Restaurants - Part II

So I tried the chicken finger place and it's good! It's called Raising Canes. The fingers were very chicken-y (not flat and mostly bread like some places) and yummy-moist. The place has their own dipping sauce that is very tastey, too. It can almost be compared to the sauce you dip the Bloomin' Onion in at The Outback. The fries were even good (but what wouldn't be in that sauce). They were the small crinkly-cut kind. Yummy! Also, they had the best "Texas" tea ever! I could only drink half my cup because I was swimming from a sugar high! Overall, it was good and will definitely go back. Jamie, are we still friends if I eat at a place like that?

There are 9 of us in my group at work, so last night we went out for a work dinner. I've never gone to a work dinner before, so I was excited; it turned out to be a lot of fun. It's weird how people are different outside of the actual office...anyway, this is supposed to be about food...we went to a place called the Rainbow Lodge. (Those of you from Shawnee can imagine my concern about eating at a place with "Rainbow" in the name, but all was well.) It's a seafood and game restaurant. I wanted so badly to get some great fish (they had a red snapper special), but had to give in to trying game, so I had the venison:

Baby Spinach Salad -
warm pancetta and balsamic vinaigrette, toasted pine nuts and feta

Grilled Venison Tenderloin -
sliced on smoked gouda orzo with swiss chard and pasilla pepper infused demi

Croissant Bread Pudding -
cinnamon toasted croissants, boubron sauce, vanilla bean ice cream

It was wonderful...beats cow any day! Beforehand we all shared an appetizer of quail breast, crab cakes, shrimp, and wild boar sausage. All was good. I also got to have gouda for the first time. All ate well and all tasted well...and all should've because the ticket was $800! Jamie, I know we can be friends after eating here!

Restaurants

Slowly we're figuring out what this place is known for and what people do for fun. And apparently, one of them is eat (how American, right?). I've been told that you can eat at a different place every day for a whole year and never eat at the same place twice. That's crazy! And, plus, wouldn't you want to go back to some of those places anyway?

Moving on...

We've already discovered some favorite places to eat, avoided some because of price, and think some are just crazy because of the concept (like this one place dedicated entirely to chicken fingers - those must be some really yummy chicken fingers!).

One of our favorites is a place called Chipotle. I think it's considered Mexican food (but if I'm eating it you know it's really not). You can order a "burrito" or a "burrito bol" and tell them what to put in it as you walk down the counter. My favorite combination is a "burrito bol" with rice, seasoned chicken, mild tomato-cilantro salsa, sour cream, shredded cheese, a little dab of guac, and lettuce strips. Not very Mexican at all, is it? Yummy!

Another wonderful place is Fogo de Chao. It's a Brazilian Steakhouse (meat market?) where they come around with skewers full of meat and slice it right off onto your plate. As long as your little card is turned to green, they keep bringing the meat! It's grand, especially for meat lovers (duh). They also have a salad/cold bar that's amazing: fresh salmon, glorious salads, olives, cheeses, and breads, soups, veggies, etc. I rather eat all that stuff instead of the meat!

Last Friday night we ate at Japaneiros. It's a sushi bar and latin grill (what a combo!). We had sushi and it was really good. They were little mini-sushi that don't fill your entire mouth with one bite and they were cooked. Maybe that's cheating; I don't know. I did grab a spoonful of guacamole to add to a bite of sushi (I know it doesn't make sense that they would serve guac with sushi, but still) when Bryan stopped me because it was actually wasabi. Phew, close call! I have learned from watching others, though, that a spoonful of sugar would have cured me (thanks, Steph). The main dish of chimichurri stip-loin was less interesting. I didn't think I knew what Latin food tasted like, but after one bite, I knew. I'll probably try something else next time.

And there's no Braum's here! All the ice cream is like $10 and there's no ice cream drive-through. It would melt if you got it in the drive-though, anyway, but still. We only have the fancy stuff like Maggie-Moo's, Cold Stone, and Marble Slab. All very good, but we miss Braum's.

Check here to see all the different types of restaurants here.

There are so many different types of people living here and the food choices reflect that. Maybe we'll try the chicken fingers this Friday. Just kidding, but at some point I'm going to have to try them.

El Fin del Casa

Things are finally calming down. Not that we had a whole lot going on, but when you're doing your daily stuff and trying to remodel your house things get a little busy and even more things get ignored. We decided this weekend that we are done with the house. Are we satisfied and does it look just like we want it to? No, but that would take forever! So, we got smart, or lazy...whatever, and decided that we need to be done. And really, it's been a lot of fun, but there hasn't been a whole lot of resting going on. I have some more pictures I can post of the last few things we did. I'll try to remember and get them posted soon.

All this said, this weekend was so relaxing! We did nothing...except watch movies. Three in total: Bourne Ultimatim (must see!), Fracture (sure, why not?), and The Sentinel. Two of which I recommend; I didn't care for The Sentinel (nothing compared to Bourne!). We also signed-up for Blockbuster Total Access, so it looks like we'll continue to do a lot of movie watching (and catching up on TV shows)!

To wrap everything up, I hope to make a scrapbook of the remodeling process. It adds an extra punch to everything we've done when you see the before pictures with the after pictures.

Now I can focus on September since I have a concert, a huge birthday celebration where I'm hosting 8 for four days, a week-long orientation at work, my parents coming to visit, and my first business trip where I get to go to Nashville!

Cheesecake Factory

My bad for only having 4 pictures. That's why I titled this post "Cheesecake Factory" instead of "Weekend in Dallas," because I can only document that we went out to eat. Boo. I don't have the mall, us shopping, Central Market, or Anthropologie! Is this what Jamie feels like all the time? HA!

Here's us looking all touristy. No sunglasses next time!

Ummm...I don't really remember what's going on here.

"What? Do I have something on my nose?"

"Help me!"

Anyway...thanks for a great weekend girls! It means a lot to me that y'all drove to meet me (and so early in the morning)! Love you!

Am I off the hook now?

Grayson

All the babies are getting so big! See more Grayson at Leslie's site.

Living Room / Dining Room

Did you find Bryan?

R.I.P Jeep

Shrine O'The-6-Of-Us

Can you see it? The 3 pictures in the same frame? Is it too small?

New Front Door

Okay, okay...I hear you guys!

Here's some pictures of the hard work Bryan put in to install a new door (and frame - none of this pull it off the hinges and put on a new one crap). It was quite the adventure and he did a wonderful job! It took almost a whole day, but remember...this was all new to him. He did great!

He started before I got up, so there's no picture of the door beforehand, except for it laying in the yard. It's cute, huh?

"Ta-da!" Of course, now it has a door handle in it which makes it look a lot nicer. We still need to install the peep-hole. Jamie, does that trim remind you of anything?

You know, when I'm taking pictures of these things I think I get every angle and every shot, but it never fails that I always end up forgetting something. I didn't take a picture of the finished product outside. Silly me! Y'all will just have to imagine.

I really wish that I had taken a picture when we had just a huge hole in the front of our house and it started to rain! Luckily, it was just one of those crazy "coastal showers" that we see almost every afternoon and didn't get our house all wet.

I've got more pictures, but can't show them all at once (I've got to space these things out a little, you know). Stay tuned for how nice painting the cabinets in the kitchen turned out.

We're All Moved

We're in our new house and working on it like crazy. We got here 2 weeks ago and didn't waste any time getting things fixed, changed, arranged, thrown away, and donated. We've been through paint, blinds, light fixtures, a garage door, a front door, an electrician, an attic ventilation system, rugs, a fan, etc. I don't know what we would have done if we didn't have this whole month off. It's been nice to have this time, but we really are working ourselves to death. Hopefully the madness will stop soon!

Thank you to everyone who helped with the move. We couldn't have done it so smoothly without all the help we had.

I hope to send out change of address cards to all of you soon. Be looking for them in the mail!

We miss you all and love you!

Graduation

We had quite the weekend! There was a graduation party on Thursday, a wedding on Friday, Bryan's graduation on Saturday, a party with our Flock on Sunday, and finally our last night out with our best friends on Monday night (last night). Phew! Here's some pictures of graduation and our lunch afterwards:

Crabtown

Jamie's the next ANTM.

Dining Room

Before:

After:

Our First House

This is our new house! We closed on it this past Friday and didn't waste any time cleaning, painting, and making some repairs. We painted the living room, the dining room, the hallway, the utility room and the kitchen. Then the men worked on some of the stuff in the bathrooms - we have some toilet issues. And we also had time to change out some of the light fixtures and put up blinds! Thank you so much, Mom and Jerry, for coming to help!

Birthday Wishes

More Grayson

Since I have no children, I feel the need to exploit the first great-grandchild. Again, for more Grayson, hit Leslie's site.

Moving

We're moving! After 4 years of hard work and hoping to become a radiologist, Bryan landed a residency! We're super excited! He'll graduate in a few weeks and we'll be leaving the next week to start fresh in a new city in a new state.

...if you want to know where we're going, you've got to email me...

Grayson & Mom

Grayson and his great grandmother (my grandmother - we call her Mom). Leslie has more pictures on her site.

I hope it's okay that I'm stealing pictures, Leslie.

Baby News

Congratulations to David and Rachel on the birth of their 3rd little one:

Adam David
March 11th, 2007
8 lbs. 7 oz., 20 inches

Hopefully we'll see pictures soon! (hint, hint, Rachel)

30 Things

Inspired by Stephanie, in no particular order, and subject to change...

30 Things Before I'm 30:
1.) get married
2.) become a mom
3.) reach "runner" status
4.) buy a house
5.) parasail
6.) snorkel
7.) buy a new car
8.) organize my college pictures
9.) crochet something brilliant
10.) have a garden
11.) sew
12.) fall in love
13.) have a "first job"
14.) get a dog
15.) dust (HA!)
16.) cook like Jamie
17.) run a 10K
18.) visit many beaches
19.) go back to Jamaica
20.) live on my own
21.) backpack Europe
22.) bike
23.) graduate college
24.) run a half marathon
25.) maybe a duathlon (hmmm...don't know yet)
26.) move out from parents' house
27.) retire
28.) volunteer
29.) find my niche (yes, it's vague...I like it like that)
30.) run a marathon