Michigan Vacation Part 1: Football!!

So I realize I've been missing for a while (almost two weeks!).  And I thought it was about time I updated you on where I've been and what I was up to.  I was in Michigan for 9 days so lets start with the first event, Michigan Football!

We arrived at the Detroit Airport and waited what seemed like forever in the rental car line.  We had a small issue with the rental car, we had reserved a small compact car (since we would be driving a lot, and we love to be efficient) but they couldn't seem to find a small car for us so we ended up with a free upgrade to one of the smallest cars they had, a Ford Flex (not small at all, it seats 7, and is really just a minivan in disguise).  It was also super cold and raining, we were not ready for this weather!

Check that ext temp for September 30th!

We spent the first weekend in Ann Arbor mostly for the football game, but also got to see some old friends and eat at some favorite restaurants.  First I wanted to do this link up with the Belles of Saturday and show off some of my gameday pics (and try and expose their blog to some northern schools!):

I <3 Denard

If you look closely you can see the ball in the air headed for Vincent Smith!

The game was great and Michigan won 58-0, yay! (I realize I've missed two Fridays for Football Friday, but I promise this week will be a good one with the big game we have against little brother!)  There were some fun offensive plays in the game where we used two quarterbacks (Gardner at QB and Denard in the back field) and the awesome trick play where Vincent Smith (usually a RB) threw for a touchdown.  It was also nice to shut them out (even though it took a lot of mistakes on their part to help us with that).

Most important were the people I saw before the game while tailgating.  I got to see most of my closest friends from college and I saw every person I ever shared a room with (which is pretty good considering I live in CA and only make it back there once a year).  Its always so nice to see old friends and catch up with them and their lives.

Roomies 417 Michigan House, "Reunited and it Feels so Gooood" (thanks for the great pic Typh!)

After the game we bar hopped to see the rest of the games of that day/night.  Including Wisconsin destroying Nebraska and little brother (michigan state) beating that school down south (ohio state)!  I did all this with my girl friends since Rob was off getting a tattoo and then going to a "bachelor party".

As for the food we had throughout the day, we started the day with bagels, cream cheese and fragels from Bagel Fragel on North Campus (jalapeno bagel with parmesan artichoke cream cheese, yummy!). Then some great tailgating food and drinks (Apple Cider and Hot Dam!). For dinner we went to Cottage Inn, and I got a quick snack at NYPD!

A great day in Ann Arbor full of football, food, and friends!

More of my Michigan trip to follow...

Weekend Wrap-Up

I had a really wonderful Labor day weekend, and instead of going in depth to every awesome thing I did, I figured I'd sum it up quickly.  Here are  5  8 cool things I did this weekend:

1. Spent most of the weekend in Omaha, NE.  We had never been there and really enjoyed it, I especially liked that every other establishment in their downtown was a sports bar (see some of our fun bar hopping here)!  I also saw a flier for a woo-woo equinox festival that included live music, camping, and a football tailgate party, how awesome is that?!?!?

2. Went to probably the fanciest wedding (for full explanation see here) we will ever attend, and didn't feel out of place!

3. Made lots of new awesome friends as the wedding and have plans to see some of them again, soon!

4. We experienced thunderstorms!!!  Its been so long since I've seen one of those!!

5. Went to a Nebraska sports bar to watch part of the Michigan football game (which we won, Go Blue!).  The sports bar was awesome and even though we were surrounded by Nebraska fans we didn't feel unwelcome.  Also, since all the state of Nebraska has is a college team, all they seem to care about are college sports, which I love!

6. Correctly predicted the Notre Dame upset!! I think Lou Holtz and I were the only two people in the world to predict this but no one can understand what he says so I was pretty much the only person to predict it!

7.  Bought these awesome sunglasses at The Flying Worm in Omaha, super cool store!

Yup, I just took this picture and have bad aim for self portraits

8. When I got home I bought a new jacket that I LOVE!

This one was taken in the mirror, I'm so talented!

Were any of your weekends as awesome as mine?

Reconnectin'

I just realized I missed another day...darn late night rehearsals (yes ending after 10pm is late)!

So yesterday I decided to reach out to a couple of people I haven't been in contact with in a very long time. One of them was easy enough because I'm friends with her on facebook, I'm just not sure if she remembers who I am (our Moms were best friends back in the day).  She writes an amazing food blog, that I've been following for a while so I thought it was time to actually email her and tell her how much I enjoy her blog.  Still waiting to hear back from her, but I'm sure I will.

The other person I wanted to try in get in touch with was an old friend from a music summer camp I went to 9 years ago, we were very close for the 4 weeks we spent there.  I didn't really have any other information on her except her name and that I knew she was a violin/piano player.  After not finding any info on her,  I realized that she probably got married and has a new last name.  Almost giving up, I finally found something with her old last name and what I guessed could've been her new last name.  Searching with her potential new last name I found out she has a blog and did a quick look around realizing it was her and decided to send her an email.  I knew this was all kinda a long shot, but within a few hours she had written back to me and we are currently trying to catch each other up on our lives over the past 9 years.

I think maybe this will be a new thing for me...trying to reconnect with people who I've lost touch with that were really important to me...I think this is a good way to fulfill one of my goals of being happier!

Buttercream!

OMG, we just made (well the bf and our friend) and ate (I helped with this part) so much buttercream.  It was delicious, but I think we might have gone a little overboard and will regret it tomorrow...

Three bowls of buttercream!!

Three types of butter cream were made.  The first was a chocolate with Contreau in it, so it had this amazing orangy flavor.  The second was a vanilla buttercream made from an Italian Meringue (I think, I wasn't really in the kitchen at this point).  And the third was the same recipe as the second but they used brown butter instead of regular butter.  A plain (but delicious) vanilla cake was also baked so we could put the different buttercreams on something!  This might be a good time to mention that our amazing friend who did all this with us went to pastry chef school, so there was lots of help for something we might never have attempted on our own!

The wonderful chefs!

I think the plain vanilla was my favorite, but I also enjoyed the different taste of the brown butter.  The chocolate one was very good as well, but didn't quite complement the cake we had baked (but of course we still ate it).  There were four of us there and e determined that if we finished all the buttercream in that sitting we each would've eaten 3/4 stick of butter, luckily we didn't and we have some of it stored in our fridge!

I think this was right before his sugar crash...