our tasty tree

This weekend we went over to Whole Foods (organic supermarket, US/UK chain) for a couple of things, and came home with a rosemary Christmas tree. It looks pretty good, smells great, and (best of all) we can cook with it after Christmas. I think it still needs a bit more decoration, but I've put a couple of photos on Flickr taken this afternoon. Only four more sleeps til Christmas!

hello december

I can't believe it is already December – and another month I haven't posted anything on this blog (so lazy of me). Starting now though, I'm promising a post a week (was going to make it a new year's resolution, but why wait?!) So, now to remember all the things that we've been up to since my last post...

It's old news really, but our Halloween was pretty quiet. We didn't end up getting any trick or treaters, but it was a good night. We lit our jack-o-lanterns, ate homemade pizza and Butterfingers (yummy peanutty buttery toffee chocolate bars), and watched Ghostbusters.

In early November, we went down to New Orleans again. We went back to the French Quarter for lunch, and Jon got his first tattoo. It's an outline of a swallow (no colour or shading). He's wanted a tattoo for a while, and got some money for his birthday (back in July) to get one. Anyway, it was quite quick (about 20 minutes), healed pretty quickly and looks really good (check out the pics on Flickr). Afterwards, we drove over to Magazine St (in the Garden District) for coffee and a look at some second hand clothes and antique shops. It was a nice day.

Just thought I'd share this picture too. It's what I saw on my iPhone map of our entrance to the freeway leaving New Orleans (we were on Claiborne/I90, trying to get on to the I10)... eek!

We went to our first game of football – LSU v Louisiana Tech. We tailgated all day, then headed over to the stadium in the evening. We missed the first quarter rushing my backpack (not allowed in the stadium) back to the car, but once we got in and found our friends and seats, it was exciting. The stadium was full, everyone was dressed in the LSU colours and sung/cheered along to the marching band. Football and the Tigers are so huge here, so it was great to get to a game (and lucky for us, LSU won).

We spent Thanksgiving day watching the Macy's parade on tv, followed by the National dog show, and some episodes of The office (we have become addicted to this show, and watched five seasons in one week on Netflix). We also made a pavlova and some cheese and vegemite scrolls, which we took to dinner at Jon's supervisor's. It was a nice evening with lots of food – including an 18 pound turkey!

Demcember's been nice so far too. We got a little bit of snow on Friday night. I don't think I've ever seen falling snow, so it was pretty exciting. We'd been hearing in weather forecasts that there was a chance of snow, and while talking to Jon's family on Skype, we heard some people outside and they sounded pretty excited. We both rushed to the window and saw SNOW! It wasn't a lot, but enough for us to take our cameras outside for some photos like this (more on Flickr):

This weekend we did a bit of Christmas shopping. It is starting to get cold here, so we also got some jumpers and slippers to keep warm! Sunday was our first wedding anniversary, so we treated ourselves to pho for brunch, coffee and beignets for afternoon tea, and our favourite dinner – etouffee (with chicken, andouille AND prawns!) We also made some mini red velvet cakes with cream cheese icing, which we ate while watching Best in show. Awesome!

So that's everything. Until next week :)

PS. Hi Sam! Grits is ground corn. It's common in the South, and can be eaten for or with any meal – like the shrimp and grits, or as a side to eggs and bacon for breakfast.