Date Night

Our dear friends --- Kelsey and Mark --- invited Corey, Roxy and I over for dinner last night. It had been awhile since we'd seen the both of them, so it was great to catch up over a yummy homemade dinner of steak, potatoes and corn on the cobb. It even cleared up enough for us to grill and eat outdoors on their amazing patio. Dinner was followed by s'mores cheesecake bars for dessert - it was a new recipe I tried out and one I'll definitely be making again.

We had so much fun and are so lucky to have such great friends in our lives to share stories and laughs with during a fabulous Friday date night.


We look forward to having them over to our place for dinner soon.

Family Filled Weekend

We had a great weekend with my family, who came over to celebrate Father's Day and my grandma's birthday. A great weekend was made even better with the amazing weather we experienced this weekend.

Corey and I whipped up dinner for the crew last night, including Joan, who came over to take part in the festivities as well. Dinner consisted of one of my favorite summertime meals - shish kabobs (chicken, beef and vegetables)! We also noshed on strawberry / spinach / poppyseed salad (similar to this one), Greek orzo salad and carrot cake cupcakes.

This morning, we all headed out to Volterra for breakfast. While we'd been there for dinner in the past, it was our first brunch there and it was fabulous - we'll definitely be going back for breakfast soon. Once we were nice and full, we spent some time out in the sun, strolling through the Ballard Market.

It was great to see the fam, celebrate and enjoy the sun for a few days!

Here are a few photos of our weekend:

The weekend's honorees

The boys

The girls

Roxy was very interested in the presents

Our colorful dinner:

Each of us ladies snagged a beautiful bouquet at the Market, courtesy of my grandma

My bouquet - love it!

Happy 2nd BIrthday, Roxy!

Today is Roxy's 2nd birthday - can you believe it?!

We've had the pleasure of having her in our lives for over a year and a half now and can't imagine what life would be like without her. She truly has such a funny personality and while she can be crazy at times, we love her to pieces.

One of my favorite photos of our crazy little pup doing what she loves most: playing fetch.

While we didn't participate in the Furry 5K this year to celebrate her big day, we did take her to Bark yesterday to pick out a treat and a toy.

Our Bark purchases: a pupcake and a squeaky squirrel (from my parents)

Waiting patiently to devour her birthday treat.

In honor of her birthday, I thought it would be appropriate to share a few of our favorite things about our pup:

Not only does she play hard, she sleeps hard (as proven by the loud snores I keep hearing as I sit her typing this), and guards hard. Ever since the QFC opened across the street, Roxy spends hours watching people and dogs walk by and every so often, will go into barking frenzies over certain passersby. We feel so safe having such a tough dog on hand. :)

Roxy lives for fetch. It's something we play multiple times per day, which all of our baseboards can attest to, given the scuffs and paint form toys all over them.

Roxy also lives for being outside. As soon as she realizes she's about to go outside, she starts leaping around and can barely contain her excitement. The only thing that slows her from sprinting out the door is hard rains...but even that doesn't slow her down for long.

Roxy also lives for treats. Most nights, you'll find her curled up on one of the rugs in the kitchen as we prepare dinner, just hoping for a yummy morsel to fall in front of her. Often times, I "drop" veggies as I'm chopping, which Roxy loves.

Roxy also lives for snuggling. Any time we're sitting on the couch in a position that could possibly allow for enough room for her warm little body, you can bet that within 2 minutes, she'll make herself at home. (If you happen to be eating anything while she's in this particular position, you can bet that her face will be in front of yours within 2 seconds, trying to get some of her own.)

I could go on and on, but I'll spare you.

Happy birthday little Rox! We wish you lots of treats, snuggles, naps, and lots of things to bark at today!

New Recipe - #14

We attempted Giada's Pizza Rustica tonight and it was fabulous! But then again, what's not to like about lots of cheeses, meats, more cheese, and pie crust?!

We were a little worried when we started cooking because it was then that we realized it needed to bake for an hour and cool for two hours and it was already 5:30; however, we only let it cool for about 30 mins and that worked just fine.

After seeing how much it would make, we realized we needed to call in some help to avoid having too many leftovers, so we dialed up our favorite Italian gal Sara up to come help us chow down.

We all agreed that this must be on rotation to be made again.

Jenny's rating: 4-1/2 stars

Corey's rating: 4 stars

Sara's guest rating: 4 stars

Note: The version of this recipe on Food Network includes sausage; however, we used Giada's cookbook version, which did not include sausage but included pepperoni and salami instead. I think it was just fine this way.

Another Great Weekend

Another relaxing, yet productive, weekend has come to a close. It was the perfect mix of relaxation and rest, sunshine, getting things done around the house, and working out.

A few highlights:

• A warm, sunny Seattle day yesterday
• Running the Issaquah Triathlon 5K with Lisa and Jason
• Making two new recipes: Turkey Parmesan Burgers and Giada's Pizza Rustica (more to come on the latter)
• Taking down the baby gates that have adorned our hallway for the past year and a half, making up Roxy's "pen"
• Taking a trip to Bark to pick some things up in honor of Roxy's birthday tomorrow
• Getting some more great photos of Roxy in action

Here are a few photo highlights. More photos of the race can be found here and more photos of Roxy in action can be found here.

Hope you all had a great weekend as well!

Jason finishing the Issaquah Tri 5K in 25:23.

Me finishing in 25:53.

And Lisa PR'ing in 29:05

Dave (one of Jason's friends who also ran with us), Jason, myself, and Lisa post-race.

Baby gate 'before' ...

And baby gate 'after' --- love it!

And a few photos of Roxy playing fetch:

New Recipe - #13

Tonight, Corey made Chicken Parmesan Burgers for dinner and they turned out great. He made a few modifications to the recipe - turkey in place of chicken, added garlic to both the meat patties as well as the crumbs, and fresh oregano to the mean patties.

Note: The recipe makes a TON of burgers - like 10 - so we'll probably cut it in half next time or ensure we have others over. This time though, we have lots of leftovers, which means no cooking tomorrow night - love it!

Jenny's rating: 4 stars
Corey's rating: 4 stars

New Recipe - #12

I have to start by saying that I am so embarrassed that it's been over two months since our last 'New Recipe' post. As you know, one of our New Year's resolutions was to make at least two new recipes per month. While we're still not behind where we should be at this point since we went a little crazy with the new recipes earlier in the year, it still goes to show that we've been lazy (and busy).

Last night we tackled Bacon & Blue Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts and they turned out delicious! We used pancetta in place of the bacon, used boneless skinless chicken breasts (I just cut slits into each, which I stuffed), and added some of a chicken rub we had on hand to each breast before popping them in the oven. Added some rice and some sauteed brussel spouts for a perfect meal. We will definitely be making these again.

Jenny's rating: 4 stars
Corey's rating: 5 stars

Crunch Time

I've heard great things about the Seattle Rock 'n' Roll Marathon and Half Marathon, so back in February, I signed up for the half, which will take place on Saturday, June 26. I thought it would be a great way to get back into running after taking some time off since the Bellingham Bay Marathon. What I wasn't thinking about was our busy spring - including trips to Hawaii, Orlando, Palm Springs, Yakima, and Washington D.C. and a busy work schedule leading up to my Orlando work trip.

That said, I really haven't been getting the training in needed to meet my goal of PR'ing this race. I was originally looking to finish in under 1:50:00 using Hal Higdon's Intermediate Half Marathon Training; however, at this rate, I'll be lucky if I just finish the whole thing!

I'm not going to lie - now that we're back home and I can focus on running, it's been hard getting back into my early morning workout routine. I know that once I'm in a routine, I'll be fine just like during previous trainings, but it's been tough. The saving grace is that I really like the running routes around Ballard - we have access to a great mix of city, neighborhoods, beach, trails, steep hills (that kick my butt but keep me focused), stairs, flat areas and downhills.

Now with less than one month to go, I've gotta kick it into high gear so I started with running 20 miles, spread over the past three days. It may have been a bit ambitious, considering I haven't run more than 11 miles total in the last three weeks, but once the soreness wears off, I'm hoping I'll be ready for 4 weeks of intense training!

In case you're interested, you can track my progress (or lack thereof!), on Daily Mile.

Finishing my first half (Oct. 2004) and the time I was hoping to beat.

Memorial DIY Weekend

When we first moved into our condo, we thought we'd only be here for two or three years tops, before moving into our first house. Given the current economy and housing market, we think we'll be here a bit longer. That said, we've started to look around our place and see things we'd like to do, now knowing that we could be here for a few more years.

The first thing we decided to tackle is to add a backsplash behind our stove. The granite that came with our place only covers about five inches of the wall behind the stove, so when you're cooking, things are always splattering on the wall, which is much harder to clean than a backsplash would be.

After a couple of trips to Home Depot, we decided on glass mosaic tiles in colors similar to those that can be seen within our countertops. We also found a quick kit that would also us to essentially skip the mortar step, making for less mess and allowing us to see results much quicker.

Initially we couldn't decide if we wanted to put the backsplash up around the entire kitchen, but ultimately decided on just putting it behind the stove. Some day, we may put some larger, solid color tiles up, but for now, this was our top priority. Having the pop of color in just the one section worked out perfectly. After seeing the final results, we are glad we didn't continue it all the way around as it would have gotten really busy with all the colors in the tiles and our countertops.

What was involved:

• 3 sheets of glass mosaic tiles
• 1/2 qt. grout
• 8 oz grout sealer
• 1 backsplash adhesive kit
• 1 handy hubby
• 1 supervising watchdog (who was caught sleeping on the job several times)

All-in-all, it only took about 45 mins to an hour to complete. Now that it's all done, and it was so quick and easy to complete, we are really looking forward to our next project!

Take a look and let us know what you think!

Before...

During...

Roxy helping supervise the 'During' stage

After!


Ta da!

A Fabulous Weekend

Not only do we really love weekends, we especially like long, three-day weekends! We've been out of town almost every weekend this past month, so we were excited to have a low key weekend at home planned over Memorial Day.

Even though it was only one extra day, it felt like so much more time to get things done and to relax and enjoy time together. Some of the best parts about our weekend were:

• Dinner with Corey's mom
• Yummy meals at La Isla, Shiku Sushi (our first time!), D 'Ambrosio Gelato (grand opening in Ballard), Fu Shen, and Via Tribunali for our four year anniversary
• Walk with the ladies (Sara, Gina, Kels, and Roxy) at Greenlake just as the sun came out for the first time all weekend
• Sleeping in
• Our first real DIY home improvement project (watch for more details soon!)
• Cleaning and organizing our cluttered house
• Lots of miles logged running (25 between the two of us to be exact)
• Multiple naps (for Roxy and I)
• Lots of fetch (this is more Roxy's highlight than ours)

Here are a few photos of our fabulous weekend:

Sushi and cocktails with Sara

Our yummy pomegranate cocktails at Joan's

Enjoyed lots of attention and more people to play fetch with at Grandma Joan's

Celebrating four years at Via