What we've been up to

Hope everyone had a great weekend! It was 80F both days, so we were able to play outside, which is my favorite way to pass the time with our 21-mo (J) on the weekends. Here's a post updating y'all on what we've been up to in the Ng clan.

Last week, the hubby and I celebrated our 4-year wedding anniversary. Since we are boring (wink), we like to follow the "traditional" anniversary gifts. Otherwise, we might not do anything, and we like to do something. Here are the ones we've celebrated so far:

1. Paper: we got a single share of a stock
2. Cotton: we are planning to get a blanket made
3. Leather: no ideas yet!
4. Linen, silk: Sorry hubby, I coulda swore I read "flowers" on a list somewhere, but apparently, that's a U.K. tradition. Oh well, you did grow up in Hong Kong when it was still under British rule, so….

The hubby was so sweet to send me flowers at work and make a reservation at VOLT, a top chef-owned (Bryan Voltaggio) restaurant just north of where we live. We've never visited Manayunk and Old City. I'm interested in attending the arts festival advertised in the poster shown below.

VOLT is housed in a beautiful mansion. The interior is modern, with white leather booth seating, and isn't so dark you need a flashlight to read the menu. Dinner is either a 7-course or a 4-course prix fixe selection. Since the difference was only $15, we decided to order the 7-course Kitchen (or protein) menu AND the 7-course Vegetable menu. Sorry, Lou Lou Loves, we didn't try your picks! We weren't allowed to order one 4- and one 7-course menu, which is a shame since probably be just the right amount of food. After sharing amuse bouche, 14 courses, and a complimentary selection of desserts (including a buttered popcorn macaroon!), we were definitely full…and sleepy :).

The photo below shows 3 Kitchen items and 1 Vegetable item. Of these items, my favorite was the goat cheese ravioli with oyster mushrooms. The hubby's favorite was the duck egg with English pea and shitake mushrooms.

The photo below shows Jerusalem artichokes, which I'd never heard of, a parsnip cake with caramel crumble and cream cheese snow, and complimentary to-take-home coffee cake, which I haven't even eaten yet!

Both the hubby and I LOVE meat and seafood, so you'd think our favorite was the Kitchen (protein) menu. HOWEVER, we found the most SURPRISES in the Vegetable menu. The depth of flavor in the mushrooms, beet sherbet (could I make that?!), fried cauliflower, savory steel cut oats, and parsnip cake and ice cream?! It was AMAZING!

Our evening at VOLT would have been even more amazing if Bryan were there and was willing to have his picture taken with us. Also, I think we had at least three different people present food to us. I'd prefer only one server, which makes the experience more personal IMHO. Nevertheless, we'd definitely go AGAIN...

Unfortunately, we arrived home to find that Jasper, our 8-month puppy, had destroyed 3 wooden blocks. Oh, puppy!

The following day, our son's daycare surprised us mommies with a card and photo. I love the handprints, and that grin is HUGE! The teachers love to slick his hair for photos.

It's so much fun that our son mimicked my tongue sticking out in the photo below.

I mentioned this before, but after using several collage apps, here's my breakdown of the features:

• Pic Collage: allows you to freely rotate and arrange photos in the collage. However, you can't set the ratio of the collage.
• Collage: also allows you to freely rotate and arrange photos in the collage. The ratio of the collage can be set. There are also other features like enhancing the photo, drawing on the photo, adding text, and even removing blemishes.
• Frametastic: there are 18 free set-layouts, all in square ratio.
• *Collage*: there are 16 set-layouts, in 1:1, 4:3, 3:4, and 3:2 ratio. You can change the size of photos each layout. I've been using this one the most often.

I also used the app, Captions, to add text to the photos above.

Show some love. Leave a comment below and I'll definitely respond!
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Originally posted at expandng.com - What we've been up to