Chicago 2011

Last weekend, me and a few girls headed to Chicago for a girls weekend. It was mostly shopping, but here are a few pictures of the rest of the trip.

Our first stop was deep dish pizza at Gino's East!

We walked down to see the silver bean, the giant Marilyn Monroe and the river front, shopping our way down the street.  We also went out to Navy Pier for fireworks.

We started the 2nd day with brunch at Yolk. It's a new favorite for all my stops in Chicago! And Allison came in to play for the day! We did a lot of shopping and headed to the top of the Hancock tower for great views of the city!

Monday we headed to art class, and make a tri-panel project. It was a great 3 day girls weekend!

Pink Martini

We found this new liquor - X Rated - in the Dominican Republic. It's vodka + fruit flavors and quite tasty! It's good straight, or with a little bit of lemonade.  Perfect for the summer, or Oct (Breast Cancer awareness month).

I drink it straight out of the freezer with just a splash of lemonade on top!

NOLA - Drinks

This is a recap of just my favorite bars and drinks we had in NOLA. You can probably guess by the lack of details that these were not the only bars and drinks we had.  Some of these I'm going to re-make with a Melissa twist in the next couple of months, and will post if I make anything worthy of mention.

We started the trip at Pat O'Briens with Cyclones and Hurricane's.

Followed by Voodoo at Bourbon O bar. This was very tasty, and I believe it is Hawaiian Punch with Rum.

We also took at Historic Drinking Tour. We started at Muriel's with a refreshing drink that had cucumber in it, and a champagne something mix.

2nd stop was Hermes, and this is their wine collection. It was a very cool bar, cool restaurant and served a drink made with brandy and citrus.

The 3rd bar I have no idea the name. They served Mint Julep and a Sangria (but made with liquor).

We ended the tour at Bombay Club, a Martini bar.  2nd best Lemon Drop on my list, behind the Hong Kong Mortons.  B is in the center, cousin Mike to the left, tour guide Sandy behind and a gift from Lafayette to the right.

Then we went to Funky Pirate and tried several drinks. The one above is called Shark Attack! I've made this drink before, but they added some bells and whistles (literally).  When you order the Shark Attack, it comes with the grenadine in the plastic shark, they start ringing a life guard bell and blowing a whistle and then pour it into the glass.  Nikki kept the first 3 sharks for kids bath toys, we left countless sharks on the tables.  This was my favorite, but who's surprised by that?

Vodka

Sour

Grenadine

Splash of Soda

Can't leave without Hand Grenades.  So tasty, so deadly.

NOLA - Eats

We just returned from a trip to New Orleans, with B's cousins. The plans for the trip revolved completely around eating and drinking.  This blog is dedicated to the OMG GOOD food of NOLA.

Our flights were early, and first stop is Cafe Du Monde. I can't think of anything more yummy than fried puffy pastry with powdered sugar. I loved Biegnets, as much as I love funnel cakes and sopilla's. Well maybe not as much as sopilla's, but they are up there! This place was always packed, but the lines moved fast, and was perfect for breakfast. In fact, we ate there 3 times!

 We also made our way down to Mothers for po boys.  We ordered 3 and shared between the 4 of us, and they were quite tasty.



 We did fancy places for dinner each night.  The first night we went to Brennan's.  The guys LOVED the steaks.  The onion soup was the best I have ever had. However, my Chicken Lavon tasted like Chicken and Waffles, which made the fine dining experience a little strange since I felt like I was in Waffle House! But yummy - who doesn't like chicken and waffles?

Mr. B's Bistro. Wow. We had trouble getting a reservation and I know why. I'd eat there twice a week if I was a local. 

They are famous for BBQ Shrimp, but they aren't grilled and they don't come in BBQ sauce.  They are cooked in a sauce that is like heaven in a bowl. I even took off my wedding ring for this event, and it is an event.

They come around and give you a bib and extra napkins.  The shrimp were huge, and GOOOOOOD! It was work, but so worth every bite. This will have to be a repeat experience!



Cousins came to visit!

Meet Cato, my cousins full German Shepherd.  That little dog to the back? That's our Kaiser. Kaiser is what we call miniture German Shepherd at the small size of 50lbs (give you any clue at how big Cato is?). Cato came in town with all of my cousins, aunts, uncles & grandparents to celebrate my Gran's 80th Birthday! But I think Kaiser and Cato had the most fun!

Kaiser slept for 2 days after Cato left. He really enjoyed the cousins visit and hopes they come back soon (and so do I)!

Strawberry Slush

 A new favorite summer drink!  The votes are in, and this one is a winner!

2 cans frozen pink lemonade
1 can frozen limeade
1 small box of strawberries, pureed
6 cups of water
3 cups of rum

2 2-L bottles of Sprite or Diet Sprite

Mix top ingredients together in a really big pitcher.  Freeze for 2 days.  Mix 1 part frozen slush with 1 part Sprite and enjoy!

Since the slush will hold in the freezer without going bad, you can treat it like a margarita bucket and eat on it all summer! Probably won't last that long, but you could in theory...

Enjoy!

Flashback to PC, DR

It's been 1 month since we were in Punta Cana, and to have a quick flash back to vacation, I mixed up our favorite drink (or at least as close as I could get).  Pineapple, Coconut, strawberry heaven!

1oz Rum

2oz Pineapple Coconut

1oz Orange Juice

3 Fresh Strawberries

3 Ice Cubes

Put it all in a Magic Bullet, and blend!

Top with squeeze of lime!

Would be good with more ice too, as a true slush.  Or put in the freezer overnight.  Also would be good with a little banana instead of orange.

Mango Mint Mojito's!

I love refreshing drinks! But especially as summer kicks off, and the fruit is so good, I love fresh fruity drinks!

I got a little confused, thought I had a recipe at home for Mango Mint Mojitos!  And alas, I did not. I just started mixing, and I liked where I ended up!

3 oz Mojito Mix (I love Rosa's)

1-2 oz Rum (I just pour)

1-2 oz Mango, fresh, Pureed

Sprig of Fresh Mint, ground

Slice of lime, Squeezed

Shaken on Ice

I didn't add any sugar, but B thought it would be better with sugar.  I let the Mango be the sugar.

Have you ever peeled a Mango?  I saw this technique in a magazine, and thought it was brilliant.  Hold the mango up with a big meat fork, like a lollipop.  Cut slices in it, and peel like a banana!  Then you can cut the meat of it out pretty easy, avoiding the center.  I then put it in my Magic Bullet, and then into the drink.  

More to come!  Enjoy!

Punta Cana 2011

Punta Cana is one of my favorite places to go.  Fresh fruit and lovely landscapes are great but lack of modern life makes it brilliant.  Sure they have internet, but you have to work at it.  Which means you aren't going to have anything to do but sit back, relax, go enjoy the locals, the beautiful water, a tropical drink and fabulous weather! This year we went with our friends Kristen & Kevin.  Here are a few photo's and then the video I put together.  The video is a little long, but I was covering memories for all of us!

Vacation Video



Family Pictures!

As part of the family get together in Dec for my grandparents Golden Anniversary we had family pictures made.

The quotes from Christmas Vacation were rolling, along with a few reenactments.  We may have been laughing too much for the photographer at some points!

My precious grandparents

My family

My cute parents

All the Aggies

The big family picture

The Q cousins - your never quite sure what's going happen next!

The Hogan family

They are so cute together.  Jamie always looks out for Dylan.

Cousins doing Blue Steal.  Look at Dylan's interpretation!

HE IS STILL HOLDING HIS NOSE LIKE THAT!

Oh, good times!

Grandparents 50th Anniversary!

In December 2010, my grandparents celebrated 50 years of marriage!  May we all be so lucky!  The whole family got together for a weekend of, well, family!

My favorite little Christmas tree -  a tradition at Gran's house.

The entire family together - top row: John, B, Susan, Mike, Diane. 2nd row: Dennie, me, Becca, Matt, Brian, Jamie.  Front: Gran, Dylan and Grandad! (more of these to be shared later)

The YUMMY cake! and a video of cutting the cake:

http://youtu.be/4KHKisS5lKM

Complete with Diane screaming "shove it in his face mom!"  haha!

The full set up!

I made Gran hold out her ring for me, and style has circled back, it's a classic!  I just love it!

 Me and Becca

Living with paparazzi again...

One camera wasn't enough for B - so he had 2...

Fun times!

Big Buddha - Oct 2010

Brandy, Cameron and I get in the cable car for the trip over and up. 

We had a glass bottom, and that is a fishing boat under us.  We were still pretty low at this point.

It was beautiful as we climbed higher, and got really nice views of the mountains.

The Big Buddha from where we started walking.

This is abut half way up the stair climb, we took pictures to cover up the much needed break!

He is HUGE!

These crazy tree's were everywhere on this mountain, and I thought they were awesome!

The view back provided a beautiful sunset over the mountains!  A great couple of hours for sure!

This is the final decent down...