Cooking for Two

I've been doing a lot more cooking over the past few weeks. I've used the stove and oven regularly! Two weeks ago, I went to Half Price Books to look at cookbooks. I came away with three, a book on Asian cooking, a vegetarian cookbook, as well as a Texas cookbook that has a bunch of recipes contributed by various celebrities.

Armed with those plus our other cookbooks, I've tried to plan out weekly meals on Sunday and venture to the store once a week to get the ingredients. Most of the recipes have turned out really well. I've decided to make spinach lasagna my new specialty, it turned out so well, and we ate on it for a few days.

Some of them were not so great, such as when I got a bit happy with the lemon juice on some veggies, or the baked macaroni and cheese. (Next time I'll cook the macaroni before it goes into the oven. The recipe said it could be cooked or uncooked, but it was hard to swallow.)

The best part about cooking is when David joins me! We've made grilled veggies together, and he'll often help in the kitchen. Last night, we made quesadillas together! I sliced the avocados and assembled them, while David was in charge of cooking them on the griddle! They turned out well, and it was a lot of fun working together. We're a great team!

Sadie Hawkins Date and New Furniture

I decided last weekend, since Friday was Sadie Hawkins Day, that I was going to take David out to dinner. We decided on the Spaghetti Warehouse, where we haven't been since our first anniversary. After Friday's yoga class, I quickly changed clothes and off we went to Plano!

They were quite busy, but there were only two of us, so we were seated immediately. I must say, the waiter and the service were great! The sourdough bread was amazing, I had to stop myself from eating any more than I did. I feasted on spaghetti and mushrooms in garlic butter sauce, while David had the lasagna. We got dessert to go, which was tiramisu, always enjoyable! It was definitely an enjoyable night!

On Saturday, we went furniture shopping! We had also been talking about replacing the couch, loveseat and recliner in our living room, and possibly new bedroom furniture. After an enjoyable lunch, we first started out at the La Z Boy store, where we liked a couple of things, but nothing really jumped out at us.

Next, as we were pulling into the parking lot of Rooms to Go/IKEA/a bunch of other furniture stores, David spotted the Leather Sofa Company, and suggested we look in there. I had my misgivings about leather, worried about the effects of dogs/children on them, but after talking with them, I felt much better. So, our new couch and recliner will be arriving in about four weeks! Woo hoo!

After we left there, we looked around Rooms to Go, Ashley furniture, and Anderson furniture company and looked at their bedroom stuff. We found up not finding anything that we loved at any of those places. We did find a dresser for David's side of the bed at IKEA this afternoon, so that's something.

All in all, a productive weekend!

Valentine's Day Recap

Our Valentine's Day this year was great! David surprised me with a cute card and a small box of chocolates in the morning. Then, when he got home that afternoon, we exchanged our gifts! I received the first season of Gilmore Girls, as well as a choice between an Ipod adapter installed in my car, or dinner and a Stars game/show!

For our Valentine's feast, we chose to order take-out from the Olive Garden, which we thought was a smart idea. Unfortunately, the city of Frisco also decided to do that, or so it seemed. David called me from the restaurant to tell me that it was an hour wait just to pick up the food! So much for that idea.

Once he arrived home with the food, we plugged in a movie and ate. Despite the long wait, the food was still warm and really good. All in all, our Valentine's Day was a success!

We Are Popular???

Tonight, David and I had a hot date at Palio's Pizza Cafe. As we were in line to order, I spotted one of the two year-olds from the preschool. She recognized me and announced my name to her table as she gave me a hug. It made me feel good to see her so excited to see me!

At the table next to ours, was a couple that we had previously met, the wife lived across from David's family when he was growing up! They live not too far from us, it was fun to see them again.

While I was saying hi to the two year-old, I looked over and saw a group of women from church! So I had to go visit with them, of course. I went back to our table, and we ate our food. While we were eating, we saw Billy, our pastor, walk in and pick up a pizza. Finally, we saw yet another family from our church come in as well!

I commented to David that we should have Grace Avenue night at Palio's. He replied that this was close to it. I agree! So we had great food and got to visit with lotsa people that we knew. What a great meal!

A Roaring Fire

Last night, after we unpacked our car from the trip to Abilene, I went to the store to get supplies for tonight. After returning home from that zoo, we ate dinner and were trying to decide what movie to watch. As we plugged in the movie, David decided that it was time to try out our new fireplace! He turned the key, lit the fire and ta daa! We had a nice fire in our fireplace.

I had surprised David with a copy of A Muppet's Christmas Carol, which I found at Kroger whilst looking for relish tray items. We chose that as the movie to watch, and curled up on the couch, in front of our roaring fire, to watch the movie. After that one, we watched Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, another Jim Henson classic. It was a very Christmas-y end to a fun weekend!

Date Night!

Friday night, David and I did dinner and a movie! Dinner was at Double Dave's pizza buffet. It had been awhile since we'd eaten there, and I really enjoyed it! We then braved the crowd at the mall to get to the movie theater.

I had chosen the movie Enchanted, we made it just as the previews were starting! We saw some previews that looked promising as well. The movie itself was great! It was Disney making fun of itself. I loved the characters and the storyline was really good. I was also pleased to see Idina Menzel in the film, she originated the role of Elphaba in the musical Wicked. She didn't sing in the movie, though.

It was definitely a Dezi movie, and we left the theatre feeling good. We also ran into our old neighbors, it was neat to see them as well! After the movie, David went to the sporting goods store to get some stuff, while I went to Barnes & Noble. After shopping, we went home. It was a really fun night, and also good to take time just for each other.

Preparing for Christmas!

Our Advent wreath!


Our tree-in-progress!

We have started our Christmas decorating! After our exciting trip to Garden Ridge, we opened up the tree stuff on Saturday! We got the tree set up and moved into the dining room. I put the tree skirt on and we were both very glad that we picked a pre-lit tree!

Mom is making us a wreath for the door, and we are in the process of putting up our outside decorations. I also bought an Advent wreath for our house, and we lit the first candle yesterday. I am excited about bringing that tradition into our family!

I opened up the ornament box this evening and found that all those beautiful ornaments did not come with hooks to put them on the tree. Oh well. I'll pick up a box of paper clips tomorrow. We were able to put up our Luke and Leia ornaments, as well as a couple of ornaments that we already had. We also put up the garlands as well as the star on the top!

I'll have more decoration updates as they come!