Spatchcock

Spatchcocking is all the rage this year. It was actually in the Martha Stewart magazine and my dad mentioned it. So I had to try it. It involves cutting out the backbone and then breaking the breast bone.

You actually have to cut through the ribs, which is totally gross. But my lucky kitchen shears (and a little help from Nick) did the trick and the backbone came out. Flipped it over and tried as hard as I could, even stood on a chair for more leverage, but couldn't get the breast bone to break. Too slippery and too strong of a bone. Oh well...

Here he is, all splayed out.

After all the cooking we headed over for the 3rd annual - no family, just friends - kids only - Thanksgiving with Tyler and Caresse. T and C are originally from Michigan and we've spent Thanksgiving with them since we moved to the area. While we do miss our families, we LOVE our Thanksgiving. There's something to be said for just hanging out with friends, everyone stuffing their faces and not caring at all. And when we were done with dinner, we just left it all out on the table for a few hours, in case anyone wanted leftovers.

Did I mention we make enough food for 8-10 people?

We even have rice. You should try it sometime.

Caresse and Tyler's new place is adorable and they've done a great job fixing it up.

And on to dessert! Red velvet cheesecake (sour cream apple pie, pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie).

So good....so fat.

Some people take pictures of food...

I, on the other hand, take pictures of Nick, eating food. I was looking through the past years photos to find something to use for our Christmas card. I started noticing a trend. So I thought I'd blog about it.

To his credit, he's incredibly thin and never puts on weight, so he needs to eat. He also dislikes me taking pictures of him....so I'm sure he's gonna LOVE this weeks blog post.

Let's start back in November 2008. We went to Amsterdam and Brussels. I lost weight the first time I went to Europe....I gained weight during this trip.

Olliebollens - powdered sugar coated balls of fried dough. Sold on the street. Nick bought one, bit it and then had powdered sugar all over his face and jacket.

Then there was hot chocolate at the train station, a belgian waffle in Belgium (when in Rome) and some beer. We ate our way through Europe.

We went to Cabo to celebrate the big 1-0. On one of our last nights, we got churros for dessert. Churros with chocolate and caramel dipping sauce. Please don't let your mind go into the gutter.

....too late, bet you went there.

On to blueberries. Nick eats these with 2 hands, alternating to ensure an optimum blueberry to mouth rate. He doesn't even inspect for buggies. Notice one hand in the bucket, the other at his mouth.

On to cupcakes. I'm actually surprised I only have 2 pictures of Nick eating cupcakes....but they are both action shots. Red velvet in Boston....

And Red Velvet at Erik and Katie's wedding.

And finally, Dick's! Seattle tradition - kind of like In-and-Out to Californians. We pretty much try to stop at Dick's whenever we can. He gets 2 cheeseburgers, some fries and a strawberry shake. Always a strawberry shake.

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And because I'd hate for you to get the impression that Nick doesn't exercise, here he is, kicking some serious butt at the San Francisco Half Marathon.

Adding insult to injury

We just got back from Cabo - BTW, Cabo is awesome and I recommend it to everyone. Stay at the Hilton Los Cabos, totally worth it. I was checking my email and noticed a funny one from Apple:

Your one-year iPod nano warranty is about to expire.

Now, what really sucks, is that I lost my iPod in September - right before my half marathon. What is even silly-er is that I bought it in August, right around my birthday. So there is NO WAY that the one-year warranty is about to expire. While I'm on my anti-apple kick. On Friday, before we left for Cabo, I wanted to downloaded the most recent episode of Glee. I missed it while on travel, and the show makes me happy, so I wanted to buy it. REPEAT - I wanted to give apple money. They made it really tough for me to do that. FIrst, I had to download the most recent version of iTunes. They have new versions about every other day.....so that's irritating. Finally downloaded all 85MB of the new version - because heaven forbid they just update what needs to be changed - and then it tells me I need the newest version of Safari to access iTunes. So 2 reboots and 2 new programs later, I finally download Glee. Was it worth it? Yes. Glee was awesome. Am I annoyed with Apple? Most definitely.

Wedding season '09 is officially over!

And what a way to send out wedding season '09!  We just got back from the Burton/Gimenez wedding and had a great time.  8 heads of hair later, we enjoyed a great dinner and some fun dancing at the Winchester country club.  Wedding number 4 was great and a big congratulations to Kellie and Chris!

But I have to give a shout out to Express and my green, tulip skirt dress (with pockets!).  It helped me get through wedding season '09 like a champ!  It was a fun, "in" color and I think I got at least 1 compliment at each wedding I attended.  It was also great because it hid a full belly :-)  This helped out immensely last night.....when I ate too many cupcakes.  Oops!

So here we go, Bryn and the green dress take on wedding season '09!

Jing Jing and Judy's Feng Shui event at the Hyatt in Bellevue - 5.25.09 - the green dress makes its debut.

Curtain call on 8.8.09 for Erik and Katie's (long awaited) wedding.  

Encore on 9.12.09 for Robb and Carmen's wedding (with a view of the WSU/UofH game at quest field).  

And the final appearance (at least for '09) at the Winchester Country Club for Chris and Kellie's beautiful ceremony and rockin' reception.

The green dress treated me well and almost made an appearance at Halloween as Tinkerbelll (maybe next year!).   It was accompanied by my gold leaf earrings, black wedges and thin, black cardigan (and engagement ring :-)).  I even did the same side chignon with swept bangs.  I literally wore the exact same outfit to every wedding.  And there was no overlap!  None!  The only person who knew, was Nick.  And I think he wore the same purple shirt to 3 of the 4 weddings....and would have worn it to all of them, had he not been in one of them.  Woo hoo!!

Congrats to all the happy couples!

Happy Halloween

Mochi is clearly thrilled with his Halloween costume.  He kept it on for about 15 seconds, then shook them off.  I guess he was mad that he couldn't Mickey.

I put them on my head around the house on Saturday.  Thought it was amusing.  Then we took Mochi on a walk.  We got halfway up the hill when I saw my shadow and realized I'd forgotten to take them off - I did this all right in front of the neighbors.  It was priceless.  Embarrassing.  At least it was halloween.