Romantic getaway

How do you show your little senorita that you love her? Take her for an overnight trip to the Roseville Galleria! Completely on his own, the Canadian dreamed up a romantic getaway for the two of us whereby he whisked me off to the Galleria Friday, after work, for an all evening shopping extravaganza complete with dinner at our favorite Galleria eatery, the Yard House (actually in The Fountains across the street).

A Belgium beer sampler for the boy and a Malibu and pineapple juice for me.

Instead of full entrees we shared a couple of appetizers. We got chicken nachos, kung pao calamari, and two street tacos for the boy (pork and swordfish). Mmmm...naaaaachos.

Oh, and don't forget dessert - a macadamia nut cheesecake and salted caramel butterscotch pudding. Seriously, we should have brought our stretchy pants.

After hours of shopping we drove down the street to a Best Western where we could rest up for more shopping adventures in the morning.

Two Queen beds? Of course! This is supposed to be a relaxing getaway, is it not?

I did pretty good, scored some dresses, skirts, shirts, and makeup.

And somehow managed to pass up this gem;

What better way to spend a triple-digit weekend than in a nice, cool, air conditioned super mall?

Buy Local

For the first time in many years, I finally went to the Town's Thursday night Buy Local/Party in the Park event at the community park. Since I'm now in charge of park rentals I was actually curious this year to see what the event, which took weeks on my end to permit, was actually all about. I met my friend Kari there where we scored some first glass polish dogs from the Clampers, known as Clamper Dogs.

We settled in on the grassy knoll and listened to some local bands singing bad cover songs while melting in the late afternoon sun.

A couple of songs sets and an Italian Ice later, I was ready to roll home. But not without scoring a beautiful bouquet of gladiolus for only $5 from one of the flower vendors.

 I've already got my to-do list together for my next time there - $2.00 nachos and a piping hot fresh bag of kettle corn.

Saturday excursions

Since I decided to spend my Friday off farting around downtown Chico, I had to get up early this morning and tackle my grocery shopping. Seeing as how I was already out and about at such an early hour I decided to stop at the farmer's market on my way to CholoMaxx. I scored on some lemon cucumbers for the boy and a couple of gluten free baked goodies for myself. As I was leaving downtown, I remembered an article I read in the News & Review yesterday about the Natural Foods store and the gluten free sandwiches and salads they make so I swung by there too and was so surprised to find such an extensive inventory of gluten free items. And better prices than S&S! I brought home a gluten free basil egg salad sandwich and some potato salad (with lemon vinaigrette instead of mayo) for lunch.

Good, but if given a choice, I'd choose a salmon salad from T-Bar instead. As a treat for later though, I also bought a container of Chico Chai rice pudding made with local Lundberg rice. I already snuck a bite and it was delicious!

After lunch the Canadian and I rolled over to the movie theater and took in a showing of This is the End, the Seth Rogen apocalypse movie.

It's been out for a while so we obviously weren't battling the crowds for a seat. Unfortunately, because of all the surprisingly positive reviews, we were expecting the movie to be funnier. It had it's moments, but I definitely laughed more when I watched Borat. And the worst part was that they played Backstreet Boys "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" at the end of the movie and now that's all we've been singing all afternoon. Curses!!!

Everybody, yeah
Rock your body, yeah
Everybody, yeah
Rock your body right
Backstreet's back, alright

There, now you can suffer in our misery, too.

T

Late night party animals

Last night we, with our neighbors in tow, went up to Magalia and met up with two other home brew club couples for an evening of dinner and drinks. Since I was the most versed in the layout of Magalia, and I don't drink beer, I was the designated driver. But being the DD didn't mean I couldn't have the most ridiculously tasty malt beverage, with only 3.2% alcohol, right when I arrived;

That'd be a Seagram's 'Jamaican Me Happy' wine cooler. And it really did Jamaica me happy.

Chris and I brought deviled eggs, made with ranch, bacon, and cheese, and spinach dip with a sliced sourdough baguette for appetizers. After everybody loaded up with some snacks we headed out to the back yard where our hosts, Nena (yes, it's an 'e' instead of an 'i') and David, had set up a little seating area around their fire pit table.

The beer samples flowed for a couple of hours before we took a break for a bbq dinner. Nena bbq'd up some chicken, bratwursts, pineapple and veggies to go with a corn and bean salad, fruit salad, and warm alfredo pasta. Good stuff, Maynard.

As the sun went down, we cleared off our little table and David lit the propane gas fire for our basking enjoyment.

Must..get...one..of....these. Seriously. They said it came with some little red 'lava' rocks, but they changed them out for glass rocks from the $1 store. Now we just need to make some friends so that we have someone to enjoy it with! Seven hours later I hauled a group of drunk beer enthusiasts home, barely making it to bed before midnight. Was I able to wake up in time for church this morning? Yeah....not so much. Was the boy feeling the effects of a late night of 'partying'? Apparently a late night full of rich foods and strong beers do not treat him kindly in the morning.  We'd better just stick with daytime tea parties in the future.

Treat week

I had a busy social schedule this week with bunko, a birthday party, and a dinner date. On Wednesday, instead of our usual bible study, we all went to Wine Time (with some extra co-workers too) to celebrate two birthdays.

So much fun hanging out with the ladies. Even more fun after a couple of bottles of wine! While there the Canadian texted me to let me know my new necklace had arrived in the mail.

It really brings out his eyes, no?

The Canadian and I also also took a night off from kitchen duty and went out to dinner where we had the most delicious dessert of fried tempura banana slices topped with peanut butter and chocolate and served with ice cream.

How did we live this long without this majesticness in our lives?

In other news, I got to spend some time out in the field this week. In my old position in wastewater I got to go out into the field all the time. I went on inspections and soils tests, but I only do cursory property drive-by's now in my newer planning position. We have a big, low-income, housing complex going in town and the building official asked me to come out with him for a couple of hours on Thursday to help test the fire alarms. But, by 'help test', he meant me standing in an alarm panel closet for 1 1/2 hrs while confirming that each of the three alarms on the 12 different apartment buildings signaled correctly.

Nothing glamorous, but it was nice getting out of the office after having to cover the building dept counter for two days while somebody was out on vacation.

Unfortunately it's my week to work Friday so I've got one more morning of government drudgery awaiting me this week before I jump head first into the weekend where we've got a dinner date up in Magalia with two other couples from beer club. Should be fun!

Cooling off

This weekend has been hellacious with temperatures pushing 110 degrees. It was 105 at our house on Friday and 108 on Saturday. The airport, where the official temps are taken, was even higher. We haven't left our house in days. I've been waking up at 7:00 am so that I can walk our usual evening route while temps are only 75 degrees. Blech. When we went to bed last night at 10:30 pm, it had finally "cooled off" to 91 degrees. We know Chico gets hot in the summer, but this is a little early. Thankfully today hasn't gone above 88 degrees and tomorrow is supposed to be low 80s with a chance of thunderstorms. You know who I really feel bad for? The Relay for Life teams who were over at PV High School all day yesterday doing their thing. That's dedication!

In the meantime, in an effort to stay cool, we've been sipping on these little treats;

I got the recipe off of the Lucero Olive Oil blog which is mix of lemonade, lime juice, coconut rum (Malibu), Lucero pineapple balsamic vinegar (Mum bought this for me last time we were out there), and a bunch of ice all blended together into a slushy glass of deliciousness. Sooooo good.

We've also wandered off to Barnes & Noble a couple of times to mooch off of their air conditioning and I've done some more Prague/Germany research for our trip. What I've basically discovered is that we're going to see some pretty awesome sh*t. Besides travel books, we've also been keeping our eyes peeled for new luggage. Our current set was a wedding gift and it's getting pretty tattered from years of travel. Plus, they're not very big pieces. What we really need are a pair of 27-29" monsters to pack all my shoes in. Seriously.

And finally, under the heading of "miscellaneous", I thought you'd all enjoy this postcard I got from a recently retired co-worker (Mum - the one who taught the bread class) while she was in Italy for 3 weeks;

And you're welcome.....