Top Chef

Have you ever seen Top Chef?  If your answer is no then you are missing out.  It is this awesome cooking competition on the Bravo network.  Justin and I LOVE it and have seen every season.  We always talk about how we wish we could make some of the things they make, and how we don't even know what most of the things they make are.  Last week for Family Home Evening Justin planned it and decided that we were going to make crepes and watch Top Chef.  I know a lot of you are thinking that crepes are not that big of a deal but neither of us had ever made a crepe before and the name alone sounded pretty fancy to us!  It takes a little playing around to make a really good crepe but I think Justin really mastered it.  So we made our crepes and watched Top Chef.  And if the competition would have been down to me and Justin, I think Padma would have said, "Jessica, please pack your knives and go." 

Strawberries and fresh whipped cream

Egg and cheese

  

Powdered sugar

One of Justin's lovely crepes

 

The crepe extraordinaire.

Wednesday's Read

This installment of Wednesday's read is going to be different then the previous ones.  I have been on a reading kick as of late and so there were too many books on my mind and it was too difficult to just pick out one for this week.  So, I am going to give a brief review on the books that I have read in the last 2 weeks. Enjoy!

"The Giver" by Lois Lowry.  I LOVED this book.  I don't know how I had never read this before, but I am really glad that I finally did.  It is sweet and thought provoking and a very easy read.  I think it is a book that teaches lessons while being intriguing.  This is a book that would appeal to many different people of all ages.  I also love the cover art.  It is just how I pictured the Giver to be in my head. 

"The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss.  I really really liked this book.  It was different then I thought it would be but I enjoyed it.  It was clever and unique.  It was heartbreaking and heartwarming. I loved the characters in this novel.  I feel like you get to know them and they seem very real.  There were also a few surprising turns that i did not see coming.  This is one of those books that makes you feel.  

"The London Eye Mystery" by Sibohan Dowd. This is the story of a young boy with Aspergers syndrome whose cousin goes missing and uses his unique brain to try and solve the mystery.  This book was okay.  I think it was a little young for me (it is a YA book) but it was a quick and easy read.  I actually didn't figure out the mystery before the Author revealed it, but it never quite got me hooked.  Maybe I would've liked it if I were a little younger.  So I am giving this one a good, not great.

The Gemma Doyle Trilogy aka "A Great and Terrible Beauty", "Rebel Angels", and "The Sweet Far Thing."  

I have conflicting feelings on this trilogy.

I read all three books in about 5 days which is saying something because they are pretty thick novels.  So it would appear that I was hooked right?  In some ways...Yes. But in other ways not so much.  There were parts that I LOVED, and parts that were not so great.  I thought that the first book was just good, not great.  I did not love it but was intrigued enough to want to finish the series.  I really enjoyed the second book and loved some of the third book and hated some of the third book.  The parts I enjoyed were the parts that take place in the real world at the boarding school and the social events.  I was not at all crazy about the magical, "out of this world" parts. At some parts I felt I was just reading it quickly to get back to the good stuff.  I also did not like some of the themes that are woven into these novels, especially in the last book.  I am glad that I read them, and there truly were parts that I loved.  But there were also some definite"not so sure about that" moments too.  So I guess if magic and Victorian Gothic and boarding schools and balls are your thing, give this trilogy a try.

All in all I read some great books, and all of the books made me think, feel, and took me to places that only a good book can. 

If any of you have read any of these and have anything to add, please comment and let me know your thoughts on these books.

MBA "Up CLose" Weekend

I have been lacking in keeping up with what we have been up to. I have a few things to post about before I am totally caught up and this is one of them.  

The weekend of April 3rd, 4th, and 5th the MBA program had a weekend called "close up" that we attended.  We soon discovered that the purpose of this weekend was so schmooze and get those undecided students to officially accept admissions into the Carlson School of Management.  The weekend was AMAZING!  They put us up in a hotel for 2 nights and (non-alcoholic) wined and dined us. 

The weekend started off early Friday for Justin.  He went to a breakfast and some other informative things while I was at work.  Then he went on a tour of the General Mills headquarters. He really liked it and learned a lot of cool facts about General Mills.

- The Headquarters.

After the corporate visit they went to the campus for presentations on the program and tours and all that fun stuff.  I met up with Justin at the school for a nice catered dinner with some speakers and lots of handshaking and introductions.  The dinner was really good. I even ate some wild mushroom ravioli and didn't hate it (even though I hate mushrooms).

After dinner we went and checked into our awesome hotel.  We stayed at the Aloft- (pronounced A-Loft with a hard A, not as the word aloft as we thought).  The hotel was so cool.  It is very modern.  The lobby looked like some really cool lounge/bar and they had all these big screens and pool tables and a Wii and games everywhere like life sized jenga and this huge connect four board.  They put out tator tots and chips and salsa for everyone to munch on while they mingled.  It was pretty awesome.  

When we got into our room there was this big Carlson MBA tote full of goodies for us.  There were shirts. mugs, pens, candy, a business card holder, info on the cities and our favorite, coupons for free drinks at the bar in the lobby. 
 

Part of the lobby

(pics from the Aloft website)

The next day we went back to our house for a little bit to watch some of General Conference.  Then I had to go to work and there was a bus tour of the city that we were bummed to miss (we love tours...serisously we really do).  

When I got home we got all dolled up and went to the Mill City Museum.  The museum was once a thriving flour mill that exploded, was rebuilt and then when General Mills moved was inhabited by some homeless people that burned it down.  Minneapolis was once the milling district of the US.  We learned some really interesting things at the museum.  They also have a "flour tower" tour that takes you to the top of the tower and you can get out and look over the falls and the river and the city.  The event was after hours so we had the whole place to ourselves. Then we had a really nice dinner there.  It was seriously some of the best food I have ever had in my life.  Even after he was full Justin kept eating because the food was so good and he knew he was not going to eat like that for a long time. It was a great night!

Then it was back to the hotel for some more fun.  It was a GREAT weekend of great food, awesome hotels and events and meeting a lot of great people that Justin will be seeing a lot of in the years to come.  

The Reester Bunny came!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!  We sure did!  Our Easter started with  sleeping in a little and then heading to Stake Conference.  It was a conference for all of the Midwest states.  We were fortunate to hear some wonderful talks and President Monson spoke at the end.  It was a wonderful way to start off our Easter. 

Here is something interesting that I learned while at Stake conference.  Minnesota is getting a new stake and so they had these handouts in the foyer that talked about it.  Guess how many stakes Minnesota currently has.  7.  SEVEN stakes in the entire state.  And there are only 83 wards in the ENTIRE state.  And Minnesota is a pretty big state.  Crazy huh.  I thought so.  Anyway...... 

When we came home we had an Easter egg hunt.  I love Justin to pieces, but he can't hide eggs worth a darn.  And not to brag, but I was kinda awesome at hiding eggs for Justin.  He only found one on his own without hints from me.  

This is how Justin hides eggs.  In obvious places that require no searching.

 

(just so you know, I also hid an egg in that plant, but it was down in all the grass.  I also hid an egg on that shelf, but it was in that black and white vase.)

This is how Jessica hides eggs.  In concealed places, sometimes covered by fried onions, that require much searching.

The egg hunt was a lot of fun though.  Who says you have to be a kid to look for eggs?  

Here are some more pictures from our hunt. 

(click to enlarge)

Justin found a real egg on the hunt and got a little overexcited!

After the hunt the Easter Bunny paid a visit and we revealed our Easter baskets.  Right when we uncovered them we couldn't stop laughing.  You see, the Easter bunny clearly knows our taste in t.v. shows because he brought us both the same exact thing!  It was pretty funny.  Things like that happen to us all the time.  I think we just might be meant for each other. 

   

Happy Easter!

And in case you were wondering, the title of this post comes from the "Reester" bunnies I received in my basket.  They are Reese's peanut butter bunnies.  Is that not the best name for a candy ever?! I thought so.

After all of the festivities we had a delicious dinner of ham, green bean casserole, rolls and for desert we had a fresh banana cream pie.  After dinner we took a nice little walk and then  we chilled and watched t.v.  It was a great Easter!

We also wanted to thank our Moms for the Easter cards and goodies.  Thanks for thinking of us while we are far away!  We LOVE you! 

Chicago-Day numero dos

I am FINALLY posting about our second day in Chicago.  Sorry that took forever!  We have been pretty busy and I have more fun stuff to blog about but that will have to wait until I get some older posts done!  So here it is........ Chicago....Day 2

On day 2 of our Chicago trip we all awoke and went to breakfast at an awesome little place called the corner bakery and it was delish.  After breakfast the boys went to a lecture and me and Natalie went back to our room where we then took another nap.  It was awesome! When they were done Justin and I decided to venture off downtown to do a little shopping.  We went to none other than our favorite store Banana Republic.  Chicago has the biggest BR that I have ever been to.  It is 4 levels!  Much to our dismay we left empty handed.  No awesome deals, which is all we can afford! It was fun nonetheless. After a little more wandering we met up with Nat and Dave and went into the American Girl store.  The boys just loved it......oh wait that was me and Natalie.  Correction- the boys looked embarrassed and stood in one spot the whole time.  It was pretty awesome even though we were only there for 10 minutes.  

We then decided to go to the top of the John Hancock building but we didn't want to pay a ton so we decided to just casually go to the restaurant on the top floor and look around.  Lets just say there was a not so friendly hostess who loved to give Dave an evil eye.  Lets also say that after we tried to be more sneaky, the elevator opened up 2 more times and we were all just standing there trying to look innocent as we waited for the doors to close. 

This is Me Natalie and Dave in the back of a cab.

After that we headed to our final destination of the trip.  We all went to the Shedd Aquarium.  The Aquarium was awesome.  I loved it!  My not so favorite part was the anaconda.  I don't think that it helped my phobia of snakes.  

Here is a collage of my favorite pics.

(click the collage to see the pics better)

Here is the awesome view of Chicago from the front of the Aquarium.

 

 After the aquarium we went to dinner at the coolest place called Eleven which was so good.  And then it was to the airport and back home.  We had such a great time getting away for a few days.  

The End

Wednesday's Read

I have been doing a LOT of reading this past week.  And I mean a LOT! This past week I read 4 books, and from those 4 I have chose "Stargirl" to be the read for this week.  Stargirl is written by Jerry Spinelli and is the story of a girl in the 10th grade who calls her self (you guessed it) Stargirl.  She is eccentric, friendly, and compassionate.  It is her story through the eyes of a boy named Leo.  This book is short and easy to read, and it is worth it.  Although it is a simple story, it has a deep message and it made me think about what is important.  I find myself worried from time to time about what other people think, and that worry can sometimes alter actions that I know are best.  Stargirl does not worry about those things and follows her heart.  I admit that I want to be more like that.  Stargirl is funny and very sweet and will hopefully leave you a little bit changed for the better.