Gigi's Birthday Part 1

Gigi turned four on Friday. So we had the first of four parties for her. This was at school, they have a special ceremony for each child's birthday, which is really nice. The parents come in and talk about each year of the child's life, they sings songs and then the kids get cookies or cupcakes, whatever the parents bring in. We brought cupcakes, next year we will bring cookies. The cupcakes made a big a mess. Oh well the kids had fun.

Freddie Mac Day at Six Flags

Birthday Parties and Stuff

These are pictures from Isabella's princess party last weekend. The girls dressed up like princesses, ate pizza and cake and even had a visit with Cinderella. One thing about having kids these days is that when the birthday rolls around you need to figure out what kind of party you are going to have. When I was a kid you just invited some kids over served ice cream and cake and gave everyone birthday hats to wear. I bet it was a lot less expensive. These days you have to have a theme or you go to a kids gym or splash park. Not that the kids really care, I'm sure. Presents, cake and ice cream don't really need to have a theme, but this is what we do these days.

Anyway Gigi's birthday is coming up in two weeks so I have decided to have Pirates and Princesses Scavenger Hunt. In fact I should be working on my treasure map instead writing on this blog, but I'm sure I'll get it done in time. Last year we did the gym. It was expensive. So I decided to do it at home, I'm not really saving any $$. Oh well hopefully the kids will have a fun day.

What else is going on? Well my office is moving and we are building out our new space. It's been pretty exciting although this past week there were some issues that came up and they are really stressing me out. We'll figure it out. I think what I keep running into is that we are moving to a great location and the rent is a lot more expensive than where we are now. We did up a schedule of what we needed and had the space plan drawn up. We were instructed to cut back on the square footage. We did and now I see that may have been shortsighted. I knew it was going to be, but I thought the area is great so we'll deal with it. But now the space is lacking some important stuff, you know little things like filing space, before we even move in. In the end these types of things become my problem to solve. So I will. Somehow.

I also said I was going to lose weight and keep you posted. We'll am back up to 139lbs. I stopped taking the Hoodia product although I might try it again. It was good for making me not feel hungry, but the funny thing was that when I did eat, I would really want to eat. I have trouble with portion control already so without a lot of diligence it wasn't really helping. I've gone back to the old fashioned method. Increase physical activity and keep track of what goes in. This is a real pain but I have a way of rationalizing my food intake as minimal unless I track it. I am a foodie and I love good food so calorie consumption can easily get out of control for me. I used to have a calorie counter book that used and I would log everything into Excel so I could crunch the numbers and make pretty charts. Now I have found a better method. It's calorie counter at about.com. I found this by accident the other day when I decide to look on the Internet to see how many calories were in the Sun Chips that I was scarfing down. I was not pleased with the facts. I had Sun Chips and a bag of grapes, these were supposed to be snacks to supplement my lunch, it turns out that these two items alone should have been my lunch as far as calories go. Well now I am logging in every little morsel and I can see why the scale was going up. The cold hard facts, that's what works best for me.

Gotta go work out...

School Picnic

We are really loving Gigi's new school. As a parent I love knowing she is at such a great place all day while we are work. She loves to learn and likes being in school. This weekend they had their annual picnic which was really very nice. The day was hot but everyone had a fabulous time.

You don't see this everyday

On the way to drop Gigi off this morning. We drove past our neigbor's house. I always admire their garden when we drive by. This morning there was a new addition...

They aren't sure what happened, they found it yesterday and had to wait until today (because of the holiday) to call animal control to have it removed. The said it would be removed within 24 hours. It's been in the high 80's for the past few days so the sooner the better.

The First Day of School

Wow it's finally here, the first day of school. I could tell Gigi was a little nervous this morning but she went like a trooper with a good amount of excitement. It's her first day, and it's actually a half day. Paul went to pick her up at 11:30 and she didn't want to leave. So that is good, she likes it.

Hiking at Lake Frank

We used to go to Lake frank almost every weekend, before Ms. G. came along, but have sort of forgotten about it since then. Gigi is at the age where she walk and deal with some of the tricky parts so we will have to get over there more often. It's perfect place for the whole family, including Sadie to get out, get some exercise and have fun.

The Rio in Gaithersburg

Saturday Night went went over to Rio. It's great spot with a lake, boardwalk, paddle boats, tons of restaurants and on weekend nights a band from 6-9pm. Perfect time for the kiddies.

Isabella Playdate

The nice long labor day weekend started out with a play date with Isabella. Gigi and Isabella have met each other but never played together, this was a nice chance for them to play one on one. They had a great time.

Video Blogger

Three times is the charm. Meaning it took me three times to get this right. I think the first two times the files were too big for my pipeline.

This was a frequent scene this weekend, Gigi swinging, swinging, swinging on her swing set...

A good recipe to share

I wanted to make something healthy and a little different for dinner tonight. This is what I came up with. I know some folks aren't into brussel sprouts so you could use another veggie easily. Actually brussel sprouts are one of my favorite veggies and I don't make them enough, because I am the only one in my house who will eat them. Oh well they were good, but of of course I am the only one in the house that knows that, since even though Paul and Gigi loved the fish, they did not dare try the brussel sprouts.

Chilean Sea Bass in Foil Packets

1 garlic clove, slivered
Juice of one lemon
2 T olive oil
Chopped Italian parsley
Pepper
Sea salt
Garlic slat
Cayenne pepper
Red pepper flakes

1 zucchini cut into long quarters
6 brussel sprouts halved

1 lb Chilean sea bass
Steamed brown Rice

Preheat oven to 350. Make 3 foil packets. Mix all ingredients except sea bass and brown rice. Cut sea bass into three pieces; place each piece into a packet. Top each piece with vegetable mixture. Seal packets place on baking sheet and bake for 25-45 minutes or until the fish flakes.

Place a serving of rice on plate. Place piece of sea bass on top. Pour veggies and sauce from packet over sea bass and rice.

Good Stuff

There are two really great places that I need to share with you. The Red Door Spa and Azucar. You probably know about Red Door so I will start with Azucar. This is a restaurant in my neighborhood, literaly two minutes from my house. I went there once for a huge ladies club lunch and didn't get the real feel of the place. The other night I went with some friends from our neighborhood and I was blown away. How is it that this great little gem of a restaurant was right there all this time and I wasn't even aware of it? Well since then we have dinner there two more times. (once in and once carry out, yes carry out also!). So I had dinner there three nights in a row. What's cool is that each meal was so different it didn't seem like it came from the same place. The other great thing is that Paul likes it too. Usually if I get obsessed on place he usually hates it so it makes it hard. I guess I'll burn him out on this one soon enough.

The Red Door Spa, this was the big birthday gift. I went with my friend Louise and we had a blast. It started with a deep tissue massage, which was incredible. I've had massages before but never the deep tissue. I am sold on this massage. It really loosened up all the kinks. I mean it was serious work on the muscles, later when I got home I was so exhausted from it that I slept very soundly for two hours. I just can't say enough about it. Then we had facials. This was also very good, my skin has been a mess so I really needed the treatment. Finally we had a shampoo, blow dry and make application. This great because if you have had the first two treatments you know you walk out of the spa with a makeup free blotchy face and your hair is all messed up with oil from the massage in it, etc. We walked out all glamerous so it was well worth it. I had cut back on spa stuff this past year, but realized just how important it is. What's even better is I have two gift cards for Aveda sitting in my purse. :)

It's My Birthday....

Mi N Yu, it's a great date spot...

Montgomery County Fair

I Love this picture of these pigs sleeping. Feel bad about the pork bbq that I had for lunch today, but that's how the food chain works. Anyway, yesterday we finally made it to the Montgomery County Fair. As usual Ms. Gigi had great time on the rides. We also got a chance to see some farm animals which she also enjoyed. The arts and crafts section, she didn't fancy so much, so no time for shopping there.