Weekend in the Valley - Part II

Aside from the usual "making-our-way-around-town" activities that usually come with my visits to the valley... for groceries...to visit my grandmother...to run the necessary errands for whatever particular event we are having that weekend... (in this case prepping for Addie's Bday Bash the following day).. it was a calm day.  The only major accomplishment we crossed off our list was getting Addie used to her new bounce castle (which my brother conveniently put INSIDE the house)!  Awesome that we didn't have to be outside in the crazy Valley heat... Bad for being the LOUDEST thing you could put inside a house without causing permanent hearing damage.  :)  Nevertheless, we all survived and Addie had a blast.  :)  Success!

Weekend in the Valley - Part I

I have to admit that everytime I get ready for a trip to the Valley to see the family... I'm happy, yet sad.  Most often, Chad doesn't get to go home with me and most often, I try to make my trip down there count...taking as much time off of work as I possibly can (thank goodness for our usual half day Fridays!).  This time, not really thinking and probably due to the price of the flight, I scheduled myself to leave bright and early Thursday morning... not remembering that this was Chad's usual Thursday off.  What theeee...?!  Wa-wa-waaaaaaa....

With the schedule set in stone, I quickly realized that just meant that I'd get MORE time with the little one once I got home...who come to think of it, isn't so little anymore :)

Dallas to Harlingen - 10am

After a pretty uneventful plane ride (thank you sweet baby Jesus!) I was rewarded with THIS sweet face who told me the name of the plane I had come to visit her in! (Note to self:  I still haven't figured out this whole YouTube thing so this video is unedited...)

Sweet Addison Grace

Happy 3rd Birthday Miss Addison Grace

I can't believe it's been THREE years since this little one came into the world.  She's not even MINE and I can still remember every single detail about that day.  She's growing up to be such a spit-fire...every day reaching milestones and every day making me miss her more and more.  Thankfully, Christi (her mom and my sister-in-law) does a great job about keeping me in the loop with her life in the valley. 

Aunt Yvette and Uncle Chad love you Sweet Pea :)

Happy 3rd Birthday!

Easter 2011 - Beauty & the Beast at the Bass

I love that the time that Chad and I have together... we actually SPEND together.  Especially Sundays.  No distractions.  No television.  No time with separate friends.  No individual sports watching.  No "you do this and I'll do that, and I'll see you later tonight"- type thing.I'm sure that seems odd to some people... hell, it probably sounds odd to MOST people out there....but with Chad's crazy restaurant schedule, Sunday is OUR day.  Our day to explore the city, take in an event, hang out with our mutual friends, eat a nice dinner or just be alone together.  We obviously have the luxury of minimal distractions without kids right now... but I'm sure that even when our bambinos come along, this will still be Kelley Family Day ;).  This Easter Sunday was no exception.  With a visit to the valley in the works for this next weekend, for Addie's 3rd birthday (I STILL can't believe how fast that little one is growing up!), Chad and I planned our own little Easter celebration in Dallas.. Well actually, Ft. Worth to see Beauty and the Beast at the Bass Performance Hall.  It was AWESOME! 

View of Bass Hall from the parking garage. 

Instagram photo application at it again.  I love how simple Iphone pictures can be transformed so quickly and easily into something cool.  I'm gonna have to stop relying on my phone though and remind myself of our pretty awesome Canon handheld thats ALWAYS in my purse.  ;) 

An early dinner at Reata before the show.  :)

Reata - Ft. Worth Restaurant

Specializing in Southwestern cuisine, located in Sundance Square

A little vino to start things off..

Treana - Marsanne Viognier (one of my new favorites)

Just a teaser picture of all the incredible food we had.

The portions were ridiculous and we left there barely able to move..but soooo worth every yummy bite! ;)

Bass Hall Exterior

Bass Interior Dome above our seats..

Beauty and the Beast - Program

Perks of a Chef's Wife :)

So... it goes without saying that I'm one hell of a lucky wife being married to a bonafide chef.  Not many people can eat the delicious food that I eat as often as I get to eat it.  And for that, I'm blessed.  This whole-y body is blessed and I'm perfectly content (read: SMELLING food makes me gain weight) with having to workout like hell everyday (read: it does NOTHING, I'm still gaining weight because my metabolism SUCKS!!) for the rest of my life to keep eating the things I do.  ;)  it's a perk you see...and I'm willing to embrace it.  ;)

Tonight some of the ladies in my office joined me to do a first run of the newest Spring and Summer items on The Moth menu .  :)  It was a treat to not only get the best seat in the house (overlooking the kitchen and my hottie husband doing his thing) but to be amongst a fabulous group of women.  Fabulous food, fabulous atmosphere and fabulous company.  What could be better?! 

A little beer bubbly to start the night off...

Yup that's right.. a BEER CHAMPAGNE... who knew?!

Fabulous Instagram Application Fun :)

Here's my newest Iphone application in use to document some of the tasty treats we had.  (I've added a few "normal" photo versions of some of the dishes for those not into the Instagram thing.. ) 

Shrimp and Grits with Jalepeno gravy...

Not a new item...just a MUST item for the newbie at the table. 

Always a HIT amongst the crowd.  :)

Carribbean Spiced Chicken with a Banana Ketchup

Heirloom tomato stuffed with a tasty crab salad on top of Israeli couscous

Creamy Risotto with sliced asparagus, peas and preserved lemon

Green beans, carrots and asparagus veggies topped with a garlic like viniagrette

Mexicali creamed style corn topped with a cotija cheese crust

Sweet Texas Skies.. :)

I'm not exactly sure why...but over the course of this last year, I've noticed an INCREDIBLE amount of truly breath-taking sunrises and sunsets.  Like, almost an UNUSUAL amount of beautiful sunrises and sunsets.  Have I really been missing out on these magical events these past 30 years!?  It is LOVE in the air that has made the skies bluer and the sunsets just spectacular??  CHEESE and super salty crackers, I know!!..  Sorry Chad, I HAVE, in fact, discovered a new lease on life since meeting you..but surely that's not why all of a sudden I'm noticing the most glorious skies I've ever seen !  Surely I've just been living in a hole or something... lol.  Regardless, I'm thankful for seeing them now and doubly thankful for having an incredible phone camera to capture it all on my walks with Macie or while driving to work each morning.  (Ssssshhhh... I'm a safe driver...I promise, I only snap pictures when stopped at red lights.. ;) 

And a shout out to my sweet friend Lori Wilson for her own love of beautiful Texas sunsets!  Lori Wilson's Blog - Why I love Texas


Just a few more reasons to love Texas. 

Blog's-A-Changin' :)

It seems like every so often I'll try to "re-invent" my blog in some way... changing the background, updating the main picture...yada, yada, yada.  For those of you who have followed us in this blog since the beginning, you've probably noticed about three MAJOR changes in the last few years since this blog was created.  As much as it pained me to change out our sweet "walking-down-the aisle" main picture, I figured since it's been a year an a half since our wedding, it was due for a change-up.

Literally TWO seconds after I FINALLY decided to go ahead and change the main picture (at first that was the only thing I was going to swap out!), things got a little out of control and I very quickly remembered why I hadn't changed anything in so long... Cue: INDECISION...followed quickly by CONFUSION at all the choices of layouts and colors and text fonts and....uhhhhh.... and lastly came ANNOYANCE for taking so long to find something simple and clean and not too distracting.  And that was just PICKING out the LAYOUT and BACKGROUND template!  The main picture alone had about three different variations of similar, yet DIFFERENT things... What pictures to use?...HOW many do I want? What size do I need them to be?...followed again by the font type, color and so on.  YIKES!  Needless to say, after quite a few trial and errors, I'm happy with the final product and I hope you are too cause it's going to stay like this for quite a LOOOOOONNG time!  ;)  (or until I get sick of looking at the same stuff...lol..hopefully after MORE than a year or so.)

Just to point out a few other changes, (which thankfully only involved text so it was easy to do).... Chef Chad's page (under EXTRA BITES) has been updated to show all the totally awesome press love he's gotten since his move to Dallas four years ago.  It DID take quite awhile to try and gather all that info, but thanks to good 'ol google and the internet, his internet articles were a breeze to gather up.  ;)  And how freakin' COOL is it to be able to GOOGLE your husbands name?!  ;)  Proud wifey here.  ;)

My own ABOUT YVETTE page will be updated very soon... I hadn't looked at it in, I don't even remember when, and when I did... I laughed at how STERILE it is!  Who the hell IS THAT girl?!  I think I stole the copy off of some resume something or other I did at work.  Either way, be on the look out soon for an updated profile... a rambling of sorts (I'm sure) of all the things I love.  (I don't have articles written about me or anything cool like Mr. Kelley, so you'll have to be entertained by my wit alone ;)

(NOTE:  Since this post was originally written: The ABOUT YVETTE page HAS actually been updated!) Whew... cross that off my to-do list!) Happy Reading!)

OOOOOOOO...one last update, since I took down our main wedding picture, I made sure to have our wedding properly represented with it's very own, WEDDING page.  You can catch a glimpse of our wedding video and if you're patient enough to sit around for a while...even see a SLIDESHOW of all our wedding pictures!

ENJOY our new surroundings..  :)

Stone Brewing Beer Dinner - The Meddlesome Moth

For those of you who keep up with our blog, you might recognize Stone Brewing from our December visit to their Escondido Brewery in California.  (You can see our cool pictures of the brewery & food from their restaurant on our past blog post - here ) This time, they flew to Texas and paid a little visit to the Moth, starting out April Ale Week with beer and food pairings like no other.  Greg Koch, Co-Founder of Stone was the HILARIOUS guest speaker this evening while Chad did a great job (as always) preparing the menu and delighting the over 100 guests with spectacular food.  :)  

Brief introductions from Jason Armstrong - Stone's Regional Rep.

Sea of beer. Enough said.  ;)

Greg Koch, Co-founder and comedian ;)

Pate on rye with malt mustard - Carpaccio with peach, olive oil & celery - Carmelized onion & gruyere tart

Beer Pairings:  Green Flash - Pizza Port Carlsbad - Stone Hwy 78 Scotch Ale

Crab "Boil" with sweet corn - Red bliss potato with andouille butter

Beer Pairing:  Stone IPA 

Cocoa braised short rib with burnt leek polenta & garlic kale

Beer Pairing:  Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale

Candied orange duckwith wilted curly leaf spinach

Beer Pairing:  Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale

Chocolate fig stout cake with Henry's malted milk ice cream

Beer Pairing:  2008 Stone Imperial Russian Stout

left to right:  Chef Chad Kelley, aka "The Hubs", Greg Koch, Matt Quinette and Keith Schlabs

Funnyman Greg went around "stamping" all he could with a personalized stamp with his jolly mug on it!

He was even passing around temporary arm band tattoos with the same thing...lol.  crazy kid!  :)

Greg and some of the bar staff

Mama Lisa was my date for the night... :)

Chad and Greg enjoying the night after all the plates had been served and speeches had been given. 

One of my favorite pictures form our visit to the Stone Brewery. 

I love this gargoyle guy! Scary but cute perhaps??  lol..