Wedding Music

On Friday these two crazy kids are getting married.  I am so excited for my sister Leah, her fiance Sal, and their little guy Giovanni.  

I love wedding music, and I think my sister made some great choices.

The Processional (Bridesmaids): To Make you Feel my Love (Piano Version)

The Processional (Bride):




Signing of the Marriage License: (without the talking at the beginning)



 Recessional:

First Dance:

If you are married, what song(s) did you have in your wedding?  

If you are not married, what is a song that you would want included in your wedding?

French Lunch and Folk Fest Days 2 & 3

On Saturday afternoon we were lucky enough to enjoy a French lunch in our friend's backyard.

Unfortunately I wasn't feeling well and had to leave before the main course, cheese and dessert :-(  Yes, the food above wasn't even part of the main course!

I started feeling better in the evening, and was able to go to the Folk Festival for the second night.  

When I got my appetite back I had about half of this:

On the last night (Sunday) of the Folk Festival I enjoyed samosas, as well as some butter chicken and a few bites of the hubby's snack:

Hawksley Workman stole the weekend with a brilliant performance.  

I was extremely impressed.

I also liked this interactive art installment, "Before I Die".  

People used chalk to write things that they wanted to do before they die.

Now that the Folk Fest is done, it is WEDDING WEEK!  

My sister is getting married on Friday!!!

We had a family dinner at Red Lobster this evening - our last before the wedding. My precious little nephew ordered his favourite meal - mussels. What a kid!

Have you ever been to an outdoor music festival?

What do you have going on this week?

Folk Festival Day 1

The hubby came home from work yesterday with a little gift for me.  Our anniversary was a couple weeks ago, but something he had ordered me had not arrived until yesterday due to the slow mail (aftermath of a mail strike and back to work legislation).  He creatively wrapped it with paper he had at work and surprised me with it when he got home.

The traditional gift for a 7 year anniversary is copper, so he bought me a handmade copper necklace.

 

I love it!

He has stuck to the traditional gifts each year, and I think it is so cute.  For our first anniversary (paper) he made me a book with a page for each anniversary where I can put a picture of us on that day, and then write about what we did, etc.. He also got me a Polaroid camera to use to take the pictures.  Each year we have kept up with this, and I think it will be something special to look through on our 25th, 50th ...

Last night we went to the first night of the Folk Festival in our city.  

We sat on a big blanket with our friends and listened to the music of:

Fred Penner!!!

Shotgun Jimmie

Braids

Cris Derksen

Etran Finatwa

Slow Down Molassas

Andrew Bird (incredible - we LOVED him)

Michael Bernard Fitzgerald

KT Tunstall

It was really cool to see Fred Penner, as I watched his show every single morning when I was a little kid.  He even crawled through a log onto the stage.  Ahhhhh, memories.

There was also a very, very rare occurrence during the beautiful evening in which the Northern Lights were visible and moving gracefully in the city sky.  This never happens. 

It was a wonderful night, complete with deep fried pickles and chipotle dip.  

Can't wait to go back tonight!

Did you ever watch Fred Penner?  

What shows did you watch in the morning as a kid?  

(My favourite was Mr. Dressup)

Eating at the Ex

The exhibition is in town this week, and the hubby and I went on the first day ... not for the rides, but for the food and music.  Mariana's Trench was playing, and they put on a pretty good show;  however it wasn't as good as the first time we saw them in a small, indoor venue many years ago.  They have become much more mainstream now.

I ate a small corn dog, and it was sooooo good!

I also had a few bites of the hubby's pizza:

And 2 of his mini donuts:

We didn't eat this guy, but we were amazed by his many horns.  

Apparently, Jacob Sheep can grow up to 6 horns - cuuuuuute!

Before the concert we shared a colossal onion.  This was new to our fair this year, and we just had to try it.  First the onion is flowered with a special machine.  Then they dip the onion in batter and fry it.  After that, the onion is cored, and a dip is placed in the middle.  

It is basically like onion rings, but much cooler.

Have you ever had a colossal onion?  

What is your favourite food to get at the fair/ex?

Summer Dinner Party

Last night the hubby and I had some friends over for dinner.  

I tried a bunch of new, but easy recipes - some that are definitely keepers.

The appetizers included falafal chips with roasted red pepper dip:

And bacon wrapped stuffed jalapenos:

Simply clean out jalapenos, fill with cream cheese, wrap with 1/2 slice of bacon, bake for about 30 minutes at 375.  I found the recipe here.

And brie stuffed mushrooms:

Wash and stem button mushrooms.  Heat 2 T butter in a pan and cook mushrooms until browned.  Remove from pan.  Fill with brie cheese and then bake until melted.  Top with sauteed garlic and green onions if desired.

The salad course was a watermelon and goat cheese salad with balsamic reduction.

Watermelon and Goat Cheese Salad with Balsamic Reduction

Slice 6 rounds from a block of goat cheese.

Use a similar sized round cookie cutter to cut out 6 pieces of watermelon.

Reduce 3/4 cup of good balsamic vinegar (in small pot on lowest heat for about 2 hours).

Lay goat cheese on the watermelon and drizzle with the reduction.

The soup was a broccoli cheddar beer soup served with banana pepper and cheddar bannock.  

The main course was ribs and deluxe mashed potatoes.  I basically mashed a bunch of potatoes with cheddar, cream cheese, milk, butter, bacon and green onions and then warmed them in the oven the next day.

I made two desserts.  One was Jessica's S'mores Pie:

The other was called burnt grapes.  This recipe has apparently been around forever.  It is super easy, and it tastes a lot better than it looks.  If you haven't tried this, you must.

Burnt Grapes

5 cups seedless red grapes
2 cups sour cream
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar

Clean all grapes.  Mix together sour cream, vanilla and sugar.  Gently stir the grapes into the mixture.  Spread into a 9x13 pan. In a small saucepan, bring the butter and brown sugar to a boil.  Immediately pour over the grapes, but DO NOT stir.  Refrigerate for 3-4 hours.  Serves 6-10.

So which dish would you go for first if you were at my dinner party?

I think I could eat the jalapenos all day.

Calgary Weekend & Hubby's Half Ironman

On Sunday the hubby participated in his 2nd Half Ironman race.  

I got up early and took the spectator bus out to Ghost Lake to watch the swim.

The sun was just starting to come up as my hubby and the others in his age group jumped into the water for a 1.9 km swim.  

The hubby was 6th out of the freezing cold water with a time of 33:42.

He then biked 96 km in 2:42:27, and ran a half marathon (21.2 km) in 1:53:02.

He ended up taking 43 minutes off his time from last year!  

His overall time was 5:15:27.

When he was done his race, he wanted pizza.  

We went for our favourite - Inglewood Pizza.

We also shared a chocolate cupcake, and later our friend Ryan took us for the best lattes Calgary has to offer.  They were so good that we grabbed more this morning before heading home.

We spent Sunday evening hanging out with some friends, and ended up wandering past a commercial set.  The director insisted that we walk through the shoot (as extras), so we did :-)  

How was your weekend?  What did you do?