Manda and Mike

Taking a Break

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:44:00 +0000

I thought I'd let you all know that I"ll be taking a break from blogging. For how long? I'm not sure. It's become a bit of a chore for me and so I'm taking a break. Besides, our lives are pretty routine and a bit on the boring side (in a good way) from now until at least summer. My hope is to update sporadically in the summer when we have fun things to do and share... like scootering around Madeline Island!

Holiday Wrap-up

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 23:59:00 +0000

We hope you all had great Christmas & New Year celebrations. We spent Christmas with both families and had a quiet night at home for New Years. I also celebrated my 30th birthday 2 weeks before Christmas. Turning 30 felt great! I feel very relaxed and content with life. It's now my last day of winter break (sniff) and I'm mostly rejuvenated and ready to get back to work AND working out. I've missed the gym at school.

A few weeks before Christmas, Hannah and I made plans to do our favorite Christmas tradition- make cookies!
Hannah and I had quite the assembly line going. How cute is she?

Mikey's only cookie request was for us to make his dad's shortbread. It was my first time making it and it turned out awesome:

I get nostalgic whenever I make a cookie from my childhood. Our neighbor, Ceil made these melt-in-your-mouth sugar cookies every year for our family:

Mikey and I managed to sneak in a visit to Ceil in November:

Can you believe she is 92? She is sharp as a whistle and currently recovering from a fall this summer.

Lastly, Hannah and I made a huge batch of my favorite holiday cookie:

It was fun to share all of these cookies with our co-workers, families and friends.
Have I mentioned that I love having Hannah in Duluth?!

The day after we returned home from our Christmas travels, I came down with a vicious cold. I had planned to do some house projects over winter break but this cold had other plans. I've spent the past week hunkering down with a box of Kleenex within arms reach at ALL times. With the assistance of Nyquil, I've been sleeping 11 hours every night. All of that sleep seems to be helping as I am getting better, but I have done very little around the house which feels a bit frustrating.
There is nothing I crave more when I have a cold than citrus. So, I looked up a flu-fighting smoothie recipe and they have been wonderful.

The key step: Freeze the orange slices, half an avocado and a banana:

It tastes like an orange creamsicle. It's a keeper!

I also made one with frozen grapefruit slices. It required some extra sweetener (I used honey) to balance the tartness.
I guess I haven't been totally useless while being sick. I've had the crock pot cooking up something every day. I found a great recipe for Lentil Sloppy Joes:

Mikey and I are making a stronger effort to eat more meat-less meals. So we stocked up on dried beans from the bulk bins at Whole Foods. Cooks Illustrated magazine recommends placing a strip of Kombu (seawood) in a pot of beans to help with ahem, gasiness and to enhance the flavor of the beans. So, I cooked up garbanzo and pinto beans (separately) via this method. It took about 3 hours on High in the crockpot for each batch:

I also cooked up a huge pot of black beans on the stove top while the crockpot was cooking away:

The stove top method worked great as a humidifier for the house- perfect for winter! Ha!

Of the two methods, I actually preferred the crock pot because the beans cooked slower and I could keep better tabs on when the beans were done cooking.

Between making smoothies every day and making meals, I also did a shit ton on dishes. Le sigh.

We froze a bunch of beans, lentil joe's and mexican rice for meals in the coming weeks. Hooray for quick, easy, nutritious meals.
If you are wondering what Mikey has been up to while I've been cooking beans and sniffling/coughing at home, he's been busy at work. Tonight we have his work's holiday party.

Keeping up with her parents is hard work for the canine princess:

Deck the Halls

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:46:00 +0000

This winter has been a bit abnormal. We are 16" below average on snow fall for the winter and we can still see grass on most of our yard. So while the snow has been mostly absent, the cold temps have not. We have settled in to all the comforts of winter: soups, grilled cheese, chicken pot pie casserole, barley wine, down jackets, and fuzzy boots. We are thinking this will probably be our last Christmas in this house (fingers crossed that our house sells this spring) and so I pulled out most of our decor for one last shebang.
Our dining room window is the perfect height for keeping the curious kitty out of the stockings:

We debated getting a real tree this year but decided it wouldn't be worth the hassle for 3 measly weeks. So, we set up the 2 artificial trees that normally flank our front door on the porch inside this year. It turned out that I have 4 boxes of perfect sized ornaments for this size of tree.
Tree #1 in the living room:

Tree #2 on the other side of the living room (both trees have white lights):

We also hung the lights that normally go outside inside this year. We spend a lot of winter evenings hanging out in our living room and so we concentrated all the lights in that room:

So festive!

Now if only I could get the lights to stay hung up! Droopy strings of lights make for hours of kitty entertainment.
We'll be visiting both of our families for Christmas this year. It's time to bake some cookies!

Spooktacular Dinner Club

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 02:02:00 +0000

October Dinner Club was a spooktacular event. We had the privilege of hosting and picked the Sunday before Halloween to host. You know I love a themed party so it was Halloween central.

The night before the party we got a little crafty. Mikey did his usual intricate pumpkin carving while I free-handed it. I love his bubbling cauldron and the overall theme we had going: Food and Ghosts.

I have fond memories of lighting luminaries all along the sidewalks, steps and driveway as a kid. It gives me the warm fuzzies. So, this year I cut out some ghosts to keep our theme going:

On the day of the party, we did some last minute costume shopping, cleaning and cooking.
I tried getting our children dressed up for the festivities. Unfortunately, one of them didn't budge. No bat costume for Kramer this year :(

Annabelle, on the other hand, is always a willing participant. We've noticed she has "filled out" a bit as her costume barely fix around her ribs this year (she's a ladybug if you can't tell):

It got dark right around 6pm which was perfect for lighting everything up before the party started:

I had to use the flash to show you what the arrangement looked like:

Dinner started off with curried chick peas and curry bread (thanks to Lyndon & Katie):

as well as chocolate made from Trinidadian cocoa beans:

Dinner (a la Mikey) was Goulash:

It took a lot of convincing on my part to have Mikey make a themed entree. He came through with homemade spaetzle (after my asking him to make something that looked like brains) and fancy pork gooooulash. Get it?
The picture above looks less-than-appetizing but I promise you it tasted delicious. When will I ever learn to take a picture of my plate before eating? I also neglected to get a picture of my table setting. I had a black tablecloth and then did orange confetti circles as a runner with white mini pumpkins and tea lights in mason jars. Simple and cheap but cute!

We finished the party off with one of the most creative desserts I've ever seen:

Candied apples complete with red-hot bark, cherry gummies and boston baked beans. Nellie forwarned us all that if we had any loose teeth or fillings to pass on dessert. I can't get over how stinkin cute that dessert is. Everybody dug in and I'm happy to report that there were no missing teeth or fillings at the end.

As you can tell from Nellie's adorable outfit, costumes were strongly encouraged. Thankfully, the whole crew jumped on board.
Lyndon, Katie & Ravi:

Us:

Nellie & Bruce (Halloween is Nellie's favorite holiday and she makes her own costume every year!):

Erin & Frank:

Love these 2 costumes. Erin is quite crafty and made her entire costume out of a robe, white boa feathers and felt. She also made Frank's swedish chef head out of felt. That girl can sew!
I love it when people get in to themed dinners. So fun!

Bountiful Harvest

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Alrighty peeps, I'm getting back in my groove of updating the blog more regularly. After all, we still have lots of good eats and good times to share. Most of you know that Mike switched back to working at Chester Creek Cafe in September. He was asked to come back as their bookkeeper which has turned out to be a great fit for him. He now has flexible hours to work around his school schedule, normal working hours and best of all... weekends off! Cue the trumpets.
Did you also catch that he's back in school? Yep, he's almost done with semester 1 of the accounting program at LSC. So far, everything is going great.

So, with mutual days off of work, we've been busy catching up with friends and family and doing activities that were on hold. In short, we've been having a ton more fun!

Nellie introduced me to a wonderful berry farm in Bayfield, WI. On my first trip, she and I each picked a 10 pound box of blueberries. I had such a wonderful time and knew that Mikey would also love it so the two of us went back the second weekend in September to pick another 10 pound box:

We spent a few hours in the rolling hills outside of Bayfield. It reminded me so much of California wine country. So much so that we packed a bottle of zinfandel to share while picking the berries:)
I am now set for blueberry oatmeal all winter long!

We also bought a half vegetable share again this summer from Northern Harvest Farm. We got all of the usual fare: broccoli, lettuce, onions, potatoes, leeks, tomatoes, squash, beets, turnips, spinach, garlic, basil, cilantro, etc. Additionally, we signed up for a tomato share. Thankfully the tomato harvest was bountiful enough to fill all the tomato shares this year. So, in mid-September, we got 40 pounds of tomatoes:

Our plan is to have "in-season" tomatoes throughout the winter. So, we cored all of them and then bagged them up for storage in our deep freezer. We portioned the tomatoes into bags that would allow for appropriate amounts of tomatoes that could be cooked down for pasta or pizza sauce over the winter.
We also made a couple batches of salsa. Mikey taught me how to make my very own roasted tomato & pineapple salsa. I was quite proud of my accomplishment so I took some pics to share.
First I cut up a bunch of tomatoes, onion, garlic, peppers & a whole pineapple:

Then they were roasted in the oven:

I chopped up some cilantro & squeezed a couple limes:

Then it all went in the food processor:

Next, I learned the critical step of seasoning it. We tasted the mixture multiple times until the salt, sugar and acidity levels were balanced. The final product was delicious:

With a big batch of salsa in the fridge, we were inspired to make some Mexican breakfasts.
His:

Hers:

Sunday morning brunch tradition continued throughout the fall. Our most decadent meal was this pesto eggs benedict with homemade hollandaise sauce:

Are you hungry yet?

September also marked Mikey's birthday. On his actual birthday he got these beautiful sunflowers and a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups (his favorite):

You've heard me mention in the past that we like to do things (create memories) rather than give gifts for birthdays. So, we hosted a big birthday bash complete with a keg of Bell's Two Hearted beer and about 25 of his closest friends. We both had an absolute blast and felt pretty grateful to have such a great circle of friends in Duluth.

His birthday meal (which he made) was this Asian noodle bowl with scallops and shrimp:

Birthday cake (which I made) was this double layered carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and toasted pecans:

We've since put ourselves on a diet:)

Enger Park Dinner Club

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:23:00 +0000

We took dinner club "on the road" in August. Nellie and Bruce hosted up at Enger Park. A major restoration effort took place over the summer to get Enger Tower back in tip-top shape so we had to check it out. The best views of the city are from the top of the tower and there are beautiful gardens and picnic areas in the park.
We started things off with homemade sushi from Frank & Erin and played a few games of ladder golf. Nellie got really excited when it was her turn and launched one of the strings in the tree. Mike, being the tallest, stood on a picnic table with a stick in his hand while on his tippy toes to un-wind the string. Lots of giggles ensued until he was finally able to pull it down. I can always count on Nellie for a good laugh.

Soon enough, Bruce declared it was time for dinner. We were served:
Potato Salad (Loved the feta & olive oil. And would you look at those giant olives!):

Corn Salad (loved the sweetness of the corn with the pungent red onion and other veggies):

Ribs... to.die.for. :

This was my first time ever eating ribs (you all know about my fear of eating meat on the bone) and they knocked my socks off! Bruce is an amazing chef and a kick ass grill master!!
Bruce spilled the beans on how he prepped, seasoned & cooked the ribs but since it is now November, I remember very few details. I do remember him mentioning something about a sweet (brown sugar perhaps) glaze that he brushed on because it created a nice crust on the pork and the meat was so tender (with no gristle or fat). I have always associated ribs with gristle, fat & people gnawing on the bones to get the meat off. The meat on these ribs fell off the bone and so I didn't even have to have the bone on my plate.

This was one of the best meals of the summer. There is nothing better than a gourmet picnic in the park and broadening my food horizons. Thank you Bruce & Nellie.

We were in charge of dessert and so I made a no-bake strawberry cheesecake from scratch:

I was a bit worried that it would be bland but it was the perfect light and fluffy dessert we were all craving after a hefty meal.

Cheers!

Getting Ready to Sell

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 19:44:00 +0000

Oy vey, this update is a long time coming. We've had an eventful but wonderful summer. An update on our summer happenings is going to have to wait because I need to provide proof to you that we were indeed up to our eyeballs getting our house ready to sell earlier this summer.

We put our house on the market the third week of June. Spring always comes late in Duluth- people don't normally plant things in their garden until Memorial Day weekend. So, with cooler temps and snow still melting in May, we pretty much had from mid-May to mid-June to get the exterior of our house and yard in selling shape.

We started improving our curb appeal by planting a ton of flowers on the front porch and steps. I love planting annuals- it's my favorite spring time activity.

Next I tackled the overgrown bushes that provide some privacy from the street. Here they are looking all pretty and safe (you could actually walk on the sidewalk again) on the street side:

And the yard side- safety first! We were able to mow without poking our eyes out:

Here's the pile of brush that I then had to load up and pay to get rid of:

Sometimes I long for living in the woods and being able to just throw it in the forest and let mother nature do her thing. For now, we have to be happy that it'll be turned in to mulch and then used throughout our city's parks.

On to the front yard...
Grass Edging Before:

During (we also attempted to grow grass in that big bald spot on the right... with minimal luck):

The shoddy patch work on the concrete stairs was done by the previous owners. It sure would be nice to repair those.

After:

All cleaned up:

Now on to the back yard...

I decided to make our garden smaller this year. Our garden used to span both our back yard and part of the neighbor's back yard. We have new neighbors who are not gardeners and we wanted to un-blur the property lines for potential buyers. So, I pulled out the fencing & wood border from the neighbor's yard. See the empty square of dirt in the upper right side of the picture? We then re-installed the wood border & fence:

We, of course, needed to weed the garden next. Before:

Ahhh, much better... clean and tidy after:

After the yard work was done, I focused on sprucing up the exterior parts of the house that we've neglected. Remember, we just painted the exterior of the house two summers ago but we didn't do any of the porches and landings. So, here we go.
I recruited Hannah for a weekend to help me scrape and paint the front porch floor and all of the railings (worst job EVER!):

Mid way through scraping I thought about how nice it would be to replace the rotting pieces of the porch. After a phone call with my dad, he assured me that I could indeed install new trim all by myself. My dad is great for a little push of confidence some times! Thankfully he's patient with my non-technical explanations of my predicaments over the phone.

And here it is:

I wish I had taken a close up "after" shot but this is as good I have. Truth be told, I had a heck of a time with the trim so it was up only temporarily for this photo. Our official photo for the MLS posting was taken this day and so it worked. My parents came up later in June and my dad and I re-hung the trim permanently. I'm learning a lot about how to "square" things up in a century old house where things have settled and nothing is really square or level it seems!! I love it though:)

On to the back entrance. I scrape and paint this floor every year due to the paint coming off every winter from shoveling. This year I also did the railing:
Before #1:

Before #2:

After:

While I had the can of white exterior paint out, I also touched up the foundation:

More foundation touch ups:

Lastly, the side entrance got scraped and painted.
Looking good:

I was ready to hang up my paint brush for a while but the interior walls were calling my name.
Our entryway is this beautiful shade of yellow. Fortunately, the previous owner had good taste in color and I never had the itch to change it over the past 5 years but unfortunately it was painted with a flat finish. Every scuff mark showed and was impossible to get clean. So, I thought the sensible thing to do was to paint it the same color but in eggshell finish. What seemed so minor turned in to a BIG deal. Every inch of our entryway, stairwell & upstairs hallway had to be meticulously painted. After the first 2 gallons went on, I thought we were done but it became quite apparent where we had cut corners. First of all, we didn't own an extender arm for the paint roller and so the really tall areas over the stairs weren't painted with the eggshell finish. I really didn't think it would be a big deal, but it looked so bad! Additionally, we could see multiple areas where the paint didn't cover thick enough and you could see waves of flat & eggshell finishes. So, after another trip to Home Depot, we came home with an extension arm for the roller, 2 more gallons of paint and Diet Cokes to fuel us. I must say, it was totally worth it. I'm real happy with how it turned out:

I also painted the dining room. Twice. 2 different colors.

It sounds like we should be close to being ready to sell, right?
Wrong. We still had to clean out all of our closets to make them look more spacious. We completely emptied our walk up attic and boxed things up for permanent storage in our basement to entice someone to use the attic as a bonus room. We took down all of our personal items and pared down our books and decor. The house also got a thorough cleaning, like more thorough than your typical spring cleaning.

With a day to spare before our first open house, I went to Pier 1 to get a few things for staging the place. I got some new pillows for the couch & chair in the living room and a new runner and napkins for the dining room. With absolutely nothing on the walls in this room, the table setting made a big impact:

So, here we are now and it's the middle of September. We haven't sold the house yet but we're both feeling pretty grateful to not be in a situation where selling our house is dire. We can be patient and wait for the right buyer. I really want someone to love our house as much as we have loved it!

June Dinner Club

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:58:00 +0000

I promise there is a "getting our house ready to sell" post coming up soon! Prior to taking the sell-the-house plunge, we hosted Dinner Club on June 5th. Our theme was Mexican Fiesta. We love to watch Rick Bayless on tv and his cookbooks/websites are phenomenal resources. The Mexican Fiesta menu featured:
-Tacos al Pastor (grilled pork tacos)
-Frijoles Refritos (refried beans)
-Arroz a la Mexicana (Mexican rice)

Per usual, we pulled the grill to the front of the house so that Mikey could mingle with the rest of us while we relaxed on the front porch.

While Mikey grilled, we snacked on homemade guacamole, chips and rustic breads that Katie & Lyndon brought:

Soon enough it was time for dinner. In addition to the pork, Mikey grilled up red onions and pineapple for the taco filling. This mixture was roughly chopped so that it was easy to scoop up the filling in to the corn tortillas:

As you can imagine, Mikey spent much of the day (prior to guests arriving) prepping for dinner. He made homemade habenero hot sauce and a raw tomatillo salsa to top the tacos. Additionally, he served homemade refried beans (the hit of the party) and mexican rice as side dishes.
Trust me, the beans below tasted way better than they look:

When I was uploading the photos for this post, I had a hard time remembering what these were!
I tried convincing Mikey to do the writing for this post so that he could fill you in with all the details (ingredients & cooking technique) since I know a lot of you are interested. Leave Mikey some love in the comment section if you are interested in having him write more detailed food posts in the future!

I wish I hadn't been so distracted and forgotten to take an assembled taco photo. The salsas (bright orange & bright green), pineapple, red onion and marinated pork created a very colorful taco!

Dessert was provided by Nellie & Bruce. Nellie made a cake that is only used for special occasions in her family. My memory is a bit foggy of the cake specifics (blogging a month after the fact will do that!) but here is what my taste buds remember.
Layered yellow/sponge cake with a lemon custard filling topped with meringue & toasted pecans:

Notice my ONE tulip that came up this year (the squirrels always dig them up)!

The cake was wonderful and a great way to transition in to summer!!

Spring Eats

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 16:11:00 +0000

As evidenced by our lack of posting lately, life has been a wee bit on the crazy side lately. I finally had 3 hours to myself last night and got caught up on a few things. I've got 3 updates ready to post. I'll start by catching us up through May.
The month of May proved to be quite chilly this year. We had our heat turned on most of the month but the sun came out enough to put smoothie season in to full gear:

The classic M&M smoothie: almond milk, frozen blueberries, frozen banana, old fashioned oats, p.b. & spinach. If you come for a visit during the summer, we'll most likely make this for you for breakfast.

Mikey went on the annual fishing trip with his dad to Bowens Lodge in mid-May. Sounds like they had a couple days of great fishing and lots of good eats and drinks. The best perk for me is the fresh walleye that he brings home. I challenged Mikey to cook the walleye in any fashion other than deep frying. Don't get me wrong- I love me some fish & chips! However, I knew we'd be having 2-3 meals of fish over a few days and wanted a healthier option.
So, he got to work researching all of his favorite food websites/magazines and came up with Fish (Walleye) Tacos. The walleye was marinated in olive oil, cilantro and hot peppers. He grilled the fish indirectly over hot coals which gave the fish a nice crunch on the outside while still maintaining a juicy, flaky inside.

I forgot to mention that while the fish was marinating, Mikey made homemade avocado creme. He also pickled some red onions earlier in the day.
Taco assembly started with corn tortillas that were filled with walleye, avo creme, pickled red onions and then topped with a mixture of chipotle & mango key lime salsas.

It was phenomenal! Hooray for a non-fried walleye dish that had Mikey (and of course, me) drooling!

The next weekend in May was Memorial Day weekend. We had a couple fun festivities with friends planned. I never want to arrive at a party empty handed, so I spent some lovely time in the kitchen baking up desserts. Twas the season for rhubarb and there is no better pairing with rhubarb than strawberries. My favorite strawberry rhubarb desserts are crisps, cobblers or pies. I'm most comfortable with making crisps and so I got busy. Besides, what's not to love about a brown sugar and butter topping?!

I started with an oat crumb base, then layered on the rhubarb, strawberries and topping.

Popped in the oven for 40 minute and done:

While the crisp cooled in my insulated potluck casserole carrier (sounds so Minnesotan, doesn't it?!) , we headed up to my co-workers cabin. I've been bugging Dennis (my co-worker) all year about getting an invite to his annual wood fired pizza party at his cabin on Bassett Lake. We were in for a real treat! As we arrived, a couple guys who had been hanging out by the keg all afternoon swooped the rhubarb crisp out of my hands and dove in. I've never seen people be so excited for rhubarb.
Once we got settled, it was pizza making time. Dennis and Pamela made five 5-gallon buckets of dough and had virtually every pizza topping you could imagine. Here they are at the assembly station:

We were ecstatic about making our very own wood fired pizzas. Mikey started out by rolling out a chunk of dough and par baking the crust. Next we added the toppings and finished cooking them in the oven. Here is a shot of Mikey in action:

He was in love! Dennis and his son actually built the oven after taking a class at the Grand Marais North House Folk School.
You can imagine that that got Mikey's wheels rolling as he is dying to make one for our house some day.
Look at those coals!!

This was, hands down, the best pizza we've every had! Must re-create this experience at home some day. We also spent some time wandering around the lake property. There were people fishing, kids playing games, and lots of adults mingling. Dennis and Pamela have plans to build a sauna next year and they also have a garden going. The place was pretty much what we've always dreamed of: 2 bedroom cabin, flushable toilet (my favorite feature), wood fired brick oven, sauna, garden, canoe, dock, boat and a garage- all without pretentiousness. Heavenly!! We were beaming the entire time... pure fun!

The next day, we had another party to go to. Nikki and Henry invited us over for memorial day/ house warming festivities. Since Mikey worked earlier in the day, that meant I was in charge of making food to bring with. We all know what that means- we'll bring dessert!
Triple layer mint s'more brownies:

Layer 1: Brownie
Layer 2: York peppermint patties
Layer 3: Brownie
Topped with marshmallows and quickly browned for the s'more effect. I can't take credit for this recipe. One of my favorite bloggers, Jenna, created this.

That catches us up through May. Hope you are enjoying some good eats lately too!

Time to Sell

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:42:00 +0000

We've decided to put our house on the market! As you can tell from the picture, we've still got a little work to do for curb appeal. Mike is working on getting grass to grow in the front yard (major grass killage from our canine princess in the winter). We've been extremely busy getting the house ready to sell. More updates to come on what we've done so far. Fingers crossed that we get some house showings this weekend. We really hope somebody will walk in and fall in love with the house just like we did 5 years ago! We feel fortunate that we are able to be patient (no job loss or anything like that) and hopefully get the price we want/need.

Baby Animal Shower

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Wed, 11 May 2011 16:53:00 +0000

Look who's expecting?

Psych! It's not me! Nikki & Henry are expecting Baby Lovely in July. So, I rallied Nikki's Duluth friends for a zoo animal themed baby shower. You can check out the inspiration for the theme as well as Baby Lovely's nursery here. A lot of thought went in to the making of this party and thankfully I had help from Kathy, Lorry & Janette from Rec Sports (Nikki's co-workers and my colleagues as well).

In order to make it obvious that guests had indeed arrived at the right house, we hung some streamers on the front porch:

Everyone got settled in our living room- thankfully all the chairs fit without being too crammed.

We had a cute little beverage station that included raspberry lemonade and cran-raspberry sparkling water. Notice the elephant and giraffe confetti? I found the template for them here (crazy enough, the bloggers are also named Mandy & Mike).

I wanted to keep the food light and healthy and keep the waste to a minimum. I recruited my favorite chef to make a few things (I didn't schedule the baby shower on Mikey's day off for nothing:) Ha!
He made a chive cream cheese spread that was spread on a multi-grain cracker and then topped with black peppercorn smoked salmon from Northern Waters Smokehaus.

I also asked him to make bruscetta with freshly baked crostinis:

Nikki is a big fan of pizza and so we tried a healthier spin on her love of pizza.

Kathy made fruit pizza:

Lorry made veggie pizza:

No baby shower is complete without cake. Lorry brought mini chocolate cupcakes that had a fudge filling. They were perfect and the mom-to-be gave her stamp of approval:

We kept the waste to a minimum by using my everyday salad plates, paper napkins and compostable silverware. The only "bad" garbage we generated was the plastic cups.
I also wanted to add some personal touches to the shower so I recruited Henry, who then recruited his aunt, to provide some baby pictures of Nikki to display. Let's hope Baby Lovely has the same chubby cheeks as Nikki did:)

After everyone ate, we broke the ice by playing one (and only one) baby shower game. I am not a fan of shower games (bridal, baby, you name it). We played the Baby Name game. Janette made some cute cards with the same animal confetti-one boy themed and one girl themed- and everybody wrote down two names (first and middle) for baby Lovely. Nikki picked her favorite girl and boy name and whoever wrote the winning name got a prize:

And the prizes were these adorable gerber daisy plants that Lorry brought:

Continuing with the low-waste objective for the party, Lorry and Kathy made these adorable flags to hang in the living room doorways.
Baby:

Lovely:

Kathy & Lorry know Nikki's style very well and made these flags so that they could be hung in the nursery. How cute is that? They turned out absolutely adorable and Nikki LOVED them!

Next we were on to gift opening:

While Nikki opened gifts, the rest of us decorated onesies. I bought a couple packs of onesies and some puffy paint and asked everybody to get crafty. Nikki loves homemade crafts/gifts and so I knew this would be a huge hit for her.

As you can see, I covered my coffee table & tv trays with some fun wrapping paper that I had for craft time.

Here is the one that I made:

Here is the clan:

Again on the front porch:

I couldn't have pulled this off without Kathy, Lorry, Janette, Mikey and my biggest helper of all: Hannah!!

Love you!! She was such a great help and it allowed me to keep the party flowing while also having a good time myself. She also took all these photos to capture the fun.

Once the party was over, the puffy painted onesies had to dry overnight. After they dried, I packaged them up and wrapped them in...wait for it...the crafting wrapping paper from the coffee table! I also made Nikki & Henry a card with the confetti that was left over:

I had a blast planning this party and am so glad Nikki had a great time. 10 weeks (or less) to go until Baby Lovely arrives!!

Uncle Sam Got Our Wine

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 01:05:00 +0000

We finished our taxes today and like a lot of people we know, we owe big bucks to Uncle Sam this year. I'm trying to not get too bummed out about it but certainly some things are going to have to give in our monthly budget. We decided to start with the source of our sanity--wine.
We enjoy a glass most nights of the week with our dinner. So, we decided to try out a new (to us) brand of box wine:

I'll admit that I get a bit squimish about drinking alcohol, let alone wine, from a plastic bag. I once put a mixed drink in a Nalgene bottle and the drink ended up tasting chemical-ish. Blech!
Plus, box wine always conjures up images of college freshman house parties. Classy, no?
None the less, we tried the Big House boxed Zinfandal last week and this week we are trying the Big House Red (a blend). I put the wine carafe to work tonight to classy it up and help the wine breathe. It seems silly for boxed wine, but it's all mental for me because the wine is actually pretty good for a value wine.

Affection for wine runs in the family:

Well, hello there!

The box of wine holds 3 liters and retails for $18.99. With tax it breaks down to about $5 a bottle... a value wine. My overall impression with this wine is that it is one of the better tasting $5 wines.
Here's some verbage from the packaging:
"Instead of 4 glass bottles, you are reducing packaging waste by 92% and carbon emissions by 55%." Is this suppose to make us feel better about drinking wine from a cardboard box?! Furthermore, the "patent pending design prevents oxidation. So every glass tastes as fresh and flavorful as if the wine was just opened, even up to six weeks after your first sip."
Six Weeks? Get real! Here's hoping that within six weeks we'll be back to sampling some finer vino.

Sunday Busy-ness

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 16:58:00 +0000

I've really been enjoying and taking full advantage of our unstructured weekends. Last Sunday while Mikey was at work, I went on an organizing binge. My motivation and inspiration came from my trip to Ikea a couple weeks ago. I really want to install a geeked-out-organization-to-the-max wardrobe unit in our bedroom. So, while I wait to save up for the wardrobe, I figured I'd at least start clearing the area in our room for the wardrobe. This meant I needed to find a new home for the dresser in our room. Our dresser was my dresser when I was a baby and my mom kindly re-finished it 5 years ago to match our bedroom furniture. Thankfully, the finish fits in well with the style of our older home so it's easy to re-purpose.

While at Ikea, I purchased new knobs for the dresser and new magazine organizers for Mikey's cooking magazines. I organized the magazines by the season (Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer) for ease of browsing recipes by ingredients that are in season. Clearly, I need to purchase a couple more magazine organizers as I don't have any "growing" room- the key to making any organizing system work!

The dresser now resides in our dining room and I'm real happy with how it fits the space. I don't intend to keep the magazines on display permanently but they will live there until we get a buffet with closed storage some day. I want a wardrobe system more than a buffet right now!

Of course, the dresser had to be completely emptied and cleaned prior to re-purposing it. So, the shuffle went like this:
Clothes in bedroom closet--> reorganized to make open shelf space
Clothes in dresser--> stacked & sorted in bedroom closet, some became cleaning rags, some went to the Goodwill pile

I hauled the dresser downstairs and started scheming about how I would fill it. I decided to fill this dresser with all things kitchen & dining room related. So, the next shuffle went like this:
Kitchen Linens: Emptied 2 kitchen drawers--> towels & napkins in dresser
Empty Kitchen drawers--> filled with glass Pyrex bowls (they are all finally in one place!)
1 of 4 dresser drawers filled:

Media Storage/TV Stand in Living Room--> Emptied 3 drawers of cookbooks & table linens (clearly, not "media" storage)
Cookbooks, Candles & Linens--> moved to dresser
All of my kitchen & dining room stuff fit in the dresser and there is growing space. Success!

Now, the media storage drawers were empty in the living room but where was all the media storage, you ask?
The office upstairs, of course!
So, I headed back upstairs and went through all the DVDs, VHS tapes and gaming controls. I really love the look of baskets organized in drawers, but with no budget for cute baskets, I used what I had: cardboard shoe boxes:

This drawer looks quite familiar to the drawers above, doesn't it? There is a method to my madness. Our TV Stand/Media Storage is actually a dresser as well (spotted by my mom at a garage sale a couple years ago) and is stained very similar to my old dresser that now resides in the dining room. Cohesion at its best!
The best part about all this? I have an entire drawer in the media/tv dresser to fill with whatever we accumulate in the future. Cheers to that!

The last round of organizing was filling the now-empty baskets in the office. I rounded up all our random pictures and albums into one basket and re-shuffled everything on our office shelves. Everything "breathes" again!

As soon as Mikey got home from work, I overwhelmed him with my excitement of everything I had done that morning. Per usual, I thought he'd be more excited :) Totally a girl thing, right? I think his comment was something like, "Where on earth do you get all this energy? You're making me feel guilty about how I spend my days off." Ha! I just got on a roll.

Next, I recruited Mikey to help me hang some new hooks in our bedroom (sorry, forgot to take pics) and hang our mail sorter & key holder unit in the kitchen. I feel like our lives are finally back in order after taking so many things off the wall to paint over winter break.

Throughout the day long organizing binge, I also worked on making our contribution for dinner club. We were in charge of dessert this month and the theme was Brinner (Breakfast for Dinner).
So, I made popovers (for the first time ever) and lavender honey butter:

I used Cooks Illustrated recipes which never fail me. But, since this was my first time with popovers and they can be finicky, I also made Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting just in case:

After such a busy day, we rushed out the door to dinner club and I forgot my camera. So, I don't have Dinner Club pics but here is what we ate:
Katie & Lyndon brought homemade oat bread with 2 different homemade spreads (one was a cheese spread and the other one was a berry ginger spread)

Frank & Erin made:
-baked egg ramekins with cheese and veggies
-fingerling potatoes
-Erin's famous baked oatmeal
-berry mint smoothies with rum (yum!)
-prosciutto-wrapped asparagus

You can imagine that we were pretty stuffed at this point so the light and airy popovers were a good end to the meal. Most of us passed on the cupcakes due to exploding stomachs. Per usual, everything tasted great and we had a wonderful time!

Saturday Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:19:00 +0000

Want to know the best way to win over Mikey's heart?
Bake him his favorite cookie:

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip- the best combination ever!

I only baked one dozen cookies and then froze the rest of the dough:

These babies rolled up easily and then I "flash froze" them on a plate in the freezer. Once they were frozen, I put them in a ziplock bag for a later time. It seems to be working great for portion control!

Baking cookies is my favorite way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I love to put on some tunes and let my mind wander while I work in the kitchen. The house smells fantastic afterward and it's fun to surprise Mikey with his favorite treat when he gets home from work. He surprised me this past Saturday by getting home an hour early so that we could get outside and enjoy the beautiful day.

After eating a cookie or two, we were off with Anna for a nice hilly brisk walk. It's finally starting to feel like spring. While on our walk, we talked about what we should have for dinner and Mikey was definitely in the mood to do some grillin and chillin. After all, grilling is probably his favorite hobby. Our Saturday was shaping up to be a great day!

After some errands, Mikey put the tunes on and got to work on dinner. My tasks for dinner were:
-setting the grill up and getting the charcoal chimney lit
-baking the oven fries
-cooking some bacon

Mikey took care of the rest:

Tis the season for asparagus, right?

The grill master:

That, my friends, is an ooey gooey jalapeno cheddar burger:

With burgers & fries on Mikey's menu, I demanded some veggies in the mix. Cheers to asparagus:

The meal was fantastic but very filling! I forgot to mention that Mikey grilled up some onions for the burgers and garnished the asparagus with parmesan cheese:

We finished up dinner just in time for the tip-off of the NCAA semi-final mens basketball games.
A day full of baking, exercising, grilling, chilling & watching college hoops was an ideal day for us. I just wish we could have more of them:)

Getting Closer

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:20:00 +0000

After a crazy month of basketball, my dad was able to come up the last weekend in March to finish constructing our guest bed. We primarily had to cut and assemble the headboard. We also had to assemble the base and make sure everything was square.
I was quite fond of using the air nailer!!

Hannah and Matt helped out too:

It takes a lot of extra hands to make sure everything attaches correctly in the final assembly phase. It's a good thing my dad is meticulous with measuring and squaring everything up.

And here is is:

It is 100% solid oak. There's a subtle angle on the headboard to allow for people to sit up and read comfortably.
Mike and I still need to add a few finishing touches like adding the support pieces for the plywood and attaching the headboard to the base.

Next up: Staining & Final Coating

Yippee!! My goal is have this done by the time our next guests arrive- April 22nd. Better get hoppin'!

Championship Basketball

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:54:00 +0000

Two weeks ago, my dad got the chance of a lifetime. The girls basketball team that he coaches made it to the state championship game. My dad has been coaching for 15 years and so finally reaching the state tournament and then progressing to the championship game is a dream come true for him. For a little town of 800 people, having a team in the state tournament is a big deal and the entire community rallies around the team. It's one of the neatest things to see. I felt an immense sense of guilt not being able to go down to the cities to watch the quarterfinal game at Williams Arena. My dad brought Sarah and I to the state girls basketball tournament at Williams Areana every year since we were like 10 & 8 years old. I have fond memories of watching the tournament at The Barn with my dad and sister. But as you all know, March is my busy time at work as we host 2 section h.s. boys tournaments at UMD while the state girls bb tournament is being played in the cities. So, my mom sent me updates via text messages during the game. The girls won the quarterfinal game at Williams Arena and advanced to the semi-final game at the Target Center. Again, I wasn't able to attend the semi-final game but I did get to watch it live on the internet. To my surprise, the team won the semi-final game and advanced to the championship game the following day at Noon. NOON! I could finally go to a game since it was being played at Noon.
So, Hannah and I decided to drive down to the game and surprise my mom. She was more than surprised... tears were flowing. Best surprise ever!

Once we took our seats, I was surprised to see a colleague from work being the head official for the game:

The guy in the middle is Mick McComber, the Director of Rec Sports at UMD. Mick's office is literally 10 steps down the hallway from mine and Mick was my supervisor in college. I'm bummed that the picture is grainy but it's from the mega-zoom I had to do on my point and shoot camera. This was Mick's first (and maybe final) state tournament game to ref. So, it was a special game for me to watch in many ways.

Here's the whole town of Nicollet and their families at Target Center:

My dad in action:

The team:

Sibling love:

Notice how Matt is an entire HEAD taller than me and I'm pretty sure he's not done growing.

The team ended up taking 2nd place but they still have so much to be proud of. And I'm so happy for my dad to finally have been able to coach a team in the state tournament.

Hannah and I had to scoot right after the game so that I could get back to Duluth and work a section final game that night. It was a whirlwind but I'm so happy we went!

March Dinner Club: Andalusian/Spanish style

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 01:06:00 +0000

I've been posting a lot lately about our house renos & updates but we've also been doing a lot of cooking.
The dinner club theme for March was Andalusian (Spain) and the party was hosted by Nellie & Bruce. We were in charge of bringing the appetizer this month. So, Mikey made Mushroom Crostinis. For the bread, he sliced up a baguette and then brushed both sides with olive oil and sprinkled salt and pepper on one side. The pieces were baked in the oven at 400 degrees until golden brown. The topping was made with shitake & crimini mushrooms, chevre cheese, thyme, shallots, garlic and sherry. Once we arrived at the party, everybody built their own crostinis. This recipe was a big hit:

We mingled and drank chardonnay with the appetizer:

Soon enough it was dinner time. The menu featured Andalusian lemon chicken:

with sauteed spinach, olives and almonds and hand-massaged couscous:

"Hand massaged" couscous is from an old chef joke from the days when Mike and Bruce worked together at Chester Creek Cafe. It's been used by chefs to make a dish sound more sophisticated. Do you buy it?

I loved the spinach, almond and olive side dish:

We drank the Syrah & Garnacha wines that we brought with dinner. Both wines paired well with dinner.

For dessert, Frank and Erin brought this adorable tart:

The tart had an almond flavored crust, delicious custard filling and soaked cherries. The final touch was a jalapeno glaze that was drizzled over the top. It was fab! Lyndon cooked up homemade hot chocolate as the perfect pairing for dessert. The hot chocolate was boiled with a tea bag of spices to give it a unique flavor. Bruce declared the tart & hot chocolate as the best dessert pairing to date!

With full bellies, we needed to move around a bit. So, Nellie pulled out the game Catch Phrase- girls vs. guys:

Time was getting away from all of us and it was getting late so we had to say our goodbyes.

I had each couple cozy up for a photo before leaving.
Lyndon & Katie:

Frank & Erin:

Bruce & Nellie:

M&M (this was like our 10th picture... Mikey was being a total goof):

Proof of a good party:

It's here!!

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:04:00 +0000

The search is over, the chair was ordered and finally the wait is over... my custom mustard chair arrived!!
She is modern, comfortable & a lil' bit swanky if I do say so:

We also got new pillows at Pier 1. Mikey picked these out and I think they look great!

She fits in with the rest of the room just swell:

Have I mentioned that she's also practical:

The little divet in the reclining portion is just from being stuck in the box. I imagine it will fluff up in no time.

Living with Mikey has changed my buying habits a bit. This chair was no different. If you recall, we used to have a green chair & ottoman (also called the french fry chair... a reference from college). It worked just fine for many years until one morning when Mikey was in a frenzied hurry and broke his toe after accidentally kicking the ottoman. Never a dull moment.
So, my desire to have an ottoman in that corner was squashed. Hence, the search for the perfect chair replacement started. This chair is perfect for us because:
-it is leather (a MUST with 2 furry companions in the house)
- it is actually really comfortable which can be hard to find with leather chairs (a lay-z-boy was not an option)
- it has modern touches but is still classic enough to have staying power
-the feet are the same color as the rest of the furniture (espresso) in the living room
-it reclines
-it makes the perfect little reading nook
-it is the perfect color- a little bit vintage
-it is the perfect size for that corner (notice the heating vent is also in that corner which limits the size of the chair)

I am in love!

Lastly, we finally installed the infamous magnetic knife strip that led to the kitchen paint job:

We really like it and it has opened up so much counter space by not having a knife block.

DIY: Bed Frame

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 00:22:00 +0000

Now that we've got a nice new mattress in our guest bedroom, the next step is getting the bed frame. The CB2 bed frame that I'm in love with retails for $600. While I don't think that is horribly expensive, I was pretty sure I could recruit my dad to make me a replica at about a third of the cost. Sure enough, he obliged and has done a ton of research to figure out the logistics of making the bed. So, my parents came up for a weekend and brought an entire van full of tools (including a table saw, nail gun, heavy duty clamps) and lumber. We worked on making the bed for over 20 hours that weekend. The bed is being made of solid oak (it's a beast) and is still a work in progress. Here's the progress:

I like to call this the "poop shot"

We had quite the set-up going in our little basement:

Mike & my dad

Pieces of the headboard

The feet

The 3 work stations: gluing, cutting, sanding


Mikey chiseling a groove for the sideboard brackets

We got the base and foot board done and all of the headboard prepped (glued & sanded). My dad will be coming up in a couple weeks to finish everything up and then I'll be staining & top coating it. It should be done by early April. I can't wait to reveal it to you!

Guest Bedroom Update

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:34:00 +0000

We love having guests visit us. So when we bought our house 5 years ago, we were anxious to make a welcoming guest bedroom. Over the past 5 years, the room has been painted 3 times, curtains switched out twice, floors refinished and yet it still lacks the warm welcome I'm hoping for.

Let's start with the beginning.

Here's how the room looked during the inspection (we think this was somebody's art room at one point as well as a sewing room from evidence on the floor):

We refinished the wood floors prior to moving in and then re-purposed Mikey's college futon as our guest bed. We stacked 2 futon mattresses on top of each other but were always a bit embarrassed at the humble accommodations for our guests.
After grad school, I did some major purging of stuff in that room. Here's the chaos:

This fall I decided to get serious about getting the room in tip top shape. My top priority was getting a new bed. The room is long but narrow and I wanted to upgrade to a queen size mattress. So, I started looking online at various stores and blogs for inspiration. I eventually came up with a color palette and used various "props" to pick a wall color:

Per usual, I was diligent (maybe mildly obsessed) with checking the paint samples in different light levels:

Here's the room all stripped down and ready for some paint:

I got a workout- for both my muscles and patience- painting this room!

Crown Molding: Before

1st coat of primer


2nd coat of primer


Painted Gray Wall and Painted White Trim

Final Touch up!

Someone has a need to be next to her mommy at all times- especially while painting and cleaning- and got a little too close to the wall:

My helpers kept me company while I painted:

I love my peeps!

You may have noticed one of the "props" above being this map:

It was my gift to Mikey for his birthday in September and is a detailed map of the trails, lakes and roads around Lake Superior in our neck of the woods. It's about 7 feet long and 6 feet wide and he loves it!
The map was the color inspiration for the room and is great conversation piece for our guests.

I'm really happy how the wall color turned out (it's my favorite color in the whole house):

Now that I had the wall color set, it was time to start accessorizing and finally getting a new bed!
We were fortunate over winter break when Mike's parents bought us the mattress when they were up visiting. I was happy that they were able to be along for testing and picking out the mattress since they will probably get the most use out of it! Unfortunately, the mattress wasn't delivered until after they left but we've got it set up in the room and ready for their next visit:

We've obviously got some work to do... particularly a bed frame.
Notice how the windows are almost the entire height of the wall? Well, it creates a bit of a pickle for having a head board that won't block a ton of natural light. Also, there is virtually no room for bedside tables. So, I've come to love this bed from CB2:

bed from CB2

It will sit lower to the ground and has a nice shelf on the back of the headboard for our guests to put some of their belongings on as well as a lamp or two.

Speaking of lamps, the roll of toilet paper in my "props" photo was meant to mimic this beauty:

table lamp from CB2

I love how clean it looks and the solid bright white looks classy against the gray wall and dark trim in the room.

I couldn't possibly have a new mattress and frame without new bedding, could I? I am loving this duvet cover and pillow set:

duvet from west elm

Funky, no?

With all the modern accessories I've got picked out, the light fixture- which I presume to be the original in this house- has got to be updated. I love this fixture but also might consider a patterned shade if the room needs a little punch:

ceiling lamp from CB2

The area of the room where the book shelf currently is needs to be more guest friendly. I want to bring in some personality to this space and try to mix some vintage pieces with all the modern ones. For practicality's sake, I'd love this full length mirror:


Full length mirror from Ikea

Ideally, I'd also like to find a vintage little desk for guests to place their belongings along with an artsy stool/seat. I'm kinda loving this little seat (the table isn't bad either):

In the mean time, we'll utilize the book shelf.

I'm still undecided about a rug, curtains and art work. I want to get the bed, bedding & lighting in place and then see how bold I want to go with other textiles. Should be fun!!

Kitchen Update

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 01:52:00 +0000

You might have thought it was springtime in the M&M house a couple weekends ago. Everything was cleared out of the kitchen and the fridge & stove were pulled out from the wall. Usually that can only mean one thing... Spring Cleaning!!
Except one of the things below is not like the other.. Behr Premium Paint!

I did a bunch of color sampling ahead of time.

Our kitchen stayed like this for well over a month while I watched how the colors changed throughout the day with different light levels.

I still wasn't happy with my 3 samples so I started over again with another set of paint swatches.

Once I finally picked a color, I got to work. It took an entire Saturday to just clean. As you all know, we do quite a bit of cooking in this house and so you can imagine the mess that has transpired over 5 years. Who knew chili & pasta sauce could boil to the point of launching splatters on the ceiling? I had no idea how messy our walls and ceiling were and I'm kind of a neat freak! Wowza!

So what drove me to do all this work? Being able to hang a magnetic knife strip in order to ditch our knife block in order to make room for our new food processor! Call me crazy... I don't mind. An organized kitchen is the only way I roll. I'd also like for it to be modern, cute & swanky. What? You don't think the country blue Formica counter top accomplishes that?

In time my friends.

For now, I shall just paint. By Sunday night, it looked like this:

My first impression was that the color had too much purple in the gray. But, I think it helps to mute some of the craptastic country blue. What do you think?

Here are the shots after putting the room back together:

I think the room does look a little more modern which was my primary goal.

I painted all the trim including the window frame and it just looks so fresh (I have to do the door yet) !

It's growing on me. I can't wait for new granite counter tops & new hardware on the cabinets.

January 2011 D.C.- Trinidadian

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:45:00 +0000

Faithful blog readers:
Thanks for hanging in there and checking in on us. We've been busy and I have lots of pictures to share.
For January's dinner club we experienced a real treat- an authentic Trinidadian meal at Lyndon & Katie's house. Lyndon grew up in Trinidad and since we've never vacationed there, were really excited to see what was in store for the night.
Bruce & Nellie brought over a beautiful pineapple and some funky dips to start the party off. We brought a mini keg of Bell's Hop Slam (typical):

Next, Lyndon fried up some plantains and most of us munched on these prior to dinner because we just couldn't wait!

Lyndon & Katie cooked up a feast! We had curried duck (which was FAB! I loved the spices.), fried plantain, tomato choka (roasted tomatoes flavored with cumin and garlic infused oil), coconut lentils & roti (flatbread):

This meal was filling and so satisfying. I loved the combination of sweet and spicy flavors. I could easily get used to eating this style of food. Katie & Lyndon also said that Rum Punch is standard drinking fair in Trinidad and it was SO good. I imagined a sugar red punch and it was nothing like that. I'll have to bug Katie for the recipe.

For dessert, Katie brought out Sawine which she explained is a Muslim sweet for Eid.

I would compare the flavors to rice pudding. Just a little sweetness to tame the spices from dinner. It was perfect.
Here's the clan...
Nellie & Bruce:

Erin & Frank (sorry guys... loved this photo and other one is blurry):

Blurry...

M&M

The gracious hosts: Katie, Lyndon and their son, Ravi:

yuper duper

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 03:15:00 +0000

About 3 weeks ago, Mikey and I packed up the car for a day of snow shoeing. We intended to do a nice hike along the south shore of Lake Superior due to lots of lake effect snow this year. After a pit stop at the Ashland Baking Company, we decided to keep driving so that we could enjoy our chocolate filled croissant. After all, the U.P. of Michigan was only another 45 minute drive. I'd never been to the U.P. but heard lots about it. We drove back in to the Porcupine Mountains and hiked along a river.
It was a beautiful day. 20+ degrees and snowing.

Anna likes to "ride" on the backs of Mikey's snow shoes:
waterfalls:
After an hour of intense snow shoeing, we made it to the big lake. Mister ambitious thought we needed to climb the mother of all hills for a better view:
And it was totally worth it! Lake Superior was swelling like a monster, the wind was whipping, the snow was coming down heavily and it felt so desolate:
We had an absolute blast!!

You can't help but love winter on days like these.

what's wrong with this picture?

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:43:00 +0000

whaaaaaaaaaat??

bathroom reno

noreply@blogger.com (Manda and Mike) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 21:26:00 +0000

Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we?
We are coming up on the 5 year anniversary of moving in to our first house. We feel very fortunate that our house was "move in ready" when we purchased it. It has charm, was (mostly) tastefully painted and gives us plenty of space. Slowly but surely we've made the house feel more like us. Since we are coming up on 5 years, I'm getting the itch to re-create most of the spaces in our house. You could say I'm a little bored with our rooms.
During furlough week, I did lots of painting, staining, sanding and cleaning. I'm excited to say that we are finally done with the bathroom reno/update that's been in the works for the past 2 years. Here we go...
Here's the bathroom on inspection day (end of March 2006) prior to closing on our house:
Besides a new shower curtain and rug, the room worked great for 3 years. Unfortunately, the old (but charming) faucet handle broke in 2008. We sawed out the old faucet, ordered a replacement, attempted to install it (with both dads) and ultimately had to give up! It became apparent that we needed to bring the bathroom up to more modern plumbing standards.

With the reality of needing a new sink & faucet, it became apparent that we were going to need a new vanity as well. Thus began the search for something that we loved, was affordable and fit the tiny space. After looking in multiple home stores and catalogs, I had a vision of what would work. Unfortunately, everything I liked was out of our price range. So to save costs, we made our own vanity with the help of my dad.

Remember these pics from Feb. 2009:

We put this together in one weekend at the school's shop:

I was able to fit it in the back of my car to haul it back to Duluth to begin the staining process:
Three coats of espresso stain & two coats of poly later, the vanity was ready for install (minus the doors):

With all new plumbing underneath the sink and a working faucet above, we were finally able to stop brushing our teeth in the bathtub!

The new vanity sits a couple inches shorter than the old one:

So, I did a little scraping to remove a bunch of layers of paint and create a smooth transition. The old plaster was much rougher than the rest of the wall so the guys at Home Depot recommended this stuff:

and it worked great! Though this seems like a small feat, it was the first time I had ever patched plaster and I was proud of how well it turned out:
Due to a very busy fall semester, our bathroom sat this way for months. I was finally able to sand the plaster and install the vanity doors around Thanksgiving.

That brings us to furlough week (week between Cmas & New Years). I painted the entire bathroom, caulked the door inserts in to the vanity, scrubbed the grout in the floor & touched up the trim. AND IT'S NOW DONE!!!

I am thrilled with how everything turned out. It's modern, clean and definitely more M&M: