Date Night

Joshua had the day off and I had to work in the morning but we decided to do something after I got done with work. Joshua said he would plan something and did well by not letting me know what. 

After I got done with work, I went to my car and found a note and rose on my windshield. I know...awww! Well done Joshua! But it doesn't end there. The note said to drive to a park near our apartment and to meet him at the top of the hill.

I get to the park and man was that a hill I had to walk up. But I get to the top and find Joshua. He had a picnic all laid out for us (that was one of our first dates years ago). We enjoyed the nice weather and the food and the view.

We were going to watch a movie afterwards but Joshua fell asleep since he's so tired from working 10 hour days 6 days a week. But at least it was nice to do something with him and see him for more than 10 minutes!

View

View

Enjoying the weather

Drinking hot tea

All smiles

The rose he left on my car

Melissa and Rob's Wedding

What an awesome day!!! The weather was a bit chilly but that won't stop us from having a great time, although Joshua did have to miss out.

My friend Meghan and I got to the wedding place earlier than the rest of the guests. We and another girl were asked to help out to make sure the ceremony place looked great and to hand out programs and anything else that Melissa needed. Anything for the bride :)

The ceremony went smoothly. Nice and short. And Melissa and Rob looked great!

Cocktail hour was great too with hor d'oeuvres like meatballs, bacon water chestnuts and french fries with tartar/ketchup sauce in martini glasses. Delish!!! Not to mention all the candy I munched on. Melsa had the best idea and had a candy stand where we could dish out our own candy into bags as our party favors. Talk about sugar overload!

Dinner was amazing...I got steak done medium rare, a little too rare for me but none the less still ate most of it. 

Dancing was so much fun! Always is with the OC crew. And we had A LOT of fun with the photo booth that was there. You can just imagine the type of pictures that were taken.

Thanks Melissa and Rob for an awesome night!!!

Fun With Photo Booth!!!

Joshua Ciafullo, Sous Chef

Alright, so I haven't really mentioned anything about this for weeks cause I didn't want to jinx it.

JOSHUA IS NOW A SOUS CHEF 

AT THE MARRIOTT!!!!!

He has worked so hard and I'm extremely proud of him for sticking with it!

So how did this all come about?

When Joshua came to Wisconsin, he became a server then met me a year later. To impress me, he cooked me an elaborate dinner and then he realized, maybe I could do this as a job. He got a cooking job at a French restaurant through a friend of the owner where he was serving. He learned a bunch of stuff there but wasn't that happy. Luckily while waiting for me to get done at Old Chicago one night, he met a guy there who was a Sous Chef at the Marriott. They got to talking about what they did and lo and behold, the guy was leaving and they were looking for a cook. He told Joshua to go apply and he would vouch for him. And that's how he ended up at the Marriott.

Joshua worked as a rounds cook for the first two years, becoming the Associate of the Year in 2007 then he got promoted to Lead Cook. In 2009, he volunteered and got volunteered to go help open a Marriott in Bloomington-Normal, IL. He was helping so much that they wanted to keep him there. Joshua then got Associate of the Month in Nov 2009 after helping to open.

This year has been the most interesting year for Joshua and cooking opportunities. The Marriott in IL offered Joshua a job in April and it was a tough decision but we decided to forego it. Joshua got a second job at a catering place that does both sit-down and catering. He only worked there for 4 days in a two week span and they offered him a head chef job but the environment was so bad that Joshua wouldn't be able to do his best work there so he decided to forego it. In the meanwhile, he applied at a different restaurant and they loved him, of course, and told him to call back when he got back from our Smokies vacation.

And the sous chef position finally opened up at the Marriott so he applied for it. It took a couple of weeks but Joshua was a finalist of three. Then they each had to make a couple of dishes using specific ingredients kinda like something you would see on a cooking show. And just last night, the Marriott offered Joshua the Sous Chef position! It's a slight increase in pay, more responsibility, more chance for overtime hours but same benefits. More importantly, it's the title. So after all these years of putting hard work into the Marriott and turning down multiple jobs, he finally has the job he has been working towards since day 1 at the Marriott.

And all this without a culinary degree!

Joshua, Sous Chef

Holy Smokes!!! Day Five (ErkPow! wedding)

ErkPow! wedding day has arrived! We were so excited for it but it wasn't until 5. We had the whole afternoon to kill. We could have gone to Dollywood but nah. Instead we did the NASCAR Speedpark in Sevvierville, TN. We purchased an all day pass so we could ride the go-karts as much as we wanted and also could play mini-golf on two courses all we wanted.

It was so much fun! There were a few courses where there were a lot of bumping going on from people trying to pass others on tight turns. The best part was one of the times, Joshua ended up with the SLOWEST car and I had one of the fastest cars and I ended up passing him 4 times. I felt so bad for him so when the time came for us to come in, I slowed down and drove with Joshua to end at the same time. By the time we left that place, my head was spinning from inhaling all the fumes and the vibrations from the go-karts.

After the Speedpark, we went looking for a quick place to eat a late lunch. I suggested Five Guys, an awesome burger joint that's also in Madison and as we drove into that area, we saw a building that had a Japanese, Italian and Thai restaurant. We thought we should be different and decided to do the Thai place called Thai Thani. 

The three restaurants were really in one place. Servers could walk from the Thai dining room to the Japanese dining room to the Italian dining room...very interesting. We order an appetizer...Thai spring rolls that were delicious. We did the lunch specials which came with salads and an entree and it was all great. We were full and headed back to the hotel.

Since we had some time to kill, we decided to hit the whirlpool in the hotel to relax our bodies from the sleeping on rocks the past few days. Ahhh, that felt amazing. We wished we could've been in there longer but we had to get ready for the wedding so we reluctantly went back upstairs.

Cleaning up after not shaving for 5 days or so

We clean up nicely

We head over to the B&B area again where the entire wedding was going to be. The ceremony area was really cute. Chairs were set up and there was a gazebo where the ceremony was going to take place in front of. And the background? The Smokies...absolutely gorgeous. We could see the tent reception area was off to the side away from the ceremony area. 

The wedding went as smooth as can be. The bridesmaids and groomsmen looked great and the bride and groom looked amazing and were too cute. They had a friend officiate and they wrote their own vows. And we got some awesome fans that were on our chairs.

At the ceremony

Fanning away the heat and bugs

Ceremony area

View behind the ceremony area

The B&B where the bride and groom where staying
as well as a bunch of their guests

The groom with his parents

My friend Diane

Melissa and her dad

After the ceremony was cocktail hour on the veranda with some snacks. I love veggies and everything but I was starving and ready for some real food but we had to wait another hour and half for that. Joshua was schmoozing people I didn't know and I relaxed with some peeps I knew.

When it was time for dinner, we all gathered into the reception tent. But before we entered the tent, Melissa's sister was taking photographs with a Polaroid camera. Interesting idea! Instead of a traditional guest book where people just sign their name and maybe a message, they had a small picture album book. Once you took a picture and let it develop, they'd put the picture in the album and there'd still be an area to post a message and sign your name. I wished I thought of that!

Dinner was amazing just like the night before! Kebabs, fresh salad and a bunch of sides. What was even better were the cakes. Yes...cakes! Even I as a non-cake person thought they were fabulous. They were well decorated and absolutely delicious. I can't remember all the cakes but the one the stood out was the red velvet cake. I've never heard of it until this year from all the bake-off shows I watch on tv. It was just as delicious as it sounds or looks. If I were to eat cake all the time, I'd want the red velvet cake.

The wedding was awesome...the reception was awesome...the whole week was awesome! Now it's just a 13 hour drive back to our apartment and to get back to reality as much as we don't want to.

Don't worry...Joshua's just sniffing an
herb that were left at our seats

The happy bride and groom

Decorations in the tent

The various cakes

My favorite decorated cake

The reception tent

Dancing!!!

My friend Diane and me

Joshua may be a little blitzed here...just a little

These two boys always have to have a serious face pose

Attempting a classic shot in pure darkness

Holy Smokes!!! Day Four

Friday!!! Woke up around 7:30 again, made some coffee. We broke down the tent and got everything cleaned up. Today starts another adventure in the Smokies. The reason why we came to Tennessee was because of a wedding. The ErkPow! wedding. Our friends Melissa and Aaron were getting married on Saturday but they have invited all the wedding guests to the rehearsal dinner, basically just a dinner and a get together to know everyone. But that wasn't until 6PM.

So...what to do? Well we first got breakfast at that family restaurant that Joshua and I went to earlier that week. Mmmmm, those apple critters and apple butter was so good! And the apple cider!

Then we headed towards the town of Gatlinburg to play some mini-golf. We had to go to this one place. The name was just too intriguing to pass down. Hillbilly Golf. It was quite interesting. The entrance/admission to the place was on the road level but then the course was up on the hill. We actually had to ride a tram up to the start of the mini-golf...it was a good 5 stories up. The course was based on hillbilly things, hence the name of the place. I felt like I should have put on my overalls and straw hat. At the end of the game, we had to take the tram back down but only from halfway since we were slowly going downhill throughout the course.

Hillbilly Mini-Golf

The ride up

View from halfway up

One of the many hillbilly objects

The boys team

The girls team.
We played best score from each gender and
we ended up tying with each side having a few aces.

After mini-golf, we played real golf and carried on the tie from mini-golf. This was going to be my second out this year and I only went once last year. This is going to spell out disaster but I was going to have fun anyways. The girls had their own carts and the boys theirs. Brett, the golf pro, determined the handicaps for the rivalry. I had a 3, Joshua 2 and Diane 2. I needed that three because I kept getting a 7 or 8 or 9. But Brett is too good. He either parred the hole or got a birdie. Needless to say, the boys won even with my three handicap. But we got some tips from the golf pro and fun was had by all. It was time to head to our hotels, get settled in and freshen up for the rehearsal dinner.

Brett checking out Joshua's swing

PGA tour material? Probably not :)

We got to the rehearsal dinner at 6PM at the B&B where the bride and groom where staying as well as many of the guests. The rehearsal dinner was as casual as can be. Melissa's dad had rented a house next to the B&B on their property so we ended up eating in the yard of the house. Music was blasting from the house and there were games set up...horseshoes, bags, and testicle toss (ladder toss). Beers and drinks were everywhere. Good times!

Dinner was AMAZING! They had roasted a pig for hours and hours and actually cut it in front of us. I had a bunch of the pulled pork and it was so tender and juicy, the best I've ever had! There was also salad, fruit, corn on the cob, corn muffins and baked potatoes. I stuffed myself mainly with pork because I didn't know when I'd have that good of a pork again. I was ready to go to bed.

Pig roast!!!

Joshua's unconventional bag toss

The rental house and rehearsal dinner

Me chilling