Happy New Year!

It’s a rainy Sunday so Bella and I are spending the day watching movies. I wanted to pop in to tell you about what I have been up to so far in 2019. My New Year’s celebration was spent playing games with new friends from work. They had a few games that I had not played before. 5 Second Rule was so much fun. You have 5 seconds to name 3 things that fall into the category on the card. I can be pretty competitive so it was a lot of fun getting riled up. We also played Exploding Kittens and Sequence. Both were a lot of fun. Of those 3, Exploding Kittens would probably be the best for travel.

After a night of fun with friends it was nice to have the day off on Tuesday. I met up with my friends for lunch at Dao’s Tai Pan. This is the third time I have been there and I had been craving their chicken teriyaki. I actually didn’t care for this restaurant the first time I went. That was before I had tried this dish. I love that it is so close to my house. After lunch I headed home and started watching The Sinner on Netflix thanks to a recommendation from my sister. THIS SHOW! Amazing. I actually don’t usually like Jessica Biel as an actress, but her role in The Sinner changed my opinion of her. I watched the entire first season in one day.

Another show I highly recommend is YOU on Netflix. My sister and I started watching this together when she was in town. I finished the first season the next day. It was so creepy! Before watching, I had no idea what the show was going to be about. It ended up being wild. The main character is insane.

I have been loving audiobooks lately. I listened to My Squirrel Days on my way to and from Phoenix. I loved listening to this book! The author is also the narrator. She plays Kimmie on Unbreakable Kimmie Schmitt. Her book was just as funny as her character on the show.

One of my goals for this year is to actually read 12 books. I started with Unqualified, but I couldn’t get into it. I decided I will probably listen to it as an audiobook instead. I do listen to the Unqualified podcast and I love it. They always have a celebrity guest and they make phone calls to people who have written in for relationship advice.

My friend’s birthday was on Friday so we celebrated by going to Raijin Ramen for dinner. I could honestly eat either pho or ramen every day, especially during the winter. I love the Miso pho at Raijin. It is deliciously spicy. We also ordered the gyoza as an appetizer. These were so good as well. I can never finish all of my pho, but it makes for great leftovers. After dinner we headed to Screamery for ice cream. I hadn’t been before, but it was great. I had the Cowboy Cookies flavor. It tasted like oatmeal cookies. I would definitely go back to Screamery. We sat outside while enjoying our ice cream and played the game, Kung Fu Zoo, I bought for my friend. There are two ways to play the game and both were a lot of fun!

Last night I made an enchilada casserole for dinner. It was the Layered Chicken Enchilada Bake from emilybites.com. I added zucchini and green chilis. I also used wheat tortillas. I have added this recipe to my recipe book already. It was so good! I ate it with guacamole and now I have leftovers for the entire week. Here is the link: https://emilybites.com/2016/06/layered-chicken-enchilada-bake.html.

For dessert I made Banana nicecream for the first time. I used bananas, honey, cocoa powder and almond butter. I let the frozen bananas thaw for about five minutes before putting them in the blender. This recipe takes a lot of patience. It’s a lot of blending and stirring, but it turned out great. After throwing in all the ingredients and blending them, I poured the mixture into a plastic container and froze it for about 10 minutes. I want to try it with different ingredients and even add toppings.

I am so excited to see what the new year brings! Enjoy your week!