Valentine's Day - Michigan Trip

 To me there are few things more romantic that Valentine's Day in Michigan. I was excited to be getting in the night before and to have a full day in Michigan to celebrate with my number one squeeze but mother nature did not cooperate with my plans. My flight was canceled because of a DC 'snowstorm" and rescheduled for the following evening. It was fun to be at the airport on Valentine's Day becuase of all the flowers, reuniting loves and candy all over the place. Luckily I was still able to get to Detroit in time to meet my valentine to go to our favorite restaurant together.

I remember pulling up so many times to this sign and enjoying endless delicious and fun dinners with friends and the cute guy below. My first “move” on Feraz was made in Cederland when I left him a note and drawing in one of the plants there. A lot of the college kids used to go there to eat when we were in school and it seemed so risqué at the time. Aww, Michigan Muslims circa early 2000s. We were so sweet.

There is a waitress who worked there who really didn’t like us. We think it’s because we just didn’t eat very much food so our bill was always low. It got to the point that we would avoid sitting in her section or even letting her see that we were there. Years later, we are not sure she remembers us but now she is always so nice. The passage of time can change so much, can’t it?

 

And he popped the question! Romance.

 

We spent the next day seeing our good friends and their adorable kids, catching up Feraz's aunt and family and attending the aqiqah of our Michigan moved to DC moved back to Michigan friend's little son. I love it when there is a big event when we go back because we get to see so many of our friends in one go.

The next day we headed to my parent's place. Unfortunately, it was snowing and we saw about twenty cars being towed on the hour and a half drive. I will never understand why people drive so fast in slick weather conditions. All was good once we arrived to my parent's house. My sister came over and we all had lunch together. After that my mom, Feraz and I went to the mall where I finally bought a wedding band ten years later. Happy Valentine's Day to me! That evening lots of our family came over and the rest of the Shelby trip was spent catching up with relatives and relaxing.

On Monday, we headed back to Canton and on the way we visited our Michigan moved to DC moved back to Michigan friends. They just bought a new house and its incredible to see what the same amount of money can get you in Michigan compared to DC. I will never get over the sticker shock of prices for homes in DC.

I was supposed to head back to DC that night but my flight was cancelled again. I was pretty annoyed by this knowing that my morning flight would probably get cancelled because there was snow in the overnight forecast and sure enough it did. We both eventually got back on a Tuesday evening flight just in time to meet our friend David who was in town from Paris. We had some good times catching up with him over the always classy Dominos dinner! 

Olympics, Pakoras, Babies and More Babies

People + Pakoras = PARTY.

Feraz and I started off our weekend by going to an Olympics Open Ceremony watching party. We were asked to bring our favorite international dish so of course I showed up with pakoras. One girl brought home made baklava and it was ridiculous. She shared the recipe which I can't wait to try out. She said it was her first time making baklava and it came out amazing! Hopefully that means it won't be too crazy hard to make!

New moms deserve cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.

Saturday was one of those ideal days. I went to yoga in the morning, came home and made cookies and played with Safa. That quickly took me to 6 pm. I quickly got ready to meet my new friend Julia for dinner and to talk about adoption. Julia adopted her daughter from Korea and I recently emailed her an SOS asking for a pep talk as we struggle with the adoption process and the waiting. It was so great to just talk about it and be around someone who had gotten through it successfully. The adoption journey has been trying. It sucks to want to parent so badly and to know that so many kids need good homes but have to sit back and do nothing while you wait for the match. But as I have heard so many adoptive parents say, you end up with the child you are destined to be with and when that happens, all the waiting makes will have been worth it.

Baby whisperer. NBD.

After the dinner we went for a late night meet-up with our friends who recently welcomed their sweet daughter into the world. They were so chill and relaxed. It was great to see and I admire their strength in the first weeks of parenthood!

We spent the next day visiting more friends. There were five little kids at their place but they all mostly played with each other and it was amazing to see how the kids kept each other entertained. Should we change our aspirational number of 4 kids to 5?? Feraz always reminds me - We have to get to one first! But what is a silly thing like reality to keep one from dreaming??

Does well with kids of all ages.

After hanging out with our friends we went home to meet our other friend for dinner and then headed to our place to watch Rush. It was a great story. Definitely worth watching. It was a good thing I got all that hanging out and fund our of my system over the weekend because I ended up having the stomach flu for the next two days! THE WORST!

Tennis, Chain Restaurants and the Super Bowl!

This past weekend was filled with great weather. It always feels a bit like winning the lottery finding a $5 bill in your pocket when you get to go outside and play tennis in the winter. We got some good games in on both Saturday and Sunday. Yippie ki-yayy!

After some solid tennis, we headed to Denny's because we had a free coupon. Yup. That happened. Did you know that you can get two eggs, two pancakes and hash browns for FOUR DOLLARS at Denny's? It was amazing. I think we will be going to Denny's a lot more often in the future.

To cleanse ourselves of the Denny's binge we headed to Trader Joe's (What's up with all these apostrophes in our Saturday destinations?). We loaded up on groceries and then went to do a quick visit with Feraz's brother. We had a good time playing with Safa and had to head out after a quick cup of tea because I was going to yoga with a friend.

I went to yoga for the first time in ages and ages and it felt great to be on the mat, to listen to my breath and to be around my old teacher. Afterwards, my friend and I went to Red Toque, one of my favorite restaurants from our old neighborhood and picked up sandwiches to eat back at our place. It was such a nice chill evening. Tennis, diner food, Safa, yoga and friends! What a day! And the weekend was only half over!

Sunday was pretty chill. We ran errands and went to my friend's apartment where she had rented out the movie room to watch the super bowl. There was a great spread and I don't think anyone watched a minute of the game, though we did catch the halftime show. We had to rush out a little early to get home in time to watch Sherlock. May have been the best one since it came back on!

Weekend Cooking

Getting food ready for the week. Nomnomnom!