Strangely enough, on Tuesday night Shawn stopped into Mellow Mushroom after work (that's definitely not the strange part..) and happened to run into a guy that he worked with on the cruise ship! Cliff was here on a short break so Shawn invited him to come over on Thursday night when we were having Robyn and Justin (and their dog Buck) over.
We had pork ribs with Shawn's Secret Recipe barbecue sauce and steak. I made veggie kabobs with onions mushrooms and brussels sprouts and Shawn made what is becoming a cookout tradition--baked macaroni made with Annie's white cheddar shells and a toasted Cheez-it topping. Only this time he added a bit of crumbled bacon and some cream cheese so it was of course even more delicious. A side note about brussels sprouts: if you've never tried them before because you once saw on a cartoon when you were a child that they were gross and have just been believing it for the past 20 years, please try them! If you cook them right and don't overcook them into slimy little balls, they can be so delicious and a good way to mix it up if you're sick of broccoli and green beans. -end brussels sprout soapbox-
Anyway, the weather was nice so we sat up on the roof deck to eat. Enjoying one of those fabulous evenings talking with friends, drinking beer and eating good food. Basically, what life was made for in my book :) I meant to take pictures but well, we were lucky to remember to even turn off the grill, so blogging was not exactly on my mind at the time..
Never one to be idle, Shawn stayed busy during his days off, surprising me by taking Civ to get detailed (she was looking a little rough since the move) and bringing home a completely scrumptious Nutella crepe that I thoroughly enjoyed. A shiny car and a delicious pastry? *swoon*
He was also able to finally get the doorknob installed on the bedroom door which has been a sore subject for quite some time now. This glass knob was another gift he had surprised me with way back in Jacksonville way back before he went to Hawaii. So it's been around a while. At the time, he had tried to install it on my bedroom door but it didn't fit with the existing hardware. Then when we got here, we discovered basically the same thing. So after two trips to the locksmith, two episodes of the knobs breaking off their base due to Shawn trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole, a failed attempt at epoxying the knobs back together, and some filing out of the doorknob hole in the door, we have a working knob! And it sure is purty :)
Our aquarium of wonders has also gained a few more residents:
Sue the bichir fish.. She has an eel-like body and just two little side fins right behind her head so her movements are usually pretty odd. But she gets along with Lord Tennyson, which is apparently a difficult thing to do. It seems like every fish we want will either eat or be eaten by him. But I caught them both together in the hiding spot in our tank, so I'd say they became fast friends. Or luvaaaas.
When we went to the fish store the other day, we saw this really cool black knife fish that we were gonna get. Then as the girl is about to scoop him out, she casually asks us if we have frozen brine shrimp, since that's all he eats. We have frozen krill, is that okay? Since that's what Sue and LT eat.. No, he really needs brine shrimp, she says, since they're much smaller. And then she says, "What I usually do is get a little of the shrimp in a dish with some water in it so that they thaw out and then I use an eyedropper and suck some of them up and reach my hand down in and just squeeze out a couple at a time right in front of him..." Me and Shawn look at each other. "Uh, can we just get a snail?"
So now we have Gary:
I was not too excited to be getting a snail since I prefer my pets to entertain me, but Gary has proven himself to be a rather adventurous snail (climbing to the tops of the trees, above) and so he's won me over.
