Thursday, April 29, 2010

pictures picked

I finally heard back about my gallery pictures. Here are the four that were chosen. They just didn't pick the airplane view one because it was a little hazy, understandable.

015 lake superior morning rocks

sun dock

empty dock

and this one, but I cropped it down a little farther than this copy shows:
boat garages

So I can pick one more to submit to replace the one that didn't get chosen.... not sure which one to pick though.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Week 36

Week 36 blogsize

#246: Picking dandelions: I spent some time outside pulling up dandelions with my weed puller tool. It was so satisfiing when I could get a long root like this one. The little suckers are bastards I tell you. I pulled them ALL out only to find 20 new ones come up the next day! Gesh!

#247: Harpo's Breakfast: I finally got up early to work out!! 5:30 that is, and I'm glad I did because my day was so busy that I wouldn't have been able to workout any other time. I snapped this that morning because I knew I wouldn't be thinking about it any other time of the day. Harpo LOVES to eat!

#248: Harpo's celery: Harpo is so funny, he loves vegetables!  I was cutting up my celery for my lunch and of course I dropped one, Harpo ran over and gobbled it up. I couldn't believe how much he loved them, lol!

#249: Backyard tulips: These are the first two tulips in the backyard to bloom.

#250: Jolene's Shower: We had a baby shower for my friend and co-worker Jolene. She is due in just a few weeks with her first baby boy!!  We're pretty excited, I can't wait to meet him and of course hold him!! :-)

#251: Here's Life Dinner: Friday night we got invited to go to a fundraiser dinner with some friends that were hosting a table. It was a fun night of hanging with friends, dressing up, and getting to eat some fun food!

#252: Sleepy Harpo: He so cute...



Happy Spring!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Melting Pot: Anniversary Dinner

For our anniversary dinner we went to the Melting Pot!
mlps skyline

melting pot sign

Side note: this is Kyle's 'door'. He walks in it to go to class on the nights he has school.
kyle's door

Neither of us had ever been, but heard great things about it!  We got the 'Big Night Out' which was a four course meal!
daisykyle

We got seated in a private little booth, with a view of the Foshay building (my favorite building in Mpls, although I couldn't really see the top). Each table has it's own little burner built in to heat the 'melting pot'.
view of foshay

tongs
hot pot

We started with the Cheese fondue.
Oh wait, back up a bit, we started with a few refreshing beverages! :-)  I got the 'Love Martini' I thought it was appropriate, hee hee.
love martini

THEN came the cheese fondue (which they make in front of you), with three types of bread, fresh veggies, and apple slices for dipping.
first course

cheese bread dip

bread dipped in cheese

After the first course came salads. I got lettuce wraps and Kyle got the ceasar salad.  Next was our meal!

And what a meal it was! We had a mushroom sherry broth for cooking, the waiter put the veggies in first since it took the longest.
veggies cooking

Then we cooked our meats. The waiter gave us instructions on cooking times, 30 seconds for the dumplings and tuna, a minute for the shrimp and lobster, two minutes for the steak, pork, and chicken. Yum Yum! And so many dipping sauces to choose from.
meat tray

cooking dinner

cooked meat

put on plate

It was a fun little evening of fondue cooking!
245 melting pot

Just when you think you have no more room, dessert arrives! (well not right away, we actually had a while for our food to settle between courses)  We choose a ying yang chocolate - a mixture of white chocolate and dark chocolate.
ying yang chocolate

And had SOOO many yummies to choose from for dipping!  Strawberries, bananas, rice cripies (my favorite), oreo and grahmn cracker crusted marshmallows, brownies, pound cake, and cheese cake! My oh My!
dessert

It was a superb first anniversary!!
yum yum

Saturday in the Park

This past Saturday Kyle and I spent some of our anniversary relaxing near Lake Harriet by the Peace Garden. Kyle needed to study and instead of being cooped up inside all day, we decided to go claim a spot in the park and lay out while he worked on his paper.
park picnic

Can you find Kyle?
our study spot

I spent some of the time walking around the tulip garden.
park bench

hyacinth

tulips2

tulip 3

tulip

All the tulips hadn't bloomed yet, as you can see here there are going to be many, MANY more.
tulip garden

Then I went around and got some pictures of the other flowers in the Peace Garden.
peace garden

garden park

flowers

purple flowers

yellow flowers

It was a beautiful day!
kyle study

reflection


Happy Spring!

Week 35

I kinda got a few days behind on getting these posted a while ago, and it's kinda stuck. Oh well, here they are :-P
Week 35 blogsize

#239: Time for Dinner: Our first grilled out meal of the year: Chicken, mashed potatoes and steamed veggies, yum-yum! Yes that is Disney World on TV, lol.

#240: Harpo on the deck: Harpo LOVES being outside. He is so funny when he stands on the deck and pokes his head around the corner in this tiny slot. Not sure why he does this when he could run down off the deck and stand next to the fence getting a better view of the front yard.

#241: Tulip: My tulips are blooming and they are beautiful!

#242: Ladybug Daisy: I was working out this morning and noticed a lady bug crawling across the basement floor. After my workout I scooped him up, grabbed my vase of daisies and headed to the back deck to get some pictures of them together.

#243: New camera accessory: I got a battery grip for my camera, I love it! It has a portrait shutter, so now there are TWO shutter release buttons. It also makes it a little heavier and bigger which can help steady a shaking hand and allow me a better grip on the camera. WOO HOO!

#244: Izzy's Ice Cream: This day I got to go to lunch with one of my 409 friends! Jen is from Georgia. It was my first G2G (get together!) Some of the 409 girls that live closer get to have them more often, but since Jen was coming up to Minneapolis to visit her family, she took some time away and went to lunch with me. We went to Tuggs Tavern which is on St. Anthony Main (by St. Anthony Falls) and then she told me about this Ice Cream place she had been to and seen on the Food Network, it's crazy how I had never heard of it! So we went. All scoops come with a little Izzy scoop on top!

#245: The Melting Pot: This was Kyle and I's FIRST anniversary. We decided to go try the Melting Pot. We actually called to make reservations early February for Valentine's day, but since they only had a special menu for V-Day we decided to just make reservations for our anniversary instead.  It was DELISH. Definitely the most expensive meal either of us had ever had, but it was well worth it - ya gotta do something elaborate for your first anniversary right?

Happy Spring!

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Week 34

Better late than never, eh?
Week 34 blogsize

#232: Butterfly (Mourning Cloak): This is actually the first butterfly I have shot. We were at Minnehaha Dog Park, heading back up the hill, when I looked over and saw this guy bathing in the sun on the fence.

#233: Hyacinth bloom: Beautiful, beautiful blooms! It's spring!

#234: Watch 'em Grow: I did some gardening today, planted pepper, basil, and chive seeds. Hopefully it'll be a good start to my patio garden. The little guy standing there is my potato scrubber :-)

#235: hyacinth: Can you tell I'm a little excited about my hyacinth!?! They didn't bloom last year, so I'm trying to capture them as much as possible this year. And I'm glad I did because now, only 10 days later they do not look as pretty as they did here.

#236: Clean Floor: When we re-did the dining room I had cleaned the floor really good, but didn't get the middle of the floor where we had all our furniture. You could see the difference and it had been on my 'to do' list for quite sometime. So I finally got down and cleaned the middle of the room like I had last November.

#237: Clean Flower Pots: Cleaning the pots in preparation for the ice cream dessert I made for the progressive dinner.

#238: Finished Flower Pot Dessert: These are the flower pot desserts I made for the progressive dinner!


Happy Spring!

Progressive Dinner

Last weekend we participated in a progressive dinner with our newly married group at church. We started in Maple Grove at one couples town-home for salad, cheese & crackers, and this AWESOME ranch/bacon bit bread, OH it was so good!
Then we traveled onto Golden Valley to another couple's apartment for pizza! We made our own, they had the dough prepared for us then ALL the toppings laid out with printed labels sitting in front of each :-) It was so good! My pizza had tomato sauce, then mozzarella cheese, prosciutto, sweet pepper pieces, caramelized shallots, then three different types of cheeses on top: goat, another G cheese and something else I can't quite remember. but it was DELISH!
For dessert everyone headed to our house for a fun little springtime flower pot dessert I had made, and had a lot of fun making!

I got the recipe from Pioneer Woman, of course. I found flower pots in the $1 bin at Target... they were a little big, but that's okay. The only other ones they had were painted and rather small, so I thought I'd just go with these. (and everyone got to keep theirs in the end, I hope they plant something fun in it :-) of course they all took them home with half the dessert left in it since they were rather big, hee hee)

237 clean flower pots

Here were my supplies, which still a week later we have plenty of ice cream and pound cake left over!
supplies

First I cut up the pound cake to sit in the bottom.
cut the pound cake

Then cut the straws (which will hold the flowers) to put in the bottom. I had to use softened ice cream, but then I scooped that in, hid the gummy worms (muahaha) and cleaned the top up a bit before I stuck them back in the freezer. I did all this on Friday since my Saturday was pretty busy with photo shoots.
hide the worm

I also got the 'dirt' ready on Friday and set it aside. Two packages of oreos (I have a lot of dirt left over too) I usually just put it in a ziploc back and crunch them, but I used my food processor this time. I was so excited how it REALLY looked like dirt, all the white parts which usually don't crush well in the ziploc back disappeared!
oreos

And the finished product:
238 flower pot dessert

Saturday after the pizza entrée, we left before everyone so we could put the finishing touches on the desserts. I got them out the of freezer (notice the frost on the edges of the pots) and stuck the flowers in the straws. Yes they are real flowers, and of course I had to pick daisies. And of course like all the other ingredients I got a lot more than I needed, so we still have daisy bouquets all over the house. It's actually an advantage for Kyle because since it's our anniversary today, he didn't need to get me flowers, we still have them in every room :-P
So the flowers are stuck in the straw then I added the 'dirt' to the top!!

They sure were fun and everyone enjoyed them! Oh the green pots had the mint chocolate chip ice cream and the brown pots were chocolate ice cream. They loved the surprise gummy worms too :-)

Happy Spring!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

phew

I finally got week 34 ready to post, which I'll do tomorrow. I'm still getting a picture everyday, it's just taking me longer to get them off my card. I had two photo shoots this weekend, hope over to my photoblog and check them out.

In the mean time I want to leave you with these two photos, which I just ABSOLUTELY LOVE! Here's a little back story. So last weekend we had a progressive dinner with our newly married group (I will be posting on that later as well, yes I'm behind in blogging, posting late is starting to become a trend, sorry) and I had to get some daisies for the dessert I made. So we have tons of daisies around the house now. Yesterday morning while I was working out I saw a lady bug crawling along the floor in the basement, which gave me the grand idea for these photos. I gave the ladybug a little ride upstairs, took the flowers outside for some el natural light and viola! I just love them!!! (hope you do to) :-)

daisy ladybug

daisy ladybug2

Only problem now, I can't figure out which of the two I should make my photo of the day... I guess I'll see if I end up needing a landscape shot or a portrait shot :-P

Happy Spring!
All images are copyright of Daisy Simpson. It is unlawful and illegal to copy, scan, alter or edit the images in any way. This depreciates the photos value as well as my reputation, I take great care in capturing and editing each image and they are each important to me. Thank you for respecting my passion and my copyright.