Last Week in Review

Last week I....

Saw White Christmas!
Went to Kate Spade on opening day!
Bought, set up, returned, and bought another Christmas tree!
Baked a delicious apple pie for Thanksgiving.

Work in Progress

As many of you know, I am a complete and total Christmas nut. I love the holidays. Growing up, we always had some Christmas decor up before Thanksgiving...but never the tree. I am following suit. Our house is a wreck right now, as I have just been decorating a little bit each night. Look for some finished photos soon.

 

End of DTDW

Happy Thanksgiving week! We have started it off in Memphis with LOTS of rain. Yesterday and today have been pretty gross. Mac and I had a great weekend...so let me go back to Friday and tell you about our last Downtown Dining Week restaurant.

After work on Friday, Mac wasn't so sure he wanted to go eat dinner. The quote was, "I think I am just tired of eating three course meals." I don't know how that is possible. haha! We went to Lowe's right after work to pick up some stain for our new fence. I also picked up a poinsettia in the process. We headed back downtown to enjoy our delicious meal. Our reservations weren't until 8 p.m., but we got to the restaurant around 7 p.m. and they went ahead and seated us. Our last DTDW experience was at one of the newer restaurants downtown, Bleu. It is located inside of the Westin hotel. It. was. delicious. I snapped photos throughout the meal (to Mac's dismay)...but it was just delicious. 

After dinner, Mac and I went to Beale and listened to music for a little bit. It was a really fun night!

 We were ready for our yummy meal!

So ready, that I forgot to take a photo of our first course, oops!

Mac had pork pot stickers and I had a zucchini soup. The soup was awesome, but I was not prepared for the spice! My mouth was on fire!

 My entree was a delicious piece of chicken with a seasonal veggie hash.

 Mac had catfish, veggies, and rice cooked in a paper packet.

 This was heaven. I had smores in a skilled for dessert. It was just the best thing ever.

 Mac had an apple pie tart thing...I was too busy with my own personal smore to pay much attention to his dessert.

 As you can see, we were both pretty pleased with our desserts as well as the whole meal.

Definitely give Bleu a try if you are downtown. The Westin is located right across from the FedEx Forum, so it would be a great place to grab a pre-concert or pre-game meal.

Zoo Lights Preview Party

Well, Mac and I had a delicious dinner at Paulette's on Wednesday. So delicious, in fact, that I did not take a single photo! Oh well. We have one more reservation tonight at Bleu, a new downtown restaurant. Hopefully I can remember to snap a few photos. 

I did remember to take photos at the Zoo Lights event! Unfortunately they were all on my iPhone, so the quality is lacking. I ended up getting tickets to the Zoo Lights Preview Party through work, so I took Whitney! There were crafts and cupcakes involved, so Mac decided to sit this one out. This was my third annual Zoo Lights trip, and they were just as beautiful this year as in the past! I highly suggest you visit the Zoo during the holidays for a festive activity.

At the GiGi's Cupcakes area you could have pre-decorated delicious cupcakes OR...

 Decorate them yourself! Go Whitney! Martha would be proud.

 Linea warms up her piping skills for the upcoming holiday baking season.

 If you have ever been to Zoo Lights, the Singing Christmas Trees are an exciting thing to see. It is about 15 Christmas trees on three levels that light up to the Christmas music that is playing in the background. They used to be at the entrance of the Zoo, but they are now hidden in a back corner. This gave me the perfect opportunity to pose as a tree. I totally blend in, right?

 We chose not to ice skate on this Zoo Lights trip, but it is always a fun time! I caught the blinking lights right as they changed to a festive red and green!

I know it is not quite the holiday season, but visiting the Zoo sure got me in the spirit! I can't wait to pull out more of my decorations this weekend. I also got word that 104.5 has (finally) switched to continuous Christmas music!! Tis the season!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! I know I am looking forward to it!

Downtown Dining Week

Every year downtown restaurants have a very special promotion...a three course meal for $20.11 (2011-get it?)! Mac and I kicked off the week with a delicious meal at Felicia Suzanne's. It was amazing. We both started off with the butternut squash apple bisque. He had the redfish and I had the pork tenderloin as an entree. Photos of those are below. For dessert, he had a dark chocolate fried pie with whiskey cream sauce and I had an apple crisp! Yuuuum. Tonight we are headed to Paulette's at their new location on Mud Island. If it wasn't going to be freezing cold tonight we could easily walk or ride our bikes! I will try and remember to take more photos of our meal this evening...

Plans Change

Around 10pm last night I got an interesting email…the conference that I was headed to LA for, was cancelled. Several of the keynote speakers had cancelled so they were postponing the whole thing! While I am sad that I am missing a trip to LA and some time with my boss, I am excited about some of the fun things that are happening in Memphis!

Mac’s Dad has offered to take us to the Zoo Lights Preview Party that benefits St. Jude on Thursday night. How fun is the logo from the invitation?! It was designed by Mrs. Post...the store that did all of our wedding paper goods!

Friday night is the Flip the Switch party downtown, where all of the holiday lights are turned on at the same time! I am excited about this festive turn to my week!