in like a lamb...

i cannot believe it's almost march!  we've had an action packed couple of months and are looking forward to several more that are just as action packed!  we've had a wonderful time with john & nina in florida as well as everyone that came to join them :)  this weekend, we decided to keep it local, and even managed to get them to a few places they haven't been yet.  last night, we played a great round of hearts - i've never played with a group of people that shoots the moon EVERY hand.  highly entertaining and keeps you on your toes :)

now we are relaxing on the porch, enjoying the weather (and the visual fruits of our saturday morning labor cleaning gutters, pulling weeds, and mowing the lawn) :)  the guys are playing guitar and nina and i are paging through magazines.  lovely lovely lovely.

wasting away again in margaritaville, searching for my lost shaker of salt....

confession

i finally bought the katy perry album.  and i'm kind of excited about it :)  but i also bought the new old 97s album to balance it out :)

Spicy Fish and Spicy Coleslaw!

i've been doing some searching for some throw together type dinners- sometimes i get too ambitious and then we eat dinner at 9:30 pm (aka chili con carne) - oops!  last night's attempt at easy and tasty was just okay, but tonight's was a winner!  we had jerk spiced fish with spicy coleslaw and sweet potato fries (after multiple attempts, i've given in and buy the frozen alexia ones).  the coleslaw was super spicy and definitely my favorite part.  here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 cups cabbage-and-carrot coleslaw mix
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 3 tablespoons canola mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons really finely chopped habanero (extra hot!) or serrano (somewhat hot!) pepper
• Cooking spray/Olive Oil
• 4 (6-ounce) catfish fillets (or any whitefish... i used cod)
• 4 teaspoons Jamaican jerk seasoning (i actually used a jerk marinade that we love- thanks laura and drew!) :) but either way!

Directions

1. Combine first 6 ingredients in a medium bowl; toss well to coat.

2. Heat a grill pan over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray, add a little olive oil. Sprinkle fish evenly with jerk seasoning. Add fish to pan; cook 3 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness. Remove from heat; serve fish with slaw.

I didn't snag my own picture but it should look a little something like this :)

“When I was a child I wish I’d known the point was to become more and more genuinely my own imperfect, precious unique self.”

-Elizabeth Lesser

mobile blogger?

so nate is the proud new owner of an iPhone which means i now have his hand me down iPod touch until my phone is up for renewal :) what does that mean? expect more photos on the go now that i have a device that can blog AND post photos ;)

Real time update! I may not be able to post photos this way after all! Off to do some research!

the disney dream!

we recently had a wonderful opportunity to cruise on the disney dream (disney's newest cruise ship!)  i had to work, but nate and his parents were able to come along for fun which was really cool!  here are a few pics from our trip -- john took many many more (including some interiors of the room and general goings on), i'll post those once we download them.

exploring the ship right after we got on!


the water slide around the ship (the aquaduck!)

the adult area of the ship with swim up bar!

view from our room (when we were docked at disney's island, castaway cay)

meeting mickey in tropical paradise :)

the disney dream!

donald and daisy :)  daisy was flirting with nate!  donald was jealous :)

more to come!