Tonight's Dinner: February 23, 2014

The last few days have been crazy busy starting from Thursday all the way to Sunday.  It is the time of the month at work that gets crazy with invoices and reporting, plus getting ready for the baby shower while also fitting in time to hang out with Nick’s group of friends and family.   I’m mentally exhausted.  Even though I was in bed by 9pm last night relaxing with hydrating gloves and socks (should have put on a face mask too), I need a stay-cation where I can clean the house and lay around on the floor all day.  Complaints, complaints, as my Mom would say. 

My usual lazy Sunday ritual was postponed by a trip to the San Jose Tech Museum to see the Star Wars exhibit. It had been on our calendar for weeks, but it seemed to creep up on me.  We met up with Nick’s sister and cousin for breakfast at a local diner and then headed down to SJ for the exhibit.  The museum only took us about two hours to go through, but since we had made the long drive, we wanted to hang around a bit.  We headed to Santana Row, where I found the most amazing reflective jacket at Lulu Lemon, but as with all of their items, it was well out of my budget.  Though it’s not my dream to look like a moving traffic cone, I would like to not get hit by a car while running at night. 

Nick got a pancake breakfast.

I got a chicken-fried steak with eggs.

The four of us shared a "side" of hash browns with gravy.

We fit in a Tsunami pod! It was rather cramped and hot, but we got in there.

After walking Santana Row, we headed to 85c, which is apparently an extremely popular bakery and coffee shop in Newark.  I had never heard of it before.  The line for the bakery was out the door and we had to wait 20 minutes for our coffee.  Since I’m pretty sensitive to caffeine and it was already late afternoon, I got an orange juice, but Nick said that his coffee was really good.

By the time we started to head back home, we decide to cap off the day with happy hour $1 oysters from a local restaurant called Wences.  We called my in-laws to meet us there since it’s one of their favorite spots to eat.  Holy moly, I had a lot of oysters.  I still cringe when thinking about how sick one made me a few years back, but I love them so much that I’m willing to risk the seafood poisoning.  We had initially ordered three dozen oysters on a half shell.  After having a regular dinner, I was gluttonous and ordered six more for dessert while everyone else had a giant cookie and coffee.  I was definitely a happy camper.  I may take myself next Sunday to have oysters all to myself. Muahaha.

Three dozen oysters going down the hatch.

My plate after round one.

My cousin and I both got fish tacos for dinner.

Nick got a piece of grilled salmon over mashed potatoes and broccoli rabe.

My father-in-law got the same as Nick, but with swordfish.

My mother-in-law got sea bass with clams and muscles.

My sister-in-law got the prime rib special.

Cookie in a pan

My dessert of six oysters.