Friday Funday

This last Friday, Russell and I decided to take one full day and make it a celebration day. We dubbed it Friday Funday!

On Thursday night, we camped out in our living room. We dragged all our beddings from our bed and made a comfy little blanket-bed on our living room floor. Instead of waking up to our bedroom surroundings, we woke up to a nice view of our dining table on Friday morning. It's nice to have a change of scenery once in awhile. I didn't have work this week and Russell decided to take Friday off work so that we can spend a three day weekend together.

Our first stop on Friday morning was to grab brunch at one of my favorite breakfast places--the Original House of Pancakes.

I got my usual, the giant German Pancakes:

It's bigger than my head.

Afterwards, we decided to go bowling. Because, you know, who else goes bowling on a Friday workday? It was wonderfully empty except for a birthday party happening. Needless to say, Russell won all of the rounds.

Russell bowling.

Our day didn't end there. Nope. We then went to the movies where we watched The Great Gatsby.

At around 5 pm, we decided to grocery shop for our dinner. We were feeling pretty adventurous so we bought some mussels and shrimp to cook at home. Russell sautéed the shrimp (mmm) and we made baked mussels (yum). It was delicious and luckily, Russell took pictures before we gobbled it all up.

Appetizers:

Shrimp.

Salad. We needed some greens.

Main Course:

Baked mussels.

We also had some garlic bread.

It was a long and fun day. Our celebration weekend is still continuing. While I'm writing this blog, Russell is painting. We were out and about most of Friday so we decided Saturday would be a relaxing day in. We also painted our bookshelf yellow earlier this morning. Pictures soon to come.

Now reasons why we are having a celebration weekend...God has been so good. So many blessings have been pouring in, reminding us not to worry about anything but to pray about everything. God continues to supply all our needs.

This past week, Russell got a new title at his work: Director of Motion Graphics. Woo! Russell is a creative and innovative guy and it's absolutely awesome seeing him use his talents for a job he loves.

As for me, I start a new job on Monday. I'll be a Marketing Coordinator, and I'm excited for the new opportunities I get.  I was able to take a one week vacation in between switching jobs which allowed me to spend quality time with lots of different people.

It's an exciting period in our lives right now. There are just so many things to write about! We are now part of a new church where we get to live our lives with a new community group. The people we have been meeting are so encouraging and lively and...happy. It's the kind of joy that reminds you that God is good.

Alright, time for me to end this lengthy blog post and continue my celebration weekend with Russ.

Palm Springs

Jenny and I took a quick girls trip to Palm Springs. Here are some pics:

There was an art fair which we wandered through. I took a picture of the water fountain sculpture.

There were a lot of Marilyn Monroe stuff so Jenny and I took a picture by a giant Marilyn Monroe statue.

One of the best parts about the trip was eating.

Because I love food, here's the Instagram picture I have of the three course Sunday brunch I had before we left. So yummy.

Kenzo's Grad Party + A Lot of Baking

I spent close to 12 hours baking yesterday. I started off hopeful and excited and told myself I'll even take pictures of my progress.

Here's one picture I took while in Hour 4 of baking.

Baking mini apple pies.

After that it was a bit of craziness. Let's get things straight: I was not planning on baking for 12 hours. I was planning on baking for maybe a good 5 hours then going shopping afterwards. But silly me, I forgot how long it takes to make pies let alone 24 mini pies. And how long it  takes to make everything from scratch...I should have just bought desserts.

List of things I made:

• 24 mini apple pies
• 24 mini cheesecakes (12 w/ graham crust & 12 w/ oreo crust)
• 2 batches of jam-filled cookies
• 2 batches of brownies
• 2 batches of chocolate chip cookies

...And that's it. Now that I look at the list, I wonder what happened during those 12 hours.

However! Look how pretty it all looked in the end:

Lovely Food Dates

I'm not normally a salad person but I found this salad (spinach, strawberries, and almonds covered in a raspberry dressing) so enjoyable.

Russell and I enjoyed dinner Thursday night at "Simply Fondue." We wanted to catch a movie afterwards but the dinner ended up being about 2.5 hours long so we skipped the movie. It was nice to just sit and talk for that long. 

After the salad course, we were served cheese fondue!

I'm not a cheese person either yet this was fun to try. 

Russell and I couldn't finish all the cheese and bread they gave us so I considered hiding some of the veggies and bread in the cheese. After about 30 minutes of letting the cheese just sit there, I think our server realized that we were too stuffed with cheese to go on.

The third course was meat and veggies which they let us grill ourselves. I don't have any pictures of the meat 'cause we were too busy eating. 

Then, the fourth and final course (which I had been looking forward to since we sat down) was a chocolate fondue dessert!

Yummy fruits, brownies, marshmallows, rice krispies, and bread.

We finished our dessert the fastest. We took it easy and slow for the first three courses but as soon as they brought out the chocolate and dippers, we gobbled all of it up.

I wanted to write about this date night since we rarely take the time to just sit back and enjoy our food. We're the couple who goes into the restaurant, eats our food, then leave all within an hour. It was great being able to take breaks between all the courses they gave us and enjoy the night.

And here's a picture of our marshmallows lit on fire!

Food

I made some cheesecake-stuffed strawberries and now they're all gone.

Mini Pies

One of my new baking obsessions: mini pies.

For Christine's bridal shower I did mini apple pies, mini chocolate banana pudding pies, and mini berry (containing strawberries, blueberries, blackberries) pies. I couldn't pick which one I liked more so I ended up doing all three.

[Photo cred to Christine L.]