Crosswords and Cupcakes: Vacation, All I Ever Wanted. . .& WGC? #4!

so rogray and i went down to home sweet home: georgia for a long weekend. and not just any part of georgia: to my parents “cabin” in the mountains. i say “cabin” because it is not, in fact, a cabin. it is a 3 bedroom, 3 bath, 2 fireplace, and 1 jacuzzi tub house that is made to look like a cabin – i.e. made out of wood. that being said it was super relaxing and beautiful. the reasons for the trip are two-fold: 1: every fall my parents arrange a family weekend so all of us (mom, dad, sister and her crew, brother and his wife and me and rogray) can spend some time together and feel free to spend thanksgiving etc with whomever we choose and 2: rogray and i celebrate our anniversary a few days before the family arrives. stop making fun of us for celebrating our anniversary – we think we absolutely deserve a few days of eating and sleeping to pat ourselves on the back for dating for 2 years.

this is the view from the porch:

isn’t the weather gorgeous? don’t you wish you were there? aren’t you assuming we went on a glorious hike that day? well, don’t. we didn’t. we woke up after sleeping 10 hours, ate breakfast, took a nap, watched a movie, ate popcorn, made dinner, watched episodes of season 3 of arrested development and then slept for another 12 hours. Oh, and we found this which kept rogray busy first with pitfall:

and then with river raid:

and then convinced me why video games will never be a permanent fixture in our home entertainment repertoire. because having to tell your lovely b-fri that “it’s time for dinner so could you please put down your joystick and set the table” does not make you feel like their g-fri but their mom. but when we played Atari hangman it did remind us what we should be doing:

which is the opposite of what we were doing:

at least rogray met his goal of breaking 20,000 on river raid:

for our special anniversary dinner i made rogray’s fave dish: garlic chicken with garlic confit and we had artichoke hearts and crusty bread on the side. Rogray even wore his zankou chicken shirt to celebrate the glorious chicken:

i mostly did this to celebrate:

rogray liked it so much he had the leftover chicken with his waffles the next morning! it was rainy and overcast on day 2

so we were justified staying in after our 12 hours of sleep and repeating the previous days’ activities.

for dinner that night rogray made meal #4!!! which was roasted acorn squash stuffed with sage, goat cheese, wild mushroom mashed potatoes with a red wine reduction on a bed of wilted spinach and wild rice:

ok – the picture isn’t great. As my mom said when she saw it: “it looks like open heart surgery!” this was after she found the leftovers in the fridge and assumed it was something she had made that had gone moldy. way to boost rogray’s confidence in the kitchen mom!

despite the visual displeasure brought to my mom the pleasure of eating this was off the charts. this was a restaurant quality entrée – i think this would have cost at least $18 in some upscale place in nyc as the veggie option. granted, it almost brought rogray to his knees – i don’t think either of us realized how many steps there were in making this so it was a few steps beyond rogray’s comfort zone but his tenacity paid off and now i know what we’ll cook to impress our friends.

the next day my parents came!

due to my brother being in med-school and my sister and her hubby taking the kids to a family weekend of his own it was just the 4 of us. rogray loved my dad’s sunglasses made to fit over regular glasses. the weather was good and we finally went for a walk in the woods. but we had to wear bright orange things so all the hunters wouldn’t mistake us for deer or bears – seriously, we heard gunshots the whole time -- comforting -- but aren't we a stylish bunch?

the fall colors were in full effect and i made a bouquet:

we played boggle:

here I am enjoying my victory:

rogray’s hungry for my mom’s panko crusted oven fried trout:

and apple crisp -- nobody speaks when there is apple crisp on the table:

and then we played gin rummy in which, as usual, I lost and my mom, as usual, kicked our asses. hard.

the next day, we went for another hike and my dad and i enjoyed the leaves while my mom wondered why she couldn’t hear what we were saying. she’s not deaf. she’s just a trailblazer!