there before, so I was excited that their fixed menu had something at every course that I would eat! The price included appetizers, dinner, dessert, and a rose. The entire dinner experience took around 2 hours, meaning that we got home at 11:45.

So now the day is almost over, but we will probably have to stay up for awhile, because who would want to go straight to bed after eating a ton of food? Regardless though, it was a lovely day, and I dare say that this year might just have surpassed the previous!

Hope your day was equally as lovely.

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After reaching our destination, we were greeted by wonderfully warm and lovely weather outside. We didn't spend long up there though--just enough time to get what we came for and also do a tasting at Gainey.

In a little bit, we are going to go out and meet another couple downtown for a couple drinks. Happy Valentine's weekend, everyone!

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All in all, I like the finished product--although perhaps it would be nice if the turtleneck portion was not quite so bulky. I do think it's cute though, and it does a nice job of keeping me warm--even with the 3/4 sleeve length. I also liked how it was a very quick project, due to the thicker yarn and larger needle size. Because I'm such a tight knitter, I had a good deal left on my last skein of yarn, which was also my 2nd skein since the yarn has such huge yardage.

Anyway, without further ado, here it is:

Pattern: Berkshire Doleman Sweater, Knitscene Fall 2009
Needles: US9 & US10
Yarn: Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool in Medium Heather Gray

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There was much to do during the event--play games, watch the game/commercials, mingle, etc. I did watch part of the first half, and actually came close to winning one of the squares, if only one more touchdown had been scored. But alas, it was not meant to be.

At half time, a couple of our friends put on a choreographed show for everyone, which was pretty cute--especially given how little time they had to rehearse. I didn't watch the rest of the game, as I spent the rest of the time talking with various people.

A lot of people stayed well into the night, and all in all it turned out to be a fun, crazy day. We missed the party last year, so it was fun to be able to attend and see just what we had missed.

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It rained in the morning before their arrival, and I was worried that we might get rain all day, but that turned out not to be the case. We started out with lunch at South Coast Deli, then the shelves got put up. After that, we headed down to State Street to walk around and do some shopping--my mom bought me some spiffy new clothes!

When we returned, we hung out at the apartment for a bit before heading out for a birthday dinner at Holdren's. I've never actually been there, but I know it is consistently rated as one of the best steak places, so I figured it would be a nice change of pace from the few places we always go. Since it was a birthday dinner, and my dad usually eats steak or fish, I figured it would give a few options from which he could choose.

The dinner was really good, and when we came back to the apartment, I surprised him with the cake! The cake, in my humble opinion, tasted quite good! We had a ton left over, as the 4 of us only managed to eat a quarter of it. My parents took a quarter of it home with them, but that means we still have half a cake left!

This morning before they left, we got breakfast at Sambo's, which my parents had actually heard of because it used to be a chain that spread through LA before closing all but this original location.

It was a nice visit overall, and it's cool that now that we have the spare bedroom that they can come stay for longer than just a few hours like they used to do in the past. Next time, since it will most likely not be a special occasion, Dave will have to cook for them!

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(Lisa on Feb 10, 2010 6:31 PM) Haven't you met your clothes buying quota yet?

(Jennifer on Feb 10, 2010 7:30 PM) Never! Besides, I'm sure you've gotten some stuff (clothing or otherwise) to even things out a bit! ;)

The process took several hours, although I could've cut it a little shorter if I had remembered that I had to chill the lemon curd for at least an hour before using it. If I had kept that in mind, I would've made that first, so that it would be ready by the time the cake cooled. But nope, I made it after the cake, so I had to sit around doing nothing for a bit. But that's ok.

I think the end result came out pretty tasty, actually. I also added some lemon juice and zest to the cream cheese frosting to give it a bit of lemon flavor as well--you know, in case the white cake was too bland or something.

Below is my cake creation--hopefully it will taste as good as it seems to look!

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After enjoying dinner and conversation at the restaurant, we headed back to enjoy some chocolate cake (which no, no one baked it, it was leftover from a party).

All in all a good evening--we tend to stay in for dinner a lot, so it was a nice change of pace to go out--with other people no less!

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Anyway, I bought these tickets ages ago--as soon as I heard this show was coming to town, because I was dying to see it. Everything I had heard about it was that it was hilarious--and I mean, with dysfunctional singing muppets, how could you go wrong?! I got us pretty close seats because I wanted to be able to actually see the puppets.

The interesting thing about this showing is that there were quite a lot of older people in the audience--and by older I mean, like 70's or something. I really don't think these people had a clue as to what they were going to see--I am betting they just have season tickets and thought they were seeing a nice, respectable Broadway show. Instead, they saw puppets getting it on, swearing, drinking, and probably being generally shocking if you weren't expecting it. What would you expect though from a musical that has songs like "It Sucks to Be Me", "The Internet is for P*rn", "If You Were Gay", and "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist"?!

The show was pretty much constantly funny--with the songs, their actions, the TVs that would come down and show animated videos to aid in the storytelling, and the help of awesome supporting characters like the Bad Idea Bears!

If anything I've said above sounds even remotely appealing, you should TOTALLY go see this show! It was awesome!! It seems that tons of people I know also went to see the show while it was playing this week--I guess this is just one of those shows that prompted people to really get out and see something at the Granada!

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On Saturday morning the two of them went for a bike ride in the morning and when they got back we headed to the Farmers Market to check things out and also to see if they had ingredients Dave needed for the dinner he was going to make.

After the market we walked around State Street a bit, doing some shop browsing, before joining the boyfriend's sister and her husband for lunch at Natural Cafe. We then proceeded to the Urban Wine Trail and did a free tasting at Kalyra (thanks to my membership). Everyone also got some wine and merchandise since I get my member discount--Dave's mom and her boyfriend even got Kalyra cycling jerseys, since they are all into that stuff.

After the winery, we headed back to our apartment where Dave started cooking the dinner--chicken tikka masala. After eating the delicious dinner, we hung out and talked for quite awhile, before agreeing to meet for breakfast in the morning.

For breakfast, we chose to eat at Pacific Crepes, which is of course an awesome place. I got the fruit breakfast crepe, which is always delicious. I love that place, and I think everyone was happy with their selections.

After breakfast, they took off back down south. All in all it turned out to be a good weekend--and we were lucky that the weather was so fantastic since it was pouring during the week and it even rained on their drive up. They were also lucky that they were able to have nice weather so that they could cycle in the mornings--something they hadn't been able to do for a week or two because of all that rain. So, it turned out perfect!

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