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January from Eric (at least some of it anyway)

My mind must be mush. I've been doing a lot at work lately and whenever I get home, spend some time with the kids, take some time to chat with Brooke, and do some life-maintenance the day is done and I'm asleep. So when Brooke asked me to write the blog for January all I could say is "Did anything happen in January?" I tried thinking about it for, like 25 seconds, honestly, and man did I feel like a dope when she reminded me of all that happened. My mind is mush.

Brooke's Birthday
Last week Brooke had her 30th Birthday. Here's what I was able to pull off for her birthday.


Oh wait, that wasn't even us that made this chocolate cake/brownie. We got that at our friends Yoko and Tyler Ball. They made a delightful Korean dinner for us. Super delicious. I can't remember what it was called, some sort of beef yumminess in lettuce wraps.


Seriously though, Brooke was teaching on her birthday, we knew I would have to work (because of the aforementioned busy schedule) and the Balls had invited us over for dinner anyway. So we knew we wouldn't be able to make a big ado about her birthday so we took the opportunity to have a yummy birthday dinner from the Balls even though they didn't know it was her birthday when we go there. The real birthday magic happened when we invited Brooke's friends for a Saturday lunch and shopping spree.




Brooke mentioned a funny story about how the two girls above ordered the exact same meal as each other (soup and sandwich) while the three girls below did the exact same thing (all ordered lettuce wraps)


The girls at The Cheesecake Factory

For all the anti-clamacticacy of her birthday this was a great time for her to relax and pass some time with some incredible women. The one-hour lunch turned into a five hour excursion with the girls and Brooke came home full of life. We sure love her and all the life she gives us.

Nine-year anniversary celebration
The week before her birthday Brooke and I celebrated 9 years of life together. We couldn't do a whole lot of activities cause of the kids but such limitations made us work extra hard to do all the extravagance of eating out inside our home. So we made some gourmet pizzas. Words cannot express how delicious these were. But to avoid being overly hyperbolic I will try. Handmade dough raised overnight in the fridge -- to let the yeast bring out the flavor of the gluten -- butter garlic base, with sauteed yellow peppers, olives, artichoke hearts, black forest ham, topped with mozzarella cheese; another was an alfredo base with chicken, onions, and tomatoes; we also made a simple pepperoni pizza with stuffed crust for the kids (though they ventured out and tried the big ones). No cockiness aside, I was on fire. Back and forth between the pizzas, sauces, and toppings using no recipes, intuiting the future taste of the pizza based on what felt right while I was making it. It felt like art, it felt like creation. It was beautiful.





For it being a simple stay-at-home meal it was a sweet reminder of what is important in celebrating our time together as a married couple; time with our kids doing something we love.

Other miscellaneous things
We watched our friends' kids while they were in Wyoming for some job interviews. At first we thought it would be a bit rough but it turned out to be a great time with our kids and their kids. Parks, guitar stores, projects, etc.



 Extra points if you can name the character that Jack made

One of our adventures was walking around a strip mall getting free samples and stuff. We ended up in a guitar shop, they had fun but I'm glad they didn't break anything. Walking into a hipster-infested small business with five kids under six turned some heads and I'm sure made some people nervous, but they behaved admirably.

Babysitting group
I'm not sure if Brooke has mentioned this in previous posts but each week we drop our kids off at some friends' house with other kids and once a month we host about seven or so kids so we can have some free dates and give our kids some fun together. Here are some fun picts from some of those.

Working together to make a silly/fun mural
 everyone pitched in

Watching a movie together, we'll be honest this is one of the more "efficient" way to do the date-night group.

Hanging out with the Brinkerhoffs for one of our date nights. Jen is a Bocce master.

First day of good weather
We had an awesome day at the park a few weeks ago when we had the first decent day in months. It was sunny and we went out thinking it was going to be one of those sunny-yet-cold days but ended up having a blast at the pirate park and hung out.




I like this picture, even if it is Avey purposly trying NOT to be in a picture.

Probably some other fun stuff
Brooke, add anything that I may have missed. My brain is mush but it's fun to think about the things we do.

-Eric-
 


Comments

Lawrence D. Stevenson said…
Love the recap of the month. The big numbers being 30 and 9. Pizzas, pictures, and people sure looked fun. Thank you for sharing.
February 4, 2014 at 9:28 PM
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