You have been chopped.

This post is a "To Be Continued" so check back soon... (If you are confused, check out "Chopped" on the Food Network... new episodes on Tuesday nights at 10 PM)

This weekend we challenged Kevin and Tim to a reverse Chopped championship. We started with dessert. First, let's meet our contestants:

Kevin Raftery began his culinary career in 2002 (ish) when he decided to use his cooking talents to woo women. He won the heart of his current fiancee buy "baking" her a chocolate peanut butter pie that she proceeded to drop, face down, on the couch minutes later. He currently specializes in all things grilled and can spice up any dish to make it taste gourmet. He hopes to win the Chopped championship in order to gain recognition and perhaps even try his hand at one day grilling the perfect "Ryan Chicken".

Tim Heard is well known for his kitchen stocked with unusual and organic products. Dessert and baking are his specialties and he has been known to make himself a key lime pie on a whim. His "favorite childhood crisps" are enough to satisfy this eclectic cook, who also enjoys brown rice sushi and about 57 meals per day. His voracious appetite does not stop him from being a perfectionist in the kitchen, however, and he often apologizes for his delicious dishes before they are even served. Originally from England, this lad would make the Queen Mum proud with his mince meat pie. Becoming a Chopped champion has been a life-long dream of this serious chef.

Round 1: Desserts

The first "basket" contained the following ingredients:

We have: 

1. Buttermilk pancake mix
2. Honey
3. Cadbury mini eggs (chocolate)
4. Honey Teddy Grahams

According to the rules, contestants can use any items in the fully-stocked pantry (Heard and Haylie went grocery shopping that morning), but must feature the 4 ingredients in the basket in their dishes. For this preliminary round, time limits were not imposed (due to cooking space constraints). After approximately 45 minutes of silent and furious cooking (while Haylie and I played Mario Kart on the Wii), here are the dishes our contestants came up with:

From Kevin we have a play on a "Hoodwich", which he calls a "Chocolate Chip Banana Pancake Ice Cream Sandwich". This dish contains Cadbury egg pancakes prepared traditionally, then fried with  honey. Between two pancakes he placed Vanilla Soy ice cream with crushed Teddy Grahams inside. The entire concoction was covered in caramelized bananas cooked in peach schnapps and topped with honey and crushed Teddy Grahams.

From Tim we have a  honey cream cheese pancake "muffin" with a crushed Teddy Graham base. The muffin was served with organic strawberry yogurt and sprinkled with crushed Cadbury egg.

The judges determined the ruling on champion would not be decided round-by-round as it is in the traditional competition (we couldn't decide which of these disgustingly delicious dishes was better), but rather at the completion of the entree and appetizer rounds.

Stay tuned for Round 2!

We're on the lawn!

Let's start with the 4th of July...

We went to a party at Raf's Aunt Barbara's. Karen forgot her camera so she did a Cam photo shoot with my camera. My 2 favorite shots:

Can't believe how old Jacob is!!

A few days later my mom and Greg came to visit... she took most of the pictures that weekend so I might add some more here later, but here are a few highlights. We mostly spent the entire time on the beach or in restaurants.

The Melting Pot (Note my mom's eyes. Wonder where I get it from...)

Senor Fox

Abbey Road (a contender for our rehearsal dinner)

The glove compartment in the Prius... filled with every essential you might need in a motor emergency. Including every possible flavor of Orbit gum. Never know when you might need some car scissors or a tape measure either! And who needs car registration or an owners' manual anyway?!

We also shopped for some floor samples. JP likes THIS one...

Greg's awesome shirt, which says "Beer: Now Cheaper Than Gas"

Unfortunately this next shot was taken a few days after my mom and Greg left, but they would've appreciated this dream come true, so I'll post it with this group of pics. Our only wish is that the cars were close enough together for Kevin to stand on top like he was in roller skates.

Later that week I cashed in my birthday present... a brand-new shiny Jack Johnson/G. Love concert! Seth and Kerrie were here that weekend as well, but I completely forgot to take pictures so hopefully they post some I can add later. Here's Raf tailgating with his "wool" blanket before the show:

Although it was stinkin' hot, it was a freakin' beautiful evening.

Some hippie dancers sitting near us:

This pic is titled "WE'RE ON THE LAWN!" (Just get it, man!)

Enjoying the show... or at least I think that is what Raf is doing here:

Here is G. Love singing "Cold Beverages", one of our top favs:

I love me some Jack.

This video is terrible because it's too dark, but as per usual, I can't resist because the spirit of the thing was good. Excuse Raf and my singing and don't click if you're picky about video quality. (Video isn't uploading right now... I'll add it later)

In other news, Raf and I are moving soon so our appliances are for sale. I posted these pictures to Craig's List and got a reply 2.8 seconds later. (Maybe a slight exaggeration, but it was seriously less than 10 minutes)

Only 5 more days of summer school, then it's back to full time leisure again!

What are you doing every Friday for the rest of ever?

*Side note: I have entirely too many blue eyed/light eyed friends. I had to attempt to red-eye remove 90% of these photos!

Holy best day ever!

10:00 AM

10:00 PM

Desperately wish you could see this better,  but the video on my camera doesn't have a light. Raf dedicated the video to Colleen Miller, an avid reader and fan of "Livin' the Dream". Don't you think she should come live the dream with us?

Fridays are my new Saturdays, now that I'm only teaching summer school Monday-Thursday. I woke up when Raf got home from work (8AM). We got some Chick-fil-a breakfast, then headed to the very best beach day ever. I wish these pictures could do it justice:

80 degrees, nice cool breeze, not a cloud in the sky = bliss.

We stayed for about 4 hours. Kev wanted me to get a pan shot of the surf side to the swimming side of the beach, but the tide was too high to get the shot. The swimming side looked just like a panic on the 4th of July , but as you can see, the surfing side was basically empty. Awesome! Plus we didn't have to pay the new (stupid) $2 fee because we were there before 10 AM.

After the beach, we registered at Macy's, thanks to Karen (no, really... this is not a sarcastic thanks!), then headed home to get ready for the evening. Had some dinner with the Psimi and Heard/Black's and played some cornhole, then the whole biker gang headed out for a ride to the oceanfront. Before we could leave some small repairs were needed:

(My new favorite method to protect the privacy of a certain someone...)

This is an AutoZone we went to to fix Heard's handlebars. While the boys bonded, the rest of us intimidated the locals on our "hogs":

We even took on an '89 ('91?) Mustang.

FINALLY, we headed out to Chick's. There was a really good band playing, with a little kid as a temporary lead singer!

He was actually really good too...

We were pleasantly surprised to see some familiar faces. Makes me feel like a local when this happens! In addition to Christy and James (our DJ for the wedding and his wife, Kevin's brother's sister-in-law... which is more complicated than it sounds!), we saw:

Fireman Chris

Rick Wall, my new tanning standard

Cap'n Ray, throwing the 21 sign with Kevin Bacon.

And this guy, who is not my friend, but should be... his Baywatch tank top and frosted tips were priceless.

Zach's lady friend had the best shoes ever, if I do say so myself:

I originally purchased these suckas for our Jersey Shore polar plunge, but they have endeared themselves to me and are now part of my regular wardrobe.

The music was great, as this video, which I realize you cannot see but am posting anyway because it was awesome, proves. Here's Raf doing the B. Leavy dance:

The mention of Ricky joining us reminded Haylie and I of last summer and suddenly we reignited our passion with Rocket Fuel, Long Island's favorite beverage:

 Raf was determined to ruin every picture... more proof:

Aw, but here's a nice one:

Here I am practicing my taste bud trick for learning to drink and do other stuff good too.

"There's Only One Ricky" arrived a bit later in the evening and took a picture with Uncle Big Face:

And Uncle Not-so-Big-Face:

And Tim and his lover bonded:

Tim tried to protect his fries to no avail:

"At least I asked", he says...

And the rest of us just had a good time:

...especially Heard.

And then we biked home. This was a good night, Tater.