Life, food, family, friends…
We have some exciting news in our lives to share with our loyal readers (all 3 of you!). You won’t want to miss it!
Click HERE to see what all the buzz is about!
P.S. We’ll still be updating this site and have a lot of things to post, but we’ve been busy! OK, enough with the exclamation marks, but we’re excited.
To go along with our nice new backyard we finally went out and bought a new grill. After a lot of research I had the choice narrowed down to a Weber gas grill or one from Sam’s Club. They both had good reviews but the grill from Sam’s came with more features for the price.
I’ll get a picture of our grill soon but for now here’s a picture from the Sam’s website.
Here are some of the important “deets:”
To “break in” the new grill we bought some T-bone steaks, potatos, zucchini, and squash. I seared those bad boys on the infrared sear burner but wasn’t successful with the grill marks. I’ll have to keep working on that. I also grilled up the veggies to eat on the side. Everything was really good and it make a perfect first meal for our grill.
Since then we’ve cooked fish a few times, chicken, pork, and some more steaks. Everything has turned out pretty darn good and I’m having fun learning how to cook on a gas grill. In the past I’ve only cooked on a charcoal grill but cooking with gas is just so much easier. I’ll still go back to the charcoal for some things but probably not too often. I’ll post more about my grilling adventures as they happen.
OK, just catching up here. So here goes a few posts that we’ve been too busy to write!
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So, we ended up back in Southern California for Easter, partially because I had some customer work to do in San Diego. We figured we would just drive out there so we could spend some time visiting our families and hanging our for a bit.
We celebrated Easter at Chanin’s parent’s house with lots of family and food. Of course, I forgot to take pictures of all of the food but we had ham, potato cheese casserole, yams (with marshmallows), corn, deviled eggs, and lots more! I can’t seem to remember what else we had but I assure you it was a FEAST!
I was charged with making dessert and decided to make carrot cake since it seemed “Eastery.” I love carrot cake and hadn’t made it before so I scoured the ‘net for recipes and found one that looked good on Chowhound. My bro and sis in law suggested cupcakes since they’d be easier to eat so I went with that approach. I must say they turned out really good. I think I outdid myself! Even Chanin said that if she liked carrot cake then she would’ve liked mine!
Here are a few pictures of the cupcakes. I’ll post the recipe further below.
Even though we now live in Arizona we’re still ANAHEIM Angles fans. Yeah, I said Anaheim Angels not Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. That’s just lame. So, anywho, a while ago I was on a plane (reading the airline magazine) and I read about the Cactus League in Arizona. There are 17 major league teams that are a part of the Cactus league and hold their Spring Training in Arizona. We checked out the schedule and bought tickets to the Arizona Diamondbacks versus Angels game. Since we’re Arizonians(?) we figured it would be cool to also see the Dbacks (as we Arizonians call them) play our old “hometown” team.
The stadium is really nice and all of the seats offer great views.
Randy Johnson pitched for the Dbacks and received lots of cheers. That guy is tall!
Figgins on 2nd.
A panoramic shot of the stadium.
The game was good and was tied through the 9th. In the bottom of the 10th inning the Angels got a run and the win.
We had a lot of fun and we’ll definitely go to a game or two next season. Aside from seeing a good game we also got to eat some tasty junk food which included nachos and cotton candy. After all, isn’t the junk food the reason we all REALLY go to baseball games? Or is it the beer? I think it’s the beer because the people in front of, and behind, us must’ve drank a combined total of 15 bud lights.
When we were designing our new backyard Chanin mentioned that she’d like some citrus trees. So, we got a Thornless Mexican Lime and a dwarf Meyer Lemon tree put in our side yard. The lemon tree actually had some fruit on it so we picked one and squeezed if over some grilled salmon.
The lime tree doesn’t have any fruit, and is pretty small, but we’re hoping for some soon. OK, so maybe this isn’t too exciting for most people but we were pretty happy about it!
Thanks to everyone who donated to the Make a Wish Foundation and supported us in the “Walk for Wishes!” We really appreciate the support and we’re proud of ourselves for completing the 5K walk. Over $74,000 was raised this year and that money will go toward granting wishes for kids with life threatening illnesses.
The walk took place on March 8, 2008 at Kiwanis Park in Tempe AZ. The weather was a little cool in the morning but turned out to be really nice. It had been a looooong time since either of us walked that far and we were sore for a few days after. We look forward to doing it again next year!
Here’s a picture of Zack, the little guy who inspired us to get out there and walk:
The beginning of the walk:
View of the park:
Us after completing the walk:
Here’s a short video of our little kitties. Well, they’re actually approaching 2 years old but they still look like little kitties to us. They might look a little shaggy but they’re due for a good bath and brushing soon!
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30eU849o7ck]
We just had our backyard installed and it looks great! We had a general idea but worked with Arizona Unique Landscaping (AUL) to come up with the final design. They gave us some good suggestions and worked closely with us to make sure the final product turned out how we wanted it. Throughout the process we had some issues, mainly with communication, but AUL always responded and did what they could to resolve the problems.
We’re very happy with the new yard and are looking forward to spending more time in it! We’ve had our inaugural marshmallow roast and are now waiting for the pool to warm up so we can spend even more time back there. Our next step will be to buy a new grill and a load of firewood!
According to wikipedia.org fortune cookies were first invented in San Francisco, although Los Angeles claims the cookies were first created there. We don’t care where they were invented but we enjoy reading the “fortunes” which usually contain silly bits of wisdom or a funny phrase. Chanin found the fortune shown below in her cookie after we ate at a Vietnamese restaurant. It’s one of our favorites of all time.
About a month ago my job took me to Albuquerque for a quick trip. When it came time to schedule the next trip Chanin and I decided we’d both go so we could spend some time exploring the city.
Instead of flying out like I normally would when traveling by myself we decided to drive. The drive was really nice and very scenic and gave us the chance to see a lot more of Arizona. Our route took us North to Flagstaff and then directly East all the way to Albuquerque. The total driving time was about 6.5 hours with just a couple of quick stops.
I had to work during the week (Darn!) but we had plenty of time during the weekend to explore the area. First, we visited Old Town Albuquerque which is a historic village with a lot of character and history. We spent our time doing a little shopping and walking around the shops in the area. For lunch we ended up at the Church Street Cafe, which came highly recommended by several people, and is located in a house (Casa de Ruiz) that was built sometime after 1706. The food was excellent and the environment was really cool since Casa de Ruiz is possibly the oldest residence in Albuquerque.
The biggest attraction to Old Town is probably the San Felipe de Neri church which is Albuquerque’s oldest Catholic Parish. It was constructed in 1793 and has been kept up really well. If you’re interested in more of the history of the church you can read about it here. We took a few pictures of the church and also took a peek inside.
After visiting Old Town we planned on taking a ride on the Sandia Peak Tramway but we ran out of time. We attempted to go another day but it was windy and the tram wasn’t operating. Oh well, maybe next time!
The next day we spent some time driving around town and ended up at the Sandia Casino. The casino was pretty nice and is located close to the base of the Sandia Mountain range. We’re not big gamblers so we hit the slots for a little while then ended up taking off before we lost all of our pennies.
There were a few other places we would’ve liked to visit but the weather wasn’t great and we even got a little snow. So, to pass the time we ate! We both love Mexican food so we really enjoyed the New Mexican food. There are a lot of similarities between the two but New Mexican food contains a lot of green chilies and of course they have their own specialty dishes. My favorite dish was probably the Carne Adovada which is pork cooked in red chilie. Here are our impressions from some of the places we ate:
We had a nice time in Albuquerque but next time we’ll need to visit during a nicer time of the year so we can do some more outdoor activities. The food was probably the best part about the trip and we’re going to start trying some of the recipes here at home!
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