Albondigas Soup, movie review, monkeys, and such

How in the world did I get so behind on posting this month?!

83. Try a new recipe every month

This month's new recipe is another Candice Kumai winner: Albondigas (Meatball) Soup. Albondigas Soup is a Mexican soup with meatballs in a chicken stock. Candice's version is a very low calorie option containing  veggies, ground turkey meatballs, topped with delicious avocado slices. My favorite part about her recipe is the addition of rice to the meatballs. I failed to cook my meatballs long enough so the rice was not actually cooked... but that added a nice crunch to the dish! :) This is definitely a winner.

95. Watch 26 movies we've never seen starting with each letter of the alphabet

IMDb - This is 40

E and I both loved Knocked Up and watch it all the time so we knew we wanted to watch the (not really) sequel, This is 40. For those of you not familiar with the movie, This is 40 is the story of Alison's (Katherine Heigl) sister Debbie and her husband Pete several years down the road when Debbie turns 40 and their kids are a teenager and a pre-teen.

Overall this was a pretty funny movie. There were some parts of the movie that made me entirely too anxious, probably because I saw my future playing out before my eyes (I'm hoping teenage boys aren't as frustrating to parents as teenage girls...) and some sex scenes that made this prude uncomfortable (because that's hard to do...), but overall it was a good watch full of drama.










65. Go to the zoo once a month

On the day that we were planning on going to the zoo, my cousin actually asked if we could watch her little 2 year old while they entertained a visitor in the mountains. It turns out she had never been to the zoo before! So on a nice cold, windy Sunday morning we packed up two toddlers and headed to the zoo. We started off at the lions and got a nice close look at the sleeping grown lions before heading over to show little N the baby lions. If you are a Denver Zoo go-er and haven't seen the babies yet, they are actually leaving the zoo in the next month to move on to their permanent home, so get going!

The wind was brutally cold so we speed walked over to the Primate Panorama hoping to spend some time inside the Great Ape building where we would be sheltered from the wind. Unfortunately, the gorillas were outside while their exhibit was being cleaned so our plan failed. After a little bit of convincing C who never wants to leave the gorilla house, we made our way to the monkey house and spent some time in there checking out the smaller monkeys. The lemurs were bouncing around and were a big hit for a few minutes.

Things went downhill from the monkey house. C was in a royally foul mood and screamed, cried, and complained the rest of the way around the zoo. At one point he ended up kicking off his shoes and throwing himself onto the ground in a full blown fit. At this point N and I abandoned him with his daddy while we went to see the fishies at the Tropical Discovery. E and C went back to the car while we finished up our zoo trip alone.

61. Dinner date with friends once a month

Our "dinner date" with friends was actually a lunch date with S & J at Corona's Mexican Grill. J taught E how to change the oil on his car and they followed up by changing the oil in S's car. After they were done we headed over to Corona's and enjoyed a nice toddler-free meal while C hung out with grandma. They have a Guacamole Tostada that I just had to try, and it was fantastic! I may have to come up with my own homemade version to enjoy whenever I please.

94. Buy flowers once a month for the house

This beautiful flower arrangement actually arrived on my doorstep last Friday. We recently suffered a loss in our family and my fantastic coworkers had this bouquet delivered to our home. I am grateful every day that I made the decision to switch to this company several months ago. I could not ask for a better work family.