Two More

You can add two more blogs to your daily blog rounds: eswarren.blogspot.com and emilysuzannephotography.blogspot.com. Both of them belong to my sister Emily. The first one is a blog like mine and the second one features some of her photography! Check 'em out!

Royal Wedding

Anyone planning to watch the royal wedding tonight? I'm planning to set my alarm clock...I hope I actually wake up! I'm sure there will be TONS of highlights on TV for the next several days, but there is a certain appeal in watching it live.

I was talking with a coworker today and we were saying how nervous Kate must be. What if she tripped? - in front of the WORLD!! But seriously, how crazy to know that millions upon millions of people are watching your wedding. Although millions of people watching their lives is surely the norm for them by now.

George and I are heading to Las Vegas after work tomorrow. We are going with George's friend from work (Sergio) and his girlfriend (Andy). We are staying at the Planet Hollywood Hotel. Should be a fun weekend!!

We are watching American Idol right now....I think I know who is getting voted off tonight b/c someone on the East coast posted something on Facebook. I am being cryptic just in case someone reads this within the next 30 minutes :)

Any fun plans for the weekend?

A New Look!

What do you think of the new look? After I posted last night I went to make a minor change to the set-up and ended up spending 2 hours redesigning the entire blog! Oh well, I learned a lot about designing blogs! :)

Great news - another blog for you folks to follow: http://adventureswithpaisley.blogspot.com/. Terrisa (my sister-in-law) just started this blog yesterday. She is a new mom and is going to blog about their new life with Paisley! I'm looking forward to reading it, Terrisa! Any others out there with a blog?

Easter Weekend and a Recipe

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend! I know that I really enjoyed having some of my family (Hannah and my parents) in town…and the extra day off wasn’t too bad either! George had to work on Friday and Saturday so he didn’t get to hang out too much. The rest of us made it down to Huntington Beach for some rollerblading/bike riding (FUN!) and also did a little bit of shopping and quite a bit of relaxing. Having family in town gave me the opportunity to try out a few new recipes – Turkey Chili, Potato Skins, and Lemon Chicken (although I didn’t make that one until after they left). I’m happy to say that all of them were a success.

I thought I would share the Lemon Chicken recipe because it was very tasty! I got this recipe from allrecipes.com and made just a couple minor adjustments.

Ingredients:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, halved

5 tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

3/4 teaspoon salt, divided

1/2 teaspoon pepper, divided

2 eggs

2 tablespoons butter, divided

1 tablespoon olive oil

3/4 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup apple juice **I did ¼ cup apple juice, ¼ cup white wine instead

1 tablespoon lemon juice **I squeezed an entire lemon (ended up being somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 cup)

1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley

Directions:

Flatten chicken to 1/4-in. thickness. In a shallow bowl, combine 4 tablespoons flour, Parmesan cheese, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. In another bowl, beat the eggs. Dip chicken into eggs; coat with flour mixture.

In a large skillet, cook chicken in 1 tablespoon butter and oil over medium heat for 3-5 minutes on each side or until juices run clear. Remove and keep warm.

In a small bowl, combine the remaining flour, salt and pepper; stir in broth until smooth. Add apple juice to the skillet, stirring to loosen any browned bits. Stir broth mixture and add to the pan. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened and bubbly.

Stir in lemon juice; cook for 1 minute. Add parsley and remaining butter; cook and stir until butter is melted. Serve over chicken.

I served the chicken over bowtie pasta (if you are looking for a healthier option, I think brown rice would be tasty too). Also, I think you could cut the extra butter at the end! Check out the final product below!!

Hello Peeps!

A couple of weeks ago, my mom introduced me to a cooking/baking blog called yourhomebasedmom.com. While looking at the blog a few days ago, I stumbled upon this cute idea! This morning we happen to have a meeting with our frontline team at work (at 5am!!!) so I figured I would bring these along.

When I saw the little sign I knew I had to make these :)

Talk about a serious sugar overload....Just dip in white chocolate, cover with sprinkles and voilà!

I also brought along this Warren family favorite - as usual, everyone loved these super easy-to-make cookies! As I write this I'm wondering where we got this idea...maybe my Grandma Warren??

I'm definitely looking forward to my three day Easter weekend because 1. I get 3 days off and 2. some of my family is coming (my mom, dad, Hannah, and possibly Emily if she can get some shifts covered)!! YAY!

Anyone have fun plans for Easter weekend?!

Sleepy

Long day, but still updating my blog - look at that dedication! An early morning (George and I are usually out the door by 6:30 at the latest) and an evening sewing class made for a long day. I was so tired after work that I was kind of wishing that hadn't signed up to take the class, but once I was there I forgot that I was even tired. And that's because I was busy making Paisley's crib skirt. It is just about done! No pictures yet...not that it look that exciting, it's just a bed skirt! :) It will look much cuter when it's on the crib with a cute baby inside. I think I am going to continue to go to the sewing class on Monday nights. I have done quite a bit of quilting, but now I want to start making other things. The instructor encourages you to bring your own project and she will help you interpret the pattern and teach you any new techniques. Anyway, I have been a couple of times now so I am starting to get to know the others in the class. BUT WOW! There are these two really interesting ladies in the class. They are twins, probably about 60. Their names are Mindy and Cindy (who does that?!)...AND they are constantly talking, talking, TALKING, AND they finish each others sentences, AND they hog all of the instructor's attention. I hope they never find my blog. HAHA!

Here is the picture of the quilt for Paisley's crib (for you non-Facebookers)

And I couldn't leave out a picture of last night's dinner. French bread pizza is a great and tasty way to use up extra bread!

Felt like Baking

Last night I was bored and wanted to bake. I had the ingredients for vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting so cupcakes it was! George was happy with my decision to bake - and I ate WAY too much frosting....I always seem to do that.

Everything tastes better with sprinkles :)

After church today, we hit up the mall (which is a convenient two minute walk from our apartment) and got George some new shoes. We sat outside for a bit (it is an outdoor mall) and enjoyed the California sunshine!

DONE!

Ooh yeah! I finished my big work project this week and presented today. I'm so happy - the presentation went so well and I got great feedback from the leadership in my region. Yayaa!!

In other news, George and I have been watching American Idol pretty regularly this season and we are loving it!! I don't normally follow an entire season of a show faithfully...I'm more likely to just watch whatever is on TV that night. (My sister Emily on the other hand is the master of TV knowledge. Seriously, I think she might know a little bit of about every show on TV). Anyway, it's fun because we make our predictions of who is going to be in the bottom three or voted off. Plus, American Idol is always a big topic of conversation at work!

Any other American Idol fans out there? George really likes Casey (Jazz guy) and I like Scotty (Country guy).

And the Pictures

Meant to post these pictures the other night when I posted my update from the weekend! Here are some pictures of Newport Beach. Got to love all of the HUGE boats and ENORMOUS houses!

I got a kick out of the "names" that people choose for their boats. I didn't snap a picture, but one of the more memorable ones was "Honey's Money"! Wow.

Enjoying the nice day!

O Captain, my Captain! :)

The Weekend

What a great, relaxing weekend with my parents! My mom and dad flew in on Friday night. George and I picked them up at the airport (we carpool to work which is AWESOME...gas = $4.10 or so here in Southern California) and we headed to happy hour at a nearby restaurant. After a bit of food and drink, we headed back to our apartment and relaxed for the rest of the evening. George had to work on Saturday and was out the door early. My parents and I, on the other hand, had a slower start. We spent the day running some errands and redeeming some of our wedding gift cards. On Saturday night, we ate pasta with homemade sauce and meatballs and watched "Goodwill Hunting". We started Sunday out with church. We picked up Einstein Bagels, brought them back to the apartment, watched a bit of golf, and headed out to Newport Beach! I had bought a Groupon for a boat rental in the Newport Bay and it turned out to be pretty cool. It was fun to look at all of the really nice homes and boats around there. The rest of the afternoon included a quick trip to Huntington Beach and dinner at a restaurant in Newport (another Groupon!...what can I say?? I like a good deal!)

George and I agreed- GREAT weekend!

This week is busy with work stuff and finishing up wedding "Thank You" cards! :)

Work and Food!

Work has been busy lately! I am about 9 months into my one year program with Nestle's DSD division. My division of Nestle sells ice cream and frozen pizza - Haagen Dazs (my favorite, see above!), Dreyer's/Edy's, Skinny Cow, Drumstick, Dibs, CPK, Digornio, and Tombstone...nothing but the best :) The last 9 months have been all about learning the business and gaining the experience I will need to manage a team of my own. I am currently in the project phase of my program...so without boring you all too much, I have been working on this project for the past 3-4 months and I present next Thursday. I've enjoyed working on the project and feel proud of my results!

Just for fun, here are some more pictures of our some deee-licious meals from the past week or so :)

BLT! George's on a Jalapeno bagel and mine on a sesame bagel!

Stir Fry and Rice!

Chicken Cordon Bleu

Poor Marie

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Geez, can't believe that we're already halfway to the this weekend...where did Monday and Tuesday go?

Last Friday, George and I were looking forward to having his sister, Marie, with us for the weekend. Back at Christmas time, we had the idea of flying Marie out to see us in California for a weekend, so for Christmas, we gave her a "gift certificate" for a trip to California. The Lucases happen to be on a cruise last week and their ship was docked in San Diego...so the plan was for them to drop off Marie in Orange County and she would fly home on Sunday night. GREAT PLAN :)

So on Friday night we all met up for dinner in Irvine and afterward Marie, George, and I went on our way. Marie and George had already started their typical bantering back and forth. Unfortunately, late Friday night we woke up to a very sick Marie :( So the weekend got cut short and Marie went home with her parents. We were so bummed! Hopefully, Marie will be able to redeem her gift certificate for real soon! *Side note: I have a new appreciation for parents whose kids have the flu...it's not pretty, that is for sure!

And speaking of Marie, this as got to be one of the cutest pictures I have seen!!

This weekend we are looking forward to a visit from my mom and dad...no getting sick, please :) They come in on Friday afternoon and head home on Sunday evening. It's going to be a fun weekend!