Being Wished my First "Happy Mother's Day"

I have been a mother for about five and a half months now. But something about my own mother wishing me Happy Mother's Day was very surreal. And then my grandmother wished me Happy Mother's Day. I've never been a person that is a stickler for big celebrations on the specific day but obviously I was aware that this day was a little extra special because it was my first mother's day. 


I finally realize that it is true what they say: "You can't understand a parents' love until you are a parent yourself." Or something along those lines. This thought has resonated with me ever since I had Eleanor. I have always, always, known my parents love me more than life. Or so they would say. But now that I have my own baby, I can feel it. 


So everyday, I learn a little more about what it is to be a mother.

On my first mother's day I was made to feel very special. First of all, I woke up at 5am to Eleanor making some noise after being asleep for eight hours. Thank you for the Mother's Day gift, my dear!

My husband made me breakfast which we enjoyed at the table as a family.

My grandparents stopped by on their way to a brunch and gave me a nice tomato plant.

We chatted with Ben's family on the computer and wished my mother in law a happy day and they did so for me.

We went for a walk as a family on which Eleanor actually took a nap. Her napping on walks has been hit or miss lately.


We cleaned up and headed over to my parents' for the rest of the afternoon on a beautiful PNW day. About 80 degrees and beautiful. Eleanor got to try out her pool, we all relaxed, ate good food and spent quality time together. It was nice because all day long I never felt rushed to do anything, I let myself relax, let others enjoy Eleanor and ate a huge portion of the yummy salmon, prawns, pasta and fruit salads for dinner. Lately, my appetite is insatiable. 

It really wasn't about the breakfast in bed. Being waited on hand and foot. Getting really nice gifts. Maybe down the road when E is a little older and understands that she is making breakfast for me or knows that she is helping me out but this day was more about celebrating my new role. 

As a mom. And loving every minute of it.

Thank you to my husband, family and of course Baby E for making my first Mother's Day as a mother a memorable one. 

Dream Job

As Ben and I were chatting on Gchat the other day while he was at work, he sent me a link and said, "Dream job." I clicked the link and immediately knew what he was talking about.

I worked in the restaurant industry for almost 7 years. For the most part, I loved it. Obviously, in any job there are ups and downs but I did love all the ups. I love food. Ben loves food. I often, offhandedly, mention things about having a restaurant someday. I managed for the company I worked for, for a little while and while I did like some aspects, I realized that the lifestyle of a restaurant manager was not one that was conducive to being a stay at home mom. My current dream job. However, when we were in Portland last year, we experienced the food carts and sometimes I love that idea. Having a cart in a business district, busily distributing lunch and closing for the day after lunch. I make a pretty mean sandwich. Anyway.

I am about to connect the dots, I promise.

Ben and I often talk about moving to a bigger piece of land, having animals, having a garden and lots of room of our child(ren) to run around on. This isn't very realistic right now but we are hoping it will be someday. It is funny that Ben feels this way because he has always lived within five minutes of a grocery store and that sort of thing but I know he will love being a little more removed from the city.

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Back to the website I was staring at.

Essentially a farm, with cows, goats, chickens, etc. growing an abundance of produce most of which goes into a restaurant on-site. Dream job. How amazing to live your life right on your land doing all the things you love and getting to put it into a business you love as well.

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So I looked at Ben a few days later and said, "Well, what do we do to make that a reality for us?"
He let me know that we are kind of doing it. We have a garden that we add a little bit to every year. We are actually getting our chickens this year that we had thought we were getting last year. Little by little, we are leaning toward a lifestyle we dream of.

We randomly try to think of ways, most of the time we are in jest, to be able to create a business to stay home together or at least work together. The thing with starting our own business, though, is that Ben and I aren't real risk-takers so obviously starting a business requires some risk. If you know us, you are most likely smiling right now because you know exactly what I'm talking about. 


Being in our mid-twenties, we don't have set goals of what we are working toward, career-wise, except for being able to provide for our family for the lifestyle we see fit, being happy, being healthy and not having to work such long hours that we don't get to spend time together as a family. Whether that be sticking with the career Ben is currently working on, or someday, taking a little risk, branching out and trying new things.

It's always fun to dream.

If you know of a way to guarantee success as a farmer, know of a plot of land for us to obtain for cheap or have any insight into any of the above subjects--go ahead and let us know! ;)

Sometimes We do Feel Normal

Ben and I have always liked to cook. And eat. We have always enjoyed a weekend or evening in with some good ingredients and spending time in the kitchen together. We joke around, we laugh, sometimes listen to music and have a glass or wine or beer.

The past two and a half months have proven a little difficult for this activity. With a newborn/infant it is hard to get the timing right, for us to get into the kitchen together. We have kind of developed a strategy of tag-teaming our meals so that one of us is in the kitchen and one may be in the living room entertaining the babe.

We are totally okay with this, obviously, and luckily our kitchen overlooks our living room so we are still hanging out together.

This past Sunday we were home all day and started the morning snuggling in bed, getting some morning chores done and watching a movie. Ben had taken out a fresh pork ham roast and we were trying to decide what to do with it. When I see a roast, I automatically think, stick it in the dutch oven or slow cooker, throw in some veggies and, yay, dinner is done! However, that gets a little boring. And we were both home so we figured we should try to be a little more creative.

Ben searched on the computer and suddenly looked up with a smile and said, "I found it!"

So he prepared the pork how the recipe said and it needed to sit in the fridge for about an hour. We went on about the day and finally I suggested we start preparing. Ben was holding E at the time so I started things but then he brought her in and set her in her Rock and Play chair and they joined in the fun. I opened a bottle of wine, Ben put on music and before we knew it, we were back in our comfort zone and enjoying an evening of cooking, family and fun. E was great for longer than I had expected and she was laughing and talking up a storm with us.

Please don't judge our Sunday lounge attire. ;)

After a bit, she started to get a little tired so I picked her up and danced around a little and she fell asleep. She being the perfect baby she is slept right through us eating so we enjoyed a quiet dinner at the same time and she then woke up right when we were finished. It all timed out perfectly and was a great end to our weekend.

Love when our lil' baby cooperates!

By the way, our dinner was a delicious feast of sweet and sour pork. From scratch. I, in bad blogger form, did not take a picture of our plate before we scarfed it down but you should try this recipe. Super easy and made with all ingredients we had in the house. Love those type of meals!

Nice Lil' Weekend

I got off work on Friday and just had this feeling that I needed some seafood. I headed to Costco and picked up some mussels and prawns. Yum! My mom and I had been wanting to peek in this new thrift store I had seen open up so we stopped in there. They had some interesting things, one that I wanted to get but I walked out and just plain forgot to pick it up. I may run over today and see if it's still there.

I headed home to shower and enjoy the sunshine with an open back door and wait for Hub. He got home a little early, we visited, watched some basketball, caught up on our shows, well one in particular, Top Chef. I was sad to see Antonia leave because I had really grown to like her and thought she had a lot of talent. We can't wait to see Mike and Richard duke it out this week.

We then began our cooking of our feast. Well, just prawns and mussels. We steamed the mussels with white wine, lemon, parsley, garlic and onion. They were delish. Hub made a curry dipping sauce of the prawns and the sauteed  them with garlic, butter and some pineapple. They were also delish.

On Saturday we got up leisurely, I made a breakfast sandwich which I just have to share because it was SO good.

Bagel+egg+bacon+colby jack cheese=love.

I then got to cleaning the house because we were expecting company. Hub headed to Lowe's to pick up a few more things for the chicken coop. Our friends showed up and the guys were out in the garage for a bit while we were inside. We found out some great news in that they are expecting their first child in October. Super excited for them!

We headed out to use a LivingSocial deal for the movies and saw:

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We all agreed that the movie was okay. It was a good cast and I could see how it had the potential to be a good movie but kind of a let-down. We then headed to dinner at Claim Jumper. Hub and I split the Tri-Tip Dip and it was really good. We headed home, relaxed for a bit and our friends headed home.

Sunday we got up leisurely, talked to the Hub's family in Texas and then went about our day. Hub worked on the chicken coop, I relaxed, made a potato salad and then we checked out the new Super Target in our area. I don't know how impressed I am. The grocery area seems really crowded and definitely like it is just shoved in there. I will see how it goes when I actually need to price compare. We had dinner with my brother and parents and then turned in for an early night. It was a nice, relaxing weekend and the highlight--the chicken coop is almost finished!

Have you seen any good movies lately? What do you and yours like to snack on on Friday nights? What are your opinions on Super Targets?

Oregonians for a Weekend

This time of year, Hub is really busy with work. Like, gone from the house for 14+ hours from the house kind of busy. Regularly. Anyway, we try to do extra things to let the other know we are thinking of and missing each other. But, none of it makes up for lost time. This year, I decided we needed a little getaway and sure enough, I came across a Groupon  for a hotel in Portland. Hub and I have seen different things on TV pertaining to Portland and mentioned that we may want to trek down there but hadn't gotten around to it yet. I decided, "Why not," and purchased that Groupon.

I kept hinting to Hub that I had a surprise for him. He hates when I do that. So after what seemed to be a particularly awful day at work for him, I told him he could look at the Groupon. He got really excited and I think he was pretty surprised that I splurged on something kind of big like that.

Hub and I are kind of funny because we really love good food and we don't eat out a lot. We like to think we make good food. However, we love trying restaurants as well. So I did some research and found a few places I thought we could visit. I was determined to have stuff for us to do and see. We had an amazing time and I am so happy that we had this little, two-day getaway. There is nothing like just being "away from it all," with no plans, no agenda but just time to spend with each other.

Hub got home from work Friday night and we were both practically bursting at the seams with excitement. It had been a while since just the two of us had gone anywhere alone together. Probably since our honeymoon, come to think of it. We had a quiet evening and hit the sack pretty early in anticipation of our early morning departure. We left about 6:30am and arrived by about 10am. We navigated our way to a small cafe we had seen the night before on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Thank goodness we saw this because it was delicious! Check out Pine State Biscuits if you're ever in Portland. And yes, the picture on the homepage is what we ate.

After that we headed to the west side of the Willamette River and ventured into the Pearl District. The area had tons of shops, bars and restaurants, antiques, and even food carts! We came across the food carts and of course had to do some sampling. We had a lamb gyro and a Korean Bulgolgi Beef Burrito. Heaven. Both. Delish. As you can see.

Pretty sure I have mentioned multiple times that Hub is from San Antonio. Well, to our dismay, we came across this at one of the food carts:

Hub got to pay a little respect to his favorite team's coach, Greg Popovich. One of his favorite stops in Portland. Go Spurs Go!

We wandered around for a good part of the afternoon and ran into the Rogue Pub.

Right when we walked in the door we were blasted with the scent of the strong ales served there. Luckily we found a couple of stools in the crowded pub and ordered a couple of beers. We looked at their book that explained the ales and talked about ingredients and competitions won and then of course, ordered a couple more beers.

By this time, it was time to go to the hotel to check-in so we did that. We stayed at The Mark Spencer Hotel  and although it is definitely an old hotel, the ease of getting around the Pearl District from it and being right downtown was so nice. It was clean and perfectly suitable for what we needed for our one night in town.

The hotel was having a wine reception when we checked in so we had a glass of wine and relaxed for a little bit. We then decided to Yelp a pizza place after trying to go into Henry's on 12th, which is obviously the "happening" place to be because it was packed. Yelp took us to a small Italian restaurant called Ristorante Roma that actually didn't even have pizza on the menu. However, we had clams as an appetizer and shared a pasta dish and a bottle of wine. The pasta was handmade and delicious and it was all we could do to drag ourselves back to the hotel we were so tired and full. Oh yeah, we had a canoli for dessert also. Hub looked at me during dinner and said, "I'm pretty glad we didn't get into that crowded 'single's' bar and are actually able to sit hear and actually hear each other talk." How cute, is he?

We woke early after having fallen asleep pretty early and went across the street from our hotel to Kenny and Zuke's and had breakfast. I had Challah french toast and Hub had a Lox omlette. We then headed just a block away to:

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Hub and I love to read. And this was a whole city block filled with books! Heaven. Could have wandered forever. Both of us just kept saying, "I can't believe there are so many books."

We then wandered, slowly, back to the hotel while drinking a cup of coffee and headed back to the other side of the river to check out one more restaurant that we saw on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. {We must like Guy. Or just the food he finds.} We found Pok Pok in a weird quaint part of town that was slightly residential but with some businesses. And a homeless man that kept yelling at us about the president trying to stop drinking alcohol and his (the homeless man) doctor putting him on too much pain medication. Slightly weird.

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The menu was sure different than many Asian food menus we have seen, however we were eager to taste. Hub had a version of Phad Se Ew which we love. This was my meal:

Some sausage with spices, a green chili dipping sauce and Thai pork rinds. Kind of weird, but good. Both of us agreed it was good but not life changing. 

We hit the road after this and had a nice drive home. We arrived home and went to my parents' to get our dog. We missed her and she was tired out from her playing time. At this point, the evening began to grow somber with the impending "Monday Morning." We had a great time but as always with a "vacation" coming to close, it is sad to see it end. We would highly recommend Portland, the hotel we stayed at, all of the places we visited above and basically just weekends away with your love. That's what it's all about right?!

Bread Alternative

Hi, my name is:

Flatout Flatbread and I am delicious.

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Seriously, I am loving this stuff. I have made yummy wraps, tacos and filled it with veggies, meat, cottage cheese and beyond. I have had bad luck in the past with whole-wheat tortillas because I always think they taste like cardboard or fall apart. And Hub hates any whole-wheat tortillas I have brought home in the past but he likes the Flatouts! I purchased mine at Costco but it looks like you can buy online at their website and they even have a blog. I first saw these at my in-laws over Christmas and came home and gave them a try. Well, yum. Give them a try, I don't think you be sorry!

**I was in no way compensated for this rave and all opinions expressed are my own.**

A Weekend Behind

So, as I mentioned last weekend, we attended a wedding in Bellingham for some college friends and here are some pics!
Boys:

Girls:

Ben and I with beautiful Bellingham Bay in the background!

And the happy couple! Love having married friends!

What a fab weekend we had!

This past weekend Ben and I had planned to have a date "day" that turned into an amazing date weekend! Simple enough for us is a weekend relaxing at home with some recipe experimenting, snuggling on the couch and watching some True Blood! Saturday morning we woke up leisurely and made a yummy breakfast of eggs benedict and hashbrowns. We then lounged around and in the afternoon headed to a fun grocery store and collected ingredients for Pad See Ew, one of our favorite Thai dishes as well as for Panang Curry and some wine. We cooked, laughed and had a wonderful weekend full of time spent together!

Anniversary Celebration

**Due to some family issues this week, I wasn't able to get blog, but things are looking up.**

I wanted to post some pictures of our anniversary weekend. Even though I had to work all weekend, we managed to fit in some fun time together! We first began on Friday with a hike. We were almost to one of the passes on this beautiful hike.

We got to spend a beautiful day in nature, with each other and Holly. It was wonderful!

I was really craving some spicy food on the drive back from the hike so Ben suggested we get some Indian food at a place that he frequents for lunch. It was DELICIOUS and just what we both wanted! We stuff ourselves silly when we got home and went lights out pretty early due to the fact of being tired from the hike and full from the good food!

Sunday night after work on our actual anniversary day, we went to a Brazilian grill called Ipanema in the city. They have 17 different kinds of meat that they bring to your table on skewers and then shave pieces off onto your plate.
This cooking method roasts the meat of charcoals and wood and seals in the juice and flavor, and let me tell ya, FULL of flavor! They also had a huge cold bar with salads and antipastos and some cold seafood...yum, yum and yum!
Bottom line, Ben and I love to eat and we had some great food and great wine and were together, so basically, it was heaven. We were also surprised by a gift certificate from his parents to help with our dinner. So generous!
The happy couple, one year later:

And the icing on the cake (hehe), when we got home, we opened up our cake from the wedding that my parents had so tightly wrapped and preserved so well for us and it was actually good! We were so surprised and enjoyed some yummy cake!

Sunset over Elliot Bay:

All in All, such a wonderful weekend with my love and I can't wait for many more celebrations for many years to come!