Hello World

This past weekend Nick and I celebrated our 25th birthday for the last time this year! We went to a concert in Atlanta. We went to see the country stars, Lady Antebellum! We had a fabulous time! Lady A is one of our favorite groups. We have been wanting to go see them for a while, but it just never worked out until now.

The tickets stayed on our fridge for weeks. I was so worried we would forget them.

We stayed in mid-town Atlanta. We walked to a restaurant and enjoyed a wonderful meal at the South City's Kitchen. They had some good fried green tomatoes!

After dinner we walked to the Fox and enjoyed our concert! We were on row 14! We had great seats. We were also on the end of the row, so later in the concert we stood near the wall and we could see (and dance) a lot better!

Look how close we were to the stage!Opening performance by David Nail. He is new to the country scene.Introducing Lady Antebellum!

And the concert ended with their song Hello World, the one they recently sang on the CMA's.

The concert was great! I'm so glad we finally got to see them live!

On our way home to Montgomery we stopped in Auburn to tailgate with some of Nick's college buddies and some of their wives. We got home just in time to see the Auburn Tigers win the SEC WEST! I guess we will be heading back to Atlanta pretty soon!

I know it has been a while since my last post. October went by so fast. Every time I tried to blog I just couldn't come up with anything I wanted to talk about. Since a few things have gone on during this month I won't bore you with all the details. I'll just share our latest adventure!

Last weekend Nick and I both took Friday off so we could get an early start to Mississippi on Thursday in order to go to Memphis on Friday. We met my parents there, and enjoyed a wonderful little vacation. That afternoon we walked around downtown Memphis. The past couple of trips to Memphis, we have not arrived until late. It was fun to walk around and see Memphis in the daylight. We also went to have a drink at the Peabody, and we enjoyed watching the ducks. Click here if you don't know the tradition of the ducks. Friday night we ate at the restaurant Flight. This restaurant was interesting in the way you could order your food. If you wanted some soup, you could get a bowl of soup, or you could get a flight of soup. You could order one entree, or you could order a flight of food. This theme carried on from drinks to dessert. Let me now explain what a flight is. An entree flight is when you can order 3 small plates of food instead of one large entree. The wine flights included 3, two ounce glasses of different wines (one normal size glass contains 6 oz).

I ordered the soup flight, it included 3 small bowls of seafood gumbo, mushroom bisque, and lobster chowder. It was great! I could try all three soups and not over eat at the beginning of the meal. Then I did not order a full flight, but I ordered 2 small plates. One of shrimp and grits and the other was a fish dish. The servings were just right. If you do not want little plates you could just order one entree. All the food was very good. Take a look at Nick's flight: pork, quail, and duck. I think that is what he ordered .Oh well, it was 3 different meats. All three came with their own sides as well.

After Flight we strolled around until it was time to go to the Orpheum (the theater in Memphis). We went to see Wicked! We had been looking forward to this for a long time. Wicked was great! And we watched it on Halloween! It always amazes me how much they can do on stage with all the props, costumes, and music. I love the Wicked soundtrack! Is it weird I liked the soundtrack years before actually seeing the play?

After a wonderful night in Memphis, we headed to Oxford Saturday morning to watch the Auburn Tigers play!!

We enjoyed the Grove.

We enjoyed great food. See Doc serving up some etouffe!

Bibba's Cake

Seeing old friends!

After grovin' all day the tigers pulled out a victory!

Cam (#2) for Heisman!Notice all the seats are empty except for the Auburn sections. War Eagle! I hope it is not another month until my next post, but I can't promise anything!

It's For Our Birthday!

Welcome to October!

Who doesn't like October?

I love October for several reasons. It is officially fall when October hits. I'm able to wear all my fall clothes. I have a lot of orange to wear. The weather cools off in October. There are some fun football games to attend and watch on TV this month. And it is our birthday month! Nick's was the 4th. Mine is the 18th. This year we celebrate the big 25!

We are only a few days into the month and we have already celebrated our births a lot. Everything we have spent money on, we say, "Oh, that's fine. It's for our birthdays!"

For example, we are doing some home projects, for our birthday.
We have gone out to eat, for our birthday.
We (I) have been shopping, for our birthday.
We are going to a concert, for our birthday.

You get the idea. Therefore we are not getting each other individual gifts to open on our special day. We are just using our birthdays as an excuse to do fun things throughout the month. Including eating the cupcake in the picture above. We got a few Nancy Patterson strawberry cupcakes. They are one of the only sweets Nick will eat and enjoy. I haven't had one in a while, and I forgot how delicious they are!

I hope our birthdays don't get too expensive, or we are going to have to start saying, "it's for Christmas" instead.

Happy October!!

Tostadas

If I had to pick one type of food to eat for the rest of my life, I would pick Mexican food. I love Mexican food! I love the chips, salsa, and cheese dip. I love guacamole, and you all know how much I love margaritas!

Marcela Valladolid is a new chef on Food Network. She cooks Mexican food, and she has a lot of good and easy recipes. Last week I used her recipe to make tostadas, but I did not follow the recipe exactly.

Nick didn't even follow my recipe exactly.

So feel free to change the recipe to your likings.

A tostada is a deep fried tortilla topped with a variety of ingredients. What could be better than that?

Ingredients:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 large corn tortillas
Salt
1 whole boneless, skinless chicken breast, pounded flat and thin
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon chili powder
Juice of a lime
1 tablespoon olive oil

*ingredients may vary depending on how you make your tostada

*topping ingredients are not included

To make a tostada you need corn tortillas. I think it fries betters.

Begin by putting about an inch of oil (vegetable or peanut) in a cast iron skillet. Any skillet will do. I think cast iron is best.

Fry the tortilla about 3-5 minutes (flip half way through) or until it is lightly browned on both sides.

Drain on paper towels and sprinkle both sides with salt.

Spread the tortilla with refried beans. These are from a can, but if you are really adventurous you can make your own like Marcela Valladolid.

Sprinkle with cheese. I chose colby jack, but other varieties would be good too.

Top with shredded chicken. Our chicken was boiled along with some Fajita Magic, and then shredded.

But options are endless when it comes to flavoring chicken. Most of the ingredients on my list are for the chicken. You will have to check out Marcela's recipe to see how she cooked the chicken. You could also buy and shred a rotisserie chicken. Just do what is easiest and tastiest to you.

Now comes the fun part!

The toppings. I topped mine with lettuce, tomatoe, avocado, cilantoro.

And of course sour cream!

Nick took a different approach. His was topped with lettuce and salsa. He enjoyed it, but his was a little messier than mine.

Now pick it up and take a bite. YUM!

One of the tastiest dishes I have tried in a while. Now all you need is a margarita!

Tostadas

If I had to pick one type of food to eat for the rest of my life, I would pick Mexican food. I love Mexican food! I love the chips, salsa, and cheese dip. I love guacamole, and you all know how much I love margaritas!

Marcela Valladolid is a new chef on Food Network. She cooks Mexican food, and she has a lot of good and easy recipes. Last week I used her recipe to make tostadas, but I did not follow the recipe exactly.

Nick didn't even follow my recipe exactly.

So feel free to change the recipe to your likings.

A tostada is a deep fried tortilla topped with a variety of ingredients. What could be better than that?

Ingredients:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 large corn tortillas
Salt
1 whole boneless, skinless chicken breast, pounded flat and thin
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon chili powder
Juice of a lime
1 tablespoon olive oil

*ingredients may vary depending on how you make your tostada

*topping ingredients are not included

To make a tostada you need corn tortillas. I think it fries betters.

Begin by putting about an inch of oil (vegetable or peanut) in a cast iron skillet. Any skillet will do. I think cast iron is best.

Fry the tortilla about 3-5 minutes (flip half way through) or until it is lightly browned on both sides.

Drain on paper towels and sprinkle both sides with salt.

Spread the tortilla with refried beans. These are from a can, but if you are really adventurous you can make your own like Marcela Valladolid.

Sprinkle with cheese. I chose colby jack, but other varieties would be good too.

Top with shredded chicken. Our chicken was boiled along with some Fajita Magic, and then shredded.

But options are endless when it comes to flavoring chicken. Most of the ingredients on my list are for the chicken. You will have to check out Marcela's recipe to see how she cooked the chicken. You could also buy and shred a rotisserie chicken. Just do what is easiest and tastiest to you.

Now comes the fun part!

The toppings. I topped mine with lettuce, tomatoe, avocado, cilantoro.

And of course sour cream!

Nick took a different approach. His was topped with lettuce and salsa. He enjoyed it, but his was a little messier than mine.

Now pick it up and take a bite. YUM!

One of the tastiest dishes I have tried in a while. Now all you need is a margarita!

Dove Bites

I know I'm over a week late for this post, but on Labor Day weekend Nick and I traveled to my parents' house in Greenville, MS, along with the Stephens. We had a grand time!I enjoyed watching Toy Story with Stephen Small on our way to Greenville.

I forgot how funny that movie is! Should I see Toy Story 2 and 3?

Nick, Stephen Grande, and my dad had fun dove hunting almost the entire weekend. My mom and I enjoyed watching Stephen Small. My Saturday consisted of playing with Stephen while watching tennis (U.S. Open) and football. I couldn't ask for a more relaxing day.

Saturday night Stephen enjoyed the Auburn game in his Auburn attire.

Isn't this the cutest thing? I wish I had such a spirited outfit! I love the tiger on the shirt.




Later we gave him a shaker. He eventually got the hang of it, and pulled Auburn through to a victory!



Sunday we drove over the brand new bridge to my cousins' lake house in Arkansas. This bridge is dramatically better than the old one. I don't feel like I'm going to fall off the side anymore.

New Bridge

Old Bride (it was only 2 lanes)

The men had several successful hunts. We enjoyed their hunt in the form of dove bites.

Dove Bites:

Take half a piece of bacon, place some cream cheese and a slice of jalapeno pepper between two dove breast, and secure with a toothpick. Our dove was soaked in hoover sauce before the wrapping process. Hoover sauce is a tasty sauce found in MS. Grill the dove bites and enjoy.

They are delicious!!

This is my dad and me preparing the bites. Don't you like my apron and side ponytail?

Hopefully Stephen will cheer Auburn to another victory this weekend!

WAR EAGLE!!