Adventures: Visit to the Dog Park

The weather here has been awesome - today it was in the 60s.  It's December!!! Should't it be snowing?  Anyway - Dan thought it would be a good idea to take the pups to the park today after basically sleeping all day on Thursday.  Yesterday, you could just see that Zed was all wound up.  When Dan came home - he had the zooms - like crazy!

Anyway - a couple of pictures from the dog park.....

Adventures: AHL Hockey Showcase at Verizon Center

I have been quiet on the NHL Lockout.  I don't know all of the details (who wants what, who won't give, etc), so I don't really comment on it. 

I DO know that NHL will lose alot of fans either way - whether they have some sort of season or no season at all.  The last lockout when the missed a whole season ended in a LOT of fans "leaving".  Needless to say, I miss my hockey.  We had 5th row seats this season for the 5 games we did buy.

Part of the package we bought included tickets to the AHL Showcase that happened last night between the Hershey Bears (the Caps minor league team) and the Norfolk Admirals (Anaheim Ducks minor team).  We got to sit in our 5th row seats last night and FINALLY got to see some hockey!

from our seats (before the game)

I expected the Verizon Center to be full since I'm sure there are Capitals (or even just NHL) fans out there "jonesing" for some live hockey.  Not so - the "Phone Booth" might, MIGHT have been half full.  Sad.  And it's not like Capitals fans do not know the players - 2 of the players last night have been up on the Caps roster.

It was fun to finally see the Hershey Bears.  There were so many penalties - it dragged the game out.  It just seemed much slower than NHL.

There wasn't that much merchandise, but they did have showcase merchandise.  We picked up a puck and a pin (which I will be making into a magnet).

Becoming Betty Crocker: This week's dinners

So dinner has been basically the same things - or at least it seems.  Dan has been getting home and kind of finishing up on the cooking, but it's been up to me to figure out what to have.

Tuesday was pork and home fries.  Dan had found the home fries recipe in the Betty Crocker cookbook.  I was kind of wondering if I was going to be able to pull this one off.  I could have done some things different - used the bigger skillet for the potatoes instead of the pork, and I totally forgot about the 1/8 teaspoon of garlic and pepper.  Those were added at the last minute.  Oh well, I guess that's cooking!

Dan came home when I was about half way done with the dinner, and helped finished it up.  I made the comment "Look at us!  Cooking together!".

Here are pictures of the end product:

Dinner last night was Pasta Roni Garlic & Oil Vermicelli and Chicken with italian season.  I got a little creative with the chicken - I mixed 1 teaspoon of italian season with 2 teaspoons of olive oil and put it on top of the chicken when it was almost done.  I figured worst case, it would be too spicy.  NOPE!  Came out good!



Now, let me just say, Esa has been perplexed with seeing Mama in the kitchen cooking at the stove!  She has become the sous chef.  Carefully sitting outside of the kitchen waiting to be of help.

This was from Tuesday night when both of us were in the kitchen.