Relaxing Weekend

This weekend was very relaxing. Friday evening, I took to train to Camden Yards to meet up with my parents and Jay for the Orioles game.


Sadly both my current favorite players did not play. regardless it is always fun to watch my favorite team. Plus, it was floppy hat night.


I have to say my parents keep things interesting.

The other nice thing about Friday games are they are followed by fireworks. Now, I am not a fireworks fan. I don't think I have ever liked them, but the show Friday was pretty good. As tired as I was, I'm glad we stayed for them.

Saturday Val drove me back to DC for a girls day. It was so nice to lay out at the pool and chit chat. I really don't know what I would do if I didn't have Val in my life. Days like Saturday make me wish she lived closer.


Now I am enjoying a healthy dinner and hoping to catch an old friend on the phone, we're long over due for a phone date.

How was your weekend?

My Uncle’s Art Show

Today is one of my Friday’s off (YAY) and this weekend Jay and I are heading down to the ocean with my parents. When my uncle said he was having an art show last night, it only made sense to ride the Marc train to the Camden Station and go to the show in Federal Hill.

My uncle’s pieces are of most of architecture (he is an architect). He had some great stuff from familiar places like the Inner Harbor and DC during the Cherry Blossoms. He also had some great prints of Philadelphia and Paris. My personal favorite was one he had of Moulin Rouge.

Sorry there aren’t more photos, I left Jay and his iPhone up to photography last night :/

After the show the family headed to SOBO Café for dinner. It was a lot of fun to catch up with the family over mojitos.

I had their Veggie Linguine with heirloom tomatoes, dandelion greens, arugula pesto,
fresh mozzarella. It was delicious and a great way to end this work week.

Well I am off to a day packed with dates and then the beach. Have a great weekend!!

PS: the picture to the right above is John Wayne, Jay say it in the Men’s bathroom and had to take a picture. Meanwhile, no art in the women’s bathroom.

Day Four Without Power

We are going on day four without power, lucky us! It actually isn't that bad. It's kind of like camping. Jay and I have been sleeping in the basement which is surprisingly cool. Plus, I have gotten a lot of reading done.

At this point the only thing getting old are people are getting ANGRY. I can't wait to get back to DC to get away from the cranky complainers.

Yesterday, my mom cleaned out the fridge. We have been eating the food all weekend so we didn't lose that much. The only sad thing is we had to eat our thawed wedding cake topper. Jay has been wanting to eat it since the wedding, he finally got his way. It was delicious and I think brightened my moms day a little.

Ps: I am blogging from my phone and apologize for how this is formatted.

Powerless

My parents have been powerless since Friday evening. Of course I showed up in Baltimore around 6 p.m. for a few days. Commitments like Bridal Showers and Doctor’s Appointments have resulted in me working from home (aka a Panera in Baltimore) today.

Life could be worse. Actually we got VERY lucky. My parents had to get two trees removed due to the derecho that tore through the mid-Atlantic states Friday evening. (Fun-ish fact: I have now survived two derechos. The first one I survived I was in a tent in the Adirondacks).

One of those trees split in half. Thankfully it caused very little damage.

Sadly, for our neighbor, the damage was on her property. In Maryland, homeowners have to deal with the damage on their property regardless of whose tree it is. I don’t think my neighbor is pleased, but at least my parents paid to get the tree removed from her lawn.

The other tree that was removed was cracked but had not yet fallen. Thankfully, we were able to get a tree guy out on Saturday and Sunday to remove both trees.

Clean-up is moving along quickly, but sadly we will be without power for the rest of the week. You will hear otherwise if that changes.

Due to the lack of power, yesterday Jay and I were sent out to find dry ice for my parents and 3 of their neighbors. We found some, but waited for 2 1/2 hours for it in the blazing sun.

Thankfully everyone was very nice. I mean we were all in the same boat. Jay and I were hero's when we returned with 40 lbs. of dry ice and 80 lbs. of loose ice. Total cost, almost $80.

Even with the ice, we would have lost a lot of food. Instead of letting the food hit the trash, my mom invited 12 of her closest friends over. Everyone brought a side dish and we cooked up all the meat from the freezer. Nothing like a mix of lamb, steak and sausage to make a crowd happy!

After the party, we hunkered down and washing dishes in the dark (I know your jealous).

We’ll continue to document the week, but don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me as frequently.

Were you hit by the derecho? or how long have you gone without power?

Triple Date at the National Aquarium

One of the best things about my wedding (besides marrying Jay, which was obviously the BEST part) was having all of our closest friends in town. Both Jay and I attended the University of South Carolina where we had a big group of friends. So while the weekend was ultimately about a celebration of marriage, it also acted as a reunion weekend.

Friday, me, Bri and Charlotte kicked off the weekend by taking our boys to the National Aquarium in Baltimore for a triple date. This trip was LONG overdue for many reasons. Charlotte was supposed to come to the Aquarium with me back in December 2006 before my Italy trip. We had this great plan that I would visit her in DC one day and the next we would head to Baltimore and explore the Aquarium. Sadly, our friendship hangout time marathon was cut short by me getting REALLY sick at Charlotte's house in Virginia. I guess walking around DC for the day wore me out, because I left her house with a 101 degree temperature.

Another reason this trip was a long time coming is because Bri is studying Marine Science. Obviously, I had the need to show off my hometown's marine highlight!

The Inner Harbor was PACKed last weekend, thanks to the Sailabration for the penning of the Star Spangled Banner and 200th celebration of the war of 1812. Thankfully, the Aquarium was not too busy.

After getting reacquainted…

We headed straight to the Australia Exhibit for an animal feeding. Unfortunately, the animal feeding was cancelled because the Aquarium worker used all her crickets at the morning feeding, but we didn’t let that spoil our mood.

Next we headed to the Sting Ray tank, before heading up the escalators into the main Aquarium exhibit. It amazes me how little the Aquarium has changed since I was a little kid, but how I still manage to be entertained.

It was also cool to be at the aquarium with Marine Scientist and Aquarium enthusiast. I was amazed by the fish they pointed out right away as not being “native” to a certain tanks region and the filler fish that almost anyone can own.

By the way, I think Charlotte liked the turtles… as I have quite a few photo of them on my camera ;)

One major change since my last visit was there is no more petting area. The petting area was transformed into a beautiful series of tanks!

Other favorites areas of mine are the Tropical Rainforest and Atlantic Coral Reef Tank. Sadly, we have no pictures because my camera died :(

Regardless, if you have the opportunity, go visit the National Aquarium in Baltimore. I had fun showing off a hometown favorite and I think my guests enjoyed seeing it. Plus, it was really nice to just hang out with friends before the BIG day.

Lastly, a big THANK YOU to my photographer for the day, Charlotte!

A True Wedding Wednesday!!

Yesterday was in fact a true Wedding Wednesday. Both my mom and I took the day off of work to get a few wedding related tasks done.

The first was to scan in my relatives wedding photos.

My mom and dad had collected photos from both of my grandparents weddings, a great grandparent and their own. Now I just need to resolve the technical difficulties I am having with the photo of my other set of grandparents and get photos of Jay’s relatives. By far, the easiest photo to get was from my brother, Jim, because I already had a photo CD of his wedding photos :). Hopefully, when it is all said and done I’ll have a beautiful display like the one below.

(source)

After we were all technical, my mom and I headed to the mall to pick-up her Mother of the Bride dress, buy me a dress for a shower and get my make-up done.

Back in January, my mom came to visit and we went dress shopping for her. My mom’s main Mother of the Bride dress goal was to get something that did not scream Mother of the Bride. I think we did a great job. She got the beautiful dress below, which goes perfectly with my color scheme.

Last summer, I had a hair and make-up trail with Up Do’s for I Do. I had been advised that I should not skimp on wedding hair. From this advice I decided to gift hair do’s to my girls as part of their gift. One aspect of hair and make-up that was really important to me, was that the company travel to my mom’s house. In order to have Up Do’s for I Do come to me, I had to have a minimum number of girls for each. I did not want to pay for the girls make-up too, so originally my mom was also going to have her make-up done for the wedding. But, after my trial we both decided that I would rather do my own make-up the way I like to do it.

Hence, why we were at the mall on Wednesday. My mom has been going to Janice, aka the same Clinique lady since … well, since I was in utero. Having Janice do my make-up was fun, but I also learned a lot from her on how to do things. Of course I left spending WAY too much money on make-up, but we had a good time and now I feel very prepared to do my own make-up on the wedding day.

Once I was all made over, we headed to Elkridge Furnace Inn for our first planning meeting. It was nice to touch base with the wedding coordinator and find out some of the little things, like how many people to a table. Plus, we even found a place to put the family wedding photos :).

We wrapped up the day with my final dress fitting. I just can’t believe we are so close. Only 66 more days of wedding planning craziness!

Birthday Weekend

Wow, what a weekend!! I knew going into this weekend that I would have lots of chances to overindulge. My personal challenge was to enjoy myself and all the wonderful food before me, but not to over eat.

I don't think I did half bad.

Let me back up a smidgen and just say this weekend really did morph into a laid back weekend at home to a birthday extravaganza. I was born on opening day of the Orioles 26 years ago (when did I become 26?). Once I realized opening day was the day before my birthday, I called up my dad and insisted he take me to the ballgame. Since my younger brother and I have birthdays within a week of each other, my dad decided to get him a ticket too. All of a sudden it's almost family day at the yard.

Little did I know that this years opening day is also the 20th Anniversary of Camden Yards. As you can imagine this made it probably a more crowded and exciting opening day.

I started the day by cat sitting, running (see making healthy decisions) and working from home before picking my brother up from work and heading to the yard. Believe it or not, I have never been to Pickles Pub (a Baltimore must) before an Orioles game. I was pretty excited to start the day with a new experience with my little brother. Unfortunately, it was really crowded at Pickles. We drank two beers, ran into a few familiar faces before grabbing a hot dog and finding our seats.

My brother wanted to be in the yard no later than 2:30 so we could catch all the pregame highlights. Since it was opening day, there were quite a few!!

One of my favorite opening day things was the special 20th Anniversary can of Natty Boh. I may or may not have smuggled my can out :)

Saturday was very relaxing. Jay and I went on a short run, we got Jay's wedding pants altered, mom and I went shopping (and I bought nothing for myself) and we relaxed until dinner time.

For dinner, my parents took my brother, his girlfriend, Jay and me to dinner at Fogo de Chao. It was delicious!! but I am not sure if can eat very much meat afterward. Everything was delicious except for the mashed potatoes. They were ok, but nothing to write home about. But really, who goes to a steak place for mashed potatoes?

We were seated right by the kitchen which meant that our meat came out still sizzling. My only complaint about the meat was that we were offered lots of cuts of beef and lamb, but not as much pork and chicken. Jay got some delicious garlic pork at the beginning of the meal that we never saw again (he was nice and let me have a bite). Besides that we had a great meal and a great time. I wouldn't recommend Fogo de Chao all the time, but it is a fantastic place to go for a celebratory dinner.

The next morning the celebration continued with brunch with the extended family. Brunch is another all-you-can-eat affair. I think we were all still stuffed from the night before which caused me to be extra picky at brunch. I love our Easter brunch, but after eating a really nice meal the night before it made me realize how sub par this brunch can be. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but not as delicious as Fogo de Chao.

 

How was your weekend?

Val’s Bachelorette Party!

The highlight of last weekend was Saturday when we celebrated Val’s Bachelorette-hood. Val’s bachelorette was pretty easy to plan as she had very few requests. She just wanted to have a fun night!

We started the evening pre-gaming in the hotel with Val’s favorite drink, rum and coke. Holly, Val’s sister-in-law and a bridesmaid, was smart and looked on Val’s pinterest wall for ideas for her bridal shower. Of course every good idea has to be stolen, so for her bachelorette I perused Val’s pinterest wall and found the “Drinkin’ With My Bitches” sign. The sign was a big hit!

Next we headed to dinner at The Reserve in Federal Hill. The service was really slow, but that was good for our evening. We had a 8 p.m. reservation with hopes to go out right from the restaurant. Granted we showed up early (it took us no time to cab from the hotel), but we were there until 9:30 p.m. (almost 2 hours).

With all that waiting time, we played a little game, “Who knows Val best?”. It was a lot of fun to look back! The wait also went quickly with our Orange Crushes (I couldn’t taste the alcohol). Plus the food was delicious.

With dinner behind us, we headed out to the bars. We started the evening with Lemon Drop shots courtesy of my mom at Mother’s. Later that evening we headed to MaGerks and Mad River. As all good nights, our bar wanderings will stay with those that attended :)