Father's Day

We had a wonderful day yesterday!!

We all spent some time visiting my mom in the hospital.  She is more than likely coming home today!!  Yipppeee!

The girls and I "surprised" Jason with a new prime lens for his camera.  I say "Surprised" loosely because in our family we pretty much always say what we want for a given birthday or holiday.  Jason has gotten really into photography this past year.  He was always interested and had a DSLR camera, but last summer when we were on vacation he started getting really into playing with the settings and setting up pictures, getting the right balance of light, that sort of thing.  He took a photography course in the fall, which lead to buying a nicer DSLR camera and starting his collection of lenses.  The prime lens is actually one of the less expensive lenses and it is "fixed" in that you can not zoom in or out, but it takes crisp pictures.  The thing you are focusing on comes in very clearly and the background comes in more blurred, which is a really neat effect.

Jason loves plants and flowers and trees and I had hoped that his interest in photography would be an extension of that.  And it definitely has been.  It has also prompted us to take weekend trips to see different gardens and parks and plants.  Yesterday, Jason wanted to go to the gardens at Rutgers.

Did I mention that we are foodies???

After that, Jason had  hard time picking where he wanted to go for dinner, but finally decided on Old Man Rafferty's, after he saw the specials listed on-line!  His mouth was watering for the chiles rellenos:

But we decided that we actually make them better.  We don't deep fry them or coat them in breadcrumbs (which, btw, we felt added nothing).  We stuff them with red beans, cheese and raisins.  The little sweet zip of raisins really pops and breaks up the cheese.  We grill ours which lends it a nice smoky taste :)

I was glad he picked OMR, because I had seen an Asian Cilantro Fluke with watermelon and pineapple relish and a coconut cream sauce and basmati rice, which really was amazing and I wouldn't really know where to begin to make something like that.  Jason and I both love to cook, so when we go out, we like to order things that we wouldn't know how to make.

Jason got the Chicken Palermo, which was stuffed with cheese and Italian sausage and came with some wonderfully garlicky artichokes and other veggies and some mushroom risotto:

where they encourage you to order dessert first!  They actually have at least 30 gourmet desserts that are all amazing.  Jason never lets us order dessert first.  And we are all usually really full after dinner, so we bring our desserts home and enjoy them later :)