Hannah's Birthday Party This Afternoon

Hannah Marie Strempke had her Sweet Sixteen Birthday Pizza Party this afternoon at a Round Table close to where they live.

Her mother, Elizabeth, made her birthday cake. Elizabeth is the official family birthday cake maker. This is actually a cake within a cake. Hannah likes things to look pretty. The party was in an enclosed room. There are glass doors on two sides of the room that can be opened for additional seating if the restaurant gets too crowded. So we had people looking in on us. :)

Granddad and Katie. She is telling me she is 5 years old. Her birthday was the end of January. Her mom is Joyce, a twin to Jenni who lives here in the Sacramento area. Katie lives in Southern California. She flew up to Sacramento with Aunt Wendi, another of Gerry's girls.

Left to Right: Alexandra (a friend), Emily (sister), Hannah, Katie (cousin), Ashley (sister) and Andy (cousin and the only boy there).

Hannah and Katie (cousins). Katie and her sister, Emma (2) are our two youngest grandchildren/granddaughters.

Alexandra and Emily. Alexandra has really long hair. Emily has the cutest smile.

Andy being Andy. Gerry picks he and his sister, Melody up from school on Thursdays and they come over to our house to wait for their mother, Jenni, to pick them up. She works about a mile from our mobile. Melody was at her dance class and got there just before the party was over, in time to eat cake.

This is Jayne Willow Lahr. Her mother, Pam, is a cousin to Gerry's kids. Jayne is 10 months old.

We had garlic bread sticks that came with a marinara sauce and a garlic sauce. They were yummy!!

Pepperoni pizza.

Cheese pizza. We also had cheese raviolis and I forgot to take a picture of it. They were good too!

Money is always nice.

More money. This was a gift from the girls charter school advisor. These are new $1 bills with the last number of the serial numbers starting at 1 and ending with 16.

Elizabeth told Gerry and I that this is the Jonas Brothers first CD that they released. It is rare to be able to find one of these because Columbia House won't re-release more copies. The price paid for this CD was $67. Elizabeth didn't say who bought it, I suspect one of the aunties. The girls are crazy about the Jonas Brothers.

She is reading the birthday card from her sisters. It was pretty funny.

Holding her birthday card I made for her that had a check in it.

This was a cool gift, a fleece throw from the New Moon movie.

A really nice make up case.

Some make up from Aunt Wendi.

The birthday cake with the candles lit. These candles were really cool!

A cake within a cake. Joyce gave Elizabeth this cake pan. There is frosting between the vanilla layer and chocolate layer. The birthday cakes are always chocolate.

And lastly, Andy enjoying his piece of cake. He said he had 2 pieces of cake. The kids all got treat boxes with some chocolate kisses. He said he ate all those too. He is a character.

I didn't include all the pictures. Elizabeth forgot her camera so I was the official photographer. I emailed all the pictures to her and had to do it in 3 emails.

After we left the party, we stopped at the mall. I'm looking for some black dressy flats. So far, I can't find any. I looked at Penney's and Macy's at the mall today. Yesterday I drove out to the Folsom Outlets and went to the Naturalizer store. They didn't have anything I liked.

After we left the mall, we drove to Loomis to the high school there. The United Methodist Church was having their annual Japanese food festival. I will post about that tomorrow. It is after 11 pm again and need to get to bed.

Pasta and Peas for Dinner Friday Night

I fixed this pasta dish for dinner last night. Here is a post from January 2009 that includes the recipe for making it. http://elegantreflections.blogspot.com/2009/01/pasta-with-peas-and-bacon.html

I cut up this ham steak trimming off the outer edge and brown it with 4 or 5 slices of bacon. I use two packages of this 3 cheese tortellini.

The bacon and ham getting all happy together.

It doesn't take long to cook the fresh tortellini.

After the bacon and ham is cooked, drain it on some paper towels, drain off some of the grease and saute the chopped onion.

Add about three fourths of a pint of heavy cream and simmer until slightly thickened. It started bubbling while I was taking the picture. Had to quickly turn the fire down.

Everything added together including some Parmesean cheese.

And here's the finished dish with more cheese sprinkled on top. It is so good!! A quick and easy meal.

Betty's Ramblings Blog is One Year Old

Wow, a whole year has gone by since I started this blog. I sure have rambled on about a lot of stuff, mostly about FOOD!! I enjoy doing this and hope my blog readers enjoy it too.

The one year anniversary of purchasing the Nissan Quest van is also coming up; that is the 10th of this month. We've put a lot of miles on it since we got it taking some nice trips around the area, including the 6000 plus miles trip to Alabama and back last year.

Stay tuned for more ramblings!!

Sushi Masa's, Walmart, Bel Air & Dinner

I have lunch at Sushi Masa's every week or at least try to. I go either on Wednesdays or Thursdays. Since it was stormy yesterday I went today.

I started going to this restaurant back in the mid '80's. It was called Captain Teriyaki then, owned first by a young man from Taiwan. His father was the cook and they hired a Japanese lady as their waitress, Wakako Brindle (Jeanne). The son decided he wanted to go back to Taiwan and wanted his father to buy the restaurant. Henry (the father) and Wakako formed a partnership. Wakako had a friend who knew the attorney I worked for at the time and made an appointment for Wakako and Henry to come in and see the attorney. I recognized her and said to her that my husband and I ate at the restaurant sometimes. She invited us to come back. We use to go just about every weekend and I would go in during the week for lunch.

Henry then sold his interest in the restaurant to Wakako and she ran it for several years by herself. She and I developed a close friendship. She decided to sell and it was owned by 2 or 3 different parties before Masa-san bought the restaurant about 1998 or so. He changed the name to Sushi Masa.

After Wakako sold the restaurant, I started going to another restaurant in Citrus Heights called Kifune's. There I met Miyoko-san who was the waitress. I went every week on Tuesdays for lunch, always had the same thing. Sam who owned Kifune's suddenly closed Kifune's without any prior notice. Rumor was he had some serious financial problems.

So I had to find another restaurant to get my Japanese food "fix". I decided to try Sushi Masa and found Miyoko working there. Masa-san sold the restaurant in October of last year and it is now owned by an Okinawan lady. I am not sure what her name is. It took only a couple of times going before I was being spoiled by the new owner. I don't have to tell them what I want, they know what it is because I order the same thing each week. This is part of a mural that covers one wall of the restaurant. It has been on the wall since the days of Captain Teriyaki.

Tomiko-san, Masa-san's cook would put a salad on the plate. With the new owner you have a choice of miso soup or salad. Because I'm a regular customer, I get both. Yup, I'm spoiled. :)

I always order Chicken Teriyaki. Tomiko-san use to fix the thighs and her sauce was lighter. The new owner uses the breast and the sauce is darker.

After I left the restaurant, I went to WalMart to get a few items from the Pharmacy area of the store and this - Simply Orange Juice and Simply Lemonade. I use to get the Grovestand with lots of pulp. I get the Original now. These are the best tasting, very close to making your own or maybe even better. It is over a dollar less than at Bel Air. I don't do much other grocery shopping at WalMart. I don't like their meat, fresh vegetables or fruit. I would rather pay a higher price and get better grades of meat and fresher looking vegetables and fruit.

I made a meat loaf for dinner with boiled potatoes and fresh steamed asparagus. I left the skins on the potatoes, put some salt, pepper and butter on them when they were done. I added some sour cream to mine. I also like mayonaise on my asparagus. The asparagus is from Mexico. Our Sacramento Delta asparagus isn't picked until April or maybe even late March. That is the absolute best tasting asparagus.

The sun was out today although there were still a lot of dark looking clouds and it was rather cold. Rain is a possibility tomorrow and through the weekend.

I got my birthday card made that I needed to do. I won't post it on my card blog until after Saturday. I'm not sure that I am all that excited about it. I may try to play it more tomorrow.

Well, I better get to bed, it is 11 pm.

Breakfast this Morning

I usually have a muffin and orange juice for breakfast every morning. I ate the last muffin yesterday and did not get to the grocery store since it was kind of stormy outside.

This morning I started giving Gerry a hard time because I wanted him to fix waffles and he had already eaten his granola and yogurt. I could have had some instant oatmeal. Well, the sweetheart that he is, went into the kitchen and made me a waffle with warm real maple syrup. :) I love to cook, however, breakfast is not a meal I like to fix. The only time I will fix breakfast is on Christmas morning. He fixed himself a waffle too.

And if you are thinking I am so spoiled ---- I will admit I am spoiled. I don't ask very often for him to fix waffles so it is a treat when he does.

It rained again all morning, the sun is shining now. Supposedly later this afternoon we can expect some thunderstorms. Tomorrow is suppose to be a nice day, got to get to the grocery store and then the weekend will bring more rain.

Hannah's birthday party is Saturday. Her birthday is tomorrow and she will be 16. (Daughter Elizabeth's middle daughter). Wendi (Southern California daughter) is suppose to be flying up and probably will bring Katie (granddaughter).

I'm going over to my craft table to try and come up with an idea for a birthday card.

Rain Storm and Dinner

After a somewhat nice day yesterday, Monday, the rain started up again this morning. It was pretty steady all day until early afternoon when it stopped. About 4:30 pm I went out to the kitchen to start dinner and it was raining again. Dark clouds towards the mountains.

I don't know if it can be seen, it is raining pretty hard here. Right after I took this picture there was a loud clap of thunder.

We have a sliding glass door on the carport side of our mobile. I am standing in the doorway taking these pictures.

The noise from the rain is so loud!

Dinner tonight is pork chops with cream of mushroom soup gravy, fresh steamed broccoli and rice. The pork chops being browned, rolled in flour and seasoned with Lawry's Seasoned Salt and McCormick's California Style Garlic Pepper.

Mushroom Soup thinned with some water and poured over chops.

I had to take a picture of this. It is a heavy aluminum grill pan that belonged to Gerry's mother. You can see it was used often. I use it to defrost meat when I've forgotten to take the meat out of the freezer in time. His mother would have been 86 years old if she were still alive. She died at 58 years of age from a cerebral hemorrhage.

I think I've mentioned before that our mobile home was built in 1971 so the kitchen is outdated. I have YELLOW formica kitchen counters. I would love, desperately, to have a kitchen remodel. LOL!!

The broccoli is ready to be steamed.

And dinner at last!! It was yummy!!