Restaurant Week!

I'll start off by apologizing. I did NOT take pictures of our food. I didn't forget, but here are the reasons why. First, some of it was just not that interesting to take a picture of. I'm not saying it wasn't good, but, well, we've all seen tons of plates that has meat and sides on it. They just weren't picture inspiring. Plus, the lights in both restaurants were dim (I'm not complaining about this) which makes taking a picture without a flash difficult...and I didn't want to pull out a flash and be way obvious. 


We first went to Reata. The menu had one option for starters, a wedge salad with pico vinaigrette and crumbled bleu cheese. This was pretty yummy. I'm not a big fan of wedge salads, and am still not, but the rest of the elements were good. I just don't get the point of having a big chunk of lettuce you have to cut when having it separated to begin with helps mix the other elements for a better bite. But, that's just my opinion. 


For the second course, I got the airline chicken breast with fire roasted hatch chili salad and Brandon got the 6 ounce bacon-wrapped beef tenderloin with porcini mushroom demi. Mine was alright. The chicken was just plain chicken. No real spices on it or anything. I don't remember the fire roasted hatch chili salad being spicy, which it sounded spicy, but it did have some yummy veggies to eat with it. Overall, I was underwhelmed with my meal. Brandon's tasted good, I don't remember how much he liked it, but he didn't seem very impressed, nor did he seem upset. What was upsetting is they overcooked his meat. We kinda think it was because there was a douchebag behind us who sent his meat back to have more heat put on it, so they ended up overdoing Brandon's. The waiter and manager apologized, and Brandon didn't want to deal with having another piece of meat cooked, but we were comp'ed nothing for having overcooked meat. 


For dessert, I chose the molten chocolate cake and Brandon got the bread pudding tamale. He won dessert. The molten chocolate cake was good, very rich, and nothing very special from any other molten chocolate cakes. I expected this, though, but just add that to the underwhelming options for restaurant week they had. Brandon LOVED his dessert. It was amazing. I tasted it, and it was very good. That dessert helped make up for some of the other pitfalls. He also had the wine pairings, and I'm assuming they did decent with it because he never complained. 


I looked at the regular menu while we were waiting to be served our drinks, and their prices for their specialty items were pretty high, but the other items didn't seem out of this world at all. I think that even though we were paying what we paid for the restaurant week menu, we should have gotten a little more out of it. It's not like they were losing that much money on us. I still had a great time, though, because it was going out and seeing a new location and food. Just, next time, I'd probably avoid Reata for restaurant week and just order off the regular menu.


The other restaurant was Lavendou. This was a much better experience! The only downsides was it was HOT! Of course the weather here is atrocious, but our table was sat between the hostess station and the kitchen, so we received heat from 2 directions. The overhead fans were too far to the side, over the main dining room (we were off to the side a tad), so they didn't help at all.


For starters, I got "Timbale aux Fruits de Mer," (mixed seafood with a chardonnay sauce served in a pastry shell). Brandon ordered "Pethivier d'Escargots a la Creme d'Ail," (snails with garlic cream). We both loved our starters. Coincidentally, they were both in pastry shells, but they were both good. The sauces were yummy.


For the meal, I ordered "Cotes de Porc Normande," (sauteed pork chops with a Calvados cream sauce). Brandon got "Steak au Roquefort," (beef tenderloin with Roquefort sauce).  We both enjoyed this as well. The pork chop I had was quite thick, but cooked well. Can't say enough good about it. I ended up getting full pretty fast!


For dessert, I won this round! I ordered the "Crepe Souffle au Grand Marnier," (crepe souffle with raspberry coulis), and Brandon got "Flan au Cafe Pur Arabica Caramelise," (Arabian coffee flan with a caramelized top). Mine was so yummy. I could have used just a touch more raspberry sauce, but, it was very well balanced. Brandon enjoyed his, but he felt this was more of a custard than a flan (to which I said I thought a flan was a custard...he had an educated response, but I don't remember the specifics, let's just say he may be right). I could NOT eat all my dessert, so Brandon finished it off for me. 


We definitely want to go back to this restaurant, after I can start drinking again, and have some more food, bread, and wine. And I'll say my apologies now. I did not add the appropriate accent marks the the French titles of the food. I do not have the patience this morning to figure that out!


Other than that excitement, the next big thing was graduate school started. I just got my grades for last week (which was all of 2 days but worth 30 flipping points out of I'm not sure how many, honestly, but week 2 is only worth 15). I got 30 out of 30 points! Yay


Also, the fantasy football draft for the league at work was last night. I left Brandon in charge of that. He feels great about the team he got, so I'm excited. I'm doing a free league with my friend (well, both Brandon and I are doing it) and that draft is Saturday. I think that league is still on...I haven't re-logged in a few days, but she'll tell me if things change. 


I feel like things are crazy busy lately, so sorry for crappy blogging and long updates. Hopefully soon things will settle. Until then, here are some random pictures!

JJ taking his liberties on the bed.

I call this one, Where's Ribby? (like where's Waldo?)

He's on one of the blankets Mom got us that the dogs shredded.

Ribby and Bella still enjoying the shredded blankets.

Where JJ chose to lay down after cleaning up the shredded mess.

Future ACNP Here!

I'm starting with a picture of JJ, totally comfortable. He's my main main.  Well, who walks on four legs.

Oh, and this picture.

That is totally what you think it is.  The couch knocked over on it's back. The two culprits, Bella and Hunter, seen in the background in the kitchen, were playing really hard. I wasn't at home, but Brandon was watching the whole thing play out. He said that they were hyper and play fighting like they always do, both decided to run for the couch, both jumped and threw their weight into the back of the couch, as always, and then the couch fell over! He said they both stopped playing right there and looked at each other with faces saying, "What the eff just happened?!" Of course, Ribby has walked in to investigate what happened while the other two are probably pretending it wasn't them who did it. And don't mind the floor...we have some blankets they keep tearing up, and letting them, and just hadn't swept.

Well, I did it. I went ahead and accepted my acceptance (that just sounds wrong) to graduate school in the Fall, went to orientation, and registered for a class! (just one, lol) I'm still nervous and excited and all that jazz about it, but I think it's the right thing to do!


As long as I can stick to the plan they gave me, I'll be an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner by the year 2015! I'm going to school part-time (there were 2 part-time choices, 2 classes a semester and the 1-2 classes a semester, and I went with the slowest one, the 1-2 classes a semester). I'll still be working full time throughout it all, and hopefully can manage to stay night shift where I like it, but we'll see what time hands me.


Why do it now? I know a couple people have asked this, especially when we just bought a house and are having a kid in the fall. I even had one nurse (only that one nurse, all the others said go for it...and probably added I'm crazy a few times) told me she thinks I really shouldn't do it and wait 6+ months. Here is why I made this decision:

• If I keep waiting for the money to be right, it will NEVER be right. Gotta move on it now.
• There is a lot of competition to get into these programs, and I was deferred last semester due to a high amount of applicants. If I put it off, how many more times would I be deferred? 
• My life will only get more complicated from here, with kids and everything else. I want 2 kids eventually. It would be much easier doing school with them little than with them big. 
• There is a push for all nurse practitioner education programs to be doctoral and not master programs by the year 2015. If I wait much longer, I would have to do a doctoral program, and that's super scary!

Besides, doing it this way allows me more time to get my 10 years vested total state time at work (I could received benefits when I retire this way), and allows Brandon to go back to school, too. He's working on his application in hopes to do the fall semester as well. I'm really proud of him for this!!!  What is pretty cool is both our jobs offer tuition reimbursement (mine says I have to work for them for a year after I've received the money). So we will have monetary help with our schooling, too!

I have to admit to something, though. After grad school orientation, they told us they had put advisement holds on all of us and that our holds would be lifted the next day at 5pm, so we would be able to register at 5:01pm. Ok, cool, no problem. Before I went to sleep that morning, I had a ton of alarms set and had already added the section I wanted to my plan, all I had to do was have no holds and press enroll. The section I wanted (because they already basically told me what classes I'll be taking every semester until I graduate) is the only ALL INTERNET class offerred. The other sections are considered blended classes, mostly internet with a few mandatory class days on campus. I could swing probably all of them, except one. There is one that hits right around my due date, so I would have to get special permission or something from the professor should that actually be a problem. Well, I wanted the all internet class in hopes to avoid that. I'll still be up front with my professor about having a baby this semester, but that I'm sure I'll have all the work accomplished, but to let her know JUST IN CASE something comes up and alters turning something in or meeting online. Anyways, the point of the story is I went to sleep and woke up in the middle of the day for whatever reason. So, I go to the bathroom and decide to check if holds have been lifted already (this is about 2:30pm). I figured...she can't just click us all and say release holds all at once..I bet she releases our holds throughout the day...

I was so right! Omg, I nearly freaked in the bathroom. From my little phone I try to press enroll and when the screen loads, finally, it says I wasn'ttmi, but it is so true!) I almost feel bad about it, since they TOLD us we COULDN'T register until 5:01...but not that bad. I'm sure I'm not the only one who checked early. Come on, we all went to undergrad and know how that crap worked...

Moving on. Not much else has been going on, actually. Next week we'll be going to Reata and Lavendou for restaurant week. I had so much fun last year doing this, and can't wait for this year. Brandon picked Reata and, well, sorta picked Lavendou, but it was the type of restaurant I was looking for to try, so he led me to it so I could pick it. Thus, I'll say I picked that one! lol I'll let you know how it goes, and hopefully will remember to take pretty pictures of the food.

I'm also doing fantasy football through work this year. Hopefully, Brandon will actually be doing most of the work, but, we'll see. I have the team name and picture set up, and the draft will be at the end of the month. Last year we all went out after the draft...this year, I'm not sure if there are any plans. But I bet I won't be as willing to go out like last year...as we went to bars and played pool. Just don't see myself as being up for that this year, especially since my next few months are starting to fill up. Blah.

We went to Studio Movie Grill for the first time ever last night and saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It was as I expected, sorta sad at times, but it was decent. Brandon felt it wasn't as he expected, though. Either way, I had fun. Studio Movie Grill was interesting. Brandon managed to find the one chair lowered all the way to the ground and me the chair taller than ALL the other chairs around it. Neither of us could figure out how to adjust the height of the chairs (trust me, we tried lots of things and it just wasn't working!), so I switched to a chair next to me. Well, it was still sorta tall...but wobbly! I instantly felt stupid because now I really wanted a different chair and Brandon was probably getting embarrassed his wife was switching chairs multiple times. Anyhow, there were empty chairs in front of us, I sat in one that looked really low, wasn't wobbly, and I switched the one last time. I was still taller than him (and, being tall as it is, I felt super high in the tall chairs. very awkward for me!) but much more comfortable.

The food there, at least what we got, is nothing to write home about. I equated it with bar food. It probably would have been awesome if I had any of the beer that was on the table, but I didn't. Brandon ordered a pitcher because he said it was more cost efficient...so I hid the obvious with my purse so I didn't look like a chick getting her unborn baby drunk, and ordered a Dr Pepper along with my supposed beer. I'm sure they totally knew, but they didn't cause a stink about it.

Either way, I don't know if we'll go again. We went because of the Groupon deal that was going on. $10 for us both to go to a movie and have a soda is a good deal anywhere in my opinion. We'd probably definitely go again if their food was something more to speak about...but it wasn't.

However, I've learned recently that whenever we go somewhere we haven't been before, whether Brandon says he knows where it is or not, I just bring it up on my iPhone's Google maps, just in case. So I brought it up and nearly died near the end of the directions. Screen shot below. Yes, I'm aware I'm being a total teenager about this, but, really, how often does this NATURALLY happen in real life?!

Alright, well, that's it. Maybe I'll have something more fun to talk about later. In the mean time, stay cool! This summer heat is redonculous!