Weekly Menu 5/21-5/27

Whew! I am so beat; and it’s not just from being pregnant. However, I do believe that is a great enough excuse. We got back a week ago from our week long road trip to San Francisco and L.A. and that is a drive. We live in Oregon City and the farthest I ever gone by car to California is Redding…which also happens to be where the closest In-N-Out burger is to us! We had a really good time visiting some dear friends in San Fran and then driving on to visit Josh’s grandparents in L.A. and then back to San Fran for one night and then back home.

San Francisco is gorgeous! When you first see the bridge, it really does take your breath away. It’s such a thing of beauty. I was so bummed though that Josh and I hadn’t thought in advance to book our tickets to Alcatraz because that was something I really wanted to do. But we did ride the Cable Car and walk all over the city with our friends who are great tour guides! Our friends live right outside of San Fran in this cute little town called Larkspur and it is so adorable. I can see why they moved there. The only downside to where they live is the 85 steps they have to climb up and down every time they leave their home.

We were warned that it was quite the climb and to try and pack as much of our belongings into as few as bags as possible. But no, I needed to have my huge suitcase and the girls had to have all their stuff-I’m really not sure how many trips it took Josh to get it all inside, but I’m sure it was a few, lol! We learned our lesson when we stayed with them again on our way home. I only brought two bags- one for my hair and makeup and the other filled with some clothes. Josh’s legs were thanking me :)

We had a fabulous time staying with Jared and Karen (thanks again guys) and Karen is a fabulous cook- which thrilled me to death because the last thing I wanted to do was eat a lot of fast food. She made this delicious eggplant parm, cantaloupe ice cream (which I’m going to make now that I just bought my own ice cream maker over the weekend), cheese blintzes ( I now have the recipe for that and will be making next week), strawberry cream cheese crepes and if that’s not all, she introduced us to Beer Can Chicken! O-M-G! So good. I’m not a fan of beer, but the chicken picks up a slight flavor from it and grilling the chicken on the bbq makes it incredibly moist. We will also be trying that one out soon!

In L.A. we did all the cooking for Josh’s grandparents and entertained a lot of family one night which was a ton of fun! Okay, correction. I was at the stage in my pregnancy where I got nauseous fairly easy (still do) and I was exhausted from the trip. So Josh did all of the cooking while down there. I just ate it all…and I helped make the quinoa side dish we had when all of our family came over to celebrate Grace’s 8th birthday. Unfortunately, due to my pregnancy, I couldn’t eat much of the meal. It made me to sick. But I do know it is delicious because we’ve made it before and I didn’t get sick then.

It was a fun trip. We drove through the California coastline which is gorgeous and LONG, and we even went to Hollywood and did the tourist thing. But, I am so glad to be home and it’s taken me an entire week to basically recover from the craziness. BTW- my kids…were angels the entire time! Such good travelers, I was very impressed!

This week, everything is returning to normal. Awana is over for the year and actually all of our family is out of town, so Josh and I plan on taking advantage of this time and sleeping and doing nothing.