Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to you! I've never been a die hard Valentine's Day fan, but we do celebrate it somewhat. This year Ben left for a conference on the actual day so our Valentine's Day was on Saturday. After a lunch at Bdubs (a fav) with some trivia and basketball, we came home for our celebration. We have a tradition that Ben makes me a surprise dinner, which of course I love! This year he out-did himself.

Look at this feast!

We had seared scallops (unbelievable), split a grilled steak with grilled tomatoes (best combo ever), and an artichoke salad. The artichoke salad had artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, capers, red onion, and olive oil. It was divine. Basically my husband rocks, and I'm completely spoiled.

Here's me before the dinner (pardon the messy desk behind me). My new boots are my second valentine. I'll probably have an entire post about them soon.
 

I hope you had a great Valentine's Day as well!

Giveaway Love

As previously stated, I read a lot of blogs. One fun thing about the blog world is GIVEAWAYS! Who doesn't love signing up to get free stuff?! Of course, I have the "Craig" luck and never win, but that doesn't mean I'm going to quit trying.



On another note, although it will relate in a minute just wait!, Ben and I purchased a Canon Rebel DSLR for our one year anniversary. It takes amazing photos, although we both want to take a class to learn more. It is hard to take out to random nights and events however because of its size.



Now how do these things fit together?? Ah ha, here you go.



Sydney of The Daybook (one of my new favs) is doing THEIT bag giveaway! This bag would enable me to carry around our camera to all kind of events, combine it with my purse items, and look cute doing it. So I pretty much want to win. I get an extra entry if I blog about it so here you go!

Hail Purdue

*print made to order from q.a. design

Hoosier by birth, Boilermaker by the grace of God.

I love my Boilers, win or lose, but beating Indiana is always the best.

Hail Purdue!!

Pasta to Die For

Excuse the improper grammar in the title, but this pasta is unbelievably yummy. Ben and I make it about once every two weeks. I know I originally found it online, probably through a blog, but I can't remember where so I'm sorry I can't credit it. I've tinkered with it anyway so it's not really the same recipe I found. The original recipe called for baked chicken, marinated in Italian dressing. I found myself actually picking around the chicken so we just eventually started leaving it out. We also add mushrooms, cooked with olive oil and salt, because, well, mushrooms are awesome. This pasta actually makes me feel like a cook.

I would post the recipe if I thought anyone actually read this blog, but I'm pretty sure it's just Ben. He already knows the secret. Besides, if you ever come to our house for dinner, you have a pretty good chance of being served "pasta to die for."

Just check it out!

(If you do happen to read the blog and want the recipe, let me know. I'm more than happy to share!)

The cutest little girl

This is our niece and god-daughter, E. Isn't she the cutest thing ever?

E with her dad, my brother, Steve, having her first Christmas coke (with the cap on of course. :))

Look at those BLUE eyes!

She's so happy!

I love this baby.

A little bit

Friday, Ben and I ate a little bit of this,

drank a little bit of this,

and watched a little bit of this

I also wore these beautiful shoes just because I wanted to do so.

They make me happy even if I'm just sitting on the couch at home. It was a good night. I hope you had a fabulous weekend!

So You Think You Can Dance (dance, dance)

I love this show. I started watching at the very end of the second season, but it was really the third season when I became a fan. I have had long conversations with my mom and with friends about who we like and who we think deserves to win in various seasons. I remember being at a Purdue tailgate one year and randomly beginning to talk about with my friend Kyra about the season. Before we knew it practically everyone had an opinion. Even some of the future husbands had favorites although they were loath to admit they even watched it.

I have had many favorite dances and dancers through the years. My favorite all-time dance was Season 4's Chelsea and Mark doing Bleeding Love. Other dances I remember loving were No Air (Season 4--Josh and Katee), Addiction (Season 5--Kayla and Kupono), Hip Hip Chin Chin (Season 3--Danny and Lacey), The Door* (Season 4--Twitch and Katee), The Hummingbird (Season 3--Hok and Jamie), The Boardroom* (Season 3--Neil and Sabra), among others. Season 4 has been my favorite!

This season has been quite different. I was extremely sceptical about the whole all-star premise initially. However, I have LOVED seeing some of my old favorites again. I think the show does miss a little bit of the current competitors bonding together. That's what set Josh/Katee apart in season 4 and Kathryn/Legacy apart in Season 6. While that might be a small draw-back, it's a small price to pay to get to see some of these amazing dancers again. So far there are three dances that have stood out to me. My favorite was Alex and Twitch's hip-hop, my second favorite was Lauren and Dominic's lyrical hip-hop to "If I Were a Boy", and Alex and Allison's contemporary to "Hallelujah." I watched these three over and over. I'm also thankful to have this show on during the summer. Ben hates it, and since he's in the field most weeks, I get to watch it in peace AND it gives me something to look forward to two nights of the week.

However, my biggest disappointment of the season came from Alex's injury. He was the best, and I think he would have won. It's been a shame not to get to see him dance every week. Then last night, Billy got hurt. Alex and Billy have been my favorite two dancers this season. I looked forward to them dancing every week. Billy still has a chance to go on if the judges don't send him home and he's healed enough to dance next all week so my fingers are crossed! When they announced Billy was hurt at the beginning of the show, it already made me look forward to the rest a little less. I know if he's sent home I'll look forward to all the other episodes a little less.

Here are some of my thoughts about last night's show. First of all, I think the judges are often way off base. It's like they are afraid to criticize at all now, and when they do criticize it seems to be totally nit-picky on the better dancers and not at all on the ones that could use the advice. In Robert and Lauren's samba, although they danced well, it definitely seemed like they botched several lifts. I was sure one of the four judges would mention that, but there was only deafening silence there. The judges also said that Kent almost outdanced Kathryn. No way I say. I watched Kathryn way more in that dance. I actually think that Kathryn and Allison always outshine their dance partners. They are just so good. Speaking of Kent, I was totally annoyed with the screams coming during his Step routine with Twitch. Are they putting mics on the crowd? Those screaming girls are super annoying and draw away from the routine. Please don't mic them! I also think the judges WAY overpraised his Step. It was good, but not great. In Jose and Allison's contemporary, there was hardly any dancing. The concept was cute, but it did Jose no favors. Or maybe it did him a lot of favors since he can't look weak if he's not really dancing or proving himself much.

Here are my rankings of the eight dances with 1 being my favorite and 8 being my least favorite.

1) Adechike with Comfort hip-hop

2) Kent with Kathryn jazz

3) Lauren with Twitch hip-hop

4) Robert with Lauren G. jazz

5) Kent with Twitch step

6) Jose with Allison contemporary

7) Robert with Lauren samba

8) Jose with Adechike Pase Doble

I like all the dancers right now even though I'm rooting for Billy. My choice to go home is Jose.

*I don't know if those are the actual names.