Traditions

Now that we are in a new city, with new things & new places, new traditions have begun. We all have those special things that we do throughout the year, magical things that occur year after year. What are your favorites? We, as a family, have a ton of them that we will continue, but now that we've moved some of them will have to change. I don't mean to say these things in negative connotation... in fact the opposite! 

These last two weekends we did some really fun things that would have never been an option in Indiana! I am excited about exploring the city and all the new opportunities it has to offer. While we are melancholy about our friends in the MidWest (pictured above), we hope to get them to Colorado to enjoy all our new favorite places!

Pho sure!

Okay guys, I am from the MidWest so please forgive me that I am a little late to the party. I didn't try sushi right away, and now I am guilty of just trying Pho for the first time. BUT... can you say flippin' DELISH?! 

Oh the love. I call myself a foodie very loosely because I am a little skittish to try things, but the heavens opened up for me on this one. I love beef overall anyway, so I tried the rare steak & well done brisket. Lucky for me I had someone with me that was a pro. They explained the Thai basil & bean sprouts, well the saracha too, but I don't do spicy too well so I skipped that.

Now to the point! I wanted to attempt to make this at home.  We all know that it is costly to go out to eat often, however this wonderful dish begs to be eaten often. I first found a lovely recipe on Pinterest for the pressure cooker, but the yield was astronomical. Just when I was about to pull out the grocery list and add freezer bags to the ingredient list, I came across this:

What?! AND its organic??? Yes please! I will be on the hunt for this asap, just add noodles and tender lovely beef. Now how hard is it to find bean sprouts and Thai basil?

Be still my heart... and stomach.

Onward & Upward

In this past year and a half, a. lot. of things have been going on! Now that all the pieces are falling back together, we are in a new state:

"Onward & Upward" is the new motto for my family! 

We are sad to leave our friends and family of the Midwest, but we welcome all the new fun & culture Colorado has. I am sure there will be many exciting things for the my family to "put our stamp" on, and I will select the best places to share with you, my favorite blog friends.  

Here's to our new motto "onward and upward" 

<3 i="">

Shrimp Tacos!

A couple days back, I was tootilin’ about my garden, & picked just a few pieces of lettuce. As I was walking back into the house, I spotted my cilantro, and picked a bit of that as well.

Thinking, thinking, thinking… what’s for super? hmmm Opened the freezer, and the shrimp smacked me in the face. This got me thinking about a post the other day from a friend, Cheesecake Factory: Shrimp Tacos!

Absolutely. I found what sounded close enough for me over here. I had all the ingredients listed, besides limes, but I did have lime juice, so I dove in.

They tasted wonderful, especially knowing that my shrimp were from Whole Foods, and not farm raised. It was also satisfying that the greens were from my garden.

I believe that the only thing that would have made them taste any better? A margarita would have finished it off, of course!

We have Asparagus!

Last year I planted asparagus, & the package says two to four years till harvest. So imagine my surprise when I was seeing little thin sprigs already year one.

So on Thursday, when I came home from work, I saw this, plus a couple more like it. WooHoo!

On Friday when coming home from work, I had all of these! I know it isn’t a lot, but I have them in a jar of water, awaiting a few more. I think I should have them within a few more days, which really makes me happy.

Artwalk (part 2)

As promised, here is the other half of the artwalk. These are from all the other grades, so will not include any art works from my munchkin.

I realize there are a lot of pictures here, so you can’t really see the detail, but every. single. one. is holding a child. So sweet! Reminded me of why exactly I was there.

I guess I should be embarrassed that I do not know who she is?! The kids works of art were amazing though!

This was Alisa’s favorite one however. Isn’t it pretty? The middle was tissue paper. I was thinking this would be a nice craft for her & her sister on a rainy afternoon.

This was the one that I wanted to attempt. I would have never thought to try to recreate my version, but I absolutely love these! So bright & colorful to brighten up a space.

Picasso! I was pleasantly surprised at how very awesome these 4th graders did on these!

Here is another project I was thinking would be loads of fun for our family. I had to get all of them in, so here is another picture of them…

What do you think? I love the third one over from the left, top row… reminds me of Paris for some reason????

This one was my husbands favorite. I pointed out the Notre Dame one, but he said it was actually the entire collection together that he liked. I concur.

Art Walk (part 1)

You know when I posted about t.v. turnoff week, and I told you that the part I was most excited for was Artwalk? I took loads of pictures to share with you, in fact enough that I am dividing it into two posts.

As we walked in there was a table with programs, just like an art gallery. As I said before, we tapped all walls with colored paper, so that it gave that professional look. ;)

We started off in the Kindergarten hall, and the first display was this. Most, but not all, displays had three main components: the kids artwork (of course), a “artists poster” that they were aim-ish for, & an art piece from one of the school districts art teachers, which tied it all together. Forgive me, but I do not know the artist of these pieces, nor did I get what was going on till half way through.

Here is my lil punkin’s art piece for this one. Love, cupcakes, rainbows, & chocolates. YUM

This was the cave that the art teacher made for this display. Is it not the cutest thing?

This artwalk was made up of things projects that the kids had done ahead of time, though out the year. This project I went to help with, when they did it. It was called “cave art”, the idea was to replicate a ‘cave wall drawing’. We used a paper bag and crumbled it all up so that we could re-flatten it to give it the effect. Then we used only the colors that they would have had access to. It was lots of fun.

Here is my babies version of ‘cave art’. Don’t you love the bear? So cute!

Last but not least, in the Kindergarten hall, my munchkin’s version of her “Rainbow Fish”. I was super proud of this one because it was not her usual pink, pink. & more pink!

All the other grades in the next post. Other grades are just some of my favorite displays. I have some Monet & Picasso for you!

Yes to this dress?

Here  is a sneek peak of my new dress that I did actually buy, and did not walk away from. I would like to say that I generally will not buy horizontal stripes… do to watching entirely too many “What Not to Wear” episodes. I spotted this one in the window, and luckily had my husband with me to give his opinion.

I say lucky, because my husband will give his honest opinion, sometimes he regrets it. I am truly appreciative that he still does, despite the wrath he receives from time to time. He approved of this one, and chose it above another that I had already bought. So I said yes to the dress.

Opinions? What do you think?

Holding my breath till summer

 

I’ve been withholding information from you…

It’s not lying, I promise! It’s just that I have been umm..

planning, AND uh waiting

AND making sure that…

…

…

OKAYI’MGOINGTOEUROPE!

Now that I have blurted that out, and it’s in the open, there is SO much to say!

Que the music: *I’m leavin’ on a jet plane….*

I’m so excited! I have been wanting to go since 5th grade. YES, I know exactly when I started thinking about a “world” outside of my bubble. It was in 5th grade when we had to do our project on countries. I picked Germany, now I am going to Germany!

Freiburg, Germany to be exact. My husband lived there for 7 years before he came to the states. Now I will finally get to see where he spend his teens.

I will also be going to Bosnia (of course) to visit his hometown. This makes going to Europe all the more exciting. I will not only be getting to see the other side of the pond, but also get to see where my husband lived his life before me. It has been a long time in the making I tell ya!

I’ve got to hear such wonderful stories from all the Europeans I have met over the last 13+ years. I almost feel as if I have traveled to some of these places, although it’s only been in my head. One place I was sure not to miss once I heard Bosnia was Mostar and Mostar bridge.

Isn’t she beautiful? Another place that my husband and family would go to visit was Croatia, and also another place I can’t wait to experience. Swimming in the Mediterranean Sea?! Com’on now! Get. out. I feel so spoiled.

Views like this! Who wouldn’t be amazed? Can’t wait to be that crazy tourist snapping a billion pictures. (Don’t worry I will share them with you!)

One more place that we will be lucky enough to experience is Italy. Whoot Whoot! We are lucky to know people that we can stay with there.

From what I understand this place called ‘Oliver’ is close by her home! Mouth watering? Yeah me too!

Such a lucky girl. #blessedlife

The dangers of being cheap!

I have a wedding to attend at the end of May, and contemplated buying a new dress for the occasion. I decided just to “see what was out there” a few weekends ago. I went to the usual places, and The Limited being one of them, I popped in there too. This amazing dress was before me! In. LoVe! Yes, you guessed correctly, I walked away.

In my defense, Easter was coming up, and I KNEW it would be on sale once it had past, right?! Well, right… but once it was on sale, no more in my size :(

“But, Katrina, zoom over to the internet and order it."

Nope! Gone there too. Don’t fret though, I went to the outlet mall this weekend. I’m not AS in LoVe with the one I picked up, but it has pockets!

Picture to follow <3

My Birthday gift!

Easter Sunday just also happens to be my birthday this year, yeap! I feel kinda special. There is something else that I am feeling the most special about though. Wanna take a guess? Well, Finally got an extra special gift I’ve been eye-bawling for a few years now.

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*drum roll please*

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She’s like the retro Cadillac of Amazingnesses! Can you tell I am super excited? First moment we will be having together will be Sampita. Here is your mission: comment below your first moment together with your KitchenAid/your favorite recipes that involve the KitchenAid mixer. I need some wonderful things to try!

<3

The Roz Puppets

As a mom, I truly want to be very connected to the school & the schools community. The way I see it, the people that are around my kids all day, NEED to be my business. So I have been trying to throw myself into any role I can at school. Anything that doesn’t conflict with work, I am in. We go to almost any after hours event that the school has as well, and that is how I came to know about these characters. Moms around my area might have heard of the Roz Puppets before, but I had not, before Friday that is.

Our school was having an event called ‘In your dreams’. It was a career fair in a sense, we had a nurse, teacher, graphic designer, police woman, & a firefighter. Once we heard from all of them, the Roz puppets were up next.

I have not seen my girls laugh that hard in a long time :) He was a huge hit! He read books, all the while having the puppets and himself comment through them. It was loads of fun, Alisa really liked the chipmunk, so she got her picture taken with him. He is quite cute, and his ‘voice’ even cuter.

I would highly recommend going to see him if you get the chance. Our PTO president said he likes to go around to the local libraries for performances. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for his next performance.

Frozen Herbs

I love to make, what I like to call, Faux-Chipotle every so often, but I feel like I waste so much cilantro, so I was on a mission. As usual, I turned to my best friend ever Pinterest, and found what I needed. You can freeze herbs!

The thing is, apparently you must layer it in a jar with sea salt. Why sea salt? Ummm I don’t know either, but if something works, why question it? :)

My thinking is it keeps too much moisture at bay, so that they herbs don’t get mushy. That sounds good, right?! Yeap that is the answer I am sticking with.

Also, I haven’t tested this on other herbs, yet, but I want to this summer. My plan is to have an herb garden this year, but we will see how many other things I get to planting. I get carried away every year.

Porto’s Bakery

I was first introduced to this wonderful-in-everyway-place by my lovely sister in law. This introduction, unfortunately was over instagram. You see my SIL lives in LA. Once she finished USC (yes, extremely proud over here), she officially took the plunge of living the high life of a studio apartment *sarcasm indeed*. What is not sarcastic however, is that I am living vicariously through her. Who wouldn’t want to be young, with tons of fun friends, on your own, in Los Angeles? So when we went to visit this past summer my only wish was to go to this place. It’s obviously the closest I was going to get to being young and fun in LA, with children behind me. haha So off we went:

The architecture inside and out was so pretty. I wanted to take tons of pictures, then redecorate my house accordingly.

Tell me one thing in this case that me, my husband, and my two girls wouldn’t want to take home?! Every. single. thing. I wanted to buy and smuggle on the plane.

This is what my husband and I settled on: Tiramisu on the left and mochachino on the right. Mine is the right, good thing, cause it was the most delicious one! I could use one right now, this 1200 calorie diet I’ve been on needs to be blown up!

Frederik Meijer Gardens

I had been wanting to go to the Frederik Meijer botanical garden & sculpture park for a couple years before we finally did. You know how that goes, right? You keep saying ‘Next year we really need to go to *insert some new place, not too far away*. We all know, you just never genuinely make an effort to get there though.

I had my couple of true excuses though. First off, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a ‘guy thing’ for my husband. Secondly, I wasn’t sure it was going to be ‘cool enough’ to drive so far for.

Two summers ago, my girls and I had a “girls day out”. I decided if it was a disappointment, it would only be a true disappointment for me this way. I didn’t play it up to the girls, just told them we were going to take a road trip to look at some pretty flowers.

When we drove up the long drive and this was in front of me, I could tell it was going to be amazing! I was in love instantly, and immediately didn’t care about the two hour drive I had just made.

Do you see that big greenhouse? Wait till you see what amazing things are inside!

Orchids and Venus Flytraps, amazing tropical flowers, and cacti.. oh my!

Outside of the greenhouse was this little beauty… thinking she’s not so beautiful? Here name is “mad mom”! Now you’re looking at her a little differently aren’t you? LOL I know I did!

There were other sculptures as well.. this one was my favorite! Yes that is my then 3 yr old under the horse…massive huh?

This was another cute little sculpture I took a picture of. The most important part about this one though? Umm it was in the Children’s Garden!

Yes, there was a whole other level to this garden & park. I am telling you guys, I was amazed around every new corner! See the ‘door’ on the side for the kids? A-door-able :)

This little guy is awaiting the children on the other side. He reminds me of Stewart Little.

A little ways up the path, a fountain.. and don’t worry guys, I am NOT giving everything away in this long post… there is so much to see!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Like a treehouse?! Yes a two story, amazing treehouse  with a bridge and other “features” I won’t give away on here. There is just so many awesome things to see.

I just felt like it kept going and going, but in a good way.

I mean, how adorable is this alone? I wanted to take him home to my garden.

Did I mention that there is a farm here? Yes, a full on farm, sans people and animals living in it, but very cool none-the-less. There are bathrooms in the farm, but the rest is not for walking through.

I hope your mind didn’t “drift off” in this extra long post, but there is just too much. I loved every. single. last. thing. As I said earlier, I promise there is so much more to see that I haven’t given away on this post. I couldn’t find enough pictures before we went to put together if I wanted to drive so far, but believe me, it is so worth a long trip to see this place. Be sure to put on your walking shoes & sunscreen, and bring a stroller for any toddlers. My girls were “out” before I made it a mile down the road, but they still talk about it two years later.