Baking Lesson Learned, 126 miles in a day, & Love at the Olive Garden!!

What is going on my blogger friends??  I've been a busy beaver these last couple of days so I'll just recap the highlights for you.

Thursday the most exciting part of my day was making a Chocolate Peanut Butter Bunt Cake.  It tasted FANTASTIC but didn't look quite as good as it did when Holly made it (check out her cake here).  I had asked my mom the night before when I was planning to make the cake how I got the cake out of the bunt pan.  She said to take it out of the oven and turn it over on a plate or something right away so that's what I did.  My cake turned out rather flat, almost brownie like instead of high.  When my mom saw it she asked what I did.  I assumed it was because I was caught up in the TV show I was watching and forgot to take the bunt pan off of the cake.  But after talking with my grandma, who is an awesome baker, it turns out my cake my have fell flat because I turned it upside down too soon.  According to my grandma I should have let the cake sit upright for about 10 minutes for it to set up and then flip the pan over on a plate or something, leave it sit for about 5 minutes or however long for the cake to fall from the pan.  Like I said, the cake still tasted really really good so it wasn't a complete fail, just a presentation fail.  Oh well, lesson learned for the next time I attempt to make it :)

Thursday when I was walking out of school to my car my aunt texted me asking if I wanted to go snowmobiling the next day if she could still get off of work.  I told her I would and I would be inviting my dad who also didn't have to work.  So Friday my dad, aunt, and I went on a 126 mile round trip ride.  We left our house, which is only a 1 & 1/4 miles from my grandparents' where my aunt still lives, and rode to Tomahawk (about 45 minutes by car) for lunch at Freddy's Pub & Grill.  Freddy's is a mexican place with amazing food.  I had a shredded chicken chimi (yum yum yummy!).  After eating we hit the trails again heading home, stopping once to use the bathroom (after eating & drinking you always have to go more on the way home lol) and again to put gas in.  We had started our trip around 12:30pm and were home around 7pm.  Overall it was a great day for riding, trails were awesome and the weather was great.

Saturday I had planned on working on homework all day so I could enjoy going out for lunch and shopping on Sunday without that voice in the back of my head reminding me about a bunch of homework that needed to get done.  But plans changed, my mom was no longer needed at a church function that evening so my grandma, mom and I ended up going to town to do some grocery shopping at Sam's Club and eat lunch.  We had lunch at Olive Garden, which I had only eaten at one time before and didn't like.  I decided to stay away from spaghetti or lasagna as that was what I remembered having tried the first time many years ago and not liking.  My grandma makes both so I think I'm biased as to what would taste good to me.  I had the Grilled Shrimp Caprese and fell in love!  Here's what their menu says: "Grilled marinated shrimp served over angel hair pasta with melted mozzarella, fresh basil and tomatoes in a garlic-butter sauce."  I could have done without the tomatoes as I didn't eat them anyways but I know now for next time, and there will definitely be a next time :)

And now today has been homework day, nothing exciting.

How was your weekend?  Do anything for Valentine's Day or are you like me and think tomorrow is just another day?

I'm going to leave you with a video from the 2010 CMA Awards of Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson performing one of my favorite songs from Jason's most recent album My Kinda Party.  This was also the best performance of the night if you ask me.  The song is "Don't You Wanna Stay", enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqmjDrecgzA&feature=fvst