Last night we decided to eat in. I wanted to try and see if brussel sprouts could be good, because the way Kelly's mom cooks them (boils) makes them very bitter. Up until having them at her parents place I had never had them before, because both my parents hate them. I found a recipe online for roastied brussel sprouts. I cut them in half, tossed them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a slice of garlic on each and then put them in the oven cut side up at 400 for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes I mixed up some parmesan cheese with some minced garlic in a jar (with a little olive oil) and put a little on each and put them back in the oven at 375 for another 8 minutes. They turned out pretty good, although I think they were slightly over cooked. Kelly couldn't believe that brussel sprouts could actually be good, and that was really what I was trying to do. Next time I plan on cooking them at 375 the whole time. They were still a little bitter for me, and I think they didn't get along with my stomach to well.
Kelly's contribution to the meal was sautéing up some garlic and onions and cooking up sliced pieces of chicken breast with that. After it was good and cooked she put in some marinara sauce from Whole Foods Market and toasted up some hoagie rolls we had. We basically had chicken parmesan sandwiches without the chicken being fried, and they were delicious. I'd have a picture but I forgot to take one.
Other then cooking dinner, we stayed in most the night, except for grocery shopping before dinner. Kelly watched the America's Next Top Model marathon that was on VH1 and I vegged around on the computer and installed Office 2007. Then we watched Jeopardy and since we couldn't find anything on TV we ended up watching Nova last night on KCET-HD, it was a really good episode called "The Mummy That Would Be King".
General News
So here we are, 2007... I've decided that it's time to once again start to try and get my fat ass in shape. I'm tired of being on the edge of XXL shirts not fitting, depending on the place I buy them from. My goal for this year is to get down to a 38-40 waist and to be able to wear XL shirts (even if just some of them). My plans on getting to this is eating healthier then I have been. Although I have to say I don't eat all that bad of stuff in the first place. I'm also sticking with my water and unsweetened Ice Tea for most of my drinking, which means only having a soda 1-2 times a week (basically what I did all last year). On top of this I'm going to do something active at least 5 times a week, talking a brisk walk, riding my bike, shooting baskets, hiking, playing softball, anything that gets my heart rate going. Kelly will be helping me along the way with this as I think she wants to get in better shape as well. Now that that the holidays are over and she's not going to be slammed at work, this should be easily achievable.
Today I started out with a brisk 20 minute walk around Chapman University while I was on my lunch for a total of .8 miles. It's not much but it's a start. As long as I can eat lunch while I'm working and it doesn't get to warm I can do a walk for lunch. If it's over 70° F then I'll probably sweat too much then I'd like to while I'm at work.
I've also made it a promise to myself to post more to this my personal website as well as the Kelly and Daniel website. My last plan for the year is to copy what everyone else is doing and try my best to take 2 pictures everyday, one of myself and another of something else from the day. I'm going to tell Kelly about this and I think that will help me in keeping up with my plans.
So good luck to you all in 2007. Hope it's as great as I plan mine to be!
So when I was growing up sometimes when we'd have cereal we would put a couple slices of broken up bacon (or sausage) in with the cereal and milk (has anyone else ever done that?). But this guy goes a little to far for my tastes.
Bacon Cereal
So it's came and went. Christmas is over as quickly as it came. I'm back at work and I'm starting to feel a little under the weather. Hopefully that goes away.
So what did Kelly and I do for over the weekend? Well let's see. On Friday after getting off of work we headed down to one of our favorite Italian restaurants Mama D's. The food was great as always and the service was wonderful. We did some quick grocery shopping and then called it a night. On Saturday I had taken the day off, so I did laundry and waited for Kelly to finish with work. We expected her to be working till really late, but fortunately she finished at 3. So she didn't have as rough day at work as expected. She really wanted to go to See's Candies and get a box of candy with a gift certificate we had. So we went and had pizza at Me-N-Ed's and had a delicious pizza and then headed over to the See's Candies over in Fullerton. Then on Sunday we cleaned up our place a bit (it was messy from all the wrapping of gifts) and my parents came over to exchange gifts with us. They got us some really nice place settings, table cloth, and champagne glasses. We got them a wine bottle chiller, some wine, and also we got my dad "The Best of Match Game" on dvd. Next we all headed over to Kellys mom's place for a nice Christmas Eve dinner. I spent most the night outside talking with the guys about sports and what not. It was a good night. Then came Christmas day! We unfortunately woke up early like we always seem to do on our days off (6 AM). So we opened up our gifts. We both bought each other lots of stuff.
I got Kelly a bunch of clothes and then also got her some makeup, including some eye shadow she really wanted from Bare Escentials called 'Meet the Greens'. I also got her the entire series of Keeping Up Appearances on DVD, her second favorite show of all time. She got me a bunch of great shits that I wore over the long weekend, and also she got us passes to go up to the Griffith Observatory on Sunday! I can't wait for that. I haven't been there since they redid it all, it should be a blast. After that I cooked us breakfast and I then prepared what I was making for my family's Christmas party that we were heading to. Once we were ready, we headed over to Kelly's parents place and opened up for gifts. We got this really nice Irish Blessing tapestry that hangs over your door from Kelly's brothers. Also Peggy (and Tony) (Kelly's parents) got us a a photo album done up with pictures from our wedding, it's beautiful. Lastly I got the board game Heroscape from Peggy, and Kelly's other brother Danny got me a Topo map for my computer and GPS that looks to have some really cool features!
We also had yesterday off! We were able to sleep in, till 7:45 AM. Then we cleaned up and headed out to breakfast at the Filling Station. After that we headed to the Block of Orange to return some things. After we did that were we going to go to the Irvine Spectrum but my parents called to see if we wanted to see a movie. So we headed back to the Block and went and saw 'Night at the Museum' with my parents and my aunt Cheri Lou and Mike. It was a fun movie. Had lots of laugh at loud moments. Only problem was the annoying family next to us that couldn't control their 3 year old. Eventually they ended up leaving after numerous occasions of talking and moving around from seat too seat by their child. I don't mind if parents bring their children to the movies, but the child needs to understand what is expected of them in that type of situation and the parents need to spend more time paying attention to the child instead of playing tonsil hockey if they are out at the movies as a family. Next my parents met us back at our place and we went to the Irvine Spectrum and had an early dinner at the Yardhouse. It was Happy Hour! so we had 1/2 price appetizers for dinner and I had a couple glasses of Pyramid Hefeweizen. Rest the night we just walked around and window shopped.
So that was our Christmas weekend. I'm now back here at work. Already 3 hours of work finished! Yay!
A picture of our first Christmas Tree!
More Pictures
It should be good considering they are 1/2 game up on the Padres and that is who this weekend series is against!
Woof!