labor day

We dropped our house projects for the long weekend to host our dear friends Emily and Dan and Jen and Dave and their baby, Aiden!

They arrived Friday night and we (not-so-promptly, according to Emily) ordered Pasquale’s pizza and wings:

Early risers Hadrian and Aiden hangin’ out the next morning:

After a circuit-training workout (led by Emily!) at the park across the street, we walked to Charlie’s for brunch, then to Fisher Price (headquartered in my NEW hometown!):

Followed by refreshments at Taste!

(Aiden got ahold of my earring…)

Miss Emily posing while we walked FROM OUR HOUSE TO MAIN STREET (how awesome is that?!):

Dinner on Saturday was beef on weck and homemade salad, which we devoured before I got a chance to snap a photo:

I made a cocktail for the girls of cake-flavored vodka and chocolate coconut water, a recommendation from a cousin. It was amazing!

Andrew made a fire in the backyard and we roasted marshmallows:

(In the interest of journalistic integrity, I feel I have to divulge this: the fire department and police may have shown up. Well, there is no ‘may’ about it; they did. Turns out a neighbor called our fire in, but YES, we are allowed to have a fire in our backyard. The authorities wished us well and left almost as soon as they arrived, somewhat puzzled as to why they were called in the first place…)

The spread the next morning:

Homemade bagels and blueberry donuts!

We headed off to Niagara Falls (because what else do you do with visitors who’ve never been?!), then proceeded on to Crystal Beach (also in Canada) against our better judgement. It was a bust, Aiden was hot and fussy–heck! We were ALL hot and fussy–so we scrambled back across the border as fast as possible!

We were welcomed by the familiar sights and smells of Wegmans, where we ordered subs to-go and picked up Bar Bill wings on the way home. After some showers, some grub and puttin’ our feet up, I’d say we all fully recovered from the crowded Falls and beach trip. Emily and I made a second pilgrimage to the caboose (our local ice cream joint), where we waited for what seemed like an eternity while the post-college returnee staff was still learning the ropes…

Our company left this morning after feasting on leftover breakfast and loading up the car. We said an enthusiastic goodbye, knowing it wouldn’t be the last.

Andrew and I wasted no time in getting back to the grind; he worked tirelessly in the laundry room (ready for ceiling lights and drywall!), while I picked up, repotted some plants, did laundry at the Layers’, organized the pantry and prepped for school.

I think I need more sleep…

a breakfast Pioneer Woman would be proud of

Or dinner, rather.

(And yes, I know I shouldn’t end a ‘sentence’ with ‘of,’ but it’s not really a sentence, and it just wouldn’t sound the same any other way.)

ANYWAY….

This is what ‘cooking’ (a.k.a. piling things on top of one another) looks like in my house right now. Can I just say that Pioneer Woman has a dream house AND a re-done ‘lodge’ with a potentially nicer kitchen than her own? Seriously jealous. Not that I ever want two houses to clean. EVER.

So, I decided tonight would be ‘breakfast for dinner’ night since it was supposed to be sometime last week when we had no food in the house (does anyone else revert to pancakes for dinner when you have nothing else??), but it never happened. I’ve been dying to make PW’s Lemon Blueberry Pancakes since they appeared on her blog awhile back, and when they were included in the new cookbook, I put them in the rotation ASAP.

Note the plate of pancakes ON TOP OF the yogurt maker. (I also made bread and hummus today, in addition to yogurt–AND I had a class, AND swimming, and two dog walks, and two loads of laundry, and vacuuming–whoever wonders what I do to fill up my time, well folks, that’s where it goes. Unemployed Holly doesn’t know how employed Holly ever made it.)

I can’t tell you how sick I am of the yellow light in our dining room…. And the tiny kitchen. And the carpet…I’ll stop before I a) bore you, or b) start sounding like a whiny brat. CAN. NOT. WAIT. UNTIL. DREAM. KITCHEN. WITH. NATURAL. LIGHT.

The reason I say P-Dub would be proud is because I also made canadian bacon and eggs with salsa. Well, I eat eggs with salsa, Andrew doesn’t. But since he didn’t even start eating eggs until we went on a backpacking trip in the Boundary Waters a couple years ago, I’ll take it.

I hate to admit it (I really do), but they were a bit anticlimactic. Good, definitely, but not so amazing that I can’t wait to have them again. Andrew said they tasted like a blueberry muffin and that the blueberry flavor overpowered the lemon. I told him he didn’t know what he was talking about since he a) doesn’t even really like muffins (according to him), and b) doesn’t eat blueberry pancakes. EVER. He’s a bit of a purist; plain pancakes, vanilla ice cream, strawberry yogurt, no mayo or mustard… Whatever he is, it’s BORING. (But I love him…)

All in all, they were pretty good and I’m glad I have another serving in the freezer, just waiting for me to drizzle a bit of my ginger maple syrup on them… Because ginger goes so well with both lemons and blueberries!

And, in case you were wondering if we had any more counter space to spare…

Nope, not so much. Dishes done compliments of Andrew, who has become dishwasher extraordinaire. Seriously, he does them in the morning before work as I’m packing up his breakfast and lunch, then he does them immediately after walking in the door after the gym as he dumps his lunch stuff into the sink and I’m in the kitchen making dinner, and then (if I haven’t gotten to them yet), he picks up after we eat where he left off while I was prepping dinner! Whew! WHO IS THIS MAN?

If you like lemon and you like blueberry, make the pancakes. If not, make Foster’s Market’s Panama Pancakes…you won’t regret it!

a series of unfortunate events

It was just that that led me to this at 9 p.m. last night:

Sharing chicken tenders at Tully’s with Andrew.

It all started with good intentions (don’t they all?); I had a Membership and Marketing ‘Team’ (which is what we’re calling ourselves now since it sounds more fun than ‘work group’ or ‘committee,’ which is what we’re all here for, right? Oh, and to open a cooperative grocery store in East Aurora…) meeting at the Panera up in Cheektowaga at 6 p.m.

While I could have gotten a yummy and healthy dinner there, I find it hard to go out to eat when I have perfectly good (and potentially perishable!) food at home (despite my Christmas gift cards–thanks grandma and Mom Layer!), so I ate before I left, intending to get a tea and save some calories for ice cream later.

Anyway, our meeting ran a bit late and after a quick errand in Target, I realized I was STARVING at 8:30. At just that moment, Andrew (who had found himself at the Eastern Hills Mall after his basketball game) called requesting my presence there–he’d been on the hunt for some on-sale golf shoes in his size and found them at the Dick’s there. The only snafu? Our Dick’s gift cards live in my purse. So, off I went, driving even further away from the house and not quite sure of my destination’s exact whereabouts.

To make a very long story short, Andrew decided against the shoes just as I was nearing the mall and we found ourselves rendezvous-ing in a Dairy Queen parking lot, looking for dinner (for him) and dessert (for me). We decided, after much conversation on the phone in separate cars, that we should probably just start driving home and be on the lookout for something along the way.

Well, we didn’t want fast food, nor did we want a traditional sit-down place (it was 9 p.m. after all) and everything else seemed to be hole-in-the-wall pizza joints. Well, I’m not against hole-in-the-wall or pizza, but last night I wanted an establishment that would offer variety, a.k.a something for me to order that wouldn’t break the caloric bank and I’d still enjoy. Thankfully, I had about 400 “saved” calories, so I wasn’t too worried…

ANYWAY… We finally get to Tully’s, which is a sports bar Andrew had heard good things about, and as I was beginning to get to the point of extreme frustration with not finding anywhere and watching the clock tick on the dash, I gave in.

It was packed (the Sabres were playing–they won!) and had what seemed like an upbeat atmosphere, so I was pleasantly surprised. Did I mention I was dressed up in jeans and boots and a cardigan and Andrew had come directly from his game? We made quite a pair, I tell you.

After perusing the menu, we realized their specialty was their “Tully’s Tenders,” and Andrew wanted to try both the buffalo style and the regular with their special honey mustard sauce. To get the half-price deal we had to buy two drinks, so I acquiesced and ordered a Sierra Mist. It arrived in the largest cup I’d ever seen! I mean, really, does anyone need a cup that big with free refills?! (The picture does not do it justice.) All I could see was about 40 calories, making it’s way from her hand to our table. I resolved to enjoy a bit, but not finish the entire thing, and I’m happy to say that I succeeded.

We shared the tenders and fries and I feel like I did pretty well; of the 10 tenders we took 2.5 home and I probably ate 2.5 on my own. It was the fries (not to mention the dreaded blue cheese!) that did me in… I was definitely hungry, but I was just craving the salt!

This picture, while completely horrible, pretty much sums up how I felt by the end: not too full, pseudo-proud of myself for not totally overeating, and very “fat and happy.” In the end, despite the frustration of taking awhile to find a place and being indecisive and not getting home early to get all the things done on my list that I’d planned, it was a great opportunity to spend some quality time with Andrew, away from the distractions of the house.

Tully’s Tenders might not be enough of a draw to get us back there, but I’ll remember how much fun we had on our spontaneous trip.