Play Date with the Pioneer Woman

Last week, Maggie brought Riley and Ranger over for a play date with Brooklyn. Nothing crazy happened, except Brooklyn using her legs to jump and hop at Ranger, wanting to play. The best part is she was exhausted when they left! The weather wasn't the greatest so we couldn't really throw them out in the backyard and let them go crazy, and at that point we didn't know about the awesome Dog Park in Lewisville.


For lunch, we made chili from The Pioneer Woman Cookbook, in the lovely new soup pot Connie bought at a Black Friday sale. We even put beans in it! It was so delicious, especially since the weather was so dreary and cold.


Speaking of the Pioneer Woman, the week before last Maggie and I and her sister-in-law, Jennifer went to a book signing for her cookbook in Dallas. There she is:
We got there around 6:15 for the 7:00 signing. It didn't seem like there were *that* many people there, but we soon learned otherwise. There were something like 7 colors of wrist bands, with 100-150 of each color. We got purple when we got there. Before she came out, they were calling different colors to get in line around the store, but they never called Purple. We talked to some other fans and figured out that we were the 5th or 6th color in line. They had already lined up 3 or 4 colors, and there was still another to be called before us. We took a gamble and headed out to a pizza place in the shopping center, thinking that when we got back, we could get in line and would be out of there about an hour later.

When we got back, they still hadn't called Purple and after talking to a Borders employee, we learned that there were over 700 people there, and that book signings have been known to go until after midnight or 1am! We decided to hang out and see if we could get in line before 10pm, otherwise we would leave. So...this is how close we got:

We kept waiting for people to get out of the way for a clear view!

We had a good time, even without getting our books signed- the pizza we had was delicious and it was fun just to hang out and do something different on a Tuesday night. We now know that to get in and out at a reasonable hour, we need to plan for the next one by having one group member go and pick up wristbands as early as possible that day, and then to get there about 2 hours early to be as close to the front of the line as possible. Then after the book is signed, we can go and have dinner. Can't wait for the next time!

Speaking of pizza, Bean and I tried to make the Pioneer Woman's pesto pizza:

It was my first time making pizza dough at home, and I don't think I did a good job. Plus I ran out of regular flour, so all I had was whole-wheat. I don't know if I care enough to try again when there are so many good frozen pizzas that we like. However, since we did have enough for 2 crusts, we tried again a couple of days later:
That one was better, with tomato sauce, mozzarella, tomatoes, and carmelized onion. I LOVE carmelized onion! I still didn't like my attempt at pizza dough, so for now I will stick with my craving for that awesome chili and have that every chance I get!