Silent in Starbucks

Tonight is my first time writing in this blog. It's also the first time I've been at this Starbucks where everything seems totally dead. Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration... when I used to come at 6 am to do homework it was pretty calm. Or maybe I've just always been so engrossed in my computer screen that I've never paid much attention to the traffic flow. Not that any of this matters - I would wager that none but Howard Schultz care much about my recent Starbucks observations. I guess people just don't want large amounts of delicious caffeine this late at night. I do though. But then again, I didn't wear jeans in high school.

I'm not really sure what to write about. Ryan gave me tons of awesome advice before I started:
"Write to one specific person, even though everyone will read it"
"Write about your day - or anything interesting"
"Look at my blogs"
"Give shout outs to people who are close, or even people you barely know"
If it was a research paper I would already have a great intro paragraph done. Unless it was due in a couple weeks. In that case, I would still be on facebook.

I guess I can tell you what I'm doing tomorrow. I'm waking up at 5, hitting the snooze a couple times, scrambling to get dressed so I can hit the road by 5:45, heading to Dallas to start housecleaning by 6:30, working for 5 hours and then going nanny for the afternoon. After that fun I'm getting to meet up with the love of my life and we're going to try the yummy and oh-so-healthy double-double at Dallas' new In-N-Out burger. It's a great way to end my first day being a vegetarian. I'm not too good at diets...

Saturday is really going to be great though. After seeing my Bible Study girls and rescuing my man from the grip of death (aka work), I get to go home and see my mom and sister who will be here visiting from Albuquerque. That night, Missie and Nick are coming all the way from California. It's Nick's birthday on Saturday... happy early birthday fab friend!!! This weekend will be great- I love hanging out with my husband and family. I wish my dad could come, but hopefully I'll get to see him soon.

Wow- for nothing to write about this is kind of turning into a long blog. Hahaha. Poor Ryan... this is what I do to him everyday (unfortunately, in his case, I occasionally have things to talk about). Interesting update: Starbucks just closed. So I moved outside to wait for Ryan and Mr. Farmer came by. He gave me three peaches. I really like peaches because I can cut them up, put them in a bowl of milk and sprinkle sugar on them for breakfast. Any breakfast one can sprinkle sugar on is a breakfast worth having. But, again, I'm not too good at diets...

- Jess

Missie, Nick, Kristen, Cecil, and Jackie

We were just blowing off some steam. We are excited we are going to have some family over this weekend! Can't wait to show you guy all the up coming pictures!

My Tomatos

This is a video of our tomatoes and balcony. don't mind my appearance. I was about to go run and I wasn't really looking forward to it.

Thank You Farmer Guy

So I work at Starbucks. This is no strange or unknown fact. But there are some people, "regulars", that come in and make my day, give me a story to tell, or just make me laugh 'til it hurts to breathe. To give a few "shout outs":
Les (iced quad venti mocha)
Ted (venti caramel frappaccino with raspberry, with the leftovers from the pitcher going to Scooby the dog)
Rebbecca (venti skinny cinnamon dolce with soy)
Espresso Guy (quad espresso and a cheese danish)
Eddie (Venti caramel frappaccino with 2 shots)
Oatmeal lady (Oatmeal with extra water)
Cintas Delivery Guy (Grande Passion Tea Lemonade)
Crazy Ex Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader Lady (Venti Carmel Macchiato with whole milk, whipped cream, 3x's as much caramel top and bottom, and 15 extra pumps of vanilla)


While all those people are cool, well, some aren't but most are. I shared a few with you because a few people on that list are just ridiculous and are planning on giving themselves and their children diabetes before they all hit 30. There is one guy, however, that has officially made my day today. He is the Farmer Guy. He always comes in and drops like $15 on frappaccinos, and every time he comes in he is happy to pay for it.(no big deal) But the thing is he never asks for a free drink. Why am I bringing this up. I will tell you. Because every time he comes in he drops off at least $100 worth of fruits and vegetables. One time within one week he brought 40 pounds of asparagus for us to take home and enjoy! I mean this guy is AWESOME!!!!! Why does he do it? I don't know. All I know is he is a local farmer that is bringing me onions tomorrow. Why? Because I requested it! That is a serious culinary hook up! Here are some pictures of some things I brought home today.(And saved a few bucks when we did our weekly shopping at Tom Thumb). If you can't tell  this is all organic and natural stuff which normally people pay the big bucks for. I brought home red potatoes, green tomatoes,  red tomatoes, eggplant(which I used in our eggplant parmesan that was out of this world.) and pickled/jarred okra. Farmer Guy if you read this, and you really do bring me onions...I don't care who is at work tomorrow, your Venti Mocha Frappaccino is on the house!

 This is not eggplant. That is what your thinking. And your right! It is some of the red tomato Farmer Guy gave me. Fresh Diced tomatoes that went right on top of eggplant parmesan right before in went in that oven made this dish incredible!

So what did we learn fellow bloggers, family, and friends? TAKE CARE OF YOUR BARISTAS!!!
            Because in return we will indeed take care of you! We don't care what you give us. Cereal, Socks, Belts, Cool bags, pillows, coffee related stuff, stuff to read, Mac 'n Cheese, vegetables, tips, funny facts (all of these things I have indeed received from Sbux customers) We don't care what you give as long as we know you think of us as more than the people that pour your triple grande whole milk latte with 2 raw sugars (Les' other drink).


Thank you Farmer Guy, and all those people at Starbucks that make waking up at 4 A.M worth not sleeping in.



-Ryan

Cooking Class

So Jess and I went to a cooking classes that was given to us by my mom. It was a stellar wedding present. Jess and I talked about it the whole way home and we can't wait to try the recipes with a little twist of our style. Both of our favorites were a pan seared New York strip with a red wine reduction and pancetta sauce. But the tiramisu, scallops, and squid ink noodles were a big hit...sorta. We weren''t a fan of the shallot sauce for the scallops. (it needed more body) I wish we took a camera but hey we can't document everything. But for fun check this out.


http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=grz&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1280&bih=621&q=squid+ink+noodles&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi




-Ryan

The Cafe is up and Running

So finally we are completely unpacked. All of the stuff we wanted to buy and assemble for the rooms put into place I figured I would slap a few pictures up here so people can see the final product.

Israel Pictures

Ok so many of you know that Jess and I went to Israel...it was like a secondary honey moon, but there was no strawberries and champagne. We did however take a lot of pictures and learn a lot about Biblical History. So instead of posting all 873-ish pictures on facebook.com we decided to upload them here, and give you guys a complete description on each one. Plus its easier to ask questions about them and easier for us to answer.

 

So this was our first day waking up in Israel. I snapped this photo off on our balcony of our hotel room.(which was AMAZING by the way) I think She looks very lovely even as soon as she wakes up, and if you are wondering that is the Mediterranean sea behind her. We had an spectacular view.

So this is an over shot of our first site we visited. It is Caesarea. A city Herod the Great build and named after Cesar. It is interesting because it a place that naturally does not have a bay or harbor of any kind. But Herod took the "new" invention of concrete and build a bay. You can read more about it and see an aerial view at this website. -> http://www.basarchive.org/sample/bswbBrowse.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=33&Issue=5&ArticleID=4

 But if you don't want to go and see what is under water this is what is kinda left from the bay. It is not the original structure but its in the same location and roughly the same size as a portion that was there.

And this was one of the coolest things as Caesarea. this is Herod's Palace. (not too shabby huh?) The area that is closer to where we were was actually Herod's swimming pool. Where this was taken place was his public quarters and then past the swimming pool was his private quarters. I gotta say even though the man that tried to kill Jesus as an infant was crazy, he had great taste in housing locations. P.S

If you look very closely at the bottom of the picture you see two flat smooth surfaces. Those were two mosiacs that I will talk about in my next Israeli post.

Welcome To the Latte Love Cafe

Hello and welcome to the Latte Love Cafe. Although we are not a 'real' cafe we are a family. Jess and I got married exactly one month ago. And I gotta tell you its awesome. We are finally moved into our new home, which is what this blog is named after, because our home is designed to look like a coffee bar. This blog is going to keep you up to date with all of our activities, events, and just cool stuff that goes on in our lives and home. Here is a quick tour of our small apartment. I will be uploading a second one probably later today after it is all cleaned up and looking good.

-Ryan