3rd times the charm?

I am trying to get a new refrigerator, sounds easy right? Well, when you have a tiny galley kitchen and the ice box has to be next to a wall, your pickings are slim to none!
I want a fridge that has ice and water in the door, I can't deal with no ice this summer, I use so much ice that my current fridge can't keep up. And with water in the door maybe we can cut down on buying bottled water.
I went to Lowe's and picked out a fridge, they delivered it and it was not 30 inches deep it was 48 inches deep, UGH! Ok, back to Lowe's had to buy a new one from them, and have them pick up and refund me for the wrong one. Got the new fridge delivered but when you opened the right side door you could not access the drawers due to the right door can only open about 87 degrees due to being against the wall.

Wrong type can't use next to a wall!

Back to Lowe's,  I am getting a french door fridge that should work, due to the drawers being able to be moved to the left side of the fridge and drawers that pull out instead of towards the wall. The right door will still only open 87 degrees but with access on the left and the drawers on the left we will be fine, I hope.....

Hoping this will work next to the wall after I move the drawers to the left. It has ice and water in the left door.

In other news, I discovered that we can cook french fries on the grill!! We wanted some burgers and I made our favorites, Pub Style Angus Burgers from Sam's choice, they are soooo good, located in the freezer section. Try them, they are great!

So I grab a bag of fries and decide to throw them in the pan I cook veggies in on the grill, I shook them around and let them cook until golden brown and done, Wow, worked great! Who Knew??

So there you are, a fun little grilling secret on how to serve fries at your next BBQ.

 I have been reading and watching youtube videos so I can really make some wonderful foods on the grill, I have a book called How to Grill by Steven Raichelen. He has a really great Hot Dog recipe for the grill....I tried it out and Holy Smokes, I don't think I can go back to eating plain old dogs on the grill anymore! You cut a v shaped wedge out of the dog, lay in some cheese, I used pepper jack and some sliced jalapenos and tie up with butcher string, I really did not need the string so if you are careful you might be able to get away without using it. just cook and tilt and cook and tilt until done, Oh Yummy! Toast the bun and add some mustard, it was very good!

I hope you are enjoying your summer, we had our 11 year old grandson for 10 days and had so much fun playing in the pool and grilling up some great food.  See you soon with more recipes from my grill!

It's Grill time baby!

Summer is here the pool is up to temp, 89*, sweet summer loving is in the air!
Um, can you tell this is my favorite time of year?? Maybe it is the Pisces in me, but a whole season to spend in water, oh sweet sweet jeepers!
Today I decided to do a little cooking on the grill, it is not an easy cooking skill to master this damn grill thing! But we spent 5 grand on an outdoor kitchen, so I am bound and determined to cook more then hot dogs and frozen burgers!!!

I was inspired by our dear friend Chuckie Burgess, he invited us over to his mansion last weekend and served us up quite the gourmet spread, he is a retired Marine (can I get a OO-RAH!) and motorcycle police officer and jack of all trades if you ask me, yeah does his own garden and landscaping too, he can eat live grasshoppers and kill scorpions! I hope my hubby is taking notes for when he retires in 4 years, gotta keep those boys busy or they can get into some trouble!

So today it was all about grilling chicken and shrimp. Chuckie had 3 kinds of shrimp and some chicken he had cooked up, so I set off to find some marinades and recipes.

I chose McCormick Grill Mates dry spice in the bottle for the chicken, roasted garlic and herb, and Grill Mates in the packet chipotle pepper. Cut up the chicken into chunks and put into baggies to marinate for a few hours.

I chose ragin cajun spice for the shrimp, and a recipe for homemade marinade on all recipes for grilled shrimp, from a guy named Ron. Also grabbed Weber zesty lemon dry bottle spice mix.

Got everything marinating in their own baggies, when it was time to cook I fired up the grill and oiled it down. Had my skewers soaking all night, Did the chicken first. I knew it would have to rest and I knew the shrimp would only take a minute or two....

got them all skewered up and hit the grill...

Here are my results:
In the chicken category:

The Roasted garlic and herb mix by McCormick was ok, but not great, kinda iffy. 2 stars.

The Grill Mates Chipotle pepper packet was amazing!! I could eat that chicken all day! Yummy!
5 stars!

In the shrimp category:

Ragin cajun was fabulous! I put a little too much, gotta go easy on this, and I like heat, but I was over the top...if it was toned down this would have been awesome! 5 stars!

Ron's recipe off the internet, boring, no flavor, I had high hopes with a homemade recipe, but this fell flat. 1 star cause it was edible.

Weber Zesty lemon, OH NO! tastes like soap! ewwww! gross! What a waste! 0 stars, well maybe -5 stars!

labeled and marinating

The chicken labeled on foil all cooked up!

The shrimp labeled and ready to go

the marinades

The winner of the chicken dinner!

The winner of the shrimp dinner!

There you have it, some grilling fun had by me, I learned a little and enjoyed my saturday on the grill! Good luck and if you have any tips or recipes to share please leave a comment! Thanks!
Jackie

Anniversary #26

Charlie and I have been married 26 years. Wow!

We celebrated by attending a concert at the Palms. We got to see Doyle Bramhall, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, and the Tedeschi Trucks Band. Great blues music! 

Charlie surprised me by getting us a room at the Palms! Wheeeee! I love staying in hotels, it is so luxurious and so pampering! 

We arrived at 3:30 and played some machines, doubled our money, drank some drinks, had a nice dinner at the cafe, then headed to the venue. We enjoyed some great music from 6:30 to 10:00.

Slept in a comfy bed in a great room with a fabulous view. What a fun anniversary date!

I wonder what we will do next year??

My friend Deb sent us roses! She was my maid of honor 26 years ago!

Us with the view behind us!

Waking up and seeing this out the window!

Doyle Bramhall

Sharon Jones

Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi

Scrapbooking time!

My sister and I headed to San Diego for the www.Scrapbookexpo.com weekend crop and shop!

The expo was held at the town and country resort, they are working on renovations as the resort is very old and dated, but they are getting her fixed up and hopefully next year they will have a new spa and nicer rooms. We love staying here and this is our fourth time here, with expos and escapes. They have a mall right across the bridge with lots of shops and restaurants, Cheesecake Factory is our fave.

We shopped and dined on Thursday and got down to business of scrapbooking Friday and Saturday. I am almost done with my Scandinavian scrapbook, only 2 more scrapping trips left to get it done.

Next year we are headed to the British isles and Ireland!

The veiw from my room, the resort is beautiful

my frozen page, that was for Estonia, I was so cold!

expo had fun props to play with

too funny

working on her album

Big Bingo Bonanza!

I went on a little staycation...hubby was busy racing over the weekend so I signed up for the big bingo tournament at Red Rock Resort here in Las Vegas. Got a room for Friday and Saturday and the entry for Saturday and Sunday. Bingo goes from 10 to 3 on Saturday and Sunday.
I arrived Friday afternoon checked into my beautiful room on the 15th floor with a view of the strip.

Now I must tell you, Red Rock resort is for those who want to come to Vegas but don't want to be on the "strip". You can go play on the strip, they even offer shuttles there. But you can get the Vegas experience with out all the crowds staying here.
It really has everything, a spa, restaurants of anything you want, BBQ, Italian, steakhouse and many more...plus you can walk out the back and you are at downtown Summerlin shopping district, plenty of stores for every ones tastes!

I chose to play some regular bingo on Friday, (won 125.00) then I had panda house for dinner and hit the hay, well, actually it was luxury bedding in my room, as I had a full day of bingo on Saturday!

I thought this was a cool picture, it is the endless hallway as you walk to your room!

Saturday I got up and went to the café for some breakfast then headed to bingo!
In the warm up session I won 2 rounds for 125.00 and 85.00, I am having fun now!
They serve you a wonderful boxed lunch plus you get breakfast and dinner buffet coupons to eat for free, all for the 99.00 entry fee! I only ate the lunch and bought my breakfast and dinners in restaurants, buffet is no fun alone! The lunch was a chicken salad sandwich, potato salad, orange, chips, and oatmeal raisin cookies! Yum!
After bingo was over, I headed to the shopping district and bought a lucky necklace and a silver and turquoise bracelet at the Brighton store. Back to the hotel for dinner, I had Lucille's BBQ:

Bbq chicken, mac and cheese, baked beans and wine! My all time favorite dinner! I would order this if I had to have a last meal!
I played a little keno, sat at the bar and watched baseball, then went to bed early for Sunday was a whole day of bingo again!

I decided to order room service for Sunday morning and spoil myself a little more:

At 6:00 am I got my pot of coffee, an English muffin, and the prettiest flower delivered! I sat in my comfy chair and looked out at the view and watched the sun come up while sipping my coffee!
Aaaaahhhhh, this is the life!

I got down to bingo, and my hubby shows up, he was bored and wanted to go to breakfast but my bingo started, so off he went to the cafe, on the last game of the warm up session I won! I got 250.00!! Whoohoo!!

We broke for lunch and I sat and talked with Charlie, then he decided to go to the movies and see the Madmax movie.
I went back to bingo for my last rounds, I did not win in the last rounds, but I did have a wonderful time on my little vacation!
I would recommend Red Rock Resort for a Vegas Vacation! Everyone was so nice and friendly and the hotel is very beautiful! I may go again sometime and have a spa day, I will let you know how that is!

Weekends are for...

Getting flowers and cards from kids and grandkids:

Cleaning and firing up the grill to make my very first chicken kabab's ever:

Cleaning and buying new net, shark guage and water testing for pool so I can sit down and relax with a margarita:

Hope everyone had a fun and relaxing weekend, summer is right around the corner, I have some fun trips planned and a month to just relax in my pool!
Peace, Love, and Margaritas to all!

More scrapbooking and a concert!

Another big scrapbooking weekend in the books, this time we went with Patti: www.scrappinescapes.com

She booked us at the M Resort here in Las Vegas. Oh My, that place is gorgeous!! The food, the ambiance, just gorgeous! The rooms were so beautiful. I highly recommend staying there when you come to Vegas, it is at the far south end of the strip so you would have a few miles to get to the heart of the strip, but all in all a wonderful place to stay! Great for those who want to come to Vegas but hate the strip crowds!

We arrived Friday morning and settled in to work on our scrapbooks, I am finishing up my Scandinavian trip.

Saturday, the M served us all a sit down breakfast, it was a
delicious little buffet, with lots of fruit and eggs and turkey sausage, kinda healthy!

Saturday night, Tanya arrived to whisk us all off to the Hard Rock for The Pat Benetar concert!
We had dinner at the M, the little Italian joint, delicious food there!

We met Tanya's daughter there and found our seats. The show started with the story of how Pat and her husband Neil aka Spyder met and how they have been making music together for 35 years! Amazing!
They did all the good songs and the crowd just loved them! What a great show!

Back to the hotel, and back at the scrapbooking Sunday morning, Mary headed home and christy and I stayed until 2.

Another fun weekend, this is the best hobby in the world, meeting people, traveling, concerting....

The M Pool, going to take a dip next time!

Christy

Mary, she was still on the scooter and boot!

Me, hard at work!

Patti and us, she works so hard to put on these events,
THANK YOU PATTI!!!

 

Pat and Spyder, I love a good love story and they have a great one!
Congratulations on 35 years!!!