Thursday, November 8, 2012

Busy Weekend

This weekend was Travis' four day weekend and I took Friday off. We decided to make it a busy weekend with a trip to Chicago, painting, house work, and a birthday party.

Travis and I had originally planned to go to our first Blackhawks' game to celebrate five years together. Unfortunately, the NHL is on a lockout and our game got cancelled. Travis heard about a charity game involving a lot of the Stanley Cup Blackhawks' players in Chicago. So we got tickets and headed to Chicago on Friday. At least this time Travis is prepared for the tolls. He was not, however, prepared for the accidents. Smooth sailing until we reached Chicago. Then we hit stop and go traffic due to an accident. Illinois drivers are idiots and are reckless. Travis asking me what to do didn't help and without a map I could not make an alternation route. Needless to say it got tense in the car.


The wind farm always amazes me.

Not only can we walk to the arena from our hotel, but several of the players (we think) are staying at the hotel. Five of them where sitting playing cards in the lobby while we waited for the shuttle to the train. Finally get the the train and find out Travis has never ridden the L. Get downtown and my complete inability to tell direction gets us lost. Second time trying to get to the Blackhawks store, second fail. It was a long ride back to the hotel.

We made it back with enough time to grab the tickets and walk to the game. Once again I am reminded why we hate people. Guy to the left takes up half my seat and guy to the right won't stop complaining. The kids in front of us stood most of the time. It was fun though. The crowd was really excited to see the players. Blackhawks gear as far as the eye can see. Not to mention very crowded for a game they put together two weeks ago. The players looked like they had a lot of fun too. We saw a coach and player fight and a goalie score on a penalty. Plus a shoot out. Eleven thousand fans showed up and $325,500 was raised for the Ronald McDonald's House.


Pretty good seats I think.

I do want to take a moment and give kudos to the Residance hotel. The rooms were really nice. The room was warm when we got there. The rooms there are suites with a fridge and a kitchenette. The shelves were stocked with nice dishes and there was a dishwasher. We could even leave a grocery list at the front desk. The free breakfast in the morning included hot food. The price was really good. We plan on staying there in the future.

On the way home we took a little different way and we were able to avoid all the toll roads. As soon as we hit the Indiana line Travis attempted to get the Ball State game on 104.1. Unfortunately for him, good for me, 104.0 in northern Indiana is a country station. We could hear the game under the music so Travis kept trying to move his body to get the game to come through clearer. He kept telling me not to move every time we got the game to come through clearly. Then within thirty seconds the music would win. This went on for miles and gave me a good laugh.

So get home Saturday and while Travis finishes watching the game, I start to tape the bathroom.  Two and a half hours later I am done and have to help Travis finish the bedroom. Then we pull out the paint stuff. Apparently we should have looked before I got paint. So Menards run number one for a paint tray and roller. Three hours later coat one was on and everything was cleaned up. All that was left was to order dinner.




Sunday involved paint touch up, changing the deadbolt, and attempting to move the new treadmill upstairs. The bathroom got finished, the bedroom will need more touch up, the deadbolt got changed, and the treadmill got as far as the kitchen. I think it's funny that Travis thought I could lift it up the stairs. We did take a break to head to a birthday party.


I love this green!


The treadmill sat in the kitchen for a while until a friend came over to help Travis.

 Monday we finished painting and changed the plates in the bathroom. The almond just didn't go with the purple so I changed them to white. All in all not a bad little weekend.

Travis changing the plugs.
The treadmill got put together.

The bathroom is my new favorite room.

Just need new curtains.

Found out that if the light is on for an extended amount of time (like an hour) a burning smell is emitted, but that is a problem for another weekend.



Friday, November 2, 2012

French Onion Soup

So one of my favorite soups is french onion so when it was my turn to pick a meal for the cooking club I was excited to see that PW had a recipe that seemed fairly easy. Now of course I waited until I was hungry to start cooking. WARNING: This is not a fast soup to make.  So I preheated my oven and melted my stick of butter. Then I sliced up six onions. PW said four large, mine aren't large.




I don't know what I would do without my mandarin.
So I sliced up the onions and threw them into a pot to simmer for twenty minutes.

Sorry for the blur, my eyes were watering so bad I thought this was in focus.
Meanwhile, I put away the rest of the groceries. And took the Jello Jigglers out of the mold. Then into the oven for an hour. Maybe I will have some popcorn while I wait.

An hour later golden goodness. Add some wine, chicken broth, beef broth, Worcestershire, and garlic and let simmer for another forty-five minutes.



So I can't say that mine turned out pretty. I don't really have broiler safe bowls so I used some Pyrex and the cheese didn't really go over the bowl so I kinda sank to the bottom. Still melted though. I know the bread is supposed to keep it up but I never liked the soggy bread so I didn't use any. Very good though. I plan to freeze my extra (since Travis won't eat anything with onion in it) and eat it all winter. On my list! Maybe a little pepper next time.