Owen really is amazing when it comes to creating Pokémon and evolutions. Today he was making a birthday card for his friend and wasn’t sure what to draw so we told him to draw some Pokémon. We thought he’d just draw a common Pokémon, but he came up with two new Pokémon, complete with two evolutions each, for a total of six new Pokémon (he did one for the birthday boy and one for his sister, just because). He just blows me away.
I Konmari-ed all the ornaments and stuff and got rid of almost a full bag. If you count the old lights and garland I wasn’t using, it was more than a full bag. If you count the entire tree… Yes, we sold our fake tree. I have never loved it and we’ve been wanting to get a real tree so next Christmas we will get a real tree and then shop for a new tree during the post-Christmas sales.
We just didn’t get around to the bear pics over Christmas so today we were taking the tree down so it was now or never.
Grannie wanted to see some lights while they were here so we went to the county fairgrounds. It was too hard to take pics but it was neat—the lights were all synchronized to a local radio station. The reindeer and tunnel (pictured) were my favorites.
We also went to a personal residence that had an amazing display (also set to music). It gave me some good ideas for when we finally plant roots… 🙂
Yes, these masks might have freaked them out just a bit hiding in their big Santa bags. 😂
Tom and I were up before 7…but the kids weren’t—their phones were still outside their bedroom doors!! Well, if I was up they were going to be up [dammit!] so just as I was about to get Owen up he walked out, and then we had him wake Katie up!
Santa screwed up a little by using the same paper for our gifts, too, and not making sure ours all had name tags… The kids were too excited to see their paper on other gifts that weren’t in their Santa bags so ended up opening a few of ours. Oh well. Maybe next year Santa won’t start wrapping quite so late.
Both kids were excited to see a programmable robot that they’d previously asked for and forgot about… Plus Santa did bring some things they specifically asked for (ballet shoes and Pokémon cards) so they were happy. All gifts were open by 8am. 🙂
We spent the day with Uncle Rob and Aunt Dee at their new house! The kids played with Daisy, played in the snow, Owen shot his new bow (and lost an arrow in the snow!), made snowballs with Aunt Dee, and played games with Aunt Dee while is other three adults might have been napping. 🙂
Margarita buddies!
Santa Daisy
She was a big cuddle bug.
The cousins had so much fun together and we really enjoyed visiting with the adults!!We really need to do this more often!!
The cousins were all having a ball playing together and I thought they’d have a blast playing “WHAT U TALKIN BOUT?” (the game where you try to say phrases while wearing dental mouthpieces—there are many versions of this game). Katie had bought it for Owen for Christmas and we weren’t set to open it for days but I am glad we did…we haven’t laughed so hard in a long time! It was definitely worth the $2.50 sale price at the dollar store.
Maggie spends most of vacation sleeping…either on my lap or a blanket on a chair. (She’s a really good dog and knows to only lay on a blanket on the leather furniture. If the blanket slides off, she will usually lay on it on the floor!)
I brought face paint for Grauntie Marge to give to the kids…she’s much more of an artist then I am!
Katie desperately wanted to go shopping with her teacher tonight for “Shopping with the Educators” at Target. To see just how serious she was, I told her she had to spend her own money—and she agreed instantly. So of course I matched her money and had a ball watching her shop with her teacher and a handful of classmates for the local holiday food drive. She loved shopping, ringing everything up, and loading it on the school bus. 💕 Mrs. Glenn is completely awesome and did an amazing job corralling a large handful of kids into buying what they needed.
End of season savings? END OF SEASON SAVINGS? The season just started?! Also, not one snow scraper to be found. I guess bathing suits will be out next week. #getoffmylawn
My mom gave me hers (which had been a gift to her mom back in the 70s). I’ve always loved it…
I think my friends thought I was crazy asking to bring the turkey carcass home (they aren’t cooks)…but I had to make stock! I am my mother’s daughter!!
😣 Christmas lights were a fail—half the strands were dead.
😣 Realized both Christmas wreaths are too thick for the front door and the storm door won’t shut. (Obviously didn’t care last year?)
😣 Spent all day in the basement looking for the Christmas light projector Tom bought me a few years ago…so we didn’t have to buy new lights…
👎🏼Broke three nails.
👎🏼 Hurt my back.
👎🏼 Had to play peacekeeper with the kids because they couldn’t stop annoying each other.
😣 Never found the projector so started researching a Black Friday deal…then found the projector in one of the very first Christmas boxes.
😣 We have no good place for the tree since we have a new litter box end table where the tree was last year. Tom and I can’t agree what we should do.
😣 Weather was nice so we decided to have a fire…and the wind kicked up so this will be over soon.
Maybe tomorrow will be better. Tonight is looking up already due to this lovely margarita. 💕
And then drink number two. Totally dark at 5:07. I hate this time of year.
We had dinner at a friend’s house (they invited anyone who didn’t have anywhere to go—and that’s us!) and then came home for a family cuddle and movie…complete with fire in the fireplace! 🦃👨👩👧👦🐶🐈📺🔥
End of season savings? END OF SEASON SAVINGS? The season just started?! Also, not one snow scraper to be found. I guess bathing suits will be out next week. #getoffmylawn
So, I didn’t go to the event because we were told multiple times that it was for the military member only. I assume due to space limitations. Except of course Tom got there and there were lots of spouses there. That’s what I get for following the rules…
Katie had to go up and give Tom a flower!
The kids got a surprise second night of trick or treating, thanks to a neighbor who took them to Lake Bluff with their boys. They were thrilled with the free hot dogs and chips at the fire station plus the great candy at the big expensive houses. Owen’s first words were “I want to trick and treat there again!” Sitha, your husband rocks!
🎃👻 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! 👻🎃 If you want crazy lips like this, I can hook you up! Beats wearing a costume all day!! 😂 Ironically I don’t get as many double-takes with the lip color as I used to. I guess black is mainstream now?! 😳 Don’t get me wrong I am not going full Blackberry anytime soon, but I think I kinda pulled it off today. Lie to me if you have to. 😝
This is what I dress up in… Bat leggings. The end.
Look who was walking with the teacher! And her teacher was a ladybug!!
I may have tried a SeneGence cat face… and pretty much failed. I am definitely NOT an artist (this took WAY longer than it should have)…but at least I know it’s not going anywhere. 😂 Also, I’m lame. I don’t even have cat ears.
Katie has known she wanted to be Harley Quinn forever. Owen had no real direction and this is a costume I picked up at the resale shop earlier this week on a whim (I knew he’d love it but didn’t think he’d wear it for Halloween).
The girls wanted to be twins. 💕 I think Katie pulled it off slightly better since she had blonde hair and the hair colors showed up better.
The weather was actually decent and the trees were gorgeous! I had to take a pic of me with one since we don’t have any nice ones in our yard.
Tom ended up carrying the girls’ weapons pretty much from the start.
Friends had come with us, and this is the boys heading home after a successful trip.
The haul!
And sorted…because I like to see what we got the most of… AND because you have to keep the chocolate separate from the candy otherwise it gets nasty.
I have to say at first I thought it was way weird having trick-or-treating on a Saturday afternoon instead of on Halloween night… But I like that it’s in daylight and when it’s over we still have time left to chill and eat candy without having to go straight to bed.
The good thing about this year? Since the weather was nicer, we went farther into the neighborhood and they got more candy! Last year we only hit a few houses and then came home…and then felt guilty so we took them out another night in another city. This year it is one and done!
Surprise! Daddy started a fire after trick or treating! Unfortunately it started sprinkling so the kids didn’t last long… But I did get a cute pic of Katie.
The last farmer’s market of the season had fun kids projects… I was surprised they both wanted to try!
Katie is also really good at hula hooping.
I woke up to this on the table. (Yes, it was my 45th birthday!) It was tempting to eat right then but I refrained.
The view from the back deck did not suck.
Then it was off to start sightseeing. Or first stop was the prison show room (gift shop) why lots of hand made things.
Then it was off to Pemaquid Point, mom’s favorite spot in Maine. It was really quite cool and fun to walk around on the rocks.
All the girls!
Then we went up in the lighthouse.
(That big boulder toward the upper left? That’s the one I climbed on top of in the earlier pic!)
And then as we were headed out we saw some Monarchs in the garden.
Then it was off to find lunch. We ended up at Shaw’s Seafood…where everything sounded good so good so how do you decide?! I actually opted for a scallop roll because I love scallops. It wasn’t what I expected but it was tasty.
These came home with us for dinner.
We also stopped at a family market and had to try some fresh strawberry shortcake! Mmmm.
We stopped at a grocery store to get celebratory birthday drinks and got these new drinks for a birthday flight for us all to share.
Look at this delicious dinner…
Day 2: lobster #2 — fresh mom-made lobster roll
Overall a great birthday…
Katie has been bugging me for a doll stroller for awhile now. I wasn’t going to get her one because she doesn’t need anything else…but then I remembered she had Christmas money from Grauntie Rose and Gruntie Jim. So she and I looked at them on Amazon and two days later, we had a happy little girl.
She walks it all over. Takes it down to Sofia’s. Takes it down to the park (almost a half mile walk!)…
Why not let our month-long anniversary celebration continue with dinner out on our actual anniversary?! We opted to take the kids with us…and they were really good. And we got complimentary Prosecco and truffles!!
So let me backtrack a bit and say that back in July I saw a news article come across my Facebook feed about the most unique margarita in Michigan. Of course I clicked the link…and was happily surprised to see that it was a thimbleberry margarita in a restaurant in Calumet—exactly where we’d be headed later in the summer to pick the kids up after grandparent’s camp. What are the odds?
I tried to figure out when we could stop, hoping it would work on the way through as it would be about an hour from where we were staying (and since we’d only be there two days, we didn’t have much time to be traveling two hours for a margarita…even if I REALLY really wanted to). We planned to be passing through about 9pm which was perfect…except we left later than anticipated plus ran into construction and rush hour traffic so by the time we were driving by it was after midnight and they were long closed. 🙁 And then I kind of forgot about it since we were busy with family.
But then we went on our date night—which was about 20 minutes from the house—and actually put us about halfway to the margarita. Tom suggested we go and I thought about it for a minute, thinking I’d love to but that would mean a 45-minute ride home afterwards and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. And he looked at me and said “REALLY?! Let’s go. We won’t be this close for at least another year.” #vacationbucketlist
I love this man.
So off we went. We walked in to the restaurant and headed to the bar. An older gentleman sitting at the bar welcomed us (which seemed slightly odd, but whatever) so we thanked him then ordered the margarita. It. Was. Delicious. Here’s me enjoying my first one.
I asked who came up with it and the bartender pointed and said “The owner—and she’s right there!” So we started chatting with them. They were a husband and wife (which, had I reread the article, I would have seen their photo) and they were really great and super nice.
So as we were talking, I jokingly asked if they would let me drink from the dispenser (because who hasn’t wanted to do that with a drink or ice cream at some point in their life?!) and the owner said yes! WAIT, WHAT?! I was kidding. But they said it was a first and no one had ever asked! Ha! Free margaritas? I’m totally in. She said I’d have to let them take pictures to post on their Facebook page and I said that was no problem!
So I did it.
My first thought was it’s harder than you’d think to line your mouth up under it—the dispenser shoot is pretty close to the machine itself which doesn’t lend itself well to putting your mouth directly under it. Plus I had to hold my hair out of the way so it didn’t get in the machine, get covered in margarita, or get in the way of the pics being taken. Plus you couldn’t just crank it open full force or you’d choke—and it obviously have you brain freeze! So it was a delicate balance…but I handled myself like a pro. 🙂
Tom, the owner, and the bartender were snapping pics the whole time. Unfortunately noone took a video.
And from the bartender’s view:
It might have been dripping out of my mouth.
What a total riot! I mean seriously. I never would have guessed this is how my night would end. I told her I’m sure people would PAY to do that (I would!) and she joked that maybe that would be her new business model.
I took a pic with the owner and we exchanged pics and I posted them right then and there.
We even joked about me doing it again because we didn’t get a video and she said I could but then it didn’t go any farther. She said she’d let Tom do it if he wanted but he’s not a margarita guy. She then offered him the beer tap of his choice but as Marine Officer he declined. But, she did give me my second margarita on the house! Oh, and we also had a piece of delicious chocolate cake that the owner made!
We will definitely go back there…and I highly recommend the thimbleberry margarita.
Since the kids were away at grandparent’s camp, we decided to take advantage and go to Chicago for some foodie experiences to celebrate our anniversary a bit early. Of course I hadn’t thought far enough ahead about making reservations so the one place I really wanted to go had nothing available until September so we planned on walking in and hoping to eat at the bar (friends had done that so we knew it was possible).
We got there about 10 minutes before they opened and there was a line of about 10 people. By the time they opened there were probably 30 people waiting. We had a reservation and they sat us in the bar area at some reserved tables.
The menu wasn’t what I’d been looking at…I had downloaded the lunch menu, not paying attention that weekends had a brunch menu. (Rookie mistake!) So of course the two dishes I’d previously decided on weren’t available. I did ask if I could still get the dish I really wanted (one of their three ceviches) and he checked and said no. Dang. So it took me quite some time to pick what I wanted.
We started with drinks. Tom had a Chupacabra and of course I had a margarita. I really liked his and I’d order that above my margarita.
CHUPACABRA
Milagro blanco tequila, fresh and roasted vegetables (tomatoes, tomatillos, cucumber, celery, garlic, onion), fresh lime, Worcestershire and chipotle.
TOPOLO MARGARITA
Milagro reposado, Royal Combier, housemade limonada, shaken tableside.
FRONTERA CEVICHE
Hawaiian albacore, tomatoes, olives, cilantro, green chile. Crispy tostaditas.
The ceviche was amazing. It was a tie for my favorite dish of the entire day. I would eat that every day for the rest of my life. And it was one of the three ceviches they had that I didn’t think I’d like because I don’t like olives. But I’d never have known there was olives in it. I’m drooling now just remembering it. The tostadas were amazing—they stayed wonderfully crispy even with all that juicy ceviche on it.
I opted for two starters as my lunch:
GRILL ROASTED ELOTE CORN
Serrano mayo, cilantro, and fresh cheese
I had recently had Mexican corn at a farmers market and it came in a cup. I totally didn’t think this would come on a cob. LOL So it was messy but yummy!
SOPECITOS RANCHEROS
Crispy corn masa “boats,” braised beef shoulder, roasted tomato-serrano sauce, avocado, queso fresco.
Sooooo good. Unbelievably good.
Tom went way outside his box and got a vegetarian dish! I am not a huge mushroom fan so I’d never order it but it was good. (I forgot to get a pic once he unwrapped it and dug in.)
MUSHROOM MIXIOTE
Shiitake, maitake and oyster mushrooms, dark pasilla chile sauce, potatoes, chayote & local greens cooked in a parchment package. Creamy goat cheese, sunflower shoots.
And then dessert. We weren’t going to get any because we knew we had to eat again at 4:30 but…screw it. We both immediately went to this:
DOS, TRES, QUATRO CAKE
Dos candied nuts, tres leches, cuatro chocolates (chocolate-infused tres leches cake, house-ground chocolate ice cream, chocolate cookies, hot fudge), candied almonds & pecans.
We both love tres leches but weren’t huge fans of this. It was okay but we apparently like less fancy versions of this dessert (we joked give us your 9×13 pan instead of this crazy thing).
We had asked friends for recommendations of things to do in the few hours between restaurants and this river tour was highly recommended. It was a quick walk from Frontera so seemed perfect. However, we hadn’t anticipated the hot and humid weather (it was probably 93° with 80% humidity) and we both decided there was NO way we’d enjoy any of it sitting topside in the blazing sun…so we each had a drink in the bar for most of the tour (they had margaritas so it seemed like fate). We will go back again with the kids when it’s cooler.
Because it was on the way back toward the car and Tom needed new cigars.
Because donuts. And it was right on the way.
This bar was named one of The World’s 50 Best Bars so imagine the coincidence that it was ALSO on the way. It was only accessible via the alley—they had tiki torches outside (you can see them behind us).
Then it was down into the dark, cool depths of a basement bar.
The drinks were amazing…but expensive as hell. We only had one each. Tom said he has found his retirement job.
So we got to Girl & The Goat way early. We wasted some time at a nearby coffeehouse since it was still like 90° and humid. At about 4:10 we walked down. The doors were locked but the revolving door was open so I walked in and asked the first employee I saw if it would be okay to sit at the bar until they opened since we’d just driven a long way and it was so hot out. He said he didn’t think legally we could do that and then suggested we sit in the waiting area. Okay, that was fine with me.
But my anxiety started kicking in as more people started lining up outside and then trying to come in (at one point a huge gaggle of like 20 people came in). You could see the manager getting irritated with people wanting to come in and wait but they obviously weren’t open yet. And the people looked at us sitting there like why did we think we were so special. I’m a rule follower at heart so I was torn between going to wait outside with the rest of the herd and keeping my seat (which no one was telling us we had to move…). I really wanted those first seats and we had been there first but I was getting paranoid that something was going to prevent it. Tom said he was ready to make a dash to the seats if need be. I know it’s just food and it would have been okay if we ended up needing to wait a bit, but I was still anxious.
Fast forward to 4:30 and a lady came over to us and asked if we had a reservation and we said no, we wanted to eat at the bar…and she said to go grab seats. Yay! So we were seated before anyone from outside even walked in. Phew!
That’s a goat topiary behind us.
And of course another margarita because why not?
I’d perused the menu ahead of time—as well as all the dishes our friends had ordered—so I had a good idea of what I wanted. I told the bartender that friends had been there and sat at the bar and had an amazing experience and he said he’d try to live up to the expectation!
We had drinks and picked four dishes. This is the order they came out (they serve them in the best order to eat them):
SWEET CORN PIEROGIS
Charred scallion sour cream, sweet corn-tomaro chimichurri
Everything was good, of course, but this was by far our favorite course of the night. The bite of pierogi with the chimichurri was pure delight.
SQUASH BLOSSOM CRAB RANGOON
Almonds, chive yogurt
We love crab Rangoon so had to try these. They were delicious, of course.
DUCK TONGUES
tuna and black bean poke, crispy won tons, piri piri
Just as delicious as our friend mentioned. (It was a toss up between this and the pierogi for the winning dish but the chimichurri pushed the pierogi over the edge.)
Then they surprised us with a dish, compliments of the chef, for our anniversary (we’d been talking about it with the bartender). It took me by total surprise and I forgot to get a pic. I’d never have ordered them but they were DELICIOUS.
SAUTÉED GREEN BEANS
Fish sauce vinaigrette, cashews
And the final course… We debated between a few and I let Tom pick.
GOAT NECK
Perilla marinated heirlooms, pickled grape tomato, green plums, tahini yogurt, wood fired pita
Mmmm. The meat was so tender and flavorful, the marinated tomatoes were perfect, and I’m not a tahini fan but it worked well together.
Before this dish came out we had discussed that we might need to order one more dish. While we’d had three planned dishes and one surprise dish, it really hadn’t been THAT much food. Did we need more? No. But we’d probably never be back so why not. But after the size of the goat neck, we opted to just go with dessert.
CARAMEL CORN & MALT BALLS
Vanilla malt ice cream, popcorn caramel, chocolate magic shell
When they delivered it (with the lit candle) they wished us a Happy Anniversary, as did all the bartenders behind the bar as they walked by! This was a crazy dessert that totally worked on all levels. Each component was delicious but a bite with everything was sublime. I’d order that again in a heartbeat. (They should really also add chocolate ganache squares to the description.)
We were there for almost two hours and we had a great time interacting with the bartender—I can’t imagine sitting at a table. When the bill came, they hadn’t charged us for the dessert, either, so we left him a huge tip. Overall an awesome meal. Just delicious all around. I highly recommend it…
And a last-minute photo as we were leaving!
It was such a great day and I’m so glad we did it…
Tom told me to get dressed and be ready to go by 8:30! I had no idea what was in store…but I could only imagine it would involve more delicious food…somewhere north. I love adventuring with this man!
Sushi for lunch! Yes, please!
Then we walked around the downtown river area of Milwaukee. We might have done a little shopping and exchanged anniversary cards at one store. 🙂
Tom had made plans for dinner, too, but we didn’t spend as much time walking around as he had thought so we just headed home. 🙂