Carving on a deadline

This weekend, my parents came to visit. Sunday night, we went to dinner at Sherri's, while Bryan stayed at home to "finish up a paper for school." I came home to mysterious darkness to find this:

From Engagement

From Engagement

Now, THIS is how much he loves me: our farm-picked pumpkin molded in the 80 degree weather we had mid-last week, so he had to go buy a new pumpkin. It was Sunday before Halloween, so all of the THREE stores he went to were out of pumpkin carving knives. With only about 3 hours to accomplish everything before I came home, he carved this with a kitchen knife! Have you ever carved a pumpkin with a kitchen knife? It is very difficult. Hence his oh-so-cute, (but totally unnecessary) explaination of "I really wanted it to say 'Will you marry me,' but I couldn't do that with a kitchen knife, so I hope this is creative enough." Yes, baby, it's creative enough.

Of course I said Yes!

I'm now the luckiest girl in the world, and I'm wearing this, which has so much significance to me it's a bit overwhelming, in the best way possible.

From Engagement

What can $2 getcha?

Well, in Rochester, it gets you a pretty fun date night with some second run movies. Last week we saw this:



A friend said that I HAD to see it because it was great, and he was right. I was reluctant because I loathe Michael Moore, but this was an eye-opening look at the US healthcare system. While I knew our system was terrible, I didn't know quite how terrible it is. The movie left me feeling ashamed of being American and we left with comments of "when should we move to Canada or France?" I highly recommend this movie.

Last night we had a "boy" date night to do a little cheering up after a rough week. We had some yummy sushi (for him) and tempura shrimp and veggies (for me). Then we went to see this:



This was a movie that garnered the quote "That was one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Sort of like a modern Princess Bride." I should note that I did not utter said quote, but it was an interesting and enjoyable movie. It had many plotlines that all eventually converged, and had many pieces of humor laced throughout. The concept of a star fallen from sky represented by Claire Danes was akin to Alanis Morisette playing God in Dogma, but an interesting premise nonetheless. It was a unique movie, and one we both enjoyed. For $2, it doesn't take much to entertain me!

Toronto

The boyfriend and I went to Toronto last weekend, so I figure it deserves some pictoral updates and some witty (or, let's face it, not witty at all) banter.

Upon our arrival in Toronto after a lengthy travel time (45 minutes at the border crossing and 15 minutes figuring out how to get into our hotel), we changed and got ready for dinner at the top of the CN Tower, which is the world's tallest tower. The restaurant makes a full rotation every 72 minutes. It was neat because we had an early dinner (5:45), so we got to see everything in daylight and at night. But first, the scrumptiously painful (i.e. too much) menu for the evening.

Appetizer
WILD MUSHROOM AND VIDALIA ONION BISQUE
Quebec ash rolled goat’s cheese, cracked olive crostini, tarragon crème fraiche

From Toronto Oct 2007

Main Course
Tia: PAN SEARED FILLET OF ATLANTIC SALMON ON WILTED BABY SPINACH
Creamer potatoes, coriander sprouts, toasted pumpkin seeds, warm green tomato vinaigrette

From Toronto Oct 2007

Bryan: TRUFFLE SCENTED PORTOBELLO MUSHROOM STEAK ON FRESH HORSERADISH MASH WITH ROASTED KING OYSTER MUSHROOMS
Grilled asparagus, morel mushroom cream

From Toronto Oct 2007

Dessert
Tia: NIAGARA PEACH AND STRAWBERRY CRUMBLE
Cinnamon crème Anglaise, vanilla ice cream

From Toronto Oct 2007

Bryan: DARK CHOCOLATE TOWER WITH SUMMER FRUITS
Raspberry vanilla crème Anglaise

From Toronto Oct 2007

Although it was quite the splurge for us, we had an amazing time and the food was delicious. A few shots from the tower.

Lake view:

From Toronto Oct 2007

Sunset:

From Toronto Oct 2007

The city of Toronto:

From Toronto Oct 2007

Us at dinner. We scored a table right next to the window!

From Toronto Oct 2007

If you look closely, you can see that this is the view below (to the street) from the glass floor in the tower. It was so scary to stand on, even though it is entirely mental!

From Toronto Oct 2007

The view from our hotel room:

From Toronto Oct 2007

On Saturday we walked alllllll around, for a solid 8 hours, mostly in Chinatown. It was great to be back in a city with some ethnic foods. For dinner we decided to go to a sushi-go-round, which we miss immensely from Portland. This place sounded so cool too...the go-round part was boats that were actually in water. Well, it turns out that the sushi was very expensive, and the soba with chicken that I got was so gross that I barely ate any of it. So we paid $31 for nothing, and walked to this great Irish Pub and had a great time while watching some baseball, hearing some nice live music, having some fantastic drinks, and getting dinner #2 (putine, which is a Canadian thing...basically fries with gravy. Sounds nasty, but it was really good). We were seated in this raised section and had it all to ourselves for the 3ish hours we were there.

From Toronto Oct 2007

We did a little shopping while we were there, but with the weak value of the dollar, we couldn't afford much of anything! Of course we did stop at Ikea and get a few little trinkets, including my favorite new striped apron. We also got some fun new stuff at Lush, including a blueberry mask and some shampoo that is in a bar form.

At some point during the weekend I was telling Bryan how he just isn't the type of guy to buy me flowers. It's totally fine, and he shows me he loves me a million other ways then buying me something that is going to die. I came home Tuesday after running some errands, and he said "come here, I have a surprise for you." He had hidden (in my closet, which I still think is really funny), these pretty pansies.

From Toronto Oct 2007

You can't tell from this picture, but this is a big heavy planter full of them. I guess I made him feel bad, so he went out and bought me flowers. Too cute! I think they will dress up the house nicely for the upcoming upon house.

For more pictures, click here

More next week after the Niagara Falls trip.