Dinner plans...

Every Wednesday night Ryan and I have our friends Matt and Rachel come over for dinner and a movie. The guys and girls alternate weeks for cooking, and last week the boys made us some tasty tacos. This week, however, I'm in a bit of a bind because I don't know what to make. Ryan, Matt and I started to eat low-carb on Monday, and so our food options are quite a bit more limited than they used to be. Also, it's not as easy to just get a pizza and call it good anymore. So far, I have the idea of either Chicken Salad stuffed in tomatoes or Pesto Pizza. Unfortunately, I made the Pesto Pizza for the first time on Monday. While both Ryan and I loved it, we don't want to wear out our new meal in a week. Oh what to do!? I think that I'm leaning towards the chicken salad stuffed in tomatoes, but I'm dreading the cooking time. Any other ideas out there?

In case you're interested, here's the recipe for the Pesto Pizza:

One low carb pizza crust
One 1/4 cup Pesto
One package of shredded italian cheese (substitue one cup mozarrela 1/2 cup fresh shredded parmesian if the store doesn't have any italian)
Strips of cooked chicken (we used frozen fajita strips)
Strips of cooked red pepper (we substituted fresh tomatoes)
Heat oven to 425

Cover the crust with the pesto, leaving roughly 1/4 inch of room at the edge for cooking
Add the cheese, chicken and tomato and cook for 8-12 minutes or until the cheese begins to turn a little brown. Serve and enjoy! Thanks www.atkins.com for the recipe! You make me look like a genius!

long week

It's been a long week this week. I don't think that I've caught up on sleep yet from when Missy was in town this weekend, followed by a couple of baseball games, etc. On Monday I got a job offer from Abbott Labs in Illinois which I'm planning on accepting this coming Monday. Ryan interviewed at a place called Uline...also in Northern Illinois and we're waiting to hear back from them. I put my four week notice in yesterday, so if all goes as planned, my last day at the clinic will be August 17. Then it's two weeks off before starting my second real job. It could work out the same way for Ryan, so we're hoping to possible get to Holland to visit my family for longer than a day and a half, and also to go down to St. Louis to visit one of my old roommates, who should have a baby in tow by that time. It's been a long week, but it's almost over.

What's your ethnic background?

I had a rather odd experience at work today. Human resources called me to get my ethnic background for a report that they were generating. Yeah, they wanted to know that types of "minorities" that they had employed. Isn't that odd? And when I asked the HR person what she meant by ethnic background she answered, well like African American, Caucasian, Latino...so I answered, "well you can put me down as caucasian, but really I'm like 1/2 dutch, a quarter french (fr-candian) a little scotch irish, a little spanish (like spaniard spanish, not latina), a little german and probably some other stuff as well. Her answer: "wow, I don't think I've every met someone as mixed up as you...". INTERESTING, very interesting.

Beaten by the 65+ year league

Missy came to town, and we definately painted it red! Here's a breakdown of the day:
1:20am---Missy's boat arrives in Milwaukee, she calls to wake me up (I'd fallen asleep at the docks)
2:00am---we take a tour of the old houses in Milwaukee on the Lake
2:30am---we arrive home at the apartment and chat and go to bed
9:00am---rise and shine time!
9:30am---Target for some tennis balls, paper towel, gatorade and shampoo
10:00am--hit the courts! Watch out 65+ year doubles league, Missy and I are in town!
~11:30am--Dick and Steve invite us to join them in a doubles game. Missy and I gladly accept thinking that it will be a "friendly match". Couple points from the game: 1)Missy HAS played doubles tennis on a team 2) Steve, albeit he doesn't move, does have a MEAN overhand (thanks for the tennis ball tatoo on my right leg! 3) Dick and Steve are ranked 3 and 5 out of 200 players in their league 4) Yes we did lose 6 games to 0.---we're pretty amazing
~12:30--We return back to our match to finish our singles best of three set, I squeaked it out, but just barely, as Missy would say "Run! Run faster Becky, can't you run fast enough to get the ball?"
1:20pm--Return to apartment, have great difficulty getting up the stairs and plop ourselves down at the kitchen table
1:40pm--Hit the pool for a refreshing dip
2:10pm--shower, change and watch the baseball game
2:45pm--take a long walk through Marshall's, NOT BUYING ANYTHING! :) (THAT was a challenge)
4:00pm--Rent "Pride" from Blockbuster
4:15pm---hit up PF Chang's (I'd recommend the lettuce chicken appetizers)
6:30pm---Oscar's for some Milwaukee style custard, Flavour of the Day being Butterfinger Blast
7:00pm---home for the end of the Brewer's 2-1, 10th inning win over the Rockies
8:00pm---Boccee Ball, best of three, Missy beat me single handedly, even though there were FOUR guys that tried to join our game because of her!
9:00pm--"Pride"
11:00pm--BED!
4:45am---Back to the docks, last I saw the security guy was letting her into the building, so I'm assuming she got home safely!

I had such a great time with you Miss! I'm so glad that you came out for one of the most expensive games of tennis either of us will ever play. You've worn me out, but it was well worth it. I can't wait for the tennis and Bocce rematch in August...you better be training. (I'm going to hunt down Dick for some lessons, he does spend ALL of his time "on the courts")

Missy's Coming!

Missy's Coming! Missy's Coming! Missy is coming!! I can't wait! Her boat gets here at 12:30 tonight, and I can't wait to see her. The apartment is clean, or at least as clean as it's gonna get. The air is cool, and it looks like she should have had a beautiful clear, starry night for the voyage across the "Big lake". I can't wait to see her and hang out. We've got a fun weekend of tennis, bike riding, bocce ball, cards, PF Chang's, movie rentals and hangin' planned/not so planned. :) I'm still working on getting her to stay until Monday morning, but I'll have to see if we can convince her that it'd be worth it.

A couple of weekends ago, Ryan and I made a trip to the Johnson family reunion in Kalamazoo. Ryan has always been quite a trooper about going to these type of events, when I can only imagine they have to be a bit intimidating. There are usually 100+ people, but he does a great job.

Anyway, after returning home from the reunion I got to spend some time with my sister Missy. We usually have a good time together, and this visit was no different than normal. She had mentioned that my sister Carrie, while by my parent's house, had seen one of Missy's old friends. When Carrie told her that it was Chubby, Missy nearly jumped out of her skin. You see, when Missy and I were about 10 and 6 (respectively) we both got life sized stuffed animals. Hers was a lifesized polar bear that she named Chubby. Mine was a life-sized dog who I named Eskimo. We had both thought our beloved stuffed friends had been destroyed in the "flood" of 2003 which happened in my parent's crawl space, but apparently our friends were more resilient than we had anticipated and were still alive and kicking. We both ventured into the crawl space and dug them out for a brief reunion of our own. (I, however, had to convince Missy that I wasn't planning on "murdering" Chubby and I just wanted a blog picture - to which she reluctantly pulled Chubs out from his hibernation for).

Perhaps it was seeing our old friends, or that my work had a company picnic this weekend, but I braved my fears and went to the Milwaukee Zoo with Ryan today. We were planning on getting some grub, socializing a bit, and then checking out the animals. Usually seeing animals and smelling the petting zoo is enough to make me break out in hives and have some severe breathing problems, but I figured I could "put in my dues" and go to enjoy the day with my hubby who has been trying to get me there for the past year and a half. Now, I had a classmate in Bible school who is one of the Elephant keepers at the zoo and she had told me that whenever you go you should wear khaki shorts and a navy blue top because the animals will respond to you more since that is the uniform of the zoo keepers. I laughed, but decided to try it anyway. Ryan and I went in to the exhibits and I had forgotten about our said attire until getting to the Silverback Gorilla exhibit. We walked up to one of the windows and our friend, Cassius noticed us and, NO JOKE, struck this pose for our picture. He kept throwing us glances to make sure that we were watching him, but he held the pose. After a couple of minutes he moved by one of the other windows, where we followed to watch him. As I was walking towards the window Cassius karate kicked the window and the ten people watching ALL jumped back in shock. I moved easily towards the window where my new friend kept looking at me. He looked sad, and kept throwing me glances. Finally his lip starting quivering and he head butted the wall and tried to karate kick another tree next to the window. Too bad we don't have the picture but right below Cassius read a sign stating the between the hours of 11am and 2pm the gorillas are periodically taken for 15 minute sessions of "BEHAVIOR ENRICHMENT". Hmmm, sounds like my friend may have needed some enriching. Anyway, Ryan and I were amazed that Cassius kept staring at me, lip would quiver, he'd beat his chest and let out a howl and then charge at the window, pick up big sticks threateningly, etc. It was then that Ryan looked at my clothes and realized that it was feeding time, and I looked like a zoo keeper. Our friend was hungry. I was kind of sad for him, but also SO intrigued by his outburts. I'd never seen such an actively restrained angry animal before. It was unusual, and incredible and sad all at the same time.

We also saw a bunch of other neat stuff too, the bears came out to greet me, as did the tiger, hippos and rhinosaurus. It was pretty neat to see such responsive animals. My advice, as long as there is thick plate glass between you and the gorillas...wear khaki shorts and a navy t-shirt to the zoo, things will be much cooler.