Category: Random

4th of July Weekend Things

Lauren7 Comments

The top 5 moments of the 4th of July weekend, in order of importance:

#5 Mini Sopapilla Pancakes.

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After a much-too-long hiatus, Pancake Sunday is back.  For this one week at least.  I dished up some of these pancakes for Joey and I after finally getting out of bed and limping to the kitchen (see below…) and they were A) ADORABLE and B) DELICIOUS.  They truly tasted like sopapillas, which makes this sopapilla-loving girl pretty happy.

#4 Putting Joey’s house up for sale!

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We spent all day Friday and Saturday at Joey’s house, fixing holes, touching up paint, fixing counter tops and pulling weeds so it would be ready to put on the market.  Don’t misunderstand me, the actual work that went into doing all this was horrible.  I am so not cut out for yard work.  My hamstrings are so sore from bending over to pull weeds that I basically can’t walk today.  Is that normal?!  What I am happy about however is that selling Joey’s house means buying one of our own together! 🙂 🙂

#3 The actual 4th of July.

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Joey and I put in extra hours on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday just so we could sneak out early on Thursday and enjoy a fun holiday dinner before heading to the Rockies game for baseball and fireworks.  Little did we know so many restaurants would be closed that day!  Eventually, we found an open restaurant — Highland Tap & Burger — that we’d actually been talking about wanting to go to for a few months.  I ordered the Great Divide Colette and was in love.  Also, BEST ONION RINGS OF MY LIFE.

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Plus, a Rockies win and a great fireworks show.  Serious question though.  Why do songs about America have to be so cheesy?

#2 Starting birthday celebrations a couple days early.

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My birthday isn’t technically until Tuesday, but why not stretch the celebration out as long as possible, right?  My family went to Vine Street Pub for an early dinner last night to celebrate.  There was good food, beer, laughs and perfect outdoor patio dining weather.  Say whatever you want, people with spring, fall or winter birthdays, but summer birthdays are where it’s at.

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Afterwards, ice cream at Little Man’s of course.  This picture right here is proof that ice cream trumps froyo.  Have you ever seen a line like this outside a froyo place?  Also, my dear sweet mother picked out a shiny red Kitchen Aid mixer for me.  I could not be more excited about it.  I hope Joey doesn’t mind cake, muffins and bread for dinner every night for a while.

Psst, you know something really exciting is coming if my birthday comes in second place!

#1 An engagement!!!

Not mine…sorry 😛 My best friend, Hannah’s!  Josh proposed to her while they were on a trip to Steamboat this weekend and I was beyond shocked.  I mean they’ve been together for 8 years so I had a pretty good idea they’d be getting married I just had NO idea it’d be now!  I am elated for them 🙂  The four of us grabbed some celebratory drinks on Saturday night, where they asked us both to be part of the wedding party.  Guess who grabbed that Maid of Honor title?  This girl!

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In true Lauren fashion, one of my first questions was “When do we get to do the cake tasting??”

Yeah, I guess you could say it was a pretty good weekend 🙂

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How was your 4th of July?  What’d you do?

Have you ever been part of a wedding party?

When is your birthday?  And is that “coincidentally” also your favorite month?

My First Cookbook

Lauren4 Comments

Monday was a low point for Cold #3.  I could’ve sworn I was feeling better on Sunday, only to spend an hour straight coughing like there was no tomorrow once I got into bed.  I got out of bed on Monday morning long enough to brush my teeth then returned to bed, saying “I just can’t.”  I ended up going to the doctor later on — and she prescribed me some codeinerrific cough medicine that isn’t doing a thing! —  and then spent the rest of the day in bed with a book.

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A cookbook to be more precise.  It all started the other night when Joey and I were cooking with Herbs de Provence and I reminded him that that exact jar had been our first dry herb purchase, probably, oh 5 years ago.  My mom had just given me this Rachael Ray cookbook.  Joey and I picked a recipe a week.  It was our very first foray into cooking.

Five years ago, I remember thinking each and every one of these recipes seemed to have an ingredient list a mile long, containing things I’d never heard of — I probably called my mom every time I went to the grocery store…I only call every other time nowadays 😛 — and that all seemed “too expensive!” for my college student working 15-hours-a-week budget.  So we spent “a lot of money,” burnt numerous pans and took far longer than 30 minutes on every meal, and that cookbook has been gathering dust on our shelf ever since.

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After coming across that jar of Herbs de Provence, I thought it would be fun to give it another look-through.  You know, just to see if it looked as confusing and ingredient-heavy as it did 5 years ago.  Guess what?  It didn’t.  Shocker.  Turns out, 5 years later, our pantry has grown, and {I’d like to think} our culinary knowledge has grown too.  I spent most of the afternoon drooling bookmarking recipe after recipe, remembering only the fun times we had cooking from this book and feeling really inspired to give Rachael another chance.

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Maybe we should try cooking every single recipe for the entire year!  Then I could write a blog about it!  And then it could get turned into a movie, starring Amy Adams!  Now why does that sound so familiar?