Shower and Awesomeness

It's a little over a month until my wedding and my sisters threw me a bridal shower this past Saturday. It was a fun day of fine dining and spa-ing. Definitely my kind of day. I love spending time with these lovely ladies!

Check out this cute dessert tray that the hotel sent over to the relaxation room for us! Massages and sweets...I can do this all day!

A big 'thank you' to my sisters for spoiling me and letting me act like a princess for the day. I finally got a chance to wear this pouf-y dress that has been sitting in my closet for a while now.

Later that evening, we made pizza for dinner. Sister K mentioned that she had made pizza the other night using some pre-made pizza dough that she found at Trader Joe's. We made a quick trip to TJ's, picked up a couple of items and an hour later...tada! This one is prosciutto and pineapple on garlic and herb crust. We should have used less of the prosciutto or regular ham because prosciutto gets salty when you cook it. We made another one that was rectangular and it was pepperoni and mushroom on a wheat crust. The pre-made dough was pretty good. My dough stretching ability was not so much.

Today was another fun day as I had a lunch date with my very awesome Ragnar van-mates sans Sandy (Becka, Julie, Shannon and Heather) and met blogger and Disney fanatic Krissy who was in town with her family for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon weekend. Becka, Heather and Krissy ran all the Disney races this month so head on over to their blogs to check out all their cute fun photos. This is definitely going in the books as one of the best weekends ever!

Another Blogger Date: Catal Restaurant & Uva Bar Event

Last week Heather asked me if I was free for dinner the following week to attend an event as her 'plus one', so I checked my social calendar and noticed that I had already penciled in 'laze around on the couch playing iPad games' but seeing that it was Heather I thought that just this once I could blow off my other engagement.

It took me an hour and half to get from work to this event that was only 16 miles away. Traffic be crazy! But when I finally found a parking spot and started walking towards Downtown Disney all that stress just disappeared. Here's a fun fact about me...I've lived in Southern California almost my entire life and have never been to Downtown Disney. It is safe to say that I will be coming back in the near future.

So once I got to Downtown Disney, I walked around for a while looking for the restaurant where the event was held but at last had to admit defeat and stop to ask for directions. A park attendant pointed me in the right direction and told me to just walk until I see a huge outdoor bar. So I did and lo and hold there was a giant outdoor bar right in front of the Catal Restaurant [part of the Patina Group]. By the way...it is pronounced CAT-TAUL (rhymes with 'haul'), if you pronounce it any other way no one will know what the heck you're talking about. Don't be unsophisticated like me and pronounce it CATTLE! Yeah that was only a little bit embarrassing.

Park attendant: What's that, you're looking for CATTLE? Well, I think you need to go to a farm. Oh, you mean CAT-TAUL, well that's just right down that way until you hit the giant outdoor bar.

Me: *melted into a puddle of embarrassment on the pavement*

I met up with Heather shortly after I got there and we checked in to this deliciousness...

Cocktails, wine, candied nuts, dried fruit and the biggest servings of cheeses I've ever seen.

Then the appetizers started coming out! Mini tuna tar-tare tacos with avocado and micro-greens, goat cheese/caramelized onions on an endive leaf [not pictured], and air-puffed bread filled with melted goat cheese topped with a piece of prosciutto. They were all fabulous in their own way but my favorite was the endive leaf. It was light and rich all at the same time. I love food that offers a little bit of everything.

The grande finale was this humongous pan of paella x2. I'm a huge paella fan and was super happy when I saw two cooks carrying this out from the kitchen. It was that big that it required two guys to carry it. It was also big in flavor. I dare say that this was one of the best paellas I've ever had. I hope my fiance is reading this...'take me here for dinner, fiance'.

Plus, check out our view for the evening. It's really not a bad way to spend a Thursday. Almost as exciting as lazing on my couch paying iPad games. I kid but I do love my iPad games. I need help.

Thanks for the fun date Heather! Heather also introduced me to Angry Julie and Kelly who came to join our table so we didn't look totally out of sorts because we all know how fun it is to go to an event especially as someone's plus one and not know anyone there.

Catal Restaurant
1580 Disneyland Drive
Anaheim, CA 92802
714-774-4442

Simply Fun-due

Two posts in one week...yeah I'm a rockstar this week!

I got off work a bit early yesterday because I had a big date with nine fine ladies at Simply Fondue!

I've never had fondue before so this was pretty exciting! Alcohol infused cheese dips. I know, right?

Keepin' it healthy by grillin' our food. So delicious! Now if only that garlic smell will dissipate out of my car, clothes, purse, hair, pores. That garlic smell has some hang time.

So if you must know, I live to eat dessert...yeah yeah the company was fun but THIS... I don't know what went on after they brought this out because all I saw were rainbows and butterflies and all was right with the world again. Yeah it was pretty much the exact same feeling that Skinnyrunner had when our waitress informed us that they were offering discounted martinis.

Rollin' Deep tonight! Thanks for a lovely evening ladies! Sometimes I forget that there is more to a Wednesday than work, thanks for reminding me about Fun!
Left-side front to back: SkinnyRunner, StridingMom, Me, Julie and HauteRunninMama.
Right-side front to back: Lil_yogini, Pam (fondue dinner mastermind!), HMGiraffy, Kaitlyn and HungryGazelle.