Ooops!

Roasted Garlic & Herb Kettle Chips

I just ate these chips with my lunch today.  As tasty as they were, I am now regretting that decision as I have a meeting in 30 minutes with my boss who is in town for the day...and there is no way the fire breath I have right now will go away by then.  Why is the will of my stomach always stronger than the will of my brain??

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Today is Mark's mom's birthday and we celebrated with dinner and movie at our house tonight. Mark BBQ'd some chicken and beef kabobs...yum! We watched the Disney animated movie Bolt. (The crazy hamster was everyone's favorite.) Halfway through the movie we were interrupted by fireworks. We all walked out into the street to watch a pretty long fireworks show that must have been coming from Santee Lakes. It was almost as long as the show for 4th of July. What a great birthday present for Ranee!!

P.S. We ended the night with giant cupcakes from Costco (Mark's choice). Hugely delicious!

Bad Dog

Nashville

Here are a few pictures from my recent business trip to Nashville.

Aloft Hotel in Cool Springs, TN

Walking through the plant in Smyrna, TN

(sorry, no top secret pictures)

The plant still uses this mic to make overhead announcements.

It reminds me of the admin office in Grease....'If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter'

Downtown Nashville (nickname: Nash-vegas)

Big Food in Detroit

I've been travelling for work the past 2 weeks. I was in Nashville for a few days last week and now I'm in Detroit until the end of this week. Over the weekend, I went with some coworkers to the Eastern Market in downtown Detroit. Eastern Market is a big farmer's market and garden market. I think the Michaganders (as they are called here) must have been expectionally excited for the nice spring wheather because the market was packed. Everyone was buying flowers and plants to spruce up their yards that were just waking up from winter.


It was fun to walk around the huge market. We stopped for lunch in front of the Motown Cafe. Check out the huge burger I got. It was pretty tasty, but really big.



By the way...the people watching was amazing!

Big Food : Part 2.....

Last night I went to a work dinner at a trendy little restaraunt in Birmingham, MI called Toast. As we were waiting for our food to come to the table someone said, "Just be glad you didn't order the salad." We looked over at the table next to us and a woman was eating a salad out of a huge wooden serving bowl. I replied with, "That's what I ordered!" The Bistro Salad was good, but it was embarassingly huge. HUGE! Sorry I don't have a picture of me eating this gigantic salad to share with you, but it kind of looked like this......

The Big Reveal

You saw the sneak peak. Now, here is the big reveal of the dining table and bench. Tadaaaa!

I am so very proud of Mark's work on this project. He has built every part of this room including the bench and this table.....and walls and floors and ceiling and lights.

Can we eat yet?!

The table top was leftover from when the previous owner rennovated the kitchen. When Mark first saw it he said it would make a great table for that corner. We used automotive fabric from my work for the bench cushion. And the table legs are Grandpa Fender's legs. What? Grandpa Fender is Mark's maternal grandfather and he turned these wooden legs a long time ago for his house in Anaheim. They are perfect for our table and Mark said he really felt a sense of pride and connection to his grandpa as he sanded the legs and attached them.

It is so nice to finally be able to eat dinner at a real table (not the couch or a folding table). I seriously almost cried the day I came home and the table was finished. I quickly made some spaghetti and salad, set the table for two and served up dinner. I'm looking forward to many more meals together at this table through the years. So, when are you coming over for dinner??

Let's eat before I fall asleep