End of Week 2

Hello, again, people of the internets!

While this week didn't involve any world trekking, it was a week of day-to-day level excitements here at Shapiro Adventures.  You know, just two normal people (well, sort of normal) doing everyday-type things.  After two weeks of winter break, I went back to work teaching piano lessons to the kiddos.  Most of the kids didn't practice much over break, so there is a lot of review going on.  Matt has been working hard over at LearnVest, often working until 9 PM as January is a high volume month for them.  I guess a lot of people make New Year's Resolutions to get "financially fearless".  I'm sure it doesn't hurt that the CEO just published a book ("Financially Fearless" by Alexa von Tobel) that is currently on the New York Times bestseller list, #5, under the "Advice and How To" section.   Rehearsals for my chorus, the Scottsdale Chorus, also started up rehearsal again this week.  I was very happy to get back to singing!  I have a lot of new-to-me music and choreography to learn before our performances in February and March.  I'm also switching parts from Baritone to Lead, so I am excited for that big change!

Erin sings a country song!

Since last weeks Karaoke adventure spawned a conversation with another new Chorus friend, Erin, we decided to hit up Ernie's again for some more great singing!  Erin is really into country, so she sang a bunch of songs I was not really familiar with, but sounded great doing it!  I did a bunch of bad pop songs, including "Party in the USA" and "Oops...I did it again!", but I also ended on a classier note, singing "Walkin' in Memphis", one of my all-time favorites.

Matt also made some wonderful Amazon purchases - these are the everyday-level excitements I was talking about.  He got himself a cover for his new kindle, a chromecast, and a pancake batter dispenser.  The dispenser is pretty sweet.  I actually wanted it to assist with cupcake making, but we did make pancakes in a breakfast-for-dinner last night and it was a big success!  It does leak a little (as many reviews said it would), but the leaking sort of goes into the handle, so it was still pretty neat.  I made mini-chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes.  The mini-chips went through no problem, but some berries got a little stuck, but once mashed from above, came out ok.  Overall, I am pretty happy with that purchase.  The Chromecast is pretty amazing.  It basically plays to our TV anything from a chrome browser on a computer as well videos from certain apps on our phones (Netflix, YouTube, HBOGo, etc.).  It's nice to be able to watch on the bigger screen and also to be able to share with the other person what we're watching!  

On Thursday, we checked out a new restaurant in Old Town Scottsdale called "Citizen Public House".  It's a gastropub type place and the menu was really cool and we liked it a lot.  My friend, Janna, and I had the "Persian" cocktail made with gin and cucumber juice.  We Share the Mac & Cheese appetizer, SO GOOD, and the lamb burger.  We asked for it to be rare but in hindsight it was a little too raw!  Luckily, no one got sick - not that I was really worried.  Matt had the meatloaf and it was "yummy!"  I've decided that we should try to eat at a new restaurant at least every other week.  We've lived in Arizona for over half a year now and still don't know that many places, so I want to start exploring!!

And finally, there was some actually-huge-and-really-exciting news in my family this week!  My step-brother and sister-in-law gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Sadie!  She is so precious and I am so excited to meet her the next time I'm in Los Angeles.  There are definitely not enough photos of her, yet, but I am sure that there will be a million and one floating around soon.  Anyway, I am so happy that mommy and baby are healthy and starting a wonderful new life together!

Welp, that's all for today.  Now, it's time to hit the showers and watch the 49er's beat the Panthers in the play-offs.  Peace!