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This past Mother’s Day we took a little trip to Idaho to visit with the family. It was really nice to see all of the bros, our sis-in-law Rebecca, niece and nephew, my Mom and Mark, and the grandparents. We spent some time hanging out and Chanin finally got to see a little bit of Idaho.
Unfortunately, shortly after we arrived Chanin developed a really bad toothache! Luckily, we were able to find an emergency dentist and she got a partial root canal done (the rest to finish later). To make a long story short she now has an empty spot where that tooth was, but feels much better now.
Even though Chanin wasn’t feeling great we still had a good time and had a nice BBQ on Mother’s Day. Also, my Mom surprised Chanin with an early birthday party including a birthday cake and some gifts. That made Chanin a happy camper.
Below is a little slideshow of some of the pictures. The funny looking guys are my bros (I’m the handsome one).
And below is a video of one of my bros playing guitar in a coffee shop. We’re proud of the little guy.
This past April yours truly turned the Big Three-Oh. Yep, I’m now 30 years old. Time sure flies. I feel like I was just in college not long ago, but it’s been 8 years since I’ve graduated. On the plus side I don’t really feel any older. Sure, I’ve already had two open heart surgeries, which are usually reserved for those about 35 years older than me, but I’m feeling good. I think I’ve got at least another good 50 birthdays ahead of me.
So, anyway, to celebrate the occasion Chanin threw a birthday bash at our house. We had a good turnout and about 15 out-of-town guests were able to make it as well as our Maricopa friends (our neighbors).
Chanin planned a nice menu of tasty Mexican food.
Menu
- ♦ Pot o’ homemade beans
- ♦ Mexican rice
- ♦ Marinated carne asada for the grill
- ♦ Fresh fruit salad
- ♦ Homemade salsa
- ♦ Homemade pico de gallo
- ♦ Jalapeño poppers (mmmm…bacon wrapped)
- ♦ Birthday Cheescake (courtesy of my Mom and Mark)
- ♦ Margaritas
I kind of slacked off when it came to picture taking duties. Normally, I’m all about taking pictures of food but since it was my party I mostly just relaxed and hung out with everyone. I even took a dip in our pool, which was the first time I’d been in since the water has been way too cold.
The party was a hit and everyone had tons o’ fun. Next year I think I’ll throw Chanin a 30th birthday party so she can just relax and have fun!
Shout Outs
- ♦ Thanks to my lovely wife Chanin for all of the hard work and preparation. All of the food was yumtacular. I just made that word up, I’ll try to never use it again.
- ♦ Thanks to Eric for helping with the grill duties, the meat turned out perfect.
- ♦ Thanks to my mum and Mark for bringing that cheescake from The Cheescake Factory. That was a nice and unexpected treat.
- ♦ Thanks to Ruben and Karen for helping with the party supplies. That was some fancy decoratin’!
- ♦ And thanks to everyone for the birthday gifts and for just making the trip out here! We hope to see all of you again really soon!
I’ve always loved my Grandma’s chile (chee-leh as she says) but usually have to go long periods without it since we don’t all live near each other. I’m actually lucky enough to have two Grandmas who make excellent chile. So, on a recent visit to Grandma Becky’s we brought home a jar and promptly gobbled it up. We figured it was time we tried to make it on our own. After firming up a few details with the Grams we hit the store and bought all of the goodies. Chanin is an excellent cook/chef so she improvised a little to make it her own.
I roasted those bad boys on the grill as the first step.
The house smelled really good after bringing the veggies back inside. I’m not too clear on the rest of the steps but after much blending and seasoning Chanin produced an excellent chile. I know she wants to try a few more things to tweak the recipe but I’m sure it will become a family recipe.
Here are a few pictures from some of our recent grill experiences. These were taken a little while ago but I’ve been slackin’ on the website duties.
First up is our rotisserie chicken. This was actually our second attempt. Both times it turned out really good but next time we think we’re going to brine the bird first. That should give it some more flavor internally. The meat turned out really tender and juicy but just not a ton of flavor, except for the skin.
To accompany the chicken I decided to try grilling some artichokes. I was inspired by the recipe I saw in my new grilling cookbook (Thanks Phil and Angela!). Well, it didn’t work. They looked pretty good but were really rubbery and tough. Actually, I couldn’t even pull a leaf off to eat. Oh well, I may try again but cook them longer and make sure they have enough moisture in them.
Next, we have some beef and veggie kebabs. Chanin made a really good marinade for the meat (london broil) and we added different types of peppers, onions, and pineapple (Thanks Phil and Angela again!). They were “da bomb” as the kids say these days (do they still say that?).
We have some exciting news in our lives to share with our loyal readers (all 3 of you!). You won’t want to miss it!
Click HERE to see what all the buzz is about!
P.S. We’ll still be updating this site and have a lot of things to post, but we’ve been busy! OK, enough with the exclamation marks, but we’re excited.
To go along with our nice new backyard we finally went out and bought a new grill. After a lot of research I had the choice narrowed down to a Weber gas grill or one from Sam’s Club. They both had good reviews but the grill from Sam’s came with more features for the price.
I’ll get a picture of our grill soon but for now here’s a picture from the Sam’s website.
Here are some of the important “deets:”
To “break in” the new grill we bought some T-bone steaks, potatos, zucchini, and squash. I seared those bad boys on the infrared sear burner but wasn’t successful with the grill marks. I’ll have to keep working on that. I also grilled up the veggies to eat on the side. Everything was really good and it make a perfect first meal for our grill.
Since then we’ve cooked fish a few times, chicken, pork, and some more steaks. Everything has turned out pretty darn good and I’m having fun learning how to cook on a gas grill. In the past I’ve only cooked on a charcoal grill but cooking with gas is just so much easier. I’ll still go back to the charcoal for some things but probably not too often. I’ll post more about my grilling adventures as they happen.
OK, just catching up here. So here goes a few posts that we’ve been too busy to write!
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So, we ended up back in Southern California for Easter, partially because I had some customer work to do in San Diego. We figured we would just drive out there so we could spend some time visiting our families and hanging our for a bit.
We celebrated Easter at Chanin’s parent’s house with lots of family and food. Of course, I forgot to take pictures of all of the food but we had ham, potato cheese casserole, yams (with marshmallows), corn, deviled eggs, and lots more! I can’t seem to remember what else we had but I assure you it was a FEAST!
I was charged with making dessert and decided to make carrot cake since it seemed “Eastery.” I love carrot cake and hadn’t made it before so I scoured the ‘net for recipes and found one that looked good on Chowhound. My bro and sis in law suggested cupcakes since they’d be easier to eat so I went with that approach. I must say they turned out really good. I think I outdid myself! Even Chanin said that if she liked carrot cake then she would’ve liked mine!
Here are a few pictures of the cupcakes. I’ll post the recipe further below.
Even though we now live in Arizona we’re still ANAHEIM Angles fans. Yeah, I said Anaheim Angels not Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. That’s just lame. So, anywho, a while ago I was on a plane (reading the airline magazine) and I read about the Cactus League in Arizona. There are 17 major league teams that are a part of the Cactus league and hold their Spring Training in Arizona. We checked out the schedule and bought tickets to the Arizona Diamondbacks versus Angels game. Since we’re Arizonians(?) we figured it would be cool to also see the Dbacks (as we Arizonians call them) play our old “hometown” team.
The stadium is really nice and all of the seats offer great views.
Randy Johnson pitched for the Dbacks and received lots of cheers. That guy is tall!
Figgins on 2nd.
A panoramic shot of the stadium.
The game was good and was tied through the 9th. In the bottom of the 10th inning the Angels got a run and the win.
We had a lot of fun and we’ll definitely go to a game or two next season. Aside from seeing a good game we also got to eat some tasty junk food which included nachos and cotton candy. After all, isn’t the junk food the reason we all REALLY go to baseball games? Or is it the beer? I think it’s the beer because the people in front of, and behind, us must’ve drank a combined total of 15 bud lights.
When we were designing our new backyard Chanin mentioned that she’d like some citrus trees. So, we got a Thornless Mexican Lime and a dwarf Meyer Lemon tree put in our side yard. The lemon tree actually had some fruit on it so we picked one and squeezed if over some grilled salmon.
The lime tree doesn’t have any fruit, and is pretty small, but we’re hoping for some soon. OK, so maybe this isn’t too exciting for most people but we were pretty happy about it!
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