Mmmmm Good

Yesterday, after having had a long busy day at work,  I came home to a delicious teriyaki pork loin that had been slow cooking all day!!  As mentioned earlier, Robbie is taking it upon himself to cook at least two meals a week using recipes from his slow cooker cook book.  He outdid himself this time with the pork and dressed it up with sides of squash and peas YUMM. 

Later that evening we got semi gussied up and drove to a drinking establishment in the town of Fergus (which is about 45 minutes away).  We were there to support/be entertained by the husband of one of Robbie's  school mates who sings and plays the guitar.  He is actually quite good and is an excellent performer.  He has played for us before on two other occasions so we knew we were in for a good show.  He does write some of his own songs but mainly does covers of popular music, everything from The Tragically Hip, Spirit of the West, Live, John Mellencamp, Clapton etc etc.  And yes he does take requests, although he didn't know any Joel Plaskett so I was a little let down:(

Today ended up being rainy so we decided to get out and do some bowling!!  I bowled my best game ever with a score of 222 and 4 strikes, 3  in a row which were all in the last frame!!  Robbie also did well winning 2/3 games but wasn't able to top my score! 

Robbie was really excited today because after a week of waiting his new laptop finally arrived.  He was having difficulty with his old one as the port that is used to plug in and charge the computer had become loose and no longer had a solid contact.  It would have cost $175 to fix and he had just spent 200 to replace the hard drive.  Being six years old, he didn't feel it to be cost effective to spend anymore money on it and decided to replace it. So now he has a shiny new toy that he'll be playing with for the next while.

The second slow cooker recipe of this week was Southern BBQ spaghetti.  We made it together for dinner this evening along with ceasar salad and garlic toast on baguettes.  It was very tasty and so easy to make, I think we'll add both of this weeks recipes to our list of things we'll make again!

I have tomorrow off so I'm hoping for some good weather.  I planted two window boxes last weekend with nasturtiums and coleus but it hasn't been very sunny lately and so far nothing has germinated so we need some sun!! 

Vancouver

Well I hadn't planned on going to the Vancouver Society of Zoologists conference but apparently Dr. Lee wants me to present my findings to a wide audience. So from May 16-23 I will be in Vancouver. I am excited about going to Vancouver but I will be presenting in front of 200 people so I have a daunting amount of work for the next couple weeks. The conference will be held on the UBC campus and I will be staying in campus residence. I will unfortunately be missing Jennifer's friends (Becky) visit.

In other news, there are still two left in the great graduate beard off. I however, do not miss mine at all. It was too itchy and scratchy. Although many people commented that it suited me well.

Jenn and I are heading out for blizzard's this afternoon despite the fact that it has gotten a little chillier today (only a high of 12 degrees). It is buy one, get the second for 25 cents. I plan on having mint oreo.

I have been using the slow cooker a lot lately. Unfortunately I made a mistake in my last recipe; shrimp chowder. I planned to halve the recipe but I forgot to halve the cream cheese. Too thick and rich. Oh well.  I have a weekend of meals planned starting tomorrow (Teriyaki pork roast, southern spaghetti sauce and spicy lemon chicken). I will let you know how they all turn out.

Can you grow a beard? Rob can.

Last month Rob entered into a contest between a bunch of guys to see who could grow the best beard and keep it the longest.  They made stipulations that they could not trim or alter their beards in any way including sideburns and around their necks.  As Rob could not stand his neck being so itchy and didn't want to look like a bum in front of his colleges, he ended up breaking the rules shortly after week one by shaving his neck.  This took him out of the running for any cash prizes (a whooping $25) but he did manage to maintain his beard for another 2 weeks.  It did look quite charming but I must admit that I am glad it is gone as the kisses were getting quite prickly!!

Week 1

 Week 2

Wee3

Week 4

Spring Clean Up

The weather here has been unseasonably warm over the past week but today we experienced more typical spring like weather. It was cool with a sneaky little breeze, isolated showers and even the odd flake of snow. Quite a change compared to the 20 something degrees we had on Thursday. We spent this chilly morning in Victoria park participating in a trash pick up sponsored by Tim Hortin's. Due to the cool weather the turn out was quite low which meant more free doughnuts and coffee for us. We also received a free t-shirt each and Robbie won a travel mug! Unfortunately neither of us were the winners of the 3 mountain bikes that were up for grabs :( I could have used a new bike!!...Oh well.

Robbie has been big into using our slow cooker lately and has been making some delicious stews. I've been told that tomorrow he will be making a shrimp chowder so I'm looking forward to that and I continue to pull my cooking weight by making rolls on a somewhat regular basis. The bread maker is a wonderful thing! Our extracurricular time always seems to revolve around food! No wonder I can't get into shape. Last weekend we went to an authentic Mexican restaurant called Margarita's. The food wasn't anything special but they had a great two man guitar act that went around serenading couples as they ate. They came to our table and sang a happy tune but I have no idea what they were saying as it was all in Spanish and I think Robbie was a little embarrassed.
This weekend we went to a classy little place called Fourtyone (after their street address) for dinner and not knowing what to expect I felt a little under dressed having come straight from work. The food and drink was pretty good but I think they were all trying a bit too hard and came off a bit pretentious.
I finally have a full weekend off and the forecast is looking cool and wet so we will most likely spend our time reading, watching movies and relaxing. I had hoped to get out for another bike ride and possibly a ride on the Bailster but that will most likely have to wait. Luckily we still have a full summer ahead for all sorts of fun outdoor activities. We plan on doing a number of weekend trips this summer including Canada's Wonderland, the Toronto Zoo, Niagara Falls, and wine tasting in the Niagara valley. I'm hoping we have better weather this summer than last!

Can you bite your toes?

Well Jennifer and I enjoyed our Easter weekend. On Saturday we tuned our bikes and went for a killer ride. Our being out of shape along with my dyslexic map reading which led us in the opposite direction of home, left our legs feeling like jelly and our ischii sore. So we sat out on the patio and enjoyed a couple beers.

Sunday we were up early to make spanokopita for the Coleman potluck. Unfortunately as I did not write down the directions, we missed the annual bowling for quarters. Last year we had so many strikes and spares between the two of us we must have made 5 bucks. After spending an unsuccessful hour navigating Toronto in search of said bowling alley we decided to just relax on a patio in the sun and enjoy a couple beers. You by now see an obvious trend emerging of me failing with directions and consoling ourselves with sun and beer. We did make it for potluck dinner however, and it was fabulous. As is usual we ate too much and were sent back with car load of delicious food (carrot cake, frittata, croissants, danishes, shortbread cookies, peanut butter cookies, and Easter chocolate). My favorite part of the night was when everyone tried to see if they could reach their toes to their mouths (I have no idea how we got on the topic; something about nail biting).

I will leave you with a limerick I composed about Jennifer's palm plant.

Jennifer’s poor palm, once so vibrant and vivacious,

It seems has taken a turn most uncapacious.

At a time hale and hearty,

but no longer the talk of the party.

I fear its fronds are fugacious.