Monday, October 31, 2011

Miscellaneous October

Here are some random moments from this month that I thought were worth sharing:

 Andy brought home a foam pig for Hazel. We knew it wouldn't be a long-lasting
toy but this was the destruction she did in just 10 minutes alone with it.


At the Hiller Aviation Museum


Andrew kept himself entertained in the clearance section at Kohl's 
while I did some shopping. That's my husband!


Every once in awhile we like to "camp out" in the living room. 
It's definitely a lot easier and cleaner than outdoor camping.


Hazel getting into the Halloween spirit!


A car we were parked next to that made us both smile :)

Friday, October 21, 2011

We'd Like Our $15 Back

So this post might seem kind of random among our weekend adventure posts, but my experience with the newest "as seen on TV" fad had to be written about. I've been the proud owner of quite a few of these items. I've peeled potatoes with a Rotato, turned on/off lights with The Clapper, grown Chia pets, and pulled hair out of clogged drains with the Turbo Snake. But last week Andrew made our worst As Seen on TV purchase yet... Eggies.


These are supposed to be easy-to-use containers that hold the cracked egg while it's boiled, eliminating the need to peel the egg after it is done. The box says it all, right? Just crack, boil, and twist. NOT SO. The first step was to wash all the plastic. This was when I realized there are four pieces to each Eggie, which wasn't such a big deal I suppose, it was just my first sign that these were going to be more complicated then just "crack, boil, twist."


With the pieces clean, my next instruction was to use nonstick spray on the inside of the pieces (hmm... they didn't mention that on the box). It was then time to attach each Eggie base to its top with a collar. Because the pieces did not fit snugly due to cheap plastic threading, it took multiple attempts to screw each Eggie together. Now they were ready to fill with an egg. Even this proved difficult.


The yolks were too big to pass easily through the top so they got beaten up and broken. And while the yolk rested on the top of each Eggies waiting for gravity to have its way, the white dripped down the outside.


So now I screwed on the tops to the Eggies and put them in a pan of warm water and turned the burner on high to boil.


See all that egg white mess that leaked out? After letting them cook for the recommended time, I pulled them out and let them sit to cool so I could unscrew the pieces. Here's how they looked:



I don't know why I was expecting a round egg. I should have figured that they would have a flat surface, but it was just so weird for me to see this outcome. What was even weirder were the little holes in the surface of the whites:


Ugly, huh? And a lot of work. I was left with a sink full of plastic pieces with egg stuck on them. I left them to soak for awhile. My plan was to clean the pieces and put them in our "to donate" pile. But the egg white was refusing to come off and the non-stick spray was leaving the pieces kinda greasy. Then Andy came home. I shared the Eggies horror story with him and through the laughing he said, "So what you're saying is you intend for someone else to buy this garbage so they can discover it's junk, too?!" Point taken. I stopped scrubbing and the Eggies went in the trash.

This morning I got this email from Bed Bath and Beyond:


Really?! Can't live without it?? I bet you I can. And I bet these people can, too:


The ugly hard boiled eggs did get eaten and tonight I did my next batch the old fashioned way (boil and peel). After my Eggie adventure, I had never been so happy to peel a regular hard boiled egg. I was also happy to be able to use my new deviled egg tray with conventional round eggs.


I left these on the counter to go upstairs with Andrew to do a couple things on the computer. He went down to grab one and yelled up to me "Lindsay, did you leave the eggs on the counter?  I don't see them... [pause...then laughing]...uhhh, I think Hazel ate them all!" Yep, our little 10-pound dog jumped up onto a bar stool and onto the counter and ate the plate of eggs. Maybe I'll take a break from eggs for awhile.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

What Happens in Vegas

We just celebrated our two year anniversary with a long weekend in Las Vegas! We dropped the pup off at Petsmart's PetsHotel early on Friday morning.

 We had to wait a few minutes in the car until they opened. This is Hazel giving me the 
evil eye because she knows she is being left while we go on vacation.

The ride ended up being about 8 1/2 hours long (a breeze compared to the 40 hours it took us to drive from Florida to California when we moved!). We saw two shows this trip. The first was the Justin Timberlake and Friends Concert on Saturday night at Planet Hollywood. BIG BUMMER. When we bought the tickets, there was no forewarning that this was an "old school jam." It was only when we rolled into Las Vegas that we found Justin's "friends" included Earth, Wind, and Fire, the Commodores, Color Me Badd, and Sister Sledge. We're a bit young for these bands so sitting through five hours of their music was tough. We did like Turbo B (from Snap!) singing the hits "The Power" and "Rhythm is a Dancer." Also, Wayne Brady hosted the event and he was awesome. He even did an improv serenade for a woman in the audience. When it was time for Vanilla Ice to take the stage, we were super psyched. Unfortunately, Vanilla Ice has a new style and it's downright creepy (think skulls, a dancing clown, sparks from a grinding wheel, and his new trying-to-sound hardcore metal [but just sorta-demonic] voice). And to top it all off, Justin never sang. Not a single song. Not even a single lyric. Past shows have features friends like Elton John, Christina Aguilera, Salt-N-Pepa, Alicia Keys, TLC, Snoop Dogg, Rihanna, and Boys II Men with two hour performances by the man himself. I can't help but feel like we got the short end of the stick at this concert.



Buuut, there's good news ahead! We did go see Phantom at the Venetian and it was amazing! The theater/stage was gorgeous and effects were awesome. During the day, I hung out at the pool and did some reading. Andrew joined me for awhile but did spend some time in poker tournaments each day. And, of course, we did a lot of walking up and down The Strip.









We drove back to San Jose on Tuesday. We were so excited to pick up Hazel and were glad to see she had a good time being a "party animal" at Petsmart.

Hazel's report card