Beer & Champagne: February 2012

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Be My....Sushi Chef!!!

Valentine's Day is a day to celebrate love, correct? I'm going to answer my own question and say "yes!" :) So with that said we deiced to do just that....
Neither AK or myself are real big on dropping crazy amounts of cash on a silly day when really all your supposed to do is love each other, so we decided to hang out with each other (the people we love tons) in our lululemon sweats (the sweats we love the most) and attempt to make ourselves a sushi dinner (food we love a lot). All things "love!" I have to admit I was skeptical....about the sushi! I mean I know I love to hang out with AK and I really know there are no other pants I would rather wear than lulu pants, but the sushi thing had me worried. In true Spieker/Kay fashion, we thought of this idea on our way back to Chicago on Sunday night so that left Monday to gather all the ingredients and necessary gadgets. Luckily for me, my valentine was a trooper and trekked all over the city on Monday after work to grab all necessary items....sushi rice, rice seasoning, chop sticks, soy sauce, nori sheets, sushi grade fish, etc. Basically you name it, AK bought it!! After his extreme effort I took it upon myself to make his favorite desert (Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies) and grab a "nice" bottle of red wine for us both to enjoy! So with a great team effort we were off....wine in one hand and sushi rolling with the other. Considering Whitney Houston had just passed away, I was really more interested in my wine and my fantastic "remember Whitney playlist!" But once again, AK was right there to quickly switch my focus back to sushi!! It went something like this: Me: "I wanna dance with some...." AK: "Annie it's time to make sushi we can listen to Whitney later!" Pretty typical. :) So there we were applying the rice, stuffing the rolls and of course competing over whose roll was going to be better!! :) I will admit though that it was a ton of fun and something we now know how to do and can only improve upon! There were also flowers and sweet cards exchanged, but my favorite part of the day was sushi rolling FOR SURE!!
Andy Kay I will be your valentine any day of the year for many reasons, but one specific reason being you are up for fun things like this and push me just a wee bit past my comfort zone so I can now say I made sushi!! So fun!
Cheers to us and spending our first Valentine's Day in Chicago!!!

mr. sushi chef....total natural!!

rainbow roll....our fav!

miss sushi chef....not too shabby

and the final product....how do i know it was good? because i ate enough to get full and 3 nights later i ordered sushi take out and threw half of it away!! i would say we did good!! :)

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Parents. Are. Awesome!

It is no secret to most of our regular blog followers that Chicago has been a hard transition for many reasons. I will spare you the details, but change is hard no. matter. what!! But luckily for AK and myself one fabulous change that came with moving to Chicago was it allowed us to be closer to our families, and the last two weekends we have really taken advantage of this. And I have to say I love nothing more than being greeted by great people with open arms, in great happy homes with good food. Luckily both of our moms have the same idea of what it means when your kids come home....some good wine and cocktails, some good food, great conversation, many laughs and they make a place that is safe and comfortable for us which I am so grateful for.
A few weekends ago we spent a night with AK's parents and like I said it was great. His mom made us dinner, we watched some home videos, I got to thumb through all of AK's scrap books, and we got to relax in a cozy place with a fun dog. Just what the doctor ordered after a rough week at work. I also learned a few things about this Beer of mine....apparently he can write! Who knew? His mom saved a poem he wrote in high school about following your dreams and working hard to make your dreams come true....it was so good!!! I'm not going to divulge who all got weepy over this thing, but the important piece to this is I now know a hidden talent!! :) And after all this we were sent home with leftovers, which in my opinion is always worth the drive!!
And this past weekend we were lucky enough to make it over to IA to my parents house for a fun little weekend as well! What I mean by "lucky" is just that....the snow started to fall mid morning this past Friday in Chicago and traffic was a bear by 3pm when I left work. I mean traffic is ridiculous on a good day, but this stuff was nuts and it ended up taking us almost 3 hours longer to get home!! Anyhow, we made it and had a blast. In roughly 36 hours we did a lot of things and saw a lot of people. We made it to my nephew's 5th grade basketball tournament, which his team nearly won. And let me tell you....my nephew is a talented little dude. So fun to see him grow up a little bit. We also had another intense ping pong tournament. AK missed out over Christmas so he demanded a round 2....and wouldn't you know it that little stink made it all the way to the championship round....walks right in thinkin he owns the place. Un.be.lievable! In the process though he created himself quite the cheering section, which ended up to be pretty funny. You see, once in a great while I call my Beer "Big Red" for obvious reasons (he has red hair for those of you it isn't so obvious for), and while we were cheering him on in the final round, Emma (my niece) was screaming for him and bursts out louder than anyone: "let's go firetruck!" We all cracked up. I nearly peed my pants I was laughing so hard and we both thought it was so funny that we were laughing about it all over again during dinner the other night!! And how could I leave out playing with Ruby, the cutest little puppy...EVER?! AK finally got to meet her and by the end of the weekend mom was sure we wore her out, however when talking to her on the phone on Monday Ruby was back to her usual puppy antics so it was short lived! :) We also were lucky enough to wish Miss Emma a happy birthday. She officially turned 9 on Wednesday but it was fun to finally be home and see her open her gift in person!! We also left my parents with beyond full bellies and bags full of goodies. Score!!
As you can tell we are two lucky people who have great parents and families. I know we both would say we would be lost without them and look to them all so much for love, guidance and support. Our parents are awesome!!!
A few pics of this past weekend and my apologies to Mark and Peggy (AK's parents) for no pictures from the previous weekend....it was more of a relaxing catch up kinda visit. Next time I will be sure and capture it better. I'm sorry!! ;)