Mixologist Molly: (is back!!!) Watermelon Mojito
Molly has been missing. The past year has been one of the hardest and most trying times of her life. She got married, her father-in-law passed away shortly after her nuptials and she bought a house with her new hubby. If that wasn’t enough, they decided to completely gut the house and remodel it.
Vietnamese Pork Chops
Don’t tell anyone but I spent a month in Vietnam competing in an International beauty pageant as Miss USA. I was only 20 years old so my dad went with me. We spent time in Singapore as well and I fell in LOVE with Southeast Asia. I ended up going back for my honeymoon to Bali and Thailand. I love the people, the food, culture, country, history – all of it.
Brussels and Bacon
About a year ago we visited some great friends down in Encinitas. They are total foodies so I LOVE eating with them. One night they spoiled us rotten and made these amazing New York Steaks with clarified butter, a delicious fennel salad and brussels with bacon.
General Bistro’s Orange Chicken
I just spent the day with twenty kids under the age of six. We went on a field trip to one of the parks here and I had no less than 1,000 heart attacks. There is this pretty large sized lake within the park that is a beautiful shade of toxic green. The ducks enjoy swimming in it as well as some fish and I was actually surprised none of them had an extra head or wing.
Cajun Beer Battered Avocado Tacos with Corn and Red Pepper Salsa
We are back from our Disney cruise to Vancouver. I swear it took me three days to get rid of my sea legs. We had a great time exploring San Francisco and catching up with old friends, a cold and rainy day in Victoria where we spent time with some peacocks, baby pigs and goats and explored the city and we ended the cruise in Vancouver where we explored Granville Island, toured the city and ate some ridiculously great food and drank some amazing craft beers.
Highlights:
1. Each city we visited boasted that their Chinatown was the largest Chinatown in North America.
2. Buggies and Pixie drank out of a toilet/drinking fountain at the Observatory in San Francisco.
3. Pixie sang “California Here I Come” while standing on the Golden Gate Bridge.
4. The International waters off of California are neither warm nor calm during the month of May.
5. No one puked.
Fancy Pants Mac N Cheese
Pixie’s school is the greatest school on the planet. Seriously, your kid’s school cannot hold a candle to this place. It’s the school you dream about, the school you see in books and think “That does not exist.” But it does. I played the $590 million PowerBall game with the secret hope we would win and next year she could stay at this uber expensive school and not go public. The teachers are the sweetest, most caring downright kick ass teachers ever. The learning programs the school has instilled has made Pixie grow by leaps and bounds.
“Worth the love handle” Cinnamon Rolls
I apologize now for these. There is absolutely no easy way for me to say this. But once you have had these, you may never be the same. You may sleep with a beautiful jar of cinnamon. You may ask for the cinnamon roll air freshener at the car wash. It might even lead you down the dark delicious path of the “cinnamon roll only diet.” It’s all the rage, you know.
Fried Brussel Sprout Leaves with Sea Salt
For the hubby’s birthday, I kidnapped him from work and took him to Chicago for the weekend. We haven’t been to Chicago since I was seven months pregnant with Pixie. You see, one of my best girlfriends lives in the windy city and she’s single. And knows how to have a blast. Essentially, this was a bucket list kind of trip. And since I had almost just kicked said bucket, I knew we had to go!
Carnitas Pizza
What is it with kids dumping every single damn toy out of every bin every single day? I was drowning in barbies, stepping on legos (if you haven’t had the pleasure of stepping on a lego yet, oh just you wait! Your time is coming), being run over by Thomas and the gang of Cars Land and cursing every Disney Princess to have lived.
I took the proactive by the book Mommy approach and created a reward chart for each of my little rugrats.
