We’ve been in St. Louis for the past two weeks, our longest stretch at home since starting the new job in Richmond over a year ago. The time has made us appreciate our home much more and make us anxious for the remainder of the year. We’ve been working on getting the house ready to go back on the market. Landscaping, power washing, yard clean up, etc. have been happening over the last couple of weeks. We still have things to do inside the house to get it ready to list. Somewhere around the first we’ll meet with agents to see what we can accomplish over the summer.
It’s a good time to be in St. Louis. It’s not too hot. As a matter of fact the weather has been great. Mostly sunny with just one or two rain showers. Temperatures have been in the lower 80’s at the most. All the plants have come to life. I’m happy to see the crab apple tree bloom again. We got in our first grass cutting of the year too.
This also means allergies kicked in. I spent the first week enjoying the weather so much that all the pollen floating around overwhelmed me several days ago. A last minute dash to a specialist provided me a new war chest that seems to be working. We were able to get out again yesterday for grilling and such.
Thought we would post some pictures (taken with the new android phone) of our shenanigans over the last two weeks. Although there appears to be lots of recreation, trust me there was plenty of work done from home. One thing about being one hour back from the east coast is that it doesn’t seem like you stop work for anything. We did find time to live the Lou large though:
We did plenty of outdoor cooking and I know I’ve gained 7-10 pounds as a result. But hey, its the LAN in the Lou. We don’t shy away from hot fires on the patio. It’s hard to resist the grass fed beef at Whole Foods. We did burgers one night with 1/2 chuck and 1/2 round that were out of this world. The leftovers made for great lunches for me at home. The New York strip steaks were a splurge. We haven’t had grilled steaks in some time. Well actually the last time I was home in March we did a giant sirloin, but that doesn’t quite compare to strip steaks.
Since our trip to Vegas in February we’ve been on a Bobby Flay kick. We had the chance to eat at his restaurant in Ceasar’s Palace, Mesa Grill. Got to tell ya… that place was tight! Great service, food – the real deal. (Don’t ask me about the margaritas.) So a little of the Bobby Flay brand rubbed off. We worked a couple of his recipes this week: Butterflied Cuban Styled Porkchops and Fish Tacos with red cabbage slaw and tomato avocado salsa.
I got to tell ya, the fish tacos rock. The recipe calls for mahi mahi but we used fresh halibut as it was what the market had. Tracey made the slaw. Taylor 
made the salsa and I have to say it’s the salsa that really works this dish and if I were you I really would make it fresh. The serano peppers kicked it up nicely, kind of a hot bite after the bite if that makes sense. And the dish paired nicely with our first Oberon’s of the year.
And speaking of beers, yes we do like our craft brew. We tried a couple of new ones while here at home. Schlafly’s Dry-Hopped APAwas on tap at Dewey’s so we enjoyed a few pints with pizza. Timmay had been wanting me to try Bridgeport’s IPA. I tried both the Hop Czar Imperial IPA and the regular IPA. I’m a fan of the regular IPA, no doubt. It was clean and fresh. Try it if you can find it.
The cats certainly enjoy me being home and I realized these guys are pretty smart. For instance they know I get up early and will feed them, so they act as a natural alarm clock if I sleep too late. They know I hate being pestered when I’m in the middle of working and they know little tricks and gimmicks will result in snacks. I’ve been in the, excuse me, dog house for the mid-day snacks.
We had the patio open to the cats for the first week of good weather up until my allergies
kicked in. All the cats shared the space being quite the good example of getting along. As the week kicked in they started to settle into their normal routines and find the sweet spots. There was lots of afternoon napping in the sun.
We head back to Richmond this coming week for 10 straight days of work and little recreation. Maybe we’ll find some time for a walk or two down the canal if our allergies hold up. Until then we wish you many spring flowers. Cheers!
