Our Valentine Date Night

For our "Valentine date" my husband and I went to the Desert Botanical Gardens and out to dinner to Gordon Biersch last night. (You can click on each picture to enlarge it) Valentine weekend is free admission but those free reservations went fast.



I've been wanting to go see their current exhibit. They are having a special exhibit called Chihuly: The Nature of Glass. We have a mutual love for photography, so it was the perfect date. It was absolutely awesome! We chose to go later in the day so we'd be able to see it by daylight/dusk and night. There were very few children, it's not something the 10 & under crowd could appreciate. It was so nice to be able to just linger.



Thank you Lisa & Steve for keeping the kids entertained while we did that :)





We had a buy one get one free admission from our Entertainment book, so our admission was only $15! Anyone in the Phoenix area should see this exhibit before it moves on.






Most of the pieces were mind boggling, we couldn't imagine how they could have been put together. I would love to see a documentary of how it is done. To see the intricacy and massiveness of these pieces is really spectacular. Some look merely like colored fluorescent light bulbs, but in the midst of the desert landscape are quite dramatic. My personal favorites were the more massive ones.

Valentine Jell-O Jigglers

My son's class is having a Valentine Party tomorrow. His teacher mentioned there are plenty of cookies etc... so she asked if I would make some Jell-O Jigglers. I have not exactly done that before, imagine that in all my years! I was up for the challenge, I got online to do some "research" LOL and read some suggestions. Some say to spray the pan before adding the Jell-O, I tried that even though it sounds kind of gross. I tried it without and it worked just the same, it looked better without too. I already had some Jell-O at home so I thought I'd give it a test run. My thought was to get red Jello and cut out heart shapes. Upon my experimentation and trials I have come up with the only way that worked for me, are you ready for it?

I boiled 2 1/2 cups of water in the microwave for 6 minutes. I added a 6 oz package of Jell-O and stirred it into the boiled water for 3 minutes constantly. I then poured it into a 9x12 pan (which I already had in my refrigerator) it was much easier rather than trying to carry it sloshing back and fourth. Then I chilled it for 3 hours. After the 3 hours, I put the pan in warm water in the sink for 15 seconds. I then used a heart shaped cookie cutter. There is excess, but no worry it's edible. Mind you I had to make 3 batches of Jell-O to have enough for the whole class, which takes over 3 hours to set for each batch, a bit time consuming. I know there is quick set directions, but I had the time to do it the old fashioned way, didn't want another experiment.... I chose the Strawberry, Strawberry Banana and Cherry since they were all red. Just in case there is anyone out there that hasn't made Jell-O Jigglers, you've got to try it, it was fun :)