Spring cleaning

F.Y.I... This post was written a week ago but couldn't load the pictures until today. I love the first daffodils that pop up in my yard. It's motivation to work in my yard. Unfortunetely, those pretty daffodils are now squished. Rillz and I started the dawnting task yesterday of cutting down a hideous, no good, very bad so called bush. This thing is huge! Talk about overgrown. It's a piece of crappo. There isn't just a trunk to cut and then bam-o the tree falls and woohoo all is done. It's more like... chop, chop, chop oh and chop over here and over here some more. Not to mention the branches are entangled in the fence. Awesome. We rented a chainsaw... dull, completely empty with no gas/bar oil. Oh how we were so unhappy. We went back to the rental place and traded it out for one that was a little sharper. Still, not $30 worth to rent for 3 hours. Thank goodness our neighbor across the street came over with his own chainsaw that worked SO much better. The task is still not done but Rillz wasn't feeling well and we had an 80th birthday to go to... so we saved it for another day to come... soon. This was the ridiculous bush that was home for raccoons, squirrals, birds, bees, beer bottles, everything else imaginable, pretty sure an elephant was hiding in there for a couple weeks. And so the cutting begins... Our neighbor. I think his name is Dave. Nice guy.

This is what I found in the tree. Over the last 2 years I have been pulling random things out of this dumb bush. And we found 2 big sinder blocks.

What we got it down to so far.

Now we have a beautiful tree on the side of our house.

On a good note, Rillz and I are doing really good with our dinner menu plans. I can heat up a yummy fish stick! Haha. But on Rillz's cooking nights I am in heaven. Tonight we had furikake tuna rice with japanese sausage. Yummy!! I know the majority of you have no idea what furikake even is but if you could taste this through the computer... oh boy! Saturday I was with Kristi and really wanted to eat out but Kristi and I held strong! It's so nice to look at the meal and think... I only spent $2 to make all of this food. Love it!

Happy Anniversary Tracy's

To thank Ren for all his help with our house Rillz wanted to do a really special anniversary dinner for Ren and Heidi. Rillz and I were both pretty excited to do this dinner for them too. Rillz loves being able to be creative on his food. He got all his special gourmet books out for asian themed dish ideas. Through-out the week I picked things up to decorate with. Rillz and I were both happy and pleased with the way it turned out. We definitely didn't put the blood, sweat, and tears into it like Ren did for our kitchen. Ren wasn't even expecting anything in return when he volunteered to help with our kitchen. What great brother-in-laws I have! That said here is Heidi and Ren's thoughts about the whole experience:




Ren helped out Mindy and Rillz a lot the last few months with remodeling their kitchen and some plumbing issues and Rillz wanted to make a special anniversary dinner for us as a thank you. We weren't about to pass up a chance to be fed by the best chef out there!
When Ren first mentioned it I thought we were just going over to their house to have dinner with them. Then Mindy calls and says they are coming to our house, that we need to be out of the house for about 3 hrs and asks if there is anything in my living room that is off limits to move around. Turns out they had bigger plans for our evening!
They came over at 3PM and told us not to return until 6:30PM. It was nice to just go out and get some errands done and be anticipating the deliciousness that awaited us. We returned to a fancy table set for two in our living room, candle light and nice music playing. The whole night was Asian themed.
Pictures don't do it justice. All of the lanterns had lights in them and then they had set up a screen in between the living room and kitchen area so that we couldn't see the chef at work. I seriously felt like I was in a fancy restaurant in my own house, it was great.

Then came the food, oh my was it over the top. We had 5 courses.

Appetizer Sampler: Chicken saute with Thai peanut sauce, Shrimp saute with citrus chili and King crab salad on shrimp boat chip

Palate Cleanser:Ginger infused mango sherbet

Salad: Crisp mixed greens with Asian vinaigrette topped with a bacon wrapped scallop and papaya glazed cucumbers

Entree: Miso sockeye salmon with furikake and lemon rice with garlic hoisin sauce accompanied with kimchee green beans

Dessert: Apple banana lumpia with vanilla ice cream topped with toasted macadamia caramel sauce

Beverage: Fuji apple cranberry cider

Once again, pictures do not do it justice. Each place was like it's own little work of art and it tasted so D.I.V.I.N.E!!! There wasn't one part that we didn't like or even kind of didn't like. It totally ruined our ability to go out to eat and actually pay to eat any other food :) All we talk about now is how delicious that dinner was. It was truly the fanciest thing I have ever eaten in my life...and it was in my own house, so cool.

I know a ton of work and prepping went into our special night. Thanks Mindy and Rillz!

Rillz and I are happy to know they really enjoyed it. Our goal was to make them feel special and have an experience that typically doesn't happen. Since doing this dinner, we have had more than one offer to come help us with the next house project... lucky for them, my house is older and will always need a little TLC here and there.

P.S. Watch out Jeff and Kristi, your next!