Busy and fun weekend

Wow! This was a great and busy weekend. Here's what we did:

Friday:

We celebrated our anniversary (which was actually on Sunday). We celebrated by going to dinner at the Melting Pot - delish!!!!! Here's a picture of us at the restaraunt.

We also opened a fun present from my mother-in-law. About 2 weeks ago she gave us a huge, heavy box wrapped in newspaper comics and told us that we couldn't open it until our anniversary. If you know me at all, you know that this drove me crazy! I was pretty famous as a child for finding all of the hidden presents and even occasionally opening and re-wrapping presents :-) Because she's really nice, Shelie let us open our present on Friday, since we were celebrating that day. We were pretty confused when we opened it: a paper box filled with 2 reams of paper, 2 rolls of toilet paper, 2 rolls of paper towels, and some paper napkins. Turns out that the first anniversary is traditionally the "paper" anniversary - hence all of the paper products - very cute!

Saturday:

It was the big day for my piano students: piano recital! They all did pretty well - some kids are just never going to practice as much as they need to. It was really fun for Moose to get to put faces with the names that I tell him about all of the time - kids and their parents!

Then we went to Travis and Rochelle's house to help them with their backyard. They are doing a overhaul of their backyard - building planters, planting gardens, etc. We helped to dig trenches and build and install sprinkler lines, cover it all up, and lay sod. It was really nice to spend time with them and also to be outside in the gorgeous weather. This is the best time of year in Las Vegas!

Sunday:

Sunday was pretty relaxing - the perfect end to a fun weekend.

Monday:

Okay, I realize that Monday is not technically part of the weekend, but I just thought I'd share that we had a fantastic shopping trip on Monday. On our receipt it says that we saved $63.86! That was 38% off of our total bill! I love getting deals. It is almost like a sport - there is strategy, competition, and the feeling of winning is spectacular!

Rachel Ray: You Stink

Dear Rachel,
I was given your cookbook, 365 days: No Repeats, as a gift about a year and a half ago. Every recipe I have tried has failed miserably. Don't even try to blame me for being a bad cook. I will fully admit that I am not a great chef, but I know how to follow instructions. In fact, I have made recipes from other cookbooks and even other Food Network personalities (i.e. Alton Brown, Guy Fieri) and they have all turned out deliciously. Additionally, my husband, who is an EXCELLENT cook, has had zero luck using your recipes. My major complaints are as follows:
1. The recipes call for WAY too many ingredients, many of which are very unusual and hard to come by.
2. The recipes take a long time to make. Case in point: I made the tex-mex macaroni and cheese. It took about 2 hours to prepare because of all of the strange ingredients and mile-long list of directions, plus cook time.
3. Everything tastes BLAH! With so many ingredients, you would think the food would have a little bit of flavor - not the case. The tex-mex macaroni? Yeah, it tasted pretty much like hamburger helper with less flavor (and it cost more money because of the strange ingredients - see complaint #1).
4. You don't have any pictures in your cookbook. I think that this is because you really can't cook either. You had a book deadline, made up a bunch of crap and then threw it into a book. That could also be the reason for the conveniently timed commercial breaks on your television show.......hmmm.
If you have any rebuttal to these complaints, please post a comment to this blog.
Thank you,
Katie Jensen

It's getting close!!!!!

Apr 04 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA UNITED STATES
Apr 05 AT SEA
Apr 06 AT SEA
Apr 07 PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO
Apr 08 MAZATLAN, MEXICO
Apr 09 CABO SAN LUCAS, MEXICO
Apr 10 AT SEA
Apr 11 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA UNITED STATES