Night at the opera

Nathan and I had a wonderful night away on Friday. When we first got out to Portland we stopped in at Men's Warehouse to get Nathan a jacket to go with his pants. He looked pretty handsome if I do say so myself:



When we got to the hotel we both got all dressed up, unfortuantely my camera would not fit in my little purse so we couldn't get a full-sized picture of the two of us. I got a few pictures before we left. I very much like this picture of myself. I felt very fancy and pretty.





When we got to Morton's we were ushered to a big huge booth all to ourselves, despite the place being packed (yay anniversary reservations!) and were greated by this on our menus:



I had been planning on getting a lobster tail, but thought to myself...why not try a whole lobster? I've never done that before. Honestly - big mistake! I clearly had no concept of how big a full sized lobster is (they did tell me it was a 3.5 pounder, I should have figured it out, but something just didn't compute!). When they brought out my meal my jaw nearly dropped to the floor in shock. The plate was HUGE. So here I am, this very large pregnant woman, with a humongous plate of food in front of me...I think I might have looked like a glutton. But then I decided to get over it and dig in. I only got through the tail portion before I was full. Yup, should have stuck to the tail.

We attempted a picture of the ginormous lobster with Nathan's cell phone. It didn't turn out great, but you can get an idea of how large it was:



Morton's apparently takes a complimentary picture for special events and so they took a very wonderful picture of Nathan and I, put it in a black cardboard frame, and it was signed by all the wait staff. I then proceeded to lose this great picture in the taxi. Yeah, I was having an awesome brain night.

After our meal (which was seriously delicious, we topped off our entrees with a wonderful warm brownie filled with hot fudge and served with ice cream) we were whisked off by taxi to the opera.

I had always assumed, and have been told by mommagriffith who has season tickets to the opera, that most everyone dresses up to attend the opera. Nice dresses, suits etc. I'm not sure if it was just the show we went to see or what, but Nathan and I were quite surprised when half the audience was in khakis and jeans. We were truly the best dressed there. Only one other woman was wearing a nice dress. I admit, I didn't feel out of place at all. Instead, I felt that everyone else was out of place. ;-) I just can't picture attending an opera in jeans.

The opera itself was fine, but not anything to shout about. The first two introductory acts (which I can't recall the names of) were sung in Italian I believe. I found them to be a bit confusing, despite the subtitles, though when I read the plot later they did make a bit more sense. They were not very engaging however, nothing about them really drew me in. The main show was even less appealing and while I don't have much to compare it to, I don't think I like operas sung in English. The title of the show was Trouble in Tahiti and it was about a 1950s couple going through rough times in their marriage, both of whom look for love and satisifaction in other places, while their son sits and home in front of the television and fantisizes of an idealistic 1950s dream family - happy homemaker, a loving husband and doting father who has a successful career, all of this packaged in a lovely white house in the suburbs of America. It is an iteresting subject matter, but I felt the opera itself fell flat.

That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy myself, though! We had a lot of fun dressing up and feeling fancy for a night. We caught a taxi back to the hotel (this is where I lost our picture from Morton's) and we both completely passed out upon arrival.

Gabe did great at Grandma and Grandpas. He didn't sleep well, but I'm not surpised. He just has too much fun playing when he goes to my inlaws place. He hardly noticed when we came to pick him up the next morning, I don't think he even realized we were gone. This gives me a lot of relief honestly, because I was concerned how he would do staying there overnight when Elena is born. Now I know he'll be just fine.

So that was our fun evening out! I can't believe I've been married 3 years all ready. It feels like the time has just flown by. It's been an amazing 3 years, that's for sure.

Enjoying the sun

Today was a BEAUTIFUL day here on the coast. Not often we get to say that. This afternoon I visited my neighbor and Gabe and I enjoyed sitting in the sun on her porch while she gardened and her kiddos ran around playing.

It was so warm, it felt delicious.

When Nathan got home, we decided to go for a walk, and to take Gabe without his stroller. He LOVED it. He rode in Grandpa's wagon for awhile, ran around holding Nathan's fingers (he could not get enough of that) and kept reaching out to all the trees along the way. Grandma and Grandpa of course brought him to every tree within reach so that he could touch them and try to figure them out. Every time they pulled him away it was to a chorus of whines and him reaching out, wanting to go back. The only real fussing came when the sun was starting to set and it came time to put his coat on. When we reached our road we tried to let him 'walk' the last half of it, but he was so facinted by the rocks he kept letting go of Nathan's fingers and sitting down to play with them. Such a fun time.

I made a decision...

...and it's not any of the 3 that I posted! I found this one and think I prefer it, mostly because I don't have to buy a new bra to wear it. Of the other 3 I posted, only the last one would have worked with a regular bra - the 2nd one looked like it would until I got a look at the back, it was scooped and low.

So I believe I'll be ordering this one:



Now if only I could find my measuring tape...I have no idea what size I am...

Opera dress

Today my husband informed me that, for our anniversary, he is taking me to the opera! I was quite surprised. It would have been funner if he woudln't have told me, but he had to tell me...I need to find an appropriate dress in time!

After some online searching, I have found a few that are possibilities. My favorite is the first one, but I can't wear a regular bra with it and since going braless is NOT an option I either need to find a decently fitting strapless bra in time or pick a different dress.

Opinions greatly appreciated. :-)

The Bad Blogger

Once upon a time there was a blogger who could never remember to update her blog. Weeks and sometimes months would go by without a single written word from her.

Mostly her reasoning seems to stem from an inability to write anything interesting. Her life, you see, is just an average sort of life and there isn't a lot of material to pull from. She is fairly certain that updates on her baby's latest milestones and the latest pregnancy news would eventually bore her readers to tears.

So she's made a new resolve to try and remember to update more often and to try to find more interesting topics to write about. Will she succeed in her quest? Or will her blog continue to head down the path of total internet literary darkness?

Only time shall tell.

Dreaming

I often have weird, disconnected dreams inwhich I'm not the main player or if I am, I feel like I'm watching from a distance. When I do have a dream where I'm center stage, it tends to stick with me, espeically the weirder ones.

Last night I had a dream that I slept in and missed my hair and makeup appointment before my wedding - my wedding of course that happened over 2 1/2 years ago! But of course I didn't know that in my dream. ;-) When I arrived at the church, my brother in law was the one who took me and for some reason or another he was in charge of my shoes and was guarding them with his life. The church of course looked nothing like the church I really got married in. All of my bridesmaids were there getting ready, and only my maid of honor even suggested helping me. I started panicking. I trusted my maid of honor to do my makeup, but who was going to do my hair??? Then I realized all my bridesmaids were putting on this awful pink taffeta dress that I definitely never would have picked out - and all of them were wearing brightly colored bras underneath which were more than obvious - thus more panicking ensued. Someone suggested I call the hair and makeup lady to see if she'd come and help me even though the wedding was only about an hour or so from starting.

Then my brother in law arrives in the dressing room, and for some very odd reason starts insisting that I do HIS makeup - yes, he wanted me to put foundation on his skin because he was afraid he would look bad. I concented only because I didn't know what else to do at this point and I felt my wedding was basically ruined anyway. Then Gabriel woke me up by pinching the inside of my elbow. Thanks kid.

Schedules and Menues

I really hate schedules. It's kind of fun to fill them out, but keeping to them is another story. I don't enjoy feeling like my life is regulated, it seems so...well boring.

But since I had Gabe I kind of feel like I'm drowning in house work and just don't know how to keep up. I've been contimplating making myself a schedule for probably a good two months now, and a few days ago I finally broke down and did it. It starts tomorrow. It's not an hourly schedule in that my days are broken down entirely and I have to do certain chores at certain times - since Gabe is not on a 'set' schedule that's pretty much just a laugh and I don't think I could live that way as it is. I might have a meltdown if I tried. Instead I just have a calander filled out with what chores are to be done on what days. For example every other Monday I will throughly dust and clean the living room, the dining room, and vacuum the house. Every other tuesday is an entire cleanup of the kitchen. Every Wednesday I wash sheets and every other Wednesday I clean the nursery. You get the idea. With the way I've scheduled it there are a few blank days during the month so I don't feel like my entire life revolves around houeswork. Those days are for relaxing, turning the TV on, and zoning out (as much as my child will let me anyway). I didn't put dishes or laundry on the calander because sadly those are daily chores, even on my 'zone out' days.

My mom has told me for years that if I would just make a menu for dinner for the entire month and post it up on the fridge, I would be a much happier person when it comes to dinner time. There wouldn't be any more of Nathan walking through the door and me thinking 'oh it's dinner time!' followed by a back and forth "What do you want for dinner." "I don't care what do you want for dinner?"

I have known she's right, but I've resisted doing it because I just didn't want to. But then I figured while I was making a schedule for chores, why not make a menu too? So Saturday I sat down with my pile of cookbooks that I rarely glance at as well as my favorite borrowed recipes that I've written down on scrap pieces of paper and set to work making an entire menu for the month. Nathan helped me, at least in the terms of 'Yes, make that I like it.' or 'No, I hate (insert food item here), don't make that' and 20 minutes later we had the entire month planned. I do admit it makes me happy to have my grocery list pretty much easily filled out just by going off the menu, not to mention I'll probably save myself a good chunk of money by doing many of the easy from scratch recipes I've found. Funny how I never noticed many of these recipes while looking at my cookbooks before. Goes to show how much attention I was paying them.

I'm refusing to call the chore list or the menu New Years Resolutions because I simply don't keep resolutions. It's just coincidence that it happens to be the new year, I swear. ;-) Hoping that having the menu and chore schedule at quick glance will keep me focued in getting thing done throughout the day.