#76 Mini Adventures: Dog Park

Anyone who has a dog (especially a dog who loves water) should take their dog to Cosmo Dog Park (on Ray between Greenfield and Higley). This was so much fun! Zilli had the best time ever!

I actually found out that the dog park was recognized in 2007 as the best dog park in America! Pretty cool! And it lives up to it!

The park is big and wide and open, plenty of room to run around, but it also has some areas that are fenced in for dogs that are more shy, or for specific training or classes. There is actually even a little obstacle course built in part of it. Plus there is a giant lake (with fish!) for the dogs to swim in with a beach entry as well as docks to jump off. Up the hill there's a playground for children of the human variety.

We honestly didn't even have to bring Zilli's ball. As soon as we got close to the water, she realized that someone had the audacity to leave a tennis ball floating in the lake, and she wasted no time to jump in and "rescue" it.


Then, after depositing it safely on land, she turned around to realize that another ball had floated by! This could not be! Before long, we had a bit of a collection of these "rescued" tennis balls.

Such a good little momma dog, making sure all the tennis balls are safe and sound on land, haha!

She was so pleased with herself though! She was so excited she didn't know what to do! We could tell she was starting to get tired from all the jumping and swimming, but she didn't want to stop! We even tried giving her some taco bell - her own taco and everything, what dog wouldn't love that - but she was too excited to eat it and actually spit it out! The only time I've ever seen her happier is when Anthony's mom is around. And even then its a pretty close match!

I think the best part of the experience, for us anyway, was the fact that she got a free bath at the end. There's all these little shower stalls around the park with hoses, and we brought some shampoo and lathered her up nicely.

Even I got pretty hot and sweaty from the experience (c'mon, it was only something like 110 degrees out that day!) But I did notice that I got a freaking flip-flop tan on my feet!

And here's Zilli after the experience was over. Still as happy as can be.

Unfortunately, when we got home, first of all, the cat was freaked out of his mind (he couldn't recognize her smell) and started hissing at her like crazy, and also our house smelled like wet dog the rest of the day. Yummy. I bet you are SO jealous!

#66 New Food: Mousaka

Anthony and I celebrated our second anniversary today.

In a very grand way - we ran errands all day and then went to My Big Fat Greek Restaurant for dinner (because we had a coupon!).

The thing we didn't realize was that the coupon (from Restaurants.com) required us to spend $50 to get our $25 off. Yeah, pretty worthless, since we only usually spend $25 anyway, so we just got a lot of extra food for the same money we would have otherwise spent.

But it did allow us to try their sampler platter. It consisted of gyro meat, lamb chops, pork/steak/chicken souvlaki (skewers), rice, potatoes, mousaka, pastitsio, and tzatziki. It normally costs $18 per person, which we normally don't spend. But the amount of food almost justifies the cost - the dinner plate they brought out was the size of a large pizza pan, piled high with food!

Oh, and as a side note, the pitas here are soooooooo much better than Pita Jungle. Ok, that's all I needed to say.

Anyway, I had never had mousaka before, and it was actually pretty good. It is a baked pasta with eggplant, zucchini, and potato in it. Not exactly what I was expecting, and pretty rich - I don't think I could eat just that for a meal - but surprisingly very tasty.

I just keep hearing in my head the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding where the girls call it "moose ca ca." Haha....it makes it hard to really enjoy it!

#18 Recipe: Gelato AND #76 Mini Adventures: Homemade Ice Cream

So we went to Target last night and found an amazing deal: an ice cream maker for only $20! What a steal! Now, I love ice cream of course, but I ADORE gelato. I go nuts for the stuff! So, to celebrate our fantastic find, we found this amazing recipe for gelato.

Honestly, it isn't the easiest stuff to make - mostly because it takes so dang long. I just wanted to get that goodness in me! But you have to be patient, and it is quite rewarding when you're done.

Ingredients:
2 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar, divided
4 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
(And then whatever other flavoring you want. We just added macadamia nuts and caramel. That's Anth's favorite!)

To make it, you combine the milk, cream, and 1/2 cup sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook it until the sugar dissolves completely.

In a separate bowl, whip the egg yolks and remaining sugar together until they are thick and pale yellow. I did this with my kitchenaid and it worked quite well - I could tend to the milk on the stove while it was mixing up (wow, I'm thankful for than invention!). Then pour a little bit (1/2 cup or so) of the milk mixture into the eggs and stir, then add it all back into the saucepan. Stir constantly until it starts to get thick (the recipe says thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon - whatever that means!) but it does start to get thick after 7 or 8 minutes. Then add vanilla.

Now this is the important part - you have to wait until the mixture is completely chilled before you put it in the ice cream maker or else it won't work. We discovered this quickly. We actually tried putting it in when it had only been in the freezer an hour or so (and hot liquid does not cool very quickly in the freezer, even after an hour it was still lukewarm) and it did nothing. We left it in the fridge overnight, and tried it again today and it thickened into ice cream almost instantly.

We added the macadamia nuts just before taking it out of the ice cream maker and then added the caramel after serving.

Sooooooo yummy! I really want to try different combinations! Plus, it isn't really all that bad for you - only 3/4 cup sugar total, and mostly milk instead of cream. I don't know the exact calorie count, but it seems very healthy (and don't anyone try to correct me!).

In addition to being a new family recipe, this was one of our mini-adventures that we decided to do together, and it ended up being a lot of fun. Sugar always makes for a good bonding experience!

#65 New Restaurants: Havana Cafe AND #66 New Food: Various Cuban Food

It's the 4th of July, and we didn't have any plans, so we did the most patriotic thing we could think of - eat Puerto Rican food! Haha!

You know, I wasn't too impressed with this. I mean, it wasn't bad by any means, but it was sooo expensive! My plate (it was a lot of food, granted) cost $17.00. My food was great - not that I had any idea what I was really eating. I ordered the San Juan Combination which was a whole bunch of things I'd never had before, including a pastele (Puerto Rican tamale), mofongo, alcapurrias (if this was what I thought it was - and I didn't know one food from another on the plate - then it was my favorite), tostones (which were far too dry), arroz con gandules, and masas de puerco. I really liked most of the food, but my stomach had never encountered most of the spices before, and wasn't too pleased with me afterwards. Plus, the majority was either fried or naturally greasy in some capacity, and that didn't sit too well either.

Anthony tried the pulled pork and really didn't like it. It just wasn't his type of spices. His order cost $20. So after all was said and done, it was over $50 just for dinner. And it was decent food, a new experience for sure, but not worth $50 for a single meal!

Actually, my very favorite part of the meal was the bread that they brought out. They had AMAZING bread! Mmmm....yes, that was the best part! But again, I'm not spending another $50 for good bread and decent food.

Oh, and just a word of advice: puerto rican food does not reheat well. That's all I'll say about that.

#15 Nonfiction: Rule #1

Just finished another good, practical book about finances and money management. This one targets investing. And not investing like day-trading and obsessing over the stock market, but investing for the average joe, but still getting a great return on investment.

The book is centered around the investing rules of Warren Buffet:

Rule 1: Don't lose money

Rule 2: Don't forget rule 1

Basically the book teaches you how to use the free tools on the internet (MSN Money, Yahoo Finance, etc) to find good, stable businesses at a great price (at least 50% off the actual value), and then invest your money in them by moving in and out (in when the stocks are going up, out when they are going down - and it shows how to predict this), so that you are virtually guaranteed not to lose any money.

The book is not about making a quick buck, or making millions and millions off the stock market (although the author had only $1000 to his name when he started and is now a multi-millionaire). You don't get in when the stock is at rock bottom, and you don't get out at the ultimate peak, because you can't really know where the bottom is until it starts going back up, and you can't really know where the top is until it starts going back down. But you learn to watch for the signs that is a safe time to invest your money.

So far the hardest part is just finding businesses that fit all the qualifications he says to look for - stable history, rising values, etc. I went through probably 150 different companies and came up with a watch list of about 20 that actually met all the criteria. And then only 5 of those were priced right. And then none of those had all the buying signs. So I don't have anything to invest in quite yet, but I have a great list of companies to watch for. And every few days I'll just go online, check where everything is at, and once I find the right price and the right buying signs, I'll put some money in. And then a little more. And a little more.

I'm actually pretty excited!

#15 Nonfiction: The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands

This book was definitely not anything that I expected. I turned on the CD while I was doing housework earlier today, just hoping that it might have some inspiration in it for learning how my husband's brain works better and maybe a couple pearls of wisdom in it.

I've always been wary of radio talk show people. So I wasn't sure how to trust Dr. Laura. (I was thinking of Sleepless in Seattle meets Delilah - who I generally can't stand).

But within the first 3 minutes of the program, I wanted to reach out and hug her! She is absolutely brilliant, and every woman should listen to this tape. She goes off on how women are too overconcerned with themselves and thinking their husbands should "romance" them all the time, and yet want to be thought of as brilliant and capable and fully independent of their husbands. She point blank said that the rise of feminism is one of the biggest causes of divorce and failures in families and that women blaming men for all their problems are actually the problems themselves. And this was all in the first few minutes.

She says wives need to turn to their husbands for support, not just to their girlfriends, and that they should be romantic toward their husbands if they want their husbands to be romantic toward them. She says to stop beating around the bush if you want something and just tell your husband directly, but not nagging about something (i.e. "how much did _____ cost you?!?!) but rather about the actual issue (i.e. "hey darling, can we talk about money? I think we're spending too much"). And she says that men want to be their wife's hero, her knight in shining armor, so humor him once in a while with this fantasy.

Wow, I was surprised she wasn't shot by the fem-nazi's after what she said! But it needed to be said!

Really, all I can say is that every girl needs to read this book or listen to the book on tape. Seriously. It has great, practical advice, not all fluffed up.

My favorite line: Happiness is an attitude, not a reality.

#15 Nonfiction: The Peacegiver

I've been reading a lot of these nonfiction-fiction books lately. And this one was just as exceptional as the rest of them.

The story is about a husband and wife that are not getting along at all, both blaming one another for the marriage issues. The husband is visited by his deceased grandfather in his dreams, who teaches him through gospel stories about how the atonement isn't just for sinners and how it can apply to the problems he is having in his life.

Although my marriage is just fine right now, there were plenty of applications I could make to my own life. The big one being upset (but upset isn't really the right word...some sort of combination between upset and jealous) that people who have hurt me haven't "gotten theirs" and actually are doing quite well for themselves and have certain blessings in their lives that I've been trying to achieve. Yeah, I know that's a bit of a big confession to make, that I harbor all of these bad feelings toward others, something of a grudge against them. But I didn't realize that I did it so much until I was sitting up thinking about it one night after Anthony fell asleep to me reading to him again. So now that I know I have the issue, I can start to work toward it, and find more happiness in my own life. I don't even remember anything in the book that particularly dealt with that subject, but the fact that it got me thinking and that I made that realization about myself has really changed my perspective. Isn't it crazy how books can do that - make you think about something completely unrelated and, in effect, change your life?

The book is easy to read, and captivating, and will definitely get you to think about things in your life, even if you think everything is all honky-dory right now. We all can learn more about the atonement and how we can apply it in our lives.