Meal Planning: April 29th - May 5th

Review from last week:

This zucchini noodle dish has rocked my world and I'm making it again next week for lunch.  SO good.  Add chicken and it's even better.

Gyro meat over lentils:

 

 Spicy Hoisin Chicken and Broccoli:

 

Gyro Salad:

 

And one night we had minestrone soup that my mom brought over :)

Plan for next week:

Saturday: Date night out!

Sunday: Skillet Chicken in Tomato Sauce with Avocado Crema

Monday: Grilled Ribs and Salad


Tuesday: Leftovers

Wednesday: Crock Pot Sesame Honey Chicken

Thursday: Leftovers (but making Pork Carnitas for a work lunch on Friday)!

Friday: Cinco de Mayo at the Christensen's house

Meal Planning: April 22nd - 28th

Review from last week:

Turkey Taco Spaghetti Squash.  

 

Lagered Turkey Chili.  I typically sub ground sirloin for the turkey, but this time in an effort to be a little healthier I used turkey as the recipe called for - and it tasted the SAME.  Maybe better?  Even Greg (who had a bad food poisoning experience with turkey like 12 years ago and is still a little skeptical of it), had 2 bowls :)

Plan for next week:

Saturday: Greg's out of town so I'll throw together something for me and Ben.

Sunday: Gyro meat over lentils

Monday: Spicy Hoisin Chicken & Broccoli

Tuesday: Gyro Salad

Wednesday: Grilled Chicken, mashed sweet potatoes and snap peas

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: TBD

Week in Photos: Coffee Dates, Easter, and Ben's First Mariner Game

Ben, modelling his new Hamilton T shirt :)  Much to my delight, he requested to wear it to school ASAP!

We heart Pepper! (Greg's expression?)

We went to go see Beauty and the Beast with Callie, Phil, Mira and Maylee!  I loved it!  The boys weren't huge fans.  Ben thought a lot of it was kind of scary (or boring) and eventually fell asleep on Greg. 

Measuring height at school.

Ben's school was closed the Friday before and Monday after Easter, which gave me an excuse to take a vacation day and spend it outside with Ben!  We went to Starbucks and the park and enjoyed not being on a schedule :)

 

 

 

We ran into some firefighters at Starbucks and Ben got a sticker :)

 

That evening, we had our favorite girls over for pizza!

I got a new rain jacket and now me and Benny match.

Easter was a lot of fun this year.  Growing up, my mom/the Easter Bunny would often put together little scavenger hunts for me to find my Easter basket.  I figured Ben was at the perfect age for that this year!  When he woke up on Easter morning and was looking for his eggs, I showed him a video message I had made for him on his iPad explaining that he would have to find his first clue in order to find his Easter baskets.  The clues eventually led us over to my parent's house to find his basket there!  While we were there we dyed Easter eggs.

The weather was SO nice on Easter, so since we didn't have any plans for the afternoon (and because we have a little sports nut on our hands), we decided to take Ben to his first Mariner's Game!  The whole afternoon went PERFECTLY!  We hit zero traffic on our way down to the game, found the perfect parking spot (for free), purchased the cheapest seats and then found ourselves in a fairly empty stadium (thus allowing us to sit wherever we wanted)!  We grabbed some snacks, found some seats in the sun and enjoyed a really great game!  They even have a really fun play area for kids that we went to when we wanted to get a change of scenery.  Ben shocked us with how into the game he was and we seriously cannot wait to go back!

Meal Planning: April 15th - 21st

Review from last week:

Seared Catfish and Udon Noodles:

This chicken and brussels sprouts over couscous was really great:

 

The open-faced roast beef sandwiches with mushrooms was our favorite one of the week.

 

Pizza party with Ben's favorite girls on Friday!

Plan for next week:

Saturday: Turkey Taco Spaghetti Squash Boats

Sunday: Grilled Burgers

Monday: Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese

Tuesday: Lagered Turkey Chili

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: Mandarin Orange Chicken and Rice

Friday: TBD

Weekend in San Francisco (+ HAMILTON)!

My mom and I had the best weekend in San Francisco!  Of course it went by much too quickly, but we were able to cram a lot in in the 2 days we had :)

Our flight out of Seattle on Friday morning was delayed about an hour, but we finally arrived at our hotel around 1pm.  Rachel and Peter had recommended this place to us, Hotel Adagio, and it was the perfect little hotel in the perfect location!

View from the street in front:

After checking in, we had some time to kill before dinner.  We decided to just start walking around to see where we would end up - and we ended up in Chinatown!

Next up, we made our way to Little Italy.  We were starting to get pretty hungry at this point, so we stopped for a snack and a beer (at my insistence) which hit the spot.

Then we headed back to the hotel to shower and get ready for our big, amazing night out!

We started the evening off having dinner at The Progress.  This place required a reservation about a month in advance, and after dining there, we understood why!  The menu is designed where you select 4 items and then share them family style.  We enjoyed:

• Artichoke Tempura with Black Trumpet Aioli (this was an add on).
• Sour beer bread with fermented cabbage butter, grilled asparagus with charred onion ranch, and 'roast' beef with fresh horseradish (a starter the provide for the table)
• Hass Avocado-Manchego "Wedge": dried summer pepper, lime & pomegranate syrup 'romesco'
• Wild Winter Mushroom Fried Rice: wilted greens, snow peas 7 aromatic garlic chlii oil
• Grilled Monterey Bay Abalone: celery root-citrus peel butter & broccoli di ciccio 'salad'
• Grilled Dry Aged Beef: fava green-sunflower seed 'pesto' & green garlic pickles

Absolutely incredible!

 

And then it was time for the main event: HAMILTON!

 

I'm still re-living each moment of the evening and I still cannot BELIEVE we scored such amazing seats.

Everyone in the room was so incredibly excited to be there and we were taking turns taking pictures of one another in front of the stage.  I met 2 girls who had won the $10 ticket lottery and they were just beyond thrilled to be sitting in the third row!  I love that they do that.  

 

This is the view from our seats - 5th row, center.  !!!!!!  I'll never forget it.  We stood (and I cried) during the final curtain call and I already cannot wait to see it again!  Amazing cast, amazing show!

The next morning, we grabbed coffee and an almond scone at La Boulangerie, and then grabbed tickets and seats on a big bus tour that left out of Union Square.  Since it had been raining on and off that morning, it was a good way to see a lot of the city!

Since it wasn't raining when we got on, we sat on the top of the bus.

The bus actually took us ACROSS the Golden Gate Bridge, and it was definitely one of the coldest moments of my life.  I was very thankful to have my hat with me and a hood!

 

We got off the bus down at Pier 39 and I was having a difficult time warming up.  A Bloody Mary and a bowl of clam chowder at Fog Harbor Fish House helped :)

We walked around Fisherman's Wharf for awhile.

As we were looking for a place to hop back on the bus, we came across The Buena Vista - famous for "perfecting" the Irish Coffee, and a place my parents use to frequent when they lived in the city (40 years ago)!  It was so fun to go and have an Irish coffee there with my mom :) 

We eventually made it back to the bus, finished the tour, and returned to our hotel.  That evening, we went to dinner at Cha Cha Cha, another Cougan recommendation - and it was SO good.  The Sangria was TOO good.  Just ask my mom ;)

On Sunday morning before it was time to head to the airport, we wandered around a bit looking for a Starbucks.  We ended up wandering through the Tenderloin District and were both very glad it was a bright sunny morning and not a late Saturday night.  Yikes.  

The good news is that our wandering did manage to take us to City Hall, which is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen.

And then it was time to go home.  Such a fun and memorable weekend - I wonder where our Hamil-obsession will take us next???