Itinerary

So this is the potential plan I have mapped out for anyone who wants to visit. First it looked like just Brooke may be coming (you better let her, Ira!) but I talked to my mom last night and she said they are thinking about coming before the family reunion in the East. Once they read this exciting fun filled time I have planned, though, they won't be able to turn me down. Plus everyone else who reads it will be calling me up asking to visit too.
So here it is- based on arriving in St. Louis on Monday, then leaving on Sunday. I tried to link most of the places, so click for more info.

Monday Evening
-arrive in St. Louis

Tuesday
Morning
-The Gateway Arch (get it out of the way)
Mid-day
-Nadoz Cafe for Lunch
-SLU Campus/Samuel Cupples House
-Contemporary Art Museum (strictly for Brooke's benefit; free for students)
Afternoon
-Cathedral Basilica (supposedly has largest mosaic collection in the world; free admission)
Evening
-Dinner at home
- walk around Compton Heights neighborhood

Wednesday
Morning
-MO Botanical Gardens
Midday
-lunch at home
Afternoon
-City Museum (it's more of a Discovery Center than a museum)
-Anheuser-Bush Brewery (free admission)
Evening
-dinner at Joanie's Pizza

Thursday
Morning
-St. Louis Zoo (free admission)
-lunch at the Boathouse
Afternoon
-Art Museum (free admission)
-Science Center (free admission)
Thursday Evening
-dinner at home

Friday
Variety of Options to choose from
-Shaw Nature Reserve
-Butterfly House
-Grant's Farm
-Six Flags
-Cardinals Game
-Various Parks
-Fox Theater
-History Museum if not too boring (free admission)
-St. Louis Symphony
-and much much more!!

Saturday
Morning
-Soulard Farmer's Market
Midday/Afternoon
-lunch/relax at home
Evening
-South Grand for dinner and window shopping

Sunday
-church
-say goodbye

Of course none of this is set in stone. I just wanted to give you an idea of the options we have. Boredom or simple relaxation is not a part of this itinerary as you can see.

Saturday Night Date Edited*

Jonathan and I had a nice time Saturday night. We went out to eat to Pho Grand, an inexpensive, but tasty Vietnamese restaurant. The restaurant is in South Grand, a part of town, about two miles from our house that is known for being a multicultural experience for lack of a better term. It features several different types of food including, but not limited to- Vietnamese Ethiopian, Thai, Persian, and Afghan. (do I sound like a commercial?) Plus it is home to Jay's International Market which I got a kick out of. Jonathan didn't want to go in, but I begged him to let us look around for a minute (we were on a date after all). So we got to see frozen swamp eel, green and red bean ice cream bars, and more tasty treats! Plus they have a huge tea selection, which was relatively cheap. I probably could have spent hours there looking at all the strange foreign goodies they carried, but Jonathan dragged me out the door. It made me think of my sister and how she would have enjoyed the experience as much as me, so I decided she needs to come visit, just to come to that store with me. More to come on this later however, as I am planning our extensive itinerary during her visit.

We went to another cool store, called The Future Antiques. It is way overpriced of course, but has lots of cool stuff that makes you feel all nostalgic. For example they carry many of the old pyrex butter dishes your mom has, but you don't and wish you did. They also have lots of the gaudy jewelry like your grandma's, polyester clothes, and many other treasures similar to those found at my great-grandmother's yard sale. Yes, yes, my eyes had quite the feast with all the many things to look at in the international market and antique store on South Grand.

*I realized my link didn't work when I first posted this, so I fixed it. But I also realized the "butter dish" I am talking about is technically a "refigerator dish." I still like it best as a butter dish though.

George

On Tuesday I wanted to get out and do something with Jonathan, since on Monday all I did was lay(lie?) around. I picked a good spot to go- Shaw Nature Reserve. It's way out past the city where it's pretty, kind of a branch of the Missouri Botanical Garden. I did not pick a good day however. It was a really beautiful morning, but by the time we got it together we didn't get on the Interstate until about one o'clock. On the drive over a big rainstorm hit, but we were already more than half way there so there was no turning back. It did stop raining eventually, but it was still overcast. The lady at the guide center said to watch out for ticks since they are really bad this time of year. Jonathan and I, anticipating the heat, both wore shorts and tee-shirts, so the whole time we were frantically brushing each other off from fear of the dreaded bugs. (We also used half a can of bug spray.) We hiked a trail down to a river. It was nice, but on the way back it started raining again. I had an umbrella only big enough for me, so poor Jonathan was soaked. (You can't walk with two people under an umbrella anyway.)

The good thing was I found my old pet turtle George, who ran away several years ago. I don't have a clue how he got all the way to Missouri, but considering my poor care-taker skills, I am not that surprised. He looked happier than ever, so I left him there but got a picture to remember him by.

Here is George's friend who I came very close to stomping on when I was running through a part of the trail that was lined with tall, wet, grass, -trying to avoid being eaten alive by ticks.

The picture is of poor quality because Jonathan was also in a hurry to get out of the tall grass. He's hiding in his shell, because like I said, I almost ran him over. But what can he expect? He's sitting in the middle of the road. Same with that stupid fat ugly worm that is grossing me out and ruining the picture.

Here are some nice scenery pictures Jonathan took-

We are definitely going back when it is not raining and high tick season!

Recipes Per Request

Irresistible Jif Peanut Butter Cookies
-this is a recipe I got off the back of a Jif PB jar. It is delicious. You will love it I promise.

3/4 cup crunchy Jif Peanut Butter (you can use smooth, but crunchy is way better)
1/2 cup shortening
1-1/4 cups brown sugar (I substitute honey for part of the brown sugar, which makes them even softer, and a tad bit more nutritious)
3 Tb milk
1 Tb vanilla
1 egg
1-3/4 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Combine peanut butter, shortening, brown sugar, milk, and vanilla in bowl. Beat at medium speed until well blended. Add egg. Beat just until blended. (I personally use a wooden spoon, not a mixer :)
3. Combine flour, salt, and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture at low speed. Mix just until blended. Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto baking sheet. Flatten slightly in crisscross pattern with tines of fork.
4. Bake for 7 to 8 minutes, or until set and just beginning to brown. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet. Remove cookies to foil to cool completely.
Makes about 3 dozen cookies

Walnut Baklava
-I got this recipe out of a Taste of Home magazine. It is pretty good, but I would like to experiment with making thicker and fewer layers, as it is very time consuming with so many thin layers.

4 cups finely chopped walnuts (toast them first for more flavor)
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tb cinnamon
1 cup butter, melted
1 package (16 ounces) frozen phyllo dough, thawed
Syrup:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a bowl, combine the walnuts, sugar and cinnamon; set aside. Grease a 13x9x2 inch baking dish with some of the melted butter. Unroll phyllo dough sheets (keep dough covered with plastic wrap while assembling to keep from drying out.)
Place one sheet of phyllo in baking dish; brush with butter. Top with a second sheet; brush with butter. Fold short ends under to fit the dish. Sprinkle with about 1/4 cup nut mixture. Repeat 18 times, layering two sheets, brushing with butter and sprinkling with nut mixture. Top with remaining dough; brush with butter. Cut into 2 inch diamonds with a sharp knife.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45-55 minutes or until golden brown. Meanwhile, in a saucepan, combine the syrup ingredients; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Pour over warm baklava. Cool on a wire rack.
Yield: about 3 dozen

The Office

This is my new favorite show. Jonathan and I have kingdom group on Thursday night, so we aren't able to watch it that often. I got the first season and first episodes of the second season on DVD from the library. The first season Michael Scott is just so obnoxious, we had to take a break from watching it because we just couldn't handle it. But the second season was hilarious. I have never laughed so much in my life. I am looking forward to seeing the rest of the episodes I have on hold at the library.

Mother's Day like no other

First of all, I want to say Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers out there. Hope your family treated you better than I did my mothers. They will be getting their cards and presents late. Oh well. It is hard to get it together in time when they are half way across the country.

Next, I wanted to say, remember how I said we were having a Mother's Day brunch at my work for about 4oo people? Well, it turns out I was wrong. We had reservations for 800 people. Needless to say, last week was extremely busy. I worked 52 hours from Wednesday through Sunday. That probably doesn't sound like that much. But when you are on your feet for fifty-one of those hours, it's pretty rough. I am not one to complain though because first of all, I was happy to get the work and the over-time, and secondly the head chef, Patrick, and head pastry chef, Brandon, basically worked non-stop for three days straight (yes that includes night). I don't know how they did it.

The actual brunch was pretty spectacular. I have never seen so much food in my life. There were literally piles of fresh bread, pastries, desserts, fresh fruit, shrimp, fish and on and on and on. Patrick carved a huge marlin out of ice, which was the centerpiece for the fish station. For the dessert station, he made an entire tropical flower bouquet out of marzipan. I wish I would have taken pictures.

When I got home on Sunday, I was exhausted. After much lying around and sleeping today I am feeling like myself again. I was lucky enough to get today and tomorrow off to recover.

The Day the Music Died

Jonathan and I are so behind the times, you will laugh when you read this. We do not have cell phones. We do not have i-pods or anything of that sort. We do not have a DVD player (we just use our PS2 to watch DVDs). We still use good old CD's and CD players. You already know that we just recently got the Internet. So every time we see commercials for cell phones we laugh because they are so high tech. They are not just phones anymore. They are mp3 players, mini TVs and computers all wrapped into one. I mean how ridiculous is that? You can't go anywhere these days without hearing somebody gabbing away on their phones. It's so annoying. Especially at school and at the store and at restaurants and in cars and everywhere. But, what can you do. It's just part of the culture now. I really don't have too much of a desire to have a cell-phone, although I do admit it would be convenient. Sometimes, when I am without Jonathan I think, wow it would be nice if I could call Jonathan right now and tell him so and so... And I think I would be more popular. I am not sure why, but I think having a cell-phone gets you more friends. I am still working out this theory...
Anyway, the purpose of this post really wasn't to rag on cell phones, but to talk about my stereo. It's not even really a stereo. It's a Sony CD player boombox thing. I have had this thing since I got it for my birthday in the fifth grade, so about 10 years. For about two years now it has gone down hill. It couldn't play a brand new CD without making it skip. This made me very angry. Every time it skipped, I screamed at it, threatened to throw it out the window, banged it with my fist etc etc... The other day I yelled "you stupid thing I hate you! I wish you would die!" and proceeded to bang on it with my fist. And guess what? My wish came true. It died.
Now I am like, wow this sucks. I can't listen to my music. But then I said.... hmmm.... I wonder. So I put my CD in our Playstation2/DVD player and viola! music! It is now a PS2/DVD player/Stereo. I was happy. But I still want a new stereo. My birthday is June 14.

In the Kitchen

Saturday, I spent basically the entire day in the kitchen. One of the things our church does is ask people to volunteer to make meals for families after they have a baby. Our friends Mike and Mandy had a new baby boy on Tuesday, so I said I would bring them dinner on Saturday because I didn't have to work. Also our church had a brunch on Sunday, and I was asked to bring baklava for it. So on Saturday I made-
baklava
strawberry sorbet
rolls
herbed pasta w/chicken
spinach salad

The baklava took me the longest to do. It's a time consuming process. Plus the filo dough was being a real pain so that didn't help. It was fun, but I was getting on my nerves because I kept making a big mess, so I had to clean the kitchen about three times.

Then today I made peanut butter cookies, and a chocolate cake. The cookies are for tomorrow because it is our last day of tutoring until fall and we are having a little party. The cake is for our Thursday Bible study. I have to work on Wed and Thurs so I wanted to do it ahead of time. I just stuck it in the freezer so it will be nice and fresh. Wow this is boring.

Mother's Day is this Sunday. We have a big mother's day brunch that supposedly 400 people come to, so I actually have a full week of work. I have never worked on a Sunday since I have worked at this company. But I gave in and said I would work Mother's Day. I didn't want to be the only employee out of the entire staff that wouldn't be there. It should be fun for me since I have never worked a brunch before and I won't know what to do.

Things I Did On My Break

I got a mini vacation this week. No work or school. It was very unfortunate to be only scheduled for two days, but at the same time it was a nice break. I tried to relax and enjoy it and be a bit productive at the same time, but it is a lot harder than it sounds. It is hard for me to relax sometimes because I always feel like I should be doing something. I think I did a good job of doing both though.

Things I accomplished:
- made very long to-do list
- organized closet full of junk (I should have taken a before/after picture, it's that good)
- went grocery shopping
- cleaned the house
- organized all education class notes into large binder in preparation for the Praxis
- cleaned out car
- got a healthy dose of TV
- played hours of video games
- slept in
- tutored
- hung out with friend Karen and babies Annika, Olivia, and Lauren
- made dinner every night
- broke our CD player*

Well, I think that about sums it up. Back to work for me tomorrow so I better get to bed.

*more to come on this later