Oh my word has this weekend been action packed!!!!   

Saturday morning – I had plans to head out to the East Side with my friend Kristin to help her with wedding dress shopping!!!  I love all things wedding, I would plan our wedding 50 times over if I could!   Don’t worry – the groom would be the same each time, I love my Michael!

Before I left – I grabbed a quick bowl of Puffins and some coffee

After multiple dresses – Kristin found “the ONE” – but OBVIOUSLY I can’t share anything more with you – you never know who is reading!  But don’t worry – she is going to be a GORGEOUS bride!

To celebrate the purchases, Kristin’s support team (read – her Mom, and 5 girlfriends) grabbed a bite to eat at Bar Louie – and OBVIOUSLY some celebratory drinks were in order!

Cheers to an absolutely gorgeous wedding dress!

Sauv Blanc, of course!

The menu had a TON of great looking options – but I was totally sold on the Chopped Salad:

Avocado, Egg, Tomato, Cheese, Onion, and “House Dressing” (I opted out of the bacon and bleu cheese crumbles) – this was AMAZING!  I could have LICKED the plate clean!

Then we did some shopping, and I came home and crashed on the couch for a few hours! 

When I finally got up from my lounging – I went outside to dig us out of our driveway (I REALLY should have taken a picture of the ridiculous snow on our driveway, I have no idea why I didn’t! ) and came back in hungry for dinner!

I went straight for the leftovers of my butternut squash lasagna!

It tasted just as great as the night before, and the picture definitely doesn’t do it justice!

Later in the night – I ended up going back out with Kristin and her girlfriends for some more drinks – and I totally didn’t take any pictures, because I was just way more caught up in having a great time! I feel like I haven’t been out around here in forever!  It’s definitely save to say, though, there was lots of WINE, and lots of FUN had!   Thanks for a great night girls!

Bad news: Mike and I cancelled out dinner reservations at XO for restaurant week because of the craptacular snow storm that hit Cleveland. 

Good news:  yesterday, my day started off with more free food thanks to Hack Day!

I’m not sure about you – but I don’t consider chocolate covered fruit a “breakfast staple”…

But I also wasn’t complaining about having it as an option – seeing as a piece of chocolate covered pineapple made its way onto my plate!

Lunch was more free food as well, but I didn’t have my camera with me, so all I have is a blurry Blackberry picture.  I figured I’d spare you!

When I got home last night – I had a package waiting for me, that I excitedly broke into because I feel like its been AGES since I got a bloggy package!

Inside?!?!

Samples from Bertolli, thanks the Foodbuzz Tastemakers Program!!!

(Isn’t that such a cool box??  It totally reminded me of the Advent calendars we had when we were little, where each day had a chocolate inside – anyone remember those????)

I’m not sure which I’ll try first – the Four Cheese Rosa, or the Arrabbiata – BOTH sound delicious!!!!   Thanks Foodbuzz and Bertolli!

For dinner, I was planning on making lasagna, but changing it up a little from last time!  The star ingredients this time around: Goat Cheese and Butternut Squash!!!

I didn’t really follow any recipe this time – but just sort of started layering everything:

SAUCY!

After letting it cook for about 40 minutes – I called it “done”

Wasn’t very pretty to plate…

…but HOLY COW WAS THIS DELICIOUS!!!!!  So tasty, and even better than last time!

As for the rest of the night, well…I wasn’t very exciting.  By 9:30 – I looked something like this:

Cuddled up with my pups!   Look at Lando – she was actually completely laying ON MY HEAD, it’s kind of hard to tell in this picture:

Dogs are seriously the best! 

Yesterday was the start of Hack Day!

What’s Hack Day you might ask? Only one of the top 20 “Ideas to Steal” according to Information Week!

AG Interactive’s IT group holds an annual “Hack Day,” during which normal operations at the e-card company are suspended for 24 hours and the staff works on off-the-grid ideas.

Cross-functional teams generate prototypes of their ideas and present them for judging by peers and senior executives. Each year, several ideas are selected to become IT initiatives

So not only is Hack Day a super cool event that I was psyched to be participating in this year – but it also appealed to the foodie in me and they provided us with LOTS AND LOTS of food to keep us fueled, and working hard!

My favorite sign of the day:

Breakfast:

After breakfast – we got down to work, putting our ideas into “pretty presentation” form.  Have any of you ever used Sliderocket? (Doesn’t that sound dirty?? ) – it’s a super cool program, very similar to PowerPoint, but with a LOT cooler graphics/functions!  Try it out if you get a chance!

By 11:30 – it was time for more food (I swear there was work done in between breakfast and lunch! ):

My plate:

Everyone laughed when I set my plate down – because they thought my cucumbers/veggie sandwich looked like a face!

Do you see it???

As for the rest of the day – it looked a little something like this…

Tucked away in a conference room:

Buried in work, with lots of snack and caffeine to keep us going! 

Our team name was Team Jem.  You know – like Jem and the Holograms?    We are TOTALLY OUTRAGEOUS!

Ang, lovin’ Hack Day 

Our idea – coming to life!

Ken, a great team player for being the only guy on our team – a little tired of all the estrogen in the room, perhaps?

While some people stay over night, and work the full 24 hours straight – our team was able to wrap everything up by about 5:30!  WOOOHOOO!  I could go home and see my husband and puppers!

Well – not without stopping to get some dinner first of course! 

They provided us with a huge pasta bar (seriously – how kick @$$ is that?!) – so I got some pasta, with plain sauce, and Italian sausage and peppers:

and a salad (which lets face it – was an after thought because I was WAY too excited about the pasta!)

Today – we have exactly 3 minutes to present our work – and I’m one of the presenters – GAH!   I need to stand up and talk the senior board, and over 100 other people!  WISH.ME.LUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!