The life of a girl far from home

Food, glorious food!

2009-01-22T08:12:00.000-08:00

So, I just wanted to share with you all the wonderful news that I've discovered the secret to making awesome homemade pasta sauce! I know, you can hardly contain your excitement right? Ok...are you ready for it? The secret to the best, most delicious, better-than-Ragu pasta sauce is....brown sugar! I know! It's insane, right? Who would've thunk to put brown sugar in pasta sauce? Well, I guess I did, and that makes me and my pasta sauce awesome. It really adds a depth of flavor and just a touch of sweetness, which makes the sauce taste so much richer. So, here's what you do - saute a cup each of chopped onion and bell pepper, and two cups of sliced mushrooms in olive oil. Add a teaspoon of minced garlic, and crushed red pepper to taste. Add red wine (once around the pan is enough) and cook the alcohol off. Add a 28oz can of crushed tomatoes, salt and black pepper to taste, whatever herbs you want (I usually only add oregano and parsley), and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in about 1 teaspoon of brown sugar, continue cooking for 5 or so minutes. Then, just before serving, stir in about a quarter cup of the pasta water (the starch helps the sauce stick to pasta). Done! Deelish! Try it - you can thank me later.

Seriously though, as of late I've been trying to come up with different takes on meals that we eat regularly. Like fish. Ugh. I'm getting so tired of fish. I mean, I love it and I do enjoy eating it every week, but it gets hard to think of new ways to prepare it. So, on Monday we had cod wrapped with a slice proscuitto, drizzled with olive oil and topped with a sprinkle of crushed red pepper. We bought proscuitto to make chicken cordon bleu, but I'm guessing you could probably wrap the fish with bacon and it would still be good. Yum. Although it would have been better if I cooked it in the skillet instead of in the oven - the proscuitto wasn't crispy enough. But still, a slightly different take on boring ol' fish.

Another new dish that will probably go into semi-regular rotation was the stuffed pork tenderloin I made on Sunday. When we buy pork, we usually buy the pre-marinated tenderloins and just roast or grill them. This time, we got plain tenderloin, I butterflied it and pounded it thin, filled it with a stuffing of chopped apple, craisins and walnuts, tied it up and roasted it. Holy cow, was it good! It really wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, and it's probably fancy enough to serve for a nice dinner party.

One dish that I actually made from a recipe was a Moroccan chickpea stew. It was soooooo tasty, and I didn't miss eating meat at all. It would be pretty good with some diced chicken breast added in, but it was fantastic just as it was. And it was nice to not eat meat for once, not to mention it was a super cheap meal to make.

Anyways, I guess the moral of this blog post is that trying new things in the kitchen doesn't have to be hard, and you might be pleasantly surprised!

What an occasion!

2009-01-20T08:27:00.000-08:00

In an effort to avoid the massive crowds making their way into DC for Obama's Inauguration today, I'm working from home. There's absolutely no way in hell you would find me anywhere near DC today - they're expecting up to 5 million people to arrive in the city for the festivities. Ugh. Sounds miserable to me. But, of course, the TV is on and I'm half-watching the Inauguration coverage in-between snippets of work. It really is incredible. Every square inch of the National Mall is covered with bodies. I have NEVER seen so many people together in one place, most of them united because of one man. It's awe-inspiring that a country that is usually so divided can come together so peacefully for a common cause. Amazing. What an incredible moment in history.

Christmas 2008

2008-12-29T04:58:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know you've all been waiting with bated breath to hear all about our holidays, and I'm sorry I've been so slack. There's just so much to write that thinking about it makes me break out in a cold sweat. But, for you folks, that's something I'll just have to endure.

I'll try to make this as short and sweet as possible. We'll see how successful that is.

Tuesday before Christmas

We arrived in Chicago at about 8am, and were immediately hit with a few inches of snow. It was fun! When we left DC, the temperature had been fluctuating between upper-60's and mid to low-40's, so the cold and the snow helped to remind us that it is indeed winter. After picking up the rental car and heading home (Oswego, IL) to freshen up, we headed back towards Chicago to meet up with Jessie and Joci, and Jeremy's friend Nikki and her husband Corey. We drove around the city for a while, hopelessly looking for somewhere that was still serving brunch. At 3pm. On a Thursday. Not only did we not find anywhere for brunch, but we also did not find a single restaurant that was open for lunch. Seriously?! Finally we gave up and just headed to Starbucks for snack, and then it was off to get creative and paint some pottery. Yep - 5 adults decided the best way for us to spend our afternoon was painting pottery. As lame as that sounds, it was actually a lot of fun - we brought a couple bottles of wine and spent a few hours getting our creative juices flowing. Afterwards, we headed to Cafe Ba Ba Reeba for tapas and sangria, where I once again enjoyed a dish of grilled octopus (not calamari, octopus). Delicioso!

Ha! Look how miserably I failed at keeping it "short and sweet"!

Christmas Eve

Nothing. Jeremy and I ate lunch at Portillo's, went home to digest and finished wrapping gifts.

Christmas

Everyone woke up early to open gifts. Ok, maybe not that early, more like 9am. We all got spoiled rotten - THANK YOU!! It was completely unnecessary, but still very much appreciated. After gifts, we all got ready and headed to Jeremy's Uncle Jeff and Leny's house in Chicago for Christmas dinner. The food was wonderful, and it was great to catch up with all Jeremy's extended family who we hadn't seen in 2 years.

Friday after Christmas

Jeremy and I went to see Blue Man Group, which Jeremy had been trying to get me to see since we started dating. The premise of the show is based on how outsiders (in this case, blue aliens) might view and try to understand humans. I don't know...it's kind of weird. Jeremy had insisted that we sit up close in the "poncho" section - the first 4 rows of the theater, where everyone is given a plastic poncho to wear. I was a little apprehensive, but Jeremy insisted that the front rows were the best place to sit. All was well, until about halfway through the show when (CAUTION: Spoilers ahead!!) they shot some stinky goop out into the audience. Wow...gee thanks, boys. We didn't get too much of the goopy crap on us, but it was enough to gross me out and make me just wish the show was over. Anywho, goopy stuff aside, the show was ok. Definitely not my favorite, but entertaining nonetheless.

After Blue Man Group, we headed to Quartino where we were meeting up with the fam and Nikki and Corey for dinner. The food was wonderful, and we all got stinking drunk on chianti and some sweet-like-syrup orange after-dinner liqueur. Afterwards, Jeremy, Jessie, Nikki, Corey and I all headed over to Pop's for Champagne for more drinks (like we really needed it). After 2 bottles of champagne (at least I think it was two), we decided to head over to the Redhead Piano Bar for MORE drinks. Alas, I was deemed too intoxicated to get in (although I vehemently believe that my stumbling was a direct result of wearing 3.5 inch heels and trying to walk down an icey and snowy path), which one would think might deter us from continuing on, but instead we simply walked across the street to yet another bar. We sat down, complaining about the Redhead and their strict door policies, when the the guy sitting next to us chimed in with "Oh, I own that place!". What?! The owner of the bar we had just been rejected from was sitting next to us. His reason for not spending time at his own bar - he wasn't dressed according to their dress code. Ha! We had one drink there (at least I think it was only one), then decided to call it a night. I woke up at 7am the next morning, still wearing my clothes. It was a fun night.

Saturday

We had a slooooow day, being that we were all nursing hangovers. Then it was off to Jeremy's favorite Chicago-style pizza place, Lou Malnati's for dinner.

Sunday

Up at 5am to fly home. We had an exhausting but awesome time! Yay Chicago!

New Year's Eve

Nothing. Seriously, nothing. I made a dinner of sirloin steak, panko crusted crabcakes with roasted red pepper aioli, twice-baked potatoes and green beans tossed with chives and stone ground mustard. It was delicious. We drank a bottle of wine, and were sound asleep by 11pm. I woke up at 12:30 to the Pussycat Dolls performing at the New Years special on TV.

Yeap, we're just that cool.

And that's it. We're both back to the daily grind, laying low after a busy year and hopeful that 2009 will be as awesome as everyone wants it to be.

Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas to all...

2008-12-22T17:10:00.000-08:00

And to all, wish me luck as I head to the freaking freezing city of Chicago. Seriously. It's 1 degree Fahrenheit at the moment. What the heck??!

Seriously though, I hope that everyone has a fantastic Christmas and gets to spend much needed time with loved ones. I love you all, and I miss everyone bunches. I'll be thinking of you on Christmas morning.

Lots and lots of love and Christmas hugs!
Bec xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

PS - I've decided that this video of Nat King Cole should be the dictionary definition of "suave".

2008 in photographs

2008-12-19T04:36:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across a link to Boston.com's Big Picture section, which is currently running a 3 part series of photographs called "2008 in Photographs". The pictures are absolutely incredible - beautiful, chilling, breathtaking, inspiring. I think it's incredible that, with all the crap that's been going on in the US this year (namely the election and the economic slump), I had absolutely no idea what was going on in the rest of the world. Seriously. And I'm sure that there are many, many other's who are the same. We're so wrapped up in what's happening here, we have no clue as to what the rest of the world is going through. And, apparently, I've missed a lot. Here are my favorites...I'll put a link to the rest of the photos at the bottom.

2008 in Photographs (Part 1)

2008 in Photographs (Part 2)

2008 in Photographs (Part 3)

New hair

2008-12-17T16:49:00.000-08:00

Look!! After growing my hair to probably the longest it's been since I was 5, I've cut it all off to probably the shortest it's been since I had that bad short haircut when I was 13. Woohoo!!

Is it Christmas yet?

2008-12-16T05:40:00.000-08:00

Seriously, is it? We've been bombarded with tinsel and bells and little plastic Santa's for so long, I'm beginning to think that maybe Christmas just passed us all by while we were busy looking for the perfect gifts. It's been almost 2 months since decorations first started to appear, and I really wish that Christmas would just hurry up and arrive already. I'm ready to stuff my face full of turkey and then sit around, moaning about how I might explode. I'm ready to sit around on Christmas morning, listen to Nat King Cole, and hand out gifts in my pajamas. I'm ready to sit at a giant table, drinking wine and trying to comprehend just one of the 36 different stories that are being told at the same time. I really am dreaming of a white Christmas...and it looks like we might be in luck for that this year. And I really can't wait to hang out with family - as much as I love my husband, it does get a little lonely sometimes with just the two of us, and it will be wonderful to spend time with everyone.

In preparation for the holidays, Jeremy and I have been laying low for the last few weeks. Last Saturday we headed over to a friends house to drink some wine, eat some Christmas cookies and play some games. It was a fun night! We played a round of Cranium, and I discovered that I do NOT know the theme song to James Bond. In fact, I didn't even know that it really had a theme song - I thought it was just some random song and then he shoots at that tunnel thingy and blood comes down...I thought THAT was the theme song. So I failed miserably at Cranium's instructions to hum the theme to James Bond - I ended up humming the theme to Get Smart instead. Oh well. At least I could spell hippopotamus and broccoli. If I ever play Cranium with any of you, be sure to deflect all the yellow spelling questions to me - I'm pretty much the queen of the yellow cards.

And that's about all we've been up to. We've just been hanging around, saving our pennies for our trip back to Chicago next week. Jeremy's sick at the moment, which means that I most likely will be sick right on Christmas day. Thanks, honey.

Oh, and speaking of Christmas...I've just finished reading an article that helps to put things in a little perspective at a time when so many people are caught up with the whole "spend, spend, SPEND" at Christmas time mentality. Enjoy!

Stuff is not Salvation

Oh, and I almost forgot...I don't think I had ever seen or heard this gem from David Bowie and Bing Crosby before. It's beautiful, and I love it!!

A little ray of sunshine

2008-12-09T10:50:00.000-08:00

While wasting time on Runner's World, a topic posted on the Discussion boards caught my eye - "What do you love about being married?". One person replied with a poem (actually, it's an excerpt from a novel that was later republished as a poem) that I think is absolutely beautiful. Enjoy!

Oh, the comfort --

The inexpressible comfort of feeling

safe with a person,

Having neither to weigh thoughts,

Nor measure words -- but pouring them

All right out -- just as they are --

Chaff and grain together --

Certain that a faithful hand will

Take and sift them --

Keep what is worth keeping --

and with the breath of kindness

Blow the rest away.

By Dinah Maria Mulock Craik - A Life For A Life (1859)

What is the world coming too?

2008-12-05T18:36:00.000-08:00

Britney's new CD is actually really good. Really, REALLY good! Like, it's so good I may just listen to it repeatedly all night. Or at least until Jeremy kicks me out.

If you live in the NoVA area, you might be getting a call from me. Just be sure to have some speakers handy so I can keep Britney alive.

At the moment

2008-12-04T06:43:00.000-08:00

Random things I'm thinking about

- Kids movies. In the last week I've curled up on the couch to watch: Enchanted, The Incredibles, Over The Hedge, Wall-E, and Bee Movie. Seriously. There must be something in the air.

- Speaking of something being in the air, we know three couples who are expecting! How awesome is that?! Eric & Shannon are pregnant with their second, Mark & Lauren will be the proud parents of baby twins on December 11th, and Bill & Kathleen are due in April. Awesome, awesome and awesome!

- This weekend we're putting up our Christmas decorations! Yesssss! I'm debating whether or not I should buy a bunch of glittery Christmas banners and string them up in everyone's office before they get in to work. Doing so would either result in lots of smiles, or lots of people complaining about the political correctness of Christmas banners. I'm seriously considering doing it. Maybe under the cover of night, so those scrooges who go around saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" won't know who to blame.

- Total Wine is having a Total Tasting Extravaganza! Free admission - check! Tasty, bite-sized appetizers - check! So many wine and beer samples that I may leave the store a little more than just tipsy - check!

- Quicken Online. Could they make my life any easier?! Using Excel to keep track of finances is for suckers, and I'm a sucker no more.

- Why oh why does hot air have to rise?! I mean, I understand the physics behind it, but sheesh! Our bedroom is about 20 degrees warmer than the rest of our house, and our lower level is about 20 degrees colder. It's kind of annoying and it makes it hard for me to sleep at night.

- When is it going to snow already?

- Will someone please send me these? I'm a 7.5, which they appear to be sold out of so you'll have to do some serious searching. I'm not really in the position to spend $600 on a pair of booties, but I figure maybe the cyber-gods will take pity on my lack of funds. Maybe.

Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive!

2008-11-28T07:33:00.000-08:00

I believe we may have been sucked into a clever marketing gimmick, one aimed at convincing wine connoisseur wannabes that they are privy to some great secret that only true wine connoisseur's are privy to. Damn you, French winemakers and your clever marketing! You have tricked the world into believing that Georges Duboeuf's Beaujolais Nouveau is some great bottle of vino, when really it's just an average wine that doesn't age as well as it's friends. Still, I'll admit that all the hooplah surrounding it's annual release is kind of fun to be a part of.

Here's the skinny (don't worry, it's interesting even if you couldn't care less about wine):

Beaujolais Nouveau is made from the Gamay grapes, found in the Beaujolais region of France. The Beaujolais region is one of only two wine-growing regions in the world where picking the grapes by hand is MANDATORY! The only other region where hand harvesting is required by law is the Champagne region. Pretty neat, huh?! The other pretty neat part about Beaujolais Nouveau is that French law dictates that it not be released until the third Thursday of November. Ha! What a concept. Anywho, being that the wine is subject to such strict regulations, it's annual release date has turned into a worldwide event. Every year there is a "race" to see who will serve the new Nouveau (ha!) first. There are even parties held to celebrate it's release! Brightly colored posters declaring "Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive!" ("The Beaujolais Nouveau has arrived!") appear in wine store windows, large displays of Dubeof's latest release occupy prime floor space, and customer's scramble to snatch up as many bottles as they can.

But what they don't tell you (and this is the real kicker), is that the Nouveau is the cheapest Beaujolais around, it typically comes from the worst grapes and Mr. Duboeuf, the largest maker of Beaujolais, is sitting pretty, selling his millions of bottles of cheap wine, when there are other, more worthy Beaujolais wine makers out there.

BOO to you, clever marketing schemes! I admit, I fell for your trickery, and I fell hard - we bought 3 bottles of the 2008 Nouveau this past weekend. I feel so ashamed.

Luckily, I am able to redeem myself somewhat - while I did enjoy last year's Nouveau and I will no doubt enjoy this year's, I am also an avid fan of other Beaujolais'. Yep, I also like the "real" stuff. So, please, don't hold it against me that I have 3 of these sitting in my wine rack. I'm still an equal-opportunity Beaujolais drinker!

Thanksgiving

2008-11-24T09:12:00.000-08:00

With Thanksgiving coming up, now is the perfect time for us to take a moment and reflect on all the small things that we take for granted every day. All around the world people are dealing with struggling economies and worry for their future, and it seems that all we hear about is how much people have lost. I wish everyone would just take a deep breath, settle down a little and stop worrying so much about things that are beyond our control. Even though our country may have hit a rough patch, I still have so much to be thankful for.

I'm thankful for my wonderful husband, who makes me laugh every day, who offers me enough love to fill me up, and who makes it so easy for me to love him back.

I'm thankful for my family, and I'm especially thankful for the wonderful visitors we've had this year. I'm truly lucky to have such a loving, supportive family, one that will travel across the world to visit me!

I'm thankful that we have a warm bed to sleep in and food in our bellies.

I'm thankful that we still have our home. So many people have lost their home's due to foreclosure, and I'm so incredibly grateful that we are able to afford to stay in ours. I can't even imagine how it must feel to work so hard and sacrifice so much to be able to buy a house, only to have it taken away.

I'm thankful that we are young and able to ride out this economic slump. My heart goes out to those who's retirement savings have all but disappeared, and those who's livelihoods have been turned upside down. We know that we'll be ok, that we have many years to recover, but there are so many others who are not so fortunate.

I'm thankful that we live in a time where a black man can be elected President, and a woman can give him a good run for his money. Even if you voted for the other guy, everyone should be able to appreciate what a wonderful accomplishment it is for our society. What a long way we've come!

And, once again, I'm thankful that this holiday gives me the opportunity to post witty cartoons of talking turkeys. Yay for Thanksgiving!

Lights, camera, ACTION!

2008-11-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

The other day Jeremy and I were watching a half-hour show entirely composed of movie trailers. They showed some awesome trailers for some absoutely outstanding movies, including No Country for Old Men, Atonement, and the soon to be released Australia. All very good movies, with wonderful trailers. In the midst of all these "popular" films, they showed a trailer for what I consider to be one of the best film's I've seen in a long time. It may even be one of the best film's I've ever seen - The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. You may remember that I mentioned it before here. Seeing that trailer prompted me to think of some other films I have recently seen that really are wonderful, and that deserve just as much credit as some of the big box office hits. Most of you will probably have never heard of some of these films, which is why I feel that it is my duty to tell you all to go out and watch them. Immediately. Here they are, in no particular order...

1. The Diving Bell and The Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et el papillon)

Released in 2007, nominated for 4 Oscars

Watch the trailer!

One word: INCREDIBLE.

Seriously. This film is one of the most incredible pieces of art that I have ever seen. Yes, it is indeed a work of art. The film is entirely in French (with subtitles), and is filmed from the first-person point of view of Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French Elle magazine. At age 43, Bauby suffered a major stroke that left him completely paralyzed, except for his left eye. The film is based on his memoir, Le Schaphandre et el papillon, that was dictated by Bauby himself using only his left eye to spell out words by blinking. His story at times is darkly humorous and you get the impression that Bauby might have been a fun kind of guy to be around. Mostly, however, you almost feel pity for him, that he might have put having fun and living the high life before that which is clearly most important to him - his family. At the end of the film, I was somewhat ambivalent - do I like him, or do I not? Do I feel sad for what he's lost? Or do I just think he screwed up? Either way, his honesty brought tears to my eyes, and the film left me speechless. The cinematography is some of the most beautiful I've ever seen. Jean-Dominique Bauby's story is truly a heart wrenching one, and the film really captures the emotion of it.

Watch it. Even if you don't like subtitles. You won't be disappointed.

2. God Grew Tired of Us

Released in 2006

Winner of the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award & Grand Jury Prize

Watch the trailer here!

If you only watch one documentary in this year, I highly recommend God Grew Tired of Us. This is a National Geographic documentary about the "Lost Boys of Sudan" - the tens of thousands of boys who fled their homes during the wars in Sudan back in the 80's. The film focuses on 3 young men who move to the United States in hopes of a better life. You follow them on their journey as they adapt to an entirely new way of life - moving into their own apartment, their search for work and their quest to help make the lives of their friends and family back home just a little better. The "boys" sense of wonder and naivety are so endearing that I just wanted to scoop them up and hug them until they couldn't breathe. The film makes you truly grateful for all the little luxuries and opportunities that are afforded us. I laughed and I cried. The film really opened my eyes to the obstacles the boys, and likely all refugees, face - being told by police that they can't walk around in groups anymore because other residents are afraid of them, the measly wages they earn that are usually immediately sent back to help out people at home, how overwhelmed they are by simple things like showering or grocery shopping.

It's heartwarming, charming, enlightening and humbling. Wonderful.

3. Grace is Gone

Release in 2007

Winner of the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award & Screenwriting Award

Watch the trailer here

I've always thought that John Cusack was an excellent actor. From One Crazy Summer, to Con Air, to High Fidelity, he's always good for a laugh and a quick one-liner. Grace is Gone takes my love for John Cusack to an entirely new level as he truly shows what a multi-dimensional actor he is. Cusack plays a husband whose wife is killed while serving in Iraq. Overwhelmed and unable to tell his young daughters that their mother is dead, he whisks them away on an impromptu roadtrip to an amusement park. Gracie Bednarczyk offers a charming performance as the youngest daughter - I'm guessing that we'll be seeing a lot more of her in future years. The movie is incredibly touching, but I suggest you save it for a day when you really need to bawl - it's a sad one!

Other honorable mentions:

Gone Baby Gone (trailer) - dirty cops, missing kids and the wonderful Casey Affleck
The Savages (trailer) - because Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of the greatest actors of this generation
Bobby (trailer) - the line-up is the reason to rent this (Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Emilio Esteves, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Sharon Stone, Elijah Wood, Laurence Fishburne...the list goes on), the depth of the characters and the phenomenal acting is the reason to watch it.
La Vie en Rose (trailer) - which you probably know because Marion Cotillard won Best Actress at this year's Oscars. Another French film with subtitles, it's tells a tragic true story. If you didn't see it after all the Oscar hype, you should definitely see it now.

That should get you all watching for a while. Enjoy!

Photos

2008-11-15T08:27:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the hundreds of photos from my mom & dad's visit...enjoy!

Mom & Dad's visit

We're back!

2008-11-13T05:37:00.001-08:00

Yes, we are still alive over here. I apologize for neglecting my blogging duties - we've been ridiculously busy the last few weeks and, well, what can I say? I'm just slack. So here, for your reading pleasure, is the CliffsNotes version of what we've been up to.

(Note: I've just realized that I haven't updated this thing for TWO MONTHS! How outrageous! Why have you people not been yelling at me?)

SEPTEMBER

Also known as, "The Month Rebecca went gallivanting with Kate, and left poor Jeremy at home". Yes, I was gallivanting. First, it was in Las Vegas, the city of bright lights, smoke-filled casinos, and dirty people. It was a blast - we stayed out until the early hours of the morning and slept until midday. We danced the night away in some swanky clubs, and drank $15 drinks. We also decided that, while Vegas is a fun place to visit, the novelty soon wears off. After 3 nights of partying, we headed back to DC for a brief respite. Then it was off to New York City, the city that never sleeps. I think we were partied out from Vegas, and we spent a lot of our time in NYC cruising around on a double-decker bus, seeing all the sights. I believe we walked about 10,000 miles in the 4 days we were there. It was fun but, once again, we were both glad to leave. We headed back to DC and, after a day of sightseeing, Kate left me for the relaxing portion of her trip - Hawaii. :( It was an awesome couple of weeks. Very tiring, but awesome nonetheless.

The weekend after Kate left, Jeremy and I decided to go camping. Well, we tried to camp, but it turned into quite the fiasco and we left after only one night. Let me just say that if you plan on going camping when it's forecast to rain, you had better be prepared. We weren't, and we were miserable. Our $30 canopy from Target broke into pieces when we tried to set it up, so we had no real shelter from the rain aside from our tent. Our tent is a small, 3-person dome - not the easiest place to just hang out when you can't go outside. It poured rain the entire night - I'm talking big winds, thunder and lightning, and buckets and buckets of water. Our tent leaked, and we woke up with big puddles in each corner. Water dripped down from the ceiling onto us while we were sleeping. Miserable. We tried to start a fire the next morning, with hopes of it warming us up and drying us off. Alas, it was still raining on and off, we had no dry kindling to get the fire started, and we ended up smoking the campground out. So we threw everything in the car (literally, we just chucked it all in) and left. That weekend got a big, giant FAIL.

Which brings us to...
OCTOBER

Otherwise known as the "The Month that Rebecca and Jeremy were so darn busy, they barely had time to scratch their hoo-ha's".

The first weekend in October we drove down to South Carolina for Melyssa & Dave's wedding. It was a gorgeous wedding, and we're so incredibly happy for the newlywed's. Yay Melyssa & Dave! Here are the photos:

2008-10-06 Melyssa & Dave's wedding

After the wedding we had a week of downtime, then we ran a local 5k race. All I can say about that is...BLAH. I ran pretty horribly, which I partly blame on all the food and wine I consumed at my boss's Octoberfest party the night before, and on my lack of running now that the weather is cooler. Oh well.

The next week, the BEST part of this year arrived in the form of my mom and dad! Yay! Here's where you'll really get the CliffsNotes version, because I know that mom and dad have been sending everyone email updates that could double as novels.

Thursday, October 23rd
Mom and dad arrive shortly after midnight - everyone's tired and ready to hit the hay

Friday

We reluctantly go to work, knowing that mom and dad would need to catch up on sleep. We get home at lunch time, and off we go to Wegman's for some groceries. Get home, put turkey in the oven for dinner, go out again to pick out pumpkins for Halloween.

Saturday

Into DC to pick up Marine Corps Marathon 10k race packets. Fight with thousands of people also picking up race packets. Afterwards, spend a couple hours wandering around Tyson's Corner mall.

Sunday

Up at 5am, on the train, then off to run MCM 10k in 70 minutes (boo). Home, shower, drive for 7 hours to get into New York City. Meet up with mom's friend David and his wife for dinner. Jeremy and I are buggered so we go home. Mom and dad go off exploring.

Monday

Pick up sightseeing tickets and spend the day riding around on top a double decker bus. Order pizza in hotel room for dinner, because everyone's too tired to go out.

Tuesday

Home, James! Then back out to watch the DC Capitals vs. the Nashville Predators. CAPS win in a shootout, we get home around midnight.

Wednesday, Thursday & Friday

Back to work. Mom and dad explore DC on their own (and successfully master the DC Metro system). Friday is also Halloween, so we get to run up and down the stairs 10,000 times to give kids candy.

Saturday

Drive out to Shenandoah National Park for lunch and to see the pretty sights. Take lots of photos of lots of trees with lots of changing leaves.

Sunday

Brunch at Harry's Tap Room - we eat too much and complain about it the whole way home. Meet Bob, Marianne and the whole crew out at Cox Farms. Have fun on slides and hay rides.

Monday & Tuesday

Work again. Mom and dad leave on Tuesday to ride the train down to Florida.

Wednesday thru Sunday

Disney World. I'm convinced that Disney World is the child-appropriate offspring of Las Vegas - lots of bright lights, lots of crazy characters, and purposely built to be huge and confusing so that you to get hopelessly lost, never find your way out and live there forever, spending lots of money on useless trinkets. But it was fun. Jeremy especially loved riding the "It's a Small World" ride. We had to lure him away with cotton candy, otherwise he would have ridden that thing all damn day.*

Saturday night we said our teary goodbyes as mom and dad were leaving super early. :(

And that brings us up to now. Jeremy started a new job on Monday, and I think he's pretty happy with his decision so far. We're both back at work, and glad to be back on our regular schedules. As much as we LOVE having visitors (hint hint), it's always nice to have things go back to normal afterwards. So now we're just relaxing, kicking back, and moving along with our usual lives.

Phew.

*This is actually not true. Jeremy loathes the "It's a Small World" ride. I just like to make fun of him for it.

Biking adventures...

2008-09-10T16:32:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day commuting from work on my bike. I had planned to ride in in the morning, but I didn't have any clear glasses to wear and I didn't want to ride 20 miles with the wind in my eyes. After driving around for 20 minutes trying to find a store that was open (no easy task at 5:50am), I just decided to drive in to work and then maybe ride home.

I did indeed ride home, but it was quite the adventure. First of all, I messed around in the parking garage for a good 15 minutes trying to get the hang of my new pedals. Finally, I figured I had the technique downpat, so I took off. I got about a mile and a half in to my ride, and I had to stop. I called Jeremy and told him I didn't think I could make it home - I was on the verge of tears. I was finding it sooo difficult, and I was absolutely exhausted and convinced I couldn't make it the 20 miles to home. After further inspection, I discovered that I had been riding with my front brakes locked! Oh my! No wonder I was having such a hard time! With that sorted out, I was back on my merry way.

Fast forward to the first intersection I came to where I had to unclip myself from my pedals...Well, I got my left foot out just fine, but I somehow managed to clip it back in immediately after. By that time, I had lost most of my momentum, and...well...you all know what happens when you lose enough momentum on a bike - I toppled over. Yep. I fell flat on my back at a busy intersection, which I'm sure provided some entertainment to some lucky motorists. Luckily the only thing I hurt was my pride. And my poor bike - I hit the pavement so hard that it bent the shifter on an almost 45 degree angle. Hopefully it's only cosmetic and I'll be able to get it fixed.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. Jeremy had started riding out by home, and ended up meeting me just past the halfway point, which was nice. It took us an awfully long time though - with all my mishaps at the beginning, I had given up on trying to make it in under an hour. Oh well. Hopefully we'll have better luck next time!!

Another recipe

2008-09-07T12:04:00.000-07:00

Oh, and I forgot I wanted to post another delicious recipe for you all to try. I had a recipe for a vegetarian version of this sandwich, and decided to add meat one day - it turned out fantastic, and Jeremy agrees that it's one of the tastiest sandwiches ever! Enjoy!

Grilled steak & vegetable sandwich with fresh pesto

1lb flank steak (or any steak really)

sliced cheese - we like provolone

ciabatta rolls

1 green bell pepper (capsicum), cut into 4 large slices (one from each side)

1/2 small onion, sliced

1 portabella mushroom, gills removed

1 zucchini, sliced

a few large handfuls of baby spinach

handful of pine nuts

1/2 handful of parmesan cheese

olive oil

salt & pepper

First, make the pesto by blending the spinach, pine nuts and parmesan cheese in a food processor. Once well blended, add salt & pepper and drizzle in olive oil until it reaches a spreadable consistency. Set aside.

Heat the grill. Season the steak however you please - I like to use a small amount of chipotle powder (very spicy), garlic powder, salt & pepper. Drizzle vegetables with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill the steak and vegetables until desired doneness. Allow the steak to rest for 5 minutes before slicing. Spread the ciabatta generously with the pesto, add a slice of cheese and the grilled and sliced meat & vegetables. Enjoy!!

A much needed update!

2008-09-07T10:05:00.000-07:00

Before people start to throw shoes and other random objects at my head, I thought I had better update this blog of mine. I know it's been absolutely forever since I wrote on here, and so much has been happening that it's hard for me to wrap my head around everything! But I'll try, and I apologize if I leave anything out...

As most of you know already, Jeremy's trip was cut short and he's been home for about a month now. YAY! It's so wonderful to have him home and to have everything back to normal, although it was an adjustment for me to not hog the entire bed!

Since Jeremy's been back we've been pretty busy. The first weekend he got back we went out and bought new bikes! I've still been running, but wanted to find a way to cross-train and had the brilliant idea to commute to work on a bike a couple of days a week. Being that it's the end of summer, the bike store was having a big sale, so Jeremy and I both got some pretty sweet roadbikes - I got a Fuji Finest 2.0 and Jeremy got a Fuji Cross Comp. I guess I ended up with a sweeter bike than Jeremy, because I've been smokin' him on our rides. Ha! I haven't ridden it in to work yet, because the bike came with toe clip pedals and I've had a really hard time using them. Today we put clipless pedals on my bike (clipless meaning I have cleats on the bottom of my shoe, and those cleats snap into the pedal itself) which was an adventure - I toppled over a couple of times because I forgot to unsnap my foot from my pedal! Oops! But, now that I have the new pedals on, I'm planning on braving the 20 miles each way and riding in on Wednesday this week. We'll see how that goes. Here are a couple of pics of Jeremy and I out on a ride one day -

Getting ready to head out

Me before our ride - yes, I'm wearing spandex from head to toe!

Jeremy about to die after our 20 mile ride. He tried so hard, but just couldn't keep up with my speed demon of a bike!

On Saturday, August 23rd I spent the day/night celebrating my friend, Melyssa's up-coming wedding. First was her bridal shower and then later that night about 10 of her friends (including me) hit DC for her bachelorette party. It was such a fun day and an awesome night - we had a giant stretch limo chauffeuring us around for the night, and we had an absolute blast clowning around in the limo and dancing at a bunch of clubs. Their wedding is in October down in South Carolina - I'm sure that it will also be a fantastic time!

Melyssa & I at her shower

All the girls in front of our sweet limo before hitting DC

Melyssa & I

The next weekend I went out with my friend Katie on Friday night and had a great time in DC, as showcased in this photo -

Me, Katie and Bethany

Then, on Monday (last weekend was the Labor Day long weekend) Marianne offered us tickets to go see Jimmy Buffett play at a concert venue here in Virginia. Of course, Jeremy will never turn down Buffett tickets, and we convinced the Gibbs' new au pair, Kylie (who is from Melbourne!) and Katie to join us. We had such a fun day - we got to the venue at about 2pm, set up a canopy and hung out, drinking margarita's and grilling all afternoon. Jimmy Buffett concerts always bring out some crazy people, so we had a great time looking at all the mayhem and enjoying a hot, summer's day with cool drinks. Tuesday was pretty miserable for me at work (Jeremy had the day off, the lucky boy!), but it was definitely worth it. The best part was that Kylie had never heard of Jimmy Buffett and was a little (read: very!) apprehensive about coming, but I think she had an awesome time! She may even be a Parrothead for life!

We had an inflatable pineapple "face frame" that made the rounds during the day....

The girls - Kylie, Katie, and me

All of us with our pineapple cups!

Inside the concert

After so many shenanigans, this weekend Jeremy and I have just been relaxing. On Friday night, I took Jeremy out on a "date". Ok, I didn't really take him out, but I did plan everything and surprised him. To start the night we went to a cigar bar in DC for a drink. I had also stopped off after work and bought Jeremy a couple of cigars - he loves to smoke cigars, but does it very rarely, so I thought it would be a nice treat. Then, after an appetizer and a couple of cocktails, we headed to the Blue Duck Tavern for dinner. The Blue Duck Tavern is constantly rated as one of the best restaurants in DC, and it certainly didn't disappoint! I had the duck breast, which also came with a crispy duck leg, and succotash. Jeremy ordered the braised beef rib and the Tavern's famous french fries (cut extra thick and super crunchy). Both dishes were amazing - it was definitely one of the best restaurant meals I've ever had. If only it wasn't so expensive - I'd eat there every weekend if I could!

Yesterday we were supposed to run a 5km race but DC was hit by the remnants Hurricane Hanna and it was raining buckets and windy. The race still went ahead as planned, but we decided that running in a tropical storm really didn't sound like a good time and so we skipped it. I wish we had gone ahead with it, though, as the rain stopped about 10 minutes before the race was scheduled to start. Oh well.

And I think that's just about it! The next few weeks will also be very hectic - my bestest friend in the whole world, Kate, will be visiting for a couple of weeks and we have some fun things planned. I'll be meeting her out in Las Vegas on Friday, then we'll be back in DC Tuesday, and then it's up to New York City on Wednesday. It will be a fun week for me, but not so fun for Jeremy. But that's ok - we've decided that when my little bro comes over to visit Jeremy will take him to Las Vegas and they can have a boys weekend. Oh dear...

Yummo!

2008-07-06T16:26:00.001-07:00

I just had the most delicious dinner I've had in a long time, and so I thought I would post it here in case anyone wanted to try it. I'd heard of something similar before so I decided to make up my little recipe and give it a shot, and it was definitely worth it!

Chicken, roasted butternut squash & gorgonzola pizza

Ingredients:
olive oil
garlic (I used garlic powder)
onion (I used onion powder)
whole wheat pita
rotisserie chicken
butternut squash
fresh rosemary
pine nuts, toasted
shredded mozarella cheese
crumbled gorgonzola cheese
baby arugula (rocket)
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut butternut squash into bite-size cubes, toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder and rosemary, then roast for approx. 15 - 20 minutes or until tender.

Meanwhile, brush pita with olive oil and sprinkle with garlic and onion. Top with diced chicken, roasted squash, a sprinkle of mozarella and gorgonzola cheeses, then top with toasted pine nuts. Bake in oven for about 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted and starting to brown. Remove from oven, top with a handful of arugula and enjoy!

It was sooo delicious - I was sad when it was all gone!

On a completely different note, this weekend started out terribly for me. It was the 4th of July weekend so we had Friday off work. On Thursday night I was so terribly sad and lonely, and I ended up drinking a bottle of wine and feeling sorry for myself. I was feeling better by Friday though and, no, I don't plan on making solo drinking a regular occurrence! Then on Saturday something awesome happened...

As some of you may know, I've been frequenting a website called Runner's World. After whining and complaining on their discussion boards about how I had nothing to do this weekend, I got a message from a girl named Katie that just moved to DC last week - she wanted to hang out! Yay! So we made some plans and I headed into the city. We had dinner at a fabulous Italian restaurant called Sesto Senso, then we went to a couple of bars for a couple of drinks. We ended up meeting up with an old high school friend of her's, his friend and his friends' girlfriend. It was a really fun night! I'm so glad I've met someone new and young and fun - hopefully we'll get to hang out again soon. It will sure help to make these couple of months go faster if I have someone to spend my weekends with.

Jeremy is doing fine overseas. He's been working a minimum of 12 hours and sometimes up to 14 hours a day, so I think he's pretty exhausted. His routine seems to be sleep, eat, work, eat, and repeat. But he's keeping busy and I think he's been getting along with all his coworkers, so that's good. Oh, and apparently they were doing Jell-O shots the other night! Ha! I still miss him terribly and some days are much harder than others, but at least I get to speak with him every night and we usually send a couple of emails back and forth during the day. I have no idea how military folks do this - at least I know where he is, I know that he's as safe as he can be over there, and I know that he'll be back in just a couple of short months. If he was doing this because he's in the military he'd be gone for a year or maybe 18 months, he'd be out in dangerous areas, taking fire, and I probably wouldn't get to talk to him nearly as often. So, even though I still hate that he's away, I guess I don't have it so bad after all.

Lonely

2008-06-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official...Jeremy is now on the other side of the world, and he'll be there for 3 months. Actually, he's still in transit which means that I'm still terrified for him and won't be happy until I hear from him that he's arrived at his final destination safe and sound. I still can't really believe it. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that I won't see him again until September - it's almost incomprehensible that he'll be away for so long. And whenever I think of it that way, in terms of the entire 3 months, it makes me feel almost sick to my stomach. So I'm trying to just take it one day at a time, and not think about it as a whole. I've re-opened my membership to Blockbuster Online and have finally signed up for a library card, so I'll be spending a lot of time watching movies that Jeremy has no interest in and reading books without him bugging me about being boring. Ha!

In fact, I watched an incredible movie on the weekend that I'm sure Jeremy would have hated (actually, we probably would never have even considered watching it together) - it was The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It's a true story about the editor of Elle magazine who suffers a massive stroke and is left completely paralyzed, only able to blink his eyes. He ends up authoring a book, "dictating" his story by spelling out words by blinking. It's truly incredible movie and I'm glad Jeremy wasn't here to complain about watching it - it's a French movie, and Jeremy detests movies with subtitles! So I guess at least one "good" thing may come out of his not being home - I get to watch all the subtitled movies I want!!

I'm also hoping to take up some time by "training" for the Marine Corps Marathon 10k that Jeremy and I will be running in October. I really want to run it in less than 60 minutes, which means I need to shave a whopping 10 minutes off the time I ran the Capitol Hill Classic 10k in! It will be tough, but we did run the Capitol Hill Classic with absolutely no real training (we only ran the distance once before the race), and so I think that if I can stick to my schedule I should be able to come in under 60 minutes. We'll see. I've started another blog to document my training/running so that I don't bore those of you who could care less...you can find it here if you want to check it out (there's also a link to it over on the right-hand side of this blog).

And that's about it really. Oh, and below are some photos from our camping trip with Joci. Check out the pictures of our bear friends!

Memorial Day Camping

I might just be a little crazy!

2008-05-22T07:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I headed out the door for a run, planning to do one of our regular routes that take us 4.6 miles through the neighborhood. I got about a mile and a half into it, and suddenly the heaven's opened up! It was DUMPING rain on me - I'm not just talking about a light shower, but a torrential downpour! Plus the wind was blowing at about 50 miles/hour! I felt like I was in a hurricane! Ok, well not really, but it was pretty terrible. So there I am, 2 miles away from home, soaking wet and cold. At that point I really had no choice but to press on - there's a quote I love that says something about how the thing with running is that once you realize that you don't really want to be there you're already miles from home! Ain't that the truth!? So I kept on running, albeit like I was drunk because the wind kept blowing me all over the place. I'd see people driving past me in their (dry) cars, and I could just hear their thoughts "What the heck is she doing out in this?", "Ooooh...sucks it be her!", and "She's crazy!". All very valid points. But I kept going, cut my run a little short, got in 3.8 miles and jumped in a hot shower immediately upon my arrival home. Of course, the minute I got to our house the rain stopped. Typical!

To top it all off, my blisters came back with a vengeance! I think it's time to buy some of those $12/pair socks. For that price they'd better give my feet wings!

Oh, the joys of running.

10km is a long way to run!

2008-05-19T06:33:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it! Jeremy and I ran our first 10km race on Sunday. It was GREAT! Aside from a couple of blisters I still feel great afterwards - I'm not sore at all, which is incredible. It was a pretty tough course - the race director must have the devil on his shoulder whispering mean ideas in his ear because there was a killer hill at the end. Why they can't put the bad stuff at the beginning while you're still fresh and eager is beyond me! Oh well.

Sunday morning was absolutely perfect - low 60's, a little cloudy but still nice. Our 6-mile run during the week had been pretty slow and painful so we lined up towards the back of the pack to keep out of everyone's way. We started out extremely slow (the lady at mile marker 1 called out our time of 13-something minutes), and it seemed like everyone sped on ahead. At one point, there were only a handful of people behind us - when I noticed that I very nearly threw in the towel. I didn't want to be so far back - truth be told, I was embarrassed. I figured there was no way we could keep up and run a respectable time, and I would HATE to be last! After mile marker 1 we hit the old baseball park - we had to run around the perimeter. I think we ran downhill for a moment and then we had to run back up, which was pretty tough. Somehow, we started to pick up the pace and our strides were much longer than they are during our training runs, which felt great! All those people who had started out so fast began to slow down and we were catching up! We started picking people off and when they called out our time at mile marker 2 we had run about 2 minutes faster than our mile 1 pace. The next few miles were great - we had found our rhythm, and I just kept picking a person in front of us, we'd chase them down, then pick the next person. We were doing a lot of passing and not getting passed by many. We had one quick water stop (I learned I CANNOT drink and run at the same time), then it was down Capitol Hill, along the straight-away and back up. At the base of the hill was a guy with a cowbell, holding a sign that said "Git er done!" - what a riot! Then came the hill and boy oh boy was it BIG!! I really, really tried to run the whole thing, but towards the top I felt almost faint and we had to walk for a minute. With the mean ol' hill behind us, we picked up the pace again, and pushed hard for the 3/4 mile of so until the finish. I felt great crossing the line, and although our time was still slow, we ran 5 mins faster than our training run during the week. We finished in 70:26.

I definitely learned a few things from this race -
1. Competitors at a 10km are a LOT different from those at a 5km. Quite clearly they are people who have been running for some time - while we were somewhere in the middle of our 5k race, we were definitely towards the end of the 10k.
2. I'm not coordinated enough to drink and run, as learned when I splashed water up my nose.
3. Hills are hard, and will be incorporated more frequently into our training runs.
4. It's ok to have a slow start - it just means you'll feel great when you start passing all those folks who went out too fast!
5. I need to get better socks to stop my poor feet from suffering with blisters!

I felt like it was a GREAT race and, even though I was really nervous at the beginning and didn't think I could do it, I'm so glad we ran. Now I have to work on getting FAST, so we can give mum and dad something to cheer for when they watch us run the Marine Corps Marathon 10km race in October.

The Mustang is no more

2008-05-04T14:42:00.000-07:00

Much to Jeremy's dismay, today we traded in the Mustang for a 2008 Ford Fusion. Because I have to drive almost 30 miles each way to & from work, we decided it might be time for a more fuel efficient car. We had been looking for a good week or two, done lots of research and looked at a couple of cars. The first was a 2007 Sebring sedan which, although it looked gorgeous on the outside, was terrible on the inside - all beige, cheap plastics. Ick! Then we had a look at a 2009 Toyota Corolla, which was actually a really nice car. I guess they sell about 10 million of those a week, because they only had one that had all the options we wanted at the dealer, so we put down a deposit in the event they could get one in for us. Then today Jeremy noticed that Ford was offering great financing, so we went to look at the Fusions. And even though we really did trade down - from a V8 to a 4-cylinder, muscle car to family car - it sure doesn't seem like it! We decided on a red Fusion, with the sport package. It has a 6-disc CD changer, 18" aluminium wheels, sunroof, reverse sensing (so it beeps at me before I hit something), and leather seats (black with red inserts). It really is a NICE car! Plus, and here comes the best part, it has a backseat that actual people can fit in (not just elves!)!! It gets much better gas mileage than the Mustang, and it's the type of car that will accommodate our one day growing family. It's perfect!! YAY!!

A busy weekend (and a long awaited update)

2008-04-29T15:31:00.000-07:00

This weekend Jeremy and I were probably the busiest we've been on a weekend for a long time! Saturday wasn't quite so hectic, but we did spend a lot of our day either in the grocery store or in the mall. We considered catching a movie, but knew that Sunday would be absolutely insane so we just hung out at home Saturday night.

Sunday began super early for us - 4:45am!! I can't say that I've ever seen what a Sunday looks like at 4:45am, and now that I've seen it I'm ok with not ever seeing it again! Anyway, we had to get up so ridiculously early because....drumroll please....we were running a 5km race! Jeremy and I had signed up for the George Washington Parkway Classic waaaay back, and after a few months of running regularly (actually, it was mostly irregularly) it was finally time to race! We've had absolutely beautiful weather here lately - sunny, deliciously warm and sometimes even hot - and then, wouldn't you know it, Sunday was cold and overcast. The race started down by the water, so for a good hour or so Jeremy and I got to enjoy the wind and the cold that large bodies of water usually bring. Standing there in my shorts and long sleeve tech shirt I felt severely underdressed, and wished that I had the sense to dress like a giant banana like one of our fellow runners! Finally, everyone moved to the starting line and we were off! We took the run really slow, as I had not been running very well recently and I wanted to make sure I ran the whole thing. Thank goodness we did start out slow, because it meant that we could blow past all the people who had started out too fast! It felt so good to be running and actually PASSING people! I'm probably the least athletic person I know and here I was, running 5km on a cold, nasty Sunday morning for FUN! And it really was fun - I'm so glad we did it and I'm so excited to push myself even harder in May when we run our 10km race. We ended up coming 588th & 589th out of 867 people. I wasn't too happy with our time - a pitiful 34:55 - but I felt really good at the end, almost like I could do it all over again. Next time we'll beat the pants off that time! They had professional photographers there taking pics of people as they crossed the finish line, so keep your eyes peeled and I'll post those pics once we get them.

After our race we quickly grabbed some food (they had yummy bagels and granola bars and fruit) and dashed back home to relax for an hour or two before we had to head back out again. Jeremy had scored free tickets to a baseball game - the Washington Nationals were playing the Chicago Cubs! Being that he's from Chicago, Jeremy's team is the Cubs so of course we couldn't pass up free tickets! The weather was still pretty miserable, but luckily the tickets we had allowed us access to the "Club" level, so we escaped inside and sat by the bar instead of freezing our butts off outside. Here are a couple of pics...nothing too exciting.

At the entrance to the new, fancy Nationals stadium

Hanging out inside at the bar

Our view

Jeremy's teams' logo spray-painted onto some guys head!

On our way out

Then, after the ballgame, we headed back home to feed the dogs and then it was back out to meet my girlfriend Melyssa and a couple of other people for dinner at PF Changs. After catching up and enjoying a delicious meal, we finally made it home for good at about 9:30pm. Whew! We were both so exhausted, we decided to live life on the edge and sleep in till 5:45am Monday morning (instead of the 4:45 that we usually wake up at), and then it was back to work as usual.

Other than our super-busy weekend we haven't been to busy lately. Now that we're homeowners we've been trying to cut back our spending a little, which means we don't go out quite as much as we used to. Over the last month we've still managed to fit in Marisa's birthday party, a few dinners out and a round of mini-golf, and we've enjoyed many a margarita on our balcony now that we've got a grill and outdoor setting.

This weekend we're planning on having a nice dinner to celebrate our 1-year anniversary. Can you believe it's been one whole year already??! It seems like only yesterday we were up at Maleny praying that it wouldn't rain! I guess it's true that time flies when you're having fun - this year has certainly been wonderful and exciting, and I'm so happy!! Life is definitely good for me right now - I have the most handsome and kind and loving husband in the world, a beautiful house and two annoying dogs! What more could a girl ask for?!

Joe & Anne's visit

2008-02-24T12:41:00.001-08:00

Well, today is Sunday and we've said farewell to our Aussie visitors. We had such a wonderful week with Joe & Anne! We saw so much of the city (even some things that neither Jeremy nor I had seen) and are now thoroughly exhausted! Here's the lowdown of our week:

Tuesday night
We ate a big roast turkey dinner - turkey, stuffing w/sausage, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, carrots, asparagus & gravy. Mmm mmmm mmmm.

Wednesday
Jeremy had to work, so I took Joe and Anne into the city on my own. After searching and searching for a parking spot at the train station, we finally made it into DC about lunchtime. Then it was time to eat at Cosi, where Joe & Anne had quite the experience ordering - they definitely weren't ready to deal with a busy lunch at a sandwich shop!! Then it was off to the Museum of Natural History and then the Air & Space Museum.

Oh, and the most exciting part about Wednesday - it snowed!! Joe & Anne got to witness white fluffy snowflakes! What a lot of fun they had...and I thought I was a big kid in the snow!?

For dinner we decided to order real delicious American pizza (sorry Eagle Boys, you don't even come close!) which was yummy!

Thursday
We woke Thursday to a beautiful (but cold) day with lots of sunshine, so we decided to make the most of it and hit as many monuments as we could. We saw -

Arlington National Cemetary
Iwo Jima Memorial
The White House
the Korean War Memorial
the Lincoln Memorial
the Reflecting Pool
the World War II Memorial
a tiny memorial for George Mason
the Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Phew!! Somewhere in between all that we took them to our favorite Americanized-Mexican joint, Chipotle. Then, after a loooooong day in the city, we headed home to eat lasagna (made with rice pasta for Joe), garlic bread and salad.

Friday

We had an early morning Friday, which was slightly impeded by a layer of ice that had formed overnight. Joe & Anne were delighted to watch Jeremy scrape the ice off the car - that sure doesn't happen often in Toowoomba!

Then it was back to the city to go up to the top of the Washington Monument. Unfortunately it was an overcast day, so the view wasn't all that spectacular, but it was still a fun time. After that it was off to a much less fun time at the Holocaust Museum, which turned out to be a horrifying, sickening, and incredibly humbling experience. I definitely won't ever forget what I saw there, although I don't think I need to return any time soon.

After that sombering hour and a half, we headed to one of our favorite breweries, Gordon Biersch, for lunch and a beer. The minute we pulled into the parking spot we got a call from Greg and Colleen saying that they had arrived in the city, so they decided to come join us for lunch which was really great! I hadn't seen them for years, so it was a nice suprise to get to catch up with them.

After lunch we headed across the street to the Spy Museum, which is always a fun time. After all that we decided to take Joe and Anne to one of the big ol' malls close by. We were all pretty exhausted, and the shopping didn't last very long, so we decided to head home for the night.

Saturday

We slept in a little on Saturday, then headed out to find a bookstore (for Annie of course!), a CD store (for Joe), and a couple of other things. Then we drove into Georgetown for a little more shopping and then to go see the National Cathedral (an awe-inspiring sight!).

On Saturday Joe and Anne kindly shouted us to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Sequoia, as an early birthday treat. To our delight we discovered that the restaurant still had their "Restaurant Week" special running, so we got a delicious 3-course meal for $30! Bargain!! Dinner was absolutely wonderful, and of course the company was even better!! Thanks so much, Joe and Anne, for a wonderful, wonderful time!

It was so great to spend so much time with them, and I hope they had a fantastic time exploring our great city! We sure had a great time being tour guides for a week - what a fun job!

Here are some pics to entice all you other Aussies to come visit us!

Joe & Anne's visit

Running

2008-02-19T04:40:00.000-08:00

Well, after reading a discussion on my new "favorite website to spend a whole lot of hours perusing", Runners World, I have decided to begin posting the miles I run and all that fun stuff on here. That way, all you non-believers can see just how well I'm doing at this whole "running" thing! Here goes...

After a miserable two weeks of running where I couldn't get past a mile without getting a stitch, I had a miraculous breakthrough last Tuesday - I ran the entire distance of a 5k race without stopping once! I've never been able to run that far in my life - I have never been a good runner, except for those couple of years when I was eleven/twelve where I ran the 800m in school. Anywho, since last Tuesday I've been on a roll (even though I've been slack and have only run twice since then). The following Thursday I ran 3.38miles (for you Aussies, that's almost 5.5kms). And then, yesterday I ran a whopping 4 miles!! That's 6.43km! Holy cow! I was so darn excited and proud that I could do something like that. I even upped my speed a little, knocking 30 seconds off my mile/minute time. At this rate I'll be flying when it comes time for our 5k race in April. SWEET!! I'm even considering signing up for the Army Ten Miler in October - we'll see how training goes.

On a completely different note, Joe and Anne arrive today! WOOHOO! I'm excited - it will be a really fun week. I only hope they don't freeze! The forecast is calling for some snow while they're here - it probably won't be much at all but still, it will be fun for them to be here when it snows. I'm thinking we may have to go shopping for some coats as soon as they hop off the plane....

See, we're still here!

2008-02-10T15:34:00.000-08:00

I figured I had better write something on this blog of mine before people started throwing things at me, so here goes...

Wow, I guess I haven't written anything on here since Thanksgiving!? How time flies! And yet, I still don't really feel like I have all that many interesting things to say...hmmm...I guess I'll just start where I left off.

Christmas
Jeremy and I had a very quiet Christmas at home - just us and the dogs. It was definitely a big change from what both of us are used to. Usually Christmas day is busy, busy - lots of relatives, lots of presents, lots of wine and good food. This year (or should I say "last year") we woke relatively early - it would have been much later except my darling family decided to call us at the crack of dawn! - and opened our presents with Christmas music playing in the background. Then Jeremy made a delicious omelette with fresh asparagus and blue cheese, and we watched "A Christmas Story" on TV. The next day it was back to work for both of us. Actually, neither of us took any time off over Christmas, so that too was a big change from the usual! But at the same time, it was kind of nice to have a quiet, relaxing Christmas - our first Christmas in our own house!

New Year's
Our New Year's Eve was spent over at our friends', Brian and Gina's, house. Here are a couple of pictures...

The boys - Brian, Mark & Jeremy

The girls

Hmmm...I forget who these two are?

The group

The group doing a shot of tequila.

I had an especially quiet night because I was on antibiotics for pneumonia! Yuck! So there was no drinking for me (except one glass of wine and, of course, a sip of champagne), which meant that for once Jeremy was allowed to drink all night. Haha. Nah, he wasn't too bad at all. It was a fun night!

January
Mid January Jeremy's parents came to visit us for a weekend. They had originally intended to fly out Friday night, but got stuck in a snowstorm in Chicago and had to postpone their flight to Saturday morning. They arrived mid-morning, and we just hung around the house and hit up a couple of stores. Poor Larry was a little under the weather with a cold, so we had a quiet dinner at home and I taught Sheila how to play Viva Pinata on our XBox. Sunday morning turned out to be a little more eventful...Adelaide had made her way into the guest room and had discovered a bag of Hershey's Kisses in Sheila's purse. I went upstairs and found her with her head in the bag! After inspecting the room to make sure she hadn't destroyed anything else, Sheila came to tell us that the bag had actually been pretty full - by her calculations, Adelaide had probably eaten about 25-30 pieces of chocolate!! Worried that she had gone and poisoned herself, Jeremy called the vet and they said to bring her in. So Jeremy made a trip to the emergency room, where they induced vomiting to get all the chocolate out of her system. Even though the vet was astounded that whole chocolates came up (with foil wrapping intact and everything!), Adelaided came home none the worse for wear. Phew! After that episode, we all went out to our favorite winery, Chrysalis Vineyards, for a wine tasting. Then it was off to the airport, where we said goodbye for now to Larry and Sheila. It was great to see them, and exciting to have our first guests stay in our new house!

And that brings us up to February. This weekend Jeremy painted our bathroom a pale green to match our bedspread. Oh, and I forgot to add in to January's section that we painted our lower level a pretty taupe color. Before it was a hideous shade of limey-green - it looks much better now! I think Jeremy's plan is to eventually paint our main level the same as downstairs, but after discovering just how hard painting really is (my arms were soooo tired from the roller) I think I may boycott any future attempts and leave it to the man of the house! I'll delegate myself to being supervisor! It's fun to make little additions to our house that make it more like a home to us - no more worrying about getting permission to paint or hang things on the walls.

My other piece of exciting news is that I've signed Jeremy and I up to run a 5km race in April! CRAZY!! I've been getting up at 4:45am and using the gym at work, and yesterday Jeremy and I ran 3.7 miles around our neighborhood! Well, we didn't really run that far - we probably ran about half that way - but at least it's a step in the right direction! All those out there that know me, now's the time to pick your jaw's up off the floor! I'm even keeping an eye out for other races that might pop up in between now and April - I'm really trying to get into this whole running thing, and I'm actually kind of enjoying it! I'm sure it will become even more enjoyable once my distance improves and I start running faster..we'll see. I may actually be semi-athletic yet!

And I think that just about catches the blog up. Work is going well for both Jeremy and I - I have a new Vice President starting in our divisions tomorrow so I'm sure it will be an interesting and busy day. We're also very excited to have our second Aussie visitors - Joe and Anne will be arriving in a little over a week! Yay! It will be great to see them and to show them around DC - knowing Anne-Maree I'm sure that she'll have a fantastic time immersing herself in all DC's history and museums and monuments. It will be a fun week!

I promise I'll be back after Joe and Anne depart to tell everyone about our time together! Until then, stay safe!

Oh, and by the way...

2007-11-22T17:14:00.000-08:00

We're finally almost all unpacked in our new place! Yay!! Here are photos now that (almost) everything's in it's place...

Our house - UNPACKED!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2007-11-22T05:52:00.000-08:00

So this morning when I woke up I decided to write on here what I was thankful for. My list ended up being obvious things, like how I'm thankful for my wonderful husband and for my family. Then, while I was in the shower, I realized that I really should give thanks for all the things I take for granted every day. It's so easy for us to get caught up with what we "want", we lose sight of all the wonderful things we "have". So here's my list of what I'm thankful for:

I'm so incredibly thankful that we have a warm, safe place to come home to every night. - Jeremy and I always look at the huge houses in our area and say "I want a house like that!" or, now that we own a place, we're always looking for ways to make it "better". Then I think about the millions of people in this country who sleep under bridges or in shelters, and it makes our house seem like a palace. To some people, owning a house like ours is a dream - we stay warm and dry, it's clean and sturdy...it really is our very own castle.
I'm thankful for clean, running water - we recently watched an epidsode of Extreme Home Makeover where the families didn't have running water in their house. Instead, they had a hose coming in their kitchen window. I can't even imagine what it would be like to not have long, hot showers, or water to wash our clothes and dishes with or, most importantly, clean water to drink. Running water really is one of our little luxuries, and it's certainly one we take for granted. I don't even think twice about hopping in the shower, or filling a pot of water for spaghetti. Imagine what it would be like if simple tasks like these didn't happen so simply...
I'm thankful that we have enough money to buy winter coats, and hot coffee, and shoes and socks - since it's started getting cold out, every day that I walk to work from the Metro station I grumble to myself about the cold. Then, when I walk over the top of the grates that lead down to the Metro and feel a rush of warm air, I think of all the homeless people in the city who sleep on those grates in winter so that they can stay warm. And here I am, in my $200 coat, with a scarf and gloves, on my way to my warm office to drink some hot coffee, and I'm complaining about being cold!? How dare I?!
I'm thankful that Jeremy and I are healthy - we have our sight, our hearing, all our fingers and toes, and we never have to go to hospitals. How many people can say that? So many people spend their lives in and out of hospitals and doctor's offices. I can't imagine the toll something like that would take on you eventually - physically and emotionally. I pray that we remain healthy for a long time.
I'm thankful that we always have good, healthy food in our house - we are never without the foods we want, even though we often complain that we don't have anything or that we're so sick of eating the same stuff. On another episode of Extreme Home Makeover, a family received enough frozen chicken to feed them for a year. When they heard this, the father broke down in tears. When you see that a freezer full of boring ol' chicken is enough to reduce a grown man to tears, you realize how good you have it when you can afford to by fresh, exciting foods every day.
And finally, I'm so, so, so thankful that I grew up surrounded by family and friends who love and support me - there are millions of kids in foster homes, or living on the streets, who don't have a strong foundation to build their lives upon. Every single opportunity that has been afforded me has come about through what was and is provided to me by my wonderful parents and my brother, my grandparents, my extended family, and my friends. Nothing that I have done would have been possible if I didn't have them to look up to, to provide me with endless love and support, kind words and even harsh words when I messed up. They helped me accomplish everything I have and, for that, I think I'm the most thankful person in the world!

(PS - And I give thanks to Kathleen, for sending me these fun Thanskgiving pictures!)

It's Official!

2007-11-11T04:37:00.000-08:00

Jeremy and I are now officially home owners! Woohoo!! We closed on our house on Thursday afternoon, have given in our keys to our old place and are moving in! Well, we've already moved everything into the new place - now we're just slowly wading though the piles of boxes, trying to get everything in it's place. Jeremy and I have both decided to never move again - moving is the absolute worst! Not to mention a health hazard - I was certain that Jeremy, myself and one of the moving boys were going to die yesterday as we moved the couch. Imagine the position they were in - Jeremy and the movers had somehow managed to squeeze our rather large couch up to the top of the stairwell (which was no easy feat, let me tell you!). However, once the guy who was going backwards up the stairs reached the top of the staircase, he was faced with a dilemma - there's only about 4 feet of room between the stairs and the wall, and to get into the living room you have to take a sharp right turn. Of course, an oversized couch doesn't lend itself well to taking sharp right turns. So there they were, couch wedged in our staircase, Jeremy and the moving guy bracing themselves against the bottom of it trying desparately not to lose their grip and face certain death by couch-squashing. The boys decided that the only way to get the couch into the living room was to stand it up on one end and just kind of slide it around the corner. Geez!! Here I am, standing at the bottom of the staircase, and all I see is a giant couch slowly but surely raise up to stand on one end - a scary sight! All it would have taken for the couch to come crashing down on my poor husband and his helper (and ultimately myself at the bottom of the stairs) would be for one of the boys to slip or lose their grip. My stomach was doing somersaults the whole time - I was certain that we were all going to die terrible deaths!! But we didn't, and the couch eventually made it to it's designated spot in the living room. Good job boys!! Jeremy has now decided that when it comes time for us to move again, he's either cutting the couch into pieces with a chainsaw, or he's pushing over the balcony. Both are excellent ideas.

So, after many (many, MANY) trips up and down stairs, in and out of doors, and a whole lot of grunts and groans, we are in our new place. We slept here on Friday night on the floor - not the best idea but oh well. We had champagne and take-out Thai food last night as a celebration. Now today it's more unpacking and putting beds and futons and desks back together, as well as a little grocery shopping and all that fun stuff. Woo!

Here are some pictures of us and the new place - you'll have to forgive the fact that we look like homeless people in some of the photos (12 hours of moving can make you look a little disheveled).

Our house!

Everything else is going great. I've been at my new job for going on three weeks now and I love it! I'm busy all day long, which is nice, and the people I work with/for are great! I'm really enjoying it. Now all I have to do is find 10 people to refer so I can get a $40,000 bonus. Ooooh yeah!

Jeremy also started his new position on Thursday. Well, I guess Monday is really when he'll start, because on Thursday he spent his day meeting people and going out to lunch (and then left early to go to closing) and he had Friday off. I think he'll really enjoy it though - he's mentioned that the people he's met so far have been nice. Hopefully it will all go smoothly!

New beginnings

2007-10-13T06:04:00.000-07:00

Well, as most of you probably know by now, Jeremy and I a smack-bang in the middle of buying our own house!!! WHOOHOO!! Well, it's actually a townhouse, but it will most definitely be our own! Here are some pics from the web...

Front

The kitchen

Kitchen again

The living room

Master bedroom

Second Master bedroom - don't worry, they painted over the blue walls to match the other Master bedroom.

It's the perfect place for Jeremy and I to start out in. All three bedrooms have a bathroom and there's also a half-bath off the kitchen; it has a two car garage which is almost unheard of in townhouses in this area (unless you buy a $700,000 one); the kitchen has upgraded appliances; the paint is fantastic; there are surround-sound speakers built in to a few of the rooms; it has an alarm system; and the neighbourhood is wonderful!! It will be the perfect neighbourhood for Jeremy and I to start a family (don't worry, it's still not going to happen just yet!) - there are great schools literally a half-mile from our place, there are lots of young families in the area and they're building a town center with restaurants, grocery stores and shops just down the street. Our realtor and mortgage broker are cutting us an absolutely unbelievable deal - Jeremy and I will be out of pocket a total of $1100 - which is great because without their help and understanding we wouldn't be able to buy this place. But we can and we are and we're both sooooooo excited!!! Hopefully we'll be in by the end of this month. Woo!!

The other new beginning is for me - I'm starting a new job at Jeremy's company, CACI, on the 22nd. I'll be an administrative assistant in the Government Compliance and Internal Audits divisions. I'm excited to start there - it seems like the job will keep me busy, and the VP of the divisions told me that there is definitely room for me to grow while I'm there. The people I'll be working with are all lovely (so far) and Jeremy always raves about how fantastic CACI is.

And that's all our major news. Now I have to go take Adelaide to the vet because she's having ear issues - she keeps scratching at them and shaking her head around, which gets particularly annoying at 2am. Yuck!

Camping

2007-09-04T03:47:00.000-07:00

Last year for Jeremy's birthday I got him all set up to go camping - with a tent, sleeping bag, chairs, pots and pans, etc. This weekend we finally got to use all our gear - we headed out to Shenandoah National Park to camp over the Labor day long weekend. We couldn't have picked a better weekend to go - the weather was absolutely perfect and the park was amazing! We took the dogs along with us and, much to our surpise, they were actually pretty well behaved! In fact, we think that they were among the better behaved dogs there. It was so nice to just sit around reading and staying warm in front of the fire. We also hiked a little - we did a 1.7 mile hike the Saturday we arrived, and then a 4 mile hike on Sunday. The hike we did on Sunday took us out to Rapidan Camp, which is where President Hoover used to go to relax and unwind. Here are the photos!

Camping

And that's about all that we've been doing this last week or so. Jeremy starts his new job in two weeks, which is very exciting. We've been researching houses on the internet, and hopefully will go talk to the bank and to a realtor sometime soon (fingers crossed!).

Oh, and I've decided that for our one year anniversary/honeymoon (since we didn't get to have a honeymoon after our wedding in Australia) Jeremy and I are going here (Bora Bora). Pretty sweet huh!?

Our first Aussie visitor!

2007-08-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

Well, Jeremy and I finally had our first visitor from across the seas! Ben arrived shortly after midnight on Monday (or should I say, Tuesday) and left us on Saturday. We had a great time showing him around, even though it was stinking hot and humid. Hopefully he had fun too - he did seem a little worn out from all the sightseeing we did!

Tuesday
- Jeremy and I both had to work, and I figured that Ben would probably just want to catch up on some shut-eye anyway, so he spent the day at our apartment.

Wednesday
We had a busy day Wednesday! We saw
- the White House (from the front, and the back)
- the Washington Monument
- Lincoln Memorial
- Reflecting Pool (which is what Jenny ran through to get to Forrest in "Forrest Gump")
- World War II Memorial (although they were doing maintenance, so the water was all drained)
- Korean War Memorial
- Museum of Natural History
Then it was home, where I made Ben a traditional turkey dinner. Well, we didn't cook a whole turkey, just a breast with the bone in. But it was still delicious!!

Thursday
Jeremy had Thursday off as well, so it was back into the city to see
- Arlington National Cemetery (my favorite place in the whole city), and the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
- Iwo Jima Memorial (my favorite memorial in the city)
- ESPNZone for lunch and some drinks/games
- Georgetown, where we had some drinks that some old guy paid for (Ben and he became old friends) and some barbeque dinner at Old Glory

Friday
Jeremy worked a half day, so Ben and I had to fend for ourselves in the morning. It was back into the city for
- International Spy Museum
- Chipotle for lunch...mmmmm....Chipotle
- Air and Space Museum, where Jeremy met us
- Ben's first Major League Baseball game, Washington Nationals vs. the New York Mets

Saturday
Ben's flight was at 2:45pm, and after a few beers the night before we weren't up to doing too much. We went to
- Tysons Corner mall, so Ben could get a true taste of Americana
- Great Falls National park. **Fun bit of trivia - they constructed a channel with "locks" so that boats could make it down river without having to navigate the rocky rapids. Once they reached their destination, the boatmen would dismantle their boats, sell the lumber and then walk the 190 miles back home. Whoa!!

And that was it! Phew!! We certainly had a busy few days, but it was a lot of fun!

Here are the few photos I took...

Ben's visit

Yummy!

2007-08-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

Jeremy and I have taken to making our own pasta sauces, instead of buying the bottled stuff from the store. We decided that it's better for us, and we don't particularly like the fact that one of the first ingredients listed on the store bought stuff is "corn syrup"...eewww. Anyway, I usually just make it with a big can of crushed tomatoes, onions, garlic, green peppers (capsicums for you Aussies), mushrooms and sometimes sausage (Aussies, that'd be Italian sausage, not regular sausages) and a splash of red wine. Tonight I decided to try a recipe out of the "Cooking Light" cookbook, and it turned out to be sooooooooo delicious I figured I would share the recipe with all you other wanna-be chefs!

Three-tomato sauce

1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper
4 Roma/plum tomatoes, diced
1 14oz can of diced tomatoes
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes in oil (I used closer to a 1/2 cup), drained and chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 box (13oz) of pasta

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan. I used the oil from the sundried tomatoes for extra yum! Saute the onion for about 5 mins, or until opaque. Add the garlic, saute for about 1 minute. Add the sugar, salt, pepper, and all the tomatoes. Reduce heat to medium/medium-low and cook for about 20 mins, or until the liquid is almost all evaporated. Add a couple of tablespoons of the water from the cooking pasta (this is a trick I learned from watching many cooking shows - the starch in the water helps to "bind" everything together, and makes the sauce extra thick and yummy). Toss the cooked pasta with the sauce, add the fresh parsley and eat! Yummo!! The recipe also called for 1/4 cup of goat cheese to be mixed in at this stage, but we didn't have any and it was just as tasty. We served it with garlic bread and parmesan, and a glass of slightly chilled Shiraz.

What a GREAT dinner! Jeremy likes my other sauce better, because it gives him more sauce to dip his garlic bread in, but I loved this sauce because it was so much more authentic (and delicious). It's a myth that Italians eat their pasta with a lot of sauce...it's usually just enough to coat the pasta. I think that everyone should make their own pasta sauce...it's so much better for you, and it's just as good!!

And Jeremy wanted me to post the other recipe I made on Sunday, which was also absolutely delicious! We've done pretty well choosing recipes these past couple of days!

Turkey Cakes with Sweet Chilli Sauce

2 cups cooked chopped turkey (or chicken)
1 cup cooked basmati rice (yum!)
1/2 cup chopped water chesnuts
1/4 cup finely chopped celery
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped green onions
2 egg whites
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper (cayenne)
ground black pepper
2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds

Mix everything together, form into six patties and cook on medium/medium-low in 1 tablespoon of oil until browned on both sides (about 5 mins per side). Serve with sweet chilli sauce. Mmmmm...tasty!

These were a big hit at our house...hopefully someone else will get some good use out of them too!

Chicago and Jimmy Buffett

2007-07-31T16:42:00.000-07:00

What a combination! Yesterday, Jeremy and I returned home from a 4-day trip to Chicago and Lake Geneva for the Jimmy Buffett concert. We had a very busy couple of days, and are still exhausted.

After dropping off the dogs at their doggy hotel, we left early Thursday morning for the Windy City. We arrived at our swanky hotel - we stayed at the Hilton - and off we set for some fun! We walked down to Lake Michigan, stopping at the Buckingham Memorial Fountain, and then made our way down to Navy Pier. Navy Pier was a lot of fun - we went on a giant Ferris wheel, walked through a pretty greenhouse, and ate ice-cream from Ben & Jerry's. Then it was back to the hotel to get dressed for our dinner cruise on the Spirit of Chicago. We got all gussied up - I wore a cute dress I had bought especially for the occasion, and Jeremy donned his suit - only to find when we arrived that most people on board were simply wearing cargo shorts and t-shirts!! I guess they didn't read the dress code, which calls for "business casual to dressy". Oh well. In the same vein, our food left much to be desired and the DJ was kind of tacky. But the views were beautiful, and the Blues band that was playing on the upper deck was actually pretty good. All-in-all, I definitely wouldn't recommend paying the money, but it was still an ok way to spend the night. After the cruise, we headed back to the Hilton and had a couple of drinks at Kitty O'Shea's, an Irish pub attached to our hotel. They had a (real Irish) lady and a man playing Irish music and they turned out to be excellent, which made our night much better.

Friday morning we woke up relatively early and, after breakfast at the Artist's Cafe, we decided to hit the Art Institute before heading up to Wisconsin. If anyone is ever in Chicago, make sure that you reserve at least a day (you'll probably need two) to explore the museum...it was amazing! We'd been to the Corcoran Gallery in DC, and I had been to the National Gallery of Art in DC without Jeremy, but they simply don't compare to the Art Institute. It was incredible...it's hard to believe that right in front of you are pieces of priceless art by Monet and Renoir and artists from all over the world. It was beautiful. I just wish that we had more time to spend - we only had about an hour and we only got to see 3 of the 15 collections (and that was without taking time to really read about each piece). Oh well...I'm just grateful we got to see any of it at all.

After that it was off to Nikki and Corey's place before heading up to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We arrived at our hotel, unloaded our bags, and headed down to the bar for a cocktail and a light lunch. Then we walked around the town, which was very similar to Montville or Maleny in that it's touristy and family-oriented. We had dinner at a cute little Italian bistro (and sat next to a group of middle-aged people who tanned waaaay too much and enjoyed a little too much plastic surgery), and then it was off to Hog's and Kisses for some drinks and dancing. We finally made it home and curled up in bed, ready for a big day at the concert on Saturday.

We arrived at Alpine Valley at about 2pm, and set up for an afternoon of tailgating. Tailgating at a Jimmy Buffett concert is absolutely crazy - there were some amazing set-ups and a lot (and I mean a LOT) of very drunk people doing very silly things. We pretty much just hung around our car, drank margaritas and beer, and enjoyed the beautiful weather. The concert was a lot of fun, even though we were stuck at the very back and couldn't really see or hear Jimmy. We somehow managed to beat the rush of people leaving, and got to bed sometime around 2am (after wrestling with an inflatable mattress that needed four D batteries that of course we didn't have).

Sunday morning (well, it was really about noon but it felt like morning to us) Jeremy and I left and drove back to Jeremy's parents house to spend the night. After 3 days of staying up late and drinking a few too many drinks, it was nice to finally unwind a little and just relax. We ate a delicious dinner at Rosebud, which is a restaurant that has hosted many famous guests - photos of Frank Sinatra, Robert DeNiro and many other celebrites grace the walls. Then it was in bed early, up at 4am, and on a 6:45 flight back to DC and back to work. We had such a great long weekend, and are still buggered. We took a total of 150 photos, so I pulled out the good ones and have posted them on a separate website.

Chicago and Jimmy Buffett

Oh, and a huuuuge congratulations to Andrew and Christie AND Matt and Mel on their recent engagements! Wow!! Two at once! We wish you all the happiness in the world!

Happy Independence Day!!

2007-07-05T03:44:00.001-07:00

Well, it's the day after the 4th of July, and Jeremy and I are dead tired from going into DC to watch the fireworks last night. We rode the Metro (DC's commuter train line) into the city at 3pm, to make it to a dinner reservation at 5. After a couple of mojitos for me and beers for Jeremy, it started to rain. We hung around for a bit hoping it would stop, and then decided we should probably just go home. While we were waiting at the Metro station, the skies parted and sun once again shone through. Woo! So we made our way to the Mall (no, not a shopping center, but rather a long stretch of grass/park that connects the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol building). Of course the ground was wet from the rain, so we had to steal an old box from one of the stalls to sit on. Classy. The fireworks started at about 9pm and went for a good 20 minutes. Leaving the Mall was like taking part in a mass exodus - there were hundreds of thousands of people all going in the same direction. At the Metro station, people were lined up all along the platform, at least 3 people deep the entire stretch. The trains were full by the time they got to our platform, so we had to squish on. I felt like a sardine. Yuck! Oh well. We finally made it home shortly after midnight, and now it's back to work as usual.

Waiting, waiting, waiting....

After the rain...so beautiful!

Still waiting....

Nope, no fireworks yet...

Our stylish accommodations (I look like a hippy in this photo)!

Jeremy getting sleepy...

These kids were adorable! They sang and danced to some patriotic song...fun! Check out the tiny little ones on the far right...they must have been no older than 3!

Finally!! A little blurry, but you get the gist. The fireworks were absolutely amazing!

2007-07-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

Wow, have we been boring these last few weeks or what?! I apologize for not writing on here sooner, but we really haven't done anything especially noteworthy. We're like an old married couple! Haha. No, seriously. Here's a list of the few things we've done over the past few weeks:

1. We've gone out to eat (what a surprise) at Sweet Water Tavern, Chili's, and Sequoia.

2. I hit the outlet malls with my girlfriend from work, Melyssa, and spent a little too much money.

3. We finally cleared out the pile of junk from our living room that had been there since we moved (2 months ago!).

4. We've been to the movies to see Knocked Up and Live Free or Die Hard. Knocked Up was actually a really great movie, and Jeremy is still grinning over how "awesome" Die Hard was (it really was ok - much more of a boy's movie than what I like).

5. Jeremy found out that his resume has been passed onto the hiring manager at the US Forest Service (for a police/investigator position), and he's planning on taking his FBI agent interview sometime in the near future. In the meantime, he's been doing great at work - he's pretty much taking over responsibility for his team when the "team lead" is out of the office.

6. I had an exam in DC for my Motivation & Emotion class. We'll see how well I did - I didn't get to read all the books I was supposed to.

7. Jeremy and I had our immigration interview to prove that we did in fact love each other. That was weird. We had to answer questions like "What do you love about each other?", "How did you meet?" and "What was your first date like?". Those questions seem easy, but those types of things are sometimes hard to quantify. It's hard to list the reasons you chose to marry someone - it's much easier to simply recognize that they exist.

And I think that's about it. We've just been working and going about our day-to-day. I wish we were more exciting for you all. Oh well.

Oh, and check out the cool slideshow I did up to show our wedding pictures. Yay!

Our wedding photos...

2007-07-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

My work news

2007-06-05T17:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess I can tell you all my (kind of ) exciting work news...

So, I'm kind of getting a promotion... One of the lady's in Accounts payable is leaving and guess who's getting her job? Me, of course! I'm going to be doing both my original job in Contracts and the Accounts Payable job. Wow! Two jobs at once! My boss in the contracts department figured that since I wasn't terribly busy all the time, I could handle taking on the extra responsibility in accounts. It's not anything too difficult - just invoices and ledgers, that kind of thing. But, it's a fantastic opportunity to learn more and to expand my resume, plus I'll most likely get a pay increase, which is always nice! Go me!!

A grown-up bedroom

2007-06-03T13:52:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited - Jeremy and I finally have a real, grown-up bedroom! Yay! No more plain old boring box-set! Woo! We bought a whole bedroom set last weekend and had it delivered yesterday. It was actually quite a steal - we bought the floor stock, which meant that we could get a bed, dresser, mirror, nightstand and a stool for the foot of the bed, all for about the price of just a regular bed. Sure, the dresser has a few scratches on top, but it's nothing too noticeable and, for the price we paid, we sure can live with it! Here are some pictures...

Notice the beautiful linens, courtesy of mum and dad. Thanks a million - they are gorgeous!

Our crazy Brissy hiding under the bed. It's her favorite spot, probably because Adelaide is too big to get under!

Yesterday Jeremy and I went to his work picnic. It was hot as heck and ridiculously humid outside, but his work had booked a pavillion at Burke Lake Park, so at least we were out of the sun. They had it catered by a delicious Mexican semi-fast-food place, which was yummy! It was nice to finally meet some of Jeremy's workmates, although I felt a little out of place - we were the only ones without kids!! Maybe we should work on that...(just kidding mum! You'll have to wait a few more years yet)

Last night we went out for dinner and drinks in DC with some friends. We went to this amazing Mexican restaurant called Lauriol Plaza. The restaurant is in this huuuuuge warehouse type building, and there was still a line out the door of people waiting to put their names on the list for a table! It was crazy busy. But the food was delicious, and the margaritas were pretty good. We went out to a bar afterwards, and I ended up having a few too many drinks. Oh well. It was a fun night.

And that's about it. Today it's been raining lightly all day (sorry guys, I don't mean to rub it in!), and we just been laying around recovering from last night. Oh, I may have some potentially exciting work news to tell everyone, but you'll have to wait a couple more days. So keep checking back in!

So beautiful!

2007-05-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

Well, we got our wedding photos yesterday and, being the show-off that I am, I just have to post a couple of our favorites! Ben did a fantastic job - every picture is breathtaking!

Colorado

2007-05-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

So, out of curiosity, I just GoogleEarth-ed Colorado Springs to see what the area we might potentially move to looks like. And, after seeing these pictures, I am ready to move!! Oh my gosh - it looks so incredibly beautiful! Jeremy and I will hopefully take a trip out there soonish to scope the area. Bring on the mountains!

Kids stuff

2007-05-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

It's so fun to act like a kid sometimes! Yesterday, Jeremy and I bought the most awesome XBox360 game ever - Viva Pinata. I'm officially hooked!! It's such a cute game - the gist of it is that you're given this plot of land and you have to create a garden that will attract Pinata's to come and live there. You are given this plot that's covered with bad soil, weeds and trash, and you have to start from the ground up (no pun intended), planting grass, buying seeds to grow, building houses for the resident pinatas, calling the doctor when a pinata gets sick, etc. You also have to get your resident pinata's to "romance" each other, and then they will have baby pinatas. The aim of the game (even though it has no end), is to fill your resident pinatas with enough happiness candy that they are sent out to parties to make little boys and girls happy. I love it!! It's so much fun! So far my garden has 3 pinata houses (for my Whirlm's, Sparrowmints and Bunnycombs, of course), a pond, an apple tree and two hazelnut trees, and about a dozen different types of pinatas. Woo!!

And if that wasn't childish enough for all of you, last night Jeremy and I went to see Shrek 3 with one of my friends from work, Melyssa, and her boyfriend Dave. It wasn't that bad - it was much better than the second one, but still not as good as the first. The theatre we saw it in showed it in Digital projection, which meant the picture quality was unbelieveable! The only bad part about the night was that we had an obnoxious little boy sitting behind us who kept burping through the entire movie. Yuck! He was clearly forcing them, and his parents did nothing to stop him (except by saying "Stop burping", to which he usually replied with another one). It was disgusting!

By the way, the new Transformers movie looks sooooo AWESOME! Seriously, it looks fantastic! I can't wait until it comes out!

Now, back to the land of adults. Jeremy and I are pretty much all moved in to our new apartment. We did a bunch of unpacking/cleaning last weekend, and managed to get most of our pictures hung. Here are some pictures (don't mind the mess - the cleanliness doesn't usually last long!) -

From the outside...We're the apartment on the top floor, middle door on the left.

This is our living room/desk area.

Living room. We have a real wood fireplace (on the left)!!

Dining room.

Kitchen. It's kind of old, but we didn't want to pay an extra $200 a month for a renovated one. At least everything works (kind of).

This is our resident beaver! Jeremy found him one day when he was walking the dogs. He lives down behind our apartment building, in a little creek.

Our dog's new favorite pasttime is to lay on the back of the couch and look out the window. Isn't Adelaide so cute?! Usually Brissy lays up on top in the sun.

They love laying on our little deck in the sun!

It's an ok apartment - it's older than our last place, but it's clean and the neighbourhood is nice, which is all that really matters. We are hoping to buy our own house by April next year. We would love to buy one sooner, but it makes more sense for us to wait. Our apartment complex belongs to this company called Equity Residential, and they have this program where 20% of our monthly rent can be used as a downpayment on a house if we build/buy from one of their registered builders! It's a really nice deal, and by April next year we'll have about $7000 from it that we will use to help buy a house. We're also planning on moving out of the DC area by that time (don't worry Anne and Joe, we're sticking around until after you come to visit!) - we're thinking seriously about Denver, Colorado or maybe somewhere in the Chicago area. Houses are way too expensive in this area for us - around here $300,000 will buy you a 2-bedroom condo (if you're lucky, most likely it would only be 1-bedroom), or a dinky old townhouse, whereas in Denver or Illinois you can get a 4-bedroom house for about $200,000! Crazy!! Melyssa thinks that we should move to South Carolina (which is where her and Dave are planning on going sometime soon), so we'll see. We're keeping our options open, but are very excited and keen to move someplace new!

Back to the daily grind

2007-05-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

Well, we're back in the US, safe and sound after a fantastic trip! Jeremy was back at work Wednesday afternoon, and I went back on Thursday (I needed a little recovery time). The flight home was ok, but not nearly as good as the flight over. We were sitting down the back of the plane, where there were only two seats on each window side which was nice, because it meant we didn't have to sit next to anyone and had more leg room than in the regular seats. Unfortunately, neither of us slept very well, even though we had both taken sleeping tablets. Oh well. We arrived home without any hiccups at about 12:30am, but we couldn't get to sleep until the early hours of the morning (how terrible is that time difference?!). And now we're back to business as usual - work, actually eating dinners cooked at home, and being harrassed by our dogs.

And that's about it really. We haven't had time to do anything too exciting. Today we're going to see Spiderman 3 (Jeremy's as excited as a kid a Christmas), and then we're probably going out to a Mexican restaurant/bar to celebrate Cinco de Mayo with some friends. Bring on the margaritas!!

While I'm here, I want to say a big thank you to everyone for making our wedding day so incredible! What a fantastic time! Having everyone there made the day so special, and we only wish that more of Jeremy's family and friends could have been there as well. Here's the one nice picture I've got so far (I believe it was taken by one of my friends). Hopefully we'll have more to share with everyone soon (and I expect to get millions of others from all you happy snappers as well!)...

Here's my update!

2007-03-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!!

Well, my first week at my new job has been going great! Even though I've gone from waking up at 8 or 9am to waking up at 5:45am, I absolutely love having a "real" job. The people I work with are really nice. My cubicle is pretty big - I have a wrap-around desk, a big ol' leather chair, and lots of room to file all my stuff. So far I've just been learning the ropes - I'll usually sit in with Kelly, the contracts manager (and the lady I'm assisting) for about half of my workday, and just observe her. We chat a lot too, which is nice! I'm learning soooooooooo much about the government contracting world, which will be invaluable to me in the future. So far I've worked on non-disclosure agreements, certifications & representations, and I've put together a mack-daddy of a proposal that TAG has submitted. I've been reading more legal stuff than I've ever read in my life - you know those licensing agreements they make you accept when you install new software?? Kelly and I had to read through one of those thoroughly and make any changes it needed before they put it on the website. Fun! All those disclaimers and agreements that come with everything but that no-one ever reads are exactly what we focus on! And, believe it or not, they're actually pretty interesting!! Once you understand what the company's motives are, and the reasons they put certain things in, it's pretty cool to know that you understand what the heck all those legal documents mean! Plus, I'm learning a lot about the cool products/services TAG creates. For example, TAG has a contract with the Spyker Formula 1 team - Spyker uses TAG's servers because they can withstand heat up to 60 degrees celcius and are resistant to dust/being dropped. Pretty cool!

Other than that, not too much else has been happening. My rear tire blew out when I was driving on the highway the other day, but luckily I was able to control the car and managed to pull off to the shoulder safely. And I was extra lucky, because my wonderful Jeremy came to save me! Woo!

And that's about it really. I just wanted to update this so that I could tell everyone about my new job.

Have a great weekend!!!

2007-03-01T06:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I think we got our last snowfall of the season last weekend. At first they were expecting a "wintry mix", which means freezing rain, sleet and some snow, but it turned into a full on snow shower. Anywho, I just wanted to post a pretty picture that I took once all the snow had fallen...

A new baby and a new job

2007-02-24T05:37:00.000-08:00

Don't be alarmed - the baby's not ours! Friends of ours, Eric and Shannon, welcomed little Chase Maximilian into the world at 11:47pm Thursday night. We haven't seen them yet, but Eric informed us that both mom and baby are doing great. We're so excited for them, and hopefully we'll get to meet the little guy on the weekend. CONGRATULATIONS RESIENFELDS!! Yay!

On a completely different note, one of the interviews I went on last week apparently went really well, and I've been offered a fantastic job!! On March 12th I start with Technology Advancement Group, or TAG, as a Contracts Administrative Assistant. The company is really cool - they make hardware (computers etc) and provide support to the military and government. I believe they have about 1000 employees spread across their 3 locations, but the one I'll be working at is the headquarters. My position entails mostly administrative support, but it will be a fantastic opportunity for me to learn the ins-and-outs of the government contracting world (which is a hugely lucrative business around the DC area), and it's a great foot in the door. Hopefully, if I enjoy working with the company, there'll be lots of room for me to advance and be promoted to different positions. I'm a little scared to start a new job, but I'm so excited! Go me!!

No real news

2007-02-19T07:08:00.000-08:00

Hey there everyone! Once again, I'm sorry that I haven't written on here in a while, but we've got not real news to report. Well, I guess there are a couple of things, but nothing too noteworthy.

First off, we finally had our first decent snowfall last week. Now, by "decent" I don't mean New York decent (yes, they did in fact get 8 feet of snow), but decent enough for the Washington DC area. We got close to two inches of snow, and about a half an inch of ice on Wednesday last week. Unfortunately, because of the layer of ice that fell on top of the snow, everything is still slippery and icy, and because the temperatures have barely risen above freezing the ice is yet to melt. Here's some pictures I took this morning, 6 days after the snow fell...

As pretty as it looks, I wish it would hurry up and melt already! Oh well...

On a completely different note, I've decided that it's time for me to grow up and get a real job. Not knowing when I'll get off work (and sometimes start work) each day is starting to drive me crazy, as is my 30 minute commute each way. As much as I love the kids I look after, and as sweet as it is that I get a lot of time off and freebies like hockey tickets, I'm ready to start conversing with adults on a regular basis. The whole nanny thing is starting to wear me out, especially now that Bobby has remarried and I now have to look after his step-kids. It's time for me to move on! I have a couple of job interviews in the next couple of days, so wish me luck and I'll keep everyone posted!

Now, on another completely different note, I've been thinking lately about just how much I've changed since I've been over here. I guess being in a new country and having to adapt to a new society does that to people! Here's a list of things that I would never have tried/accomplished if I hadn't moved over here...

I now looooove dogs! Big ones, teeny ones, slobbery ones, annoying ones! I can't believe I spent so much of my life being scared of them. I can't wait until we have our own house, and we can get a big ol' thing, like a Mastiff or a Rottweiler. After watching an episode of The Dog Whisperer, we would love to get a Boerboel, but they're super aggressive towards strangers. Oh well.
Sports - ice hockey is my new favorite thing to watch, and snowboarding is my new favorite thing to do. Both sports are things that I would never, ever have come across had I stayed in Toowoomba.
Foods - Oh my gosh...my mother would be astonished to see the types of foods I've come to love since being over here! I peel my own prawns and shell my own crabs (I won't have to ask dad to do my prawns any more)! I actually eat salad with dressing (although it's usually just caesar). Dips, BBQ sauce, all different types of pizza, mustard on sandwiches...the list is huuuge! Although, I still don't like raw tomatoes...yuck!

And of course there's all the not-so-superficial changes - I'm getting married (who knows if I would be doing that if I were still in Toowoomba), I'm definitely more confident and not so scared to try new things, yadda yadda yadda. I'm telling you, everyone needs to do what I did while they still can - I wouldn't change a single thing!

Snowboarding!

2007-01-22T05:29:00.001-08:00

Well, the weather finally decided it was time for winter and so Jeremy and I were able to go snowboarding on the weekend. Yay! As promised, here are some photos (although they're not very glamorous)....

Me at the top of the mountain, delaying strapping into my board. Doesn't it look like I have a moustache in this photo?! Hehe. Don't worry, I don't...

Jeremy and I on the lift. It was actually snowing by this time...see all the snow stuck to us?!

That would be me, coming to the base of the mountain.

Me again.

Jeremy coming towards the bottom of the mountain.

Jeremy again!

And that's it! Pretty exciting stuff huh?! On a side note, I am actually really starting to get the hang of this snowboarding thing. On all previous snowboarding trips, I had been unable to turn "toe-side" (turning to face the mountain), which meant that I would constantly be turning "heel-side" (turning to face down the mountain) to slow myself down. Not only did this absolutely kill my legs, I looked like a gimp because that's so not the way to snowboard. Anywho, yesterday I finally began to master the art of switching from heel-side to toe-side (which is what you see all good snowboarders do...they turn one way and then quickly carve the other way), which was a huuuuuge accomplishment for me! I ended the day feeling great - my legs weren't sore because instead of fighting the mountain I was actually letting myself coast down without being afraid! Poor Jeremy didn't have such a great day...he fell getting off the lift and hit his shin on his binding (actually, the skier next to him pushed him forwards and he lost his balance), and then he fell another time (I think my board went over the front of his board) and twisted his knee. But, ever the trooper, he got back up and by the end of the day he was fine. He's a much better snowboarder than me, probably because he's not afraid to go super fast. So, that was our Sunday...fun, fun, fun!!!

Back to Saturday...Some of our good friends, Eric and Shannon, are expecting a little baby boy in February (actually, their due date is the 28th, so keep your fingers crossed he'll pop out a day early and we'll have the same birthday!), and so on Saturday I went to a baby shower. We had a lot of fun playing "The price is right" for baby items and some other crazy games. It was so great to see Eric and Shannon again (we don't see them nearly enough), and to shower her with gifts for the baby (whose name, by the way, will be Chase Maximilian - how cute is that!).

And that's all our news. Oh, it finally snowed here last night, so now everything is a wintery white (and all the roads are icy as heck! Aaarrrghh!). Yay!!

Christmas, New Years, and everything else

2007-01-12T07:19:00.000-08:00

I know, it's been forever since I wrote on here. I meant to do it after Christmas, but then I figured I'd wait until after New Years, and then I just never got around to it. But now, due to popular demand, I'm finally knuckling down and getting it done!

As many of you already know, Jeremy and I made the long trip to Chicago to spend Christmas with his family. We packed up the dogs, drugged them up with Dremamine (to stop them from getting carsick), and made the 12 hour drive to the windy city. We were there for about a week, and kept very busy with Christmas, family and friends. Jeremy's parents hosted Christmas day dinner, and so after opening all our pressies we were running around like mad people making sure that everything was done by the time aunts and uncles started arriving. We had the usual Christmas meal - turkey, stuffing, mashed and sweet potatoes, and finished it all off with pie. Mmmmmm....delicious! The day after Christmas (nope, it's not Boxing Day over here) we ventured into the city of Chicago to spend the day with some of Jeremy's good friends, Nicky and her husband Corey, and Julie. We had such a great day - walking around the city, riding the "L-train" (called so because the tracks are elevated above the streets instead of running through tunnels), eating and drinking. Here's some pics...

Jeremy and I looking over the ice-skating rink at Millenium park.

The giant bean at Millenium park - why they have this in the middle of the city I have no idea!

From left: that's me, Jeremy, Jessica (Jeremy's younger sister), Julie, Nicky and Corey

After dinner, all 6 of us piled into Corey's BMW to drive to a bar. It sure was cosy!! Speaking of dinner, while we were in the city we ate some of the best food ever! We ate lunch at this funky little place called the Bongo Room where the wait is never less than 30 minutes and where people line up in the street to eat on weekends. It was so delicious! Then, for dinner we ate the best tapas I've ever had! We had delicious things like octopus with french fries (no, not calamari, but real octopus with tentacles and all), chicken, cheese and ham broquettes, mussells...you name it, we ate it. It was so incredible! Wash it all down with a mojito and you're good to go! Mmmmmm!!

The next day Jeremy and I just lay around the house, and hit the mall for a little post-Christmas shopping. The day after that, we got to go and visit good friends of ours who had moved from the DC area back to Chicago after they had their baby. It was so great to see them, and to play with their adorable baby girl Keira. She is a really sweet baby - always smiling, with chubby little cheeks! Don't believe me!? Look for yourself!

Then it was back to DC in time for New Years Eve. After such a hectic week, we weren't really in the mood to go out and party, so we made reservations at a restaurant by us. We had a couple of drinks, and some delicious food, and then came back home to watch the ball drop on tv. Not very exciting, but still it was nice.

Then it was back to work as usual, and nothing much has been happening since. It's been unseasonally warm here over the last couple of weeks, but yesterday the weather finally decided to act like it's winter and temperatures have dropped. It's been dropping below freezing overnight, and not getting much warmer during the day. It's pretty darn cold, but I'm so glad it finally is because it means one thing - we get to go snowboarding again! Woo! Maybe this time I'll actually remember to bring a camera so we can get some action shots! Haha. I'll have to try my hardest not to fall down when the shutter clicks!

Sports, sports, sports!

2006-12-05T18:33:00.000-08:00

Who would've thunk that I'd be so into going to sporting events?! It's ludicrous to imagine little ol' unathletic me actually enjoying watching a team play. I guess it just goes to show how much I've changed over the last 2 years.

So, this weekend Jeremy and I not only scored tickets to see ice hockey, but we also scored some tickets to an NFL game. Woo! On Saturday night we went to see the Capitals play the Buffalo Sabres - what an AWESOME game! It was crazy! There were a couple of big fights (a couple of players got sent off for the game), and some awesome goals! I'll do my best to re-cap one of the most awesome goals I've seen yet...So, after the first big fight both teams were penalised. Sometimes when a penalty is called, they do this thing called a "power play", where the team that was in the wrong has to play with one man less than the other team for a certain amount of time. So, after the big fight both teams had a power play, but the Sabres had one man less for a longer period of time seeing as they started the fight. Now, if a team thinks they will benefit, they are allowed to pull out the goalie and put an extra man on the ice. So, the crazy Sabres pulled their goalie in the hopes of scoring against the weakened Capitals. Hehe. BIG MISTAKE! So the puck is all the way at the other end of the ice, and someone hits it, it bounces off a Capitals player, and ever so slowly starts sliding down the ice. The Caps player and a Sabres guy both take off skating in hopes of catching it, but apparently the puck was sliding just a little faster than them. Slowly but surely, the puck just barely glides right into the unmanned goal. Haha! It was the best goal ever! Hilarious (although I'm sure my story doesn't do justice to the brilliance of such an event - go here and click on "John Erskine with an empty netter" to watch)! It was the best game ever. LETS GO CAPS!

Oh, and did I mention that Bob's $14ooo worth of season tickets to the Caps games also gets the bearer into a swanky area called the Acela Club? Well, we discovered that they do, and so Jeremy and I spent most of the game sitting at a candlelit table with a bottle of wine, with an awesome view of the ice. Sweet!

Then, after our exciting night at the hockey, on Sunday we went to our first pro football game. Holy cow! Crazy! The Washington Redskins were playing the Atlanta Falcons. The stadium was huuuuge and it was packed! I've never heard such a loud crowd in my life. It was pretty cool. The game was average, and considering I don't really care much for football it was pretty boring. Plus, NFL games take forever, because they have to regroup and discuss strategies and all that jazz in between plays. But it was still kinda cool. Once again, Bob had awesome tickets. We were on the "club" level, which means that we had access to a whole level of bars, with a Hooters (yes, that's right, Hooters!) and all that fun stuff. If we wanted to, we could have stayed after the game for a post game party, but we decided to high-tail it out of there in an attempt to beat the crowds. We didn't get any good photos, but here's the two that I did take...

The next picture, however, is a classic. Our cute (and mostly pain-in-the-butt) dog, Adelaide, has had some weird growth on her side for a couple of months. The past week it seemed to double, or even triple, in size, and then the other night it burst. I know...EEW! So, we didn't want her licking, biting or scratching at it, and so my crazy Jeremy had this wonderful idea (NB:that was sarcasm)...

Yep, that's right...he put one of his t-shirts on our poor doggie! Haha. She sure looked ridiculous, and the picture doesn't even do it justice. Oh well. She didn't seem to mind too much, but in the morning when Jeremy got up to let her out she had somehow managed to get it off of herself. See what madness I have to put up with!!? Haha. Oh, and we took her to the vet but apparently she's fine. She has to take some antibiotics to help the busted thingy heal, but other than that she's back at home, being her normal annoying self. Lucky us.

And that's about it. It's getting pretty cold here - at the moment it's -2 degrees Celcius outside. I guess winter is finally upon us, which is both good and bad. It's super good because it means that Jeremy and I will finally be able to put our snowboards to good use (the ski places are making snow as we speak, and will hopefully open sometime this week). It's bad because it means that my little fingers and my little nose will feel like icicles for the next 3 months. But oh well, we love winter, and I absolutely love the snow! So be on the lookout for lots of snowy pictures in the near future! Hopefully we'll get some good pics of us snowboarding this season, so you can all be jealous that we're so awesome! Haha.

Christmas already?!

2006-11-24T16:58:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know it's been a while since you guys have seen anything from us, but I don't know that we've done much that's been particularly news-worthy. Mum is always saying that we're ALWAYS doing stuff, but that stuff isn't much more than dinner. Oh well. Here goes...

Over the last few weeks we've seen Halloween come and go (we had a miserable 4 trick-or-treaters at our apartment), gone to an ice-hockey game to watch Will play during the break between 1st and 2nd period, had Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant (as opposed to having it with family and friends, like most normal people do), and pushed and shoved our way through the mall on one of the biggest shopping days of the year (the Friday after Thanksgiving, curiously name Black Friday). And that's about it really. We've both been working hard (or not so hard, but shhhh...don't tell anyone), and are currently enjoying a loooooonnng weekend together (we have off from Thursday through till Sunday for Thanksgiving). Other than that, not much else is new.

At the moment, Jeremy and I are seriously considering moving to a new city. Our top choices at this point are Portland (Oregon), Seattle (Washington) and Denver (Colorado). We would really love to buy a house sometime in the near future, and if we stay in the DC area that most likely won't happen. Housing prices are ridiculous around here - friends of ours bought a 1-bedroom condominium last year for just under $400,000, and that's about 40 minutes outside of the city!! If we buy a house, we would love for it to be big enough for us to stay there for at least a few years, and hopefully it will be big enough for us to raise a family when that time comes (don't worry, it's not coming for at least another 3 years). Moving to a new city will hopefully allow us to find such a house, and at a cheap price relative to the prices out here. But we'll see...moving is such a huge deal, and if we move at all we most likely won't do so until after the wedding in April. In the meantime, we'll keep slogging it out here in DC.

Speaking of money, it's so weird working for a family that is so incredibly wealthy. It blows my mind to think of how much money is floating around the area that they live in. For example, this house is just around the corner from Bob's place, and look at the price! It's crazy! I look after a 15 year old girl who has at least half a dozen pairs of jeans that cost $200 each, and we recently found a pair of Dolce & Gabbana boots in Will's closet. Caroline and Russell go to a school that costs $20,000 per child per year, starting in kindergarten! Can you imagine paying that much money for a 5-year old to play and eat glue?! It amazes me that so many people have so much money. I try my hardest not to get jealous, and am constantly reminding myself that Jeremy and I are really doing pretty damn well for ourselves, but still....it would be so nice to not have to worry about money. Oh well. I guess we'll just keep working hard, and one day it will all pay off!

Trick or treat!?

2006-10-29T15:27:00.000-08:00

Well, I think it's safe to say that I am now officially an "American". Today Jeremy and I picked up some pumpkins so that we could make our first Jack-O-Lanterns together. After not finding any pumpkins at the grocery stores (apparently it's time for them to put our Christmas stuff), we made our way out to a local farmers market stall to pick some up. They had hundreds of the things...big ones, teeny ones, wrinkly ones, moldy ones. So many to choose from! We eventually found our perfect pumpkins - big and round, perfect for carving. Jeremy also insisted on getting apple cider and powdered sugar donuts (somewhat of a tradition for him at Halloween). Then it was back home to get friendly with our pumpkins....

Other than that we've had a pretty lazy week/weekend. Oh, we went out to dinner on Saturday night, to a pretty nice place called Sweet Water Tavern. It was really nice, and the food was awesome, except for one thing. Jeremy was eating his coleslaw when he chomped down on....wait for it.....a piece of glass! Crazy!! Luckily he didn't hurt his teeth or cut his mouth, but that was pretty freaky! We both got fresh meals, and then the manager gave us a gift card to use next time we ate at one of their restaurants. And THEN, I looked at my cocktail shaker that my drink had arrived in, and we saw that it had a big ol' crack running down it too! I'm telling you, in between all our car drama and getting glass in our food, I swear that one of us broke a mirror inadvertantly or something. Oh well.

PS - the absolute best thing in the world is a steaming cup of hot apple cider! Mmmmmmmm.....so so good!

Cars and wine

2006-10-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

No, the two definitely don't mix. And don't worry - this post isn't about drinking and driving!

This past weekend the weather was so incredible, Jeremy and I decided to make a day of it and head to a local winery. After doing our tasting, we bought some bottles of good ol' vino and settled at a table in the sun to enjoy good food and better drinks.

I think that was probably the pinnacle of our not-so-exciting weekend. On Sunday we went out to brunch at this quirky place called Eggspectations. It's this small restaurant group that I had read about in the newspaper. As would be expected from a restaurant with such a name, it serves all day breakfast, with menu items like "Egg-chilada", "Oy Vegg" and "Yoke around the clock". It was pretty good, but it was nowhere near as yummy as our regular brunch haunt, Harry's Tap Room.

Now to the "car" part of this post. On Wednesday (the 18th) Jeremy and I once again scored free tickets to the Caps game in DC. I was driving our Jeep into the city, when all of a sudden we see police lights in the rear-view mirror. Bugger! Our tags (registration) had expired in July, and in DC that's a big deal - they usually take your license plates and impound your car!! Luckily, we have a sticker on the back that lets people know that the car is owned/driven by a cop (0r in Jeremy's case, and ex-cop), and so we got off with a warning. Thank goodness we had that sticker, because my license is in the process of being renewed (immigration stuff...don't ask!), which is a misdemeanor that carries a maximum of 6 months in jail and/or a $1000 fine. Oops! By now I guarantee Dad's sitting there going "Rebecca! You shouldn't be driving at all if that's the case!!". Yeah, yeah..I know it's bad, but I can't not drive!

Anywho, so after that little incident we decided that Jeremy should drive the Jeep until our registration was renewed incase I get pulled over again. So, for a few days I was driving the rental car we got given while the Mustang is being repaired. Then, on Monday, I was on my way to take Caroline to ice-hockey practice. We were driving in peak hour traffic (which in DC is ridiculous!) that was pretty much stopped on a 4-lane highway. There we are, stopped behind another car, when all of a sudden I look in the rear-view mirror and see a car flying towards us. Next minute - BANG! Some wanker (pardon my language, but there's no other way to describe him) had decided that he could drive that fast when everyone else was going at a snail's pace. Anywho, we pulled off the highway to swap information, and he convinced me that I didn't need to call the police (which would have led to me getting in trouble for my license anyways), and I've never been in an accident so I didn't know any better. Yesterday I got a call from his insurance company to hear my side of the story. The stupid guy had told his insurance company that I had missed my exit and was reversing when he hit me! Aarrggh! Yeah, that's exactly what I was doing - reversing in the second lane from the left, in bumper-to-bumper traffic, to an exit that was at least a mile back! Grr...I'm sooooo mad! I'm still waiting to hear from the rental car insurance people, so nothing's been resolved yet, but if they come after me for money when I've done absolutely nothing wrong than there'll be hell to pay! Stupid bad drivers! I guess the good news is that the damage was minimal, and neither Caroline nor I were hurt (well, my neck's been sore but it's feeling ok today).

And that brings us up to now. It's cold cold cold here! It's not winter yet and the last week it hasn't gotten above about 55 degrees (about 12 degrees celcius). Brrr!

2006-10-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I love about living over here is bearing witness to the change seasons. At the moment we're getting into the full swing of fall (or, for all you sticklers, autumn), and it's beautiful. The weather is quickly cooling down (and the humidity is all but gone), and the leaves are turning yellows and oranges and reds. Fall is so beautiful over here - I wish that everyone back home could experience the change of seasons like we do over here. It's so different from home - over here there are four distinct seasons, unlike Australia, where there's just "stinking hot" and "not so hot". Here we have hot summers with lots of humidity, cool fall when the air is crisp but the sun is still warm, freezing winters with lots of snow (well, not so much snow here), and then spring, with lots of rain. It's pretty cool. I took some photos of our view from our apartment, in an attempt to share some of the fall beauty with you all (although the picture doesn't come close to doing it justice)...

Now, to get my head out of the clouds....This weekend has been fun, but tiring. On Friday night I invited Carina and Marisa over to our house for a sleepover. Woo! I had been missing them, and decided that it would be fun to have them spend the night. On Friday I collected them before I started work, so poor ol' Will had to put up with them for the afternoon (I don't think he really minded that much). We played at Will's school for a good hour or so, then it was off to the bakery for cookies shaped like jack-o-lantern's and donuts smothered with orange frosting. After the kids had filled up with sugary goodness, we made our way to a small toy store by Elizabeth's house so I could find some things to keep the girls entertained, and then we headed to the park armed with a soccer ball and ready to play. After that busy afternoon of "work", Jeremy and I took the girls out to dinner at Macaroni Grill. The nice thing about Macaroni Grill is that in order to keep the table's clean without much effort, they lay a piece of white paper on top of the tablecloth. Then, for whatever reason, the waiter's write their names on the paper when they first come to serve you and leave the crayons behind. So the girls got to spend the night eating spaghetti and meatballs while drawing all over our table top. Jeremy and I were exhausted, but at least the kids had fun. Then on Saturday morning, after we had chocolate pancakes with blueberry and strawberry syrup for breakfast, I took the girls to a local "Fall Festival". It was pretty much just markets, with a moonbounce (jumping castle) and a few other kids activities. The girls came home loaded up with "goodies" - wands and crowns, water-balloon yo-yo's, balloons, stickers, and face paint. Wow. What a day. I was so tired by the time I dropped the kids off with Marianne in DC, but it was fun.

On Saturday night Jeremy and I went out to dinner (again!) with all our friends that we hadn't seen in 3 months. Most of our friends had been off training in Georgia for the SS, and so it was great to finally get to see them all again. We went to a place in Maryland called Mike's Crabhouse, which was right on the water. We ordered 2 dozen crabs to share (there were about 20 of us all together). Mmmm....crabs! My new favourite food! They're a lot of work, but the result is so worth it! When all you slackers finally decide to come and visit me (hehe) the first place we'll go will be a crab shack. Yum!

Which brings us to today. At the moment it's about 14 degrees Celcius outside (yes, only 14 degrees and it's nowhere near winter yet!), so we've been spending the day lounging around inside. We just got back from the movies - we saw The Departed, which was excellent, although not for the faint of heart (it's a movie about organised crime, so there's lots of bad language and lots of blood) - and now we're in for the night and planning to do nothing at all. Oh, what a fun weekend!!

See! We're still alive!

2006-10-05T06:01:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know....it's been months since I last updated my blog. I really do keep meaning to do it, but then I usually get sidetracked. But I've started getting nasty emails and Jeremy has been nagging me about it for the past week, so in order to prevent a coup, here it is....

Since I moved in with Jeremy things have been great! We've settled into our routines and I think we're both learning a lot about each other. It's fun to discover all those little quirks that you can keep hidden while you're just dating. Besides all the getting used to living with each other, we haven't really been doing too much this past month. Most of our friends are away with SS training, so we haven't been getting together with friends very much. Our weekends have been pretty lazy - mostly we just hang around the house, watch a movie, maybe go out to eat, and sometimes take the dogs to a dog park. Not very exciting huh! The most exciting thing that we've done was to go to a pre-season hockey game the past weekend. We scored free tickets (courtesty of Bob) to see the Washington Capitals take on the Carolina Hurricanes. Bob has season tickets to the Capitals (the Caps) that are in the very front row (also known as "on the glass"). Our seats gave us a great view of the ice, and it was super cool when the players "checked" each other. Checking is when a player slams an opponent into the glass around the edge of the ring. Woo! Haha. Even though I don't know the first thing about ice hockey, it was still pretty cool. Jeremy used to play hockey in school, so he was super excited. Check out our exciting pictures!

Our view from our seats.

A player getting checked! Woo!

My job is still going great! I'm having lots of fun, especially with Will (the youngest). We play baseball and basketball and soccer in the backyard, and he's such a cool kid that he's just a blast to hang out with. Every mother I talk to at school who knows the Schmidt's all have nothing but kind things to say about the family. So it's been great.

And I really think that that's about it. Like I said, we're really not that exciting. But you all asked, so I gave!

Roommates

2006-09-07T07:10:00.000-07:00

It's official. Jeremy and I are now roomies! Woo! I have moved all my stuff (junk) in and have plans to stay permanently. It's so great to be finally living with him and knowing that I never have to leave is so wonderful and exciting. It's fun being able to make our home together - on the weekend we went shopping for laundry hampers and groceries. There are no words that can express how great it feels. Yay!!

I also started my new nannying job on Tuesday. It's been a little crazy as the family gets organized after summer vacations, but we've kind of got our routine down. I start working at about 2:30pm, when I pick up Will (the youngest) from school. Then it's off to get a snack from the bakery or the ice-cream parlor and home for some homework. At 3:40 it's off again to get Russell from the busstop, and then the whole snack/homework thing repeats. After that it's time to do some laundry, and get ready for dinner. Usually I get off around 6 or 7pm, sometimes earlier and sometimes later. So far it's been great - it's so much fun to spend time with kids that you can joke around with, have regular conversations with and not have to dictate what they should be doing at any given time. Bob & Elizabeth have been so great - they've welcomed me with open arms, for which I'm extremely grateful.

And that's about all that's been happening here. Not too exciting, I know. So to spark at least some interest, here's some photos I stumbled upon on Jeremy's computer these past few days.

Brisbane and Adelaide (I think this was taken shortly after we brought Adelaide home)

Me at the White House

Jeremy at the White House

Vroom vroom!!

2006-08-26T13:54:00.000-07:00

Oh boy! Have I ever had a full week! So much has happened, I hardly know where to start...but I guess the beginning is as good a place as any.

The first fantastic news I have is that on Tuesday (?, maybe it was Monday) Jeremy and I finally received approval to move in together! It's about time! My background check is still in the process of being signed, but now I'm finally allowed to live with Jeremy. I'm so excited and of course relieved - it's such a weight off both our minds knowing that I can move in without him losing his job. Yay!

Speaking of moving in...On Thursday Marianne and I made the 5 hour drive to Stamford, Connecticut to pick up Jessica, their new au pair. We collected her (and her heavy bags) from the hotel in Connecticut and then made our way into New York City for the night. Marianne made reservations for us to stay in the Hotel Wolcott, which was a mere stone's throw away from the bustling center of Manhattan. It was a really cute, old hotel complete with striped wallpaper and floral drapes. Thursday night we rode the subway to The Brooklyn Diner (The finer diner!) for dinner. They had really good food - according to the New York Times they have the best cheeseburger in Manhattan! After stuffing ourselves we walked the 20 or so blocks back to the hotel. Our route took us through the center of Times Square, past Madison Square Garden and along Broadway. Wow! It may be dirty, but NYC is such an exciting place! I love it. I would love to live smack bang in the middle of Manhattan, just for a year or so, just so I could experience everything the city has to offer (although that will never happen - Jeremy hates the Big Apple). On Friday we decided to check out the Statue of Liberty, since both Jessica and I had only ever seen it from afar. So we hopped on the ferry and hopped off onto Liberty Island. Since 9/11 they don't let people go up into her crown, but they do allow you to go up to the observation level at the bottom of the statue. We didn't get to do that though, because they only sell a certain amount of tickets and, of course, we missed out. Still, it was pretty cool to see her up close. After that we hopped back on the ferry and hopped off onto Ellis Island. Those of you who have seen the movie Hitch will know a little about Ellis Island. It's the place where all immigrants were sent in the early 1900's to clear customs and whatnot. It was pretty amazing to stand on the little island that had seen so many thousands of people pass through. They do have a wall of plaques showing the names of every person who has been allowed into the country. It was pretty neat.

Now comes the best news of all! When I was on my way to NYC on Thursday, Jeremy called to tell me that Ford had this great deal going that meant that all vehicles could be bought with 0% interest over 6 years. So of course, he just had to go see if we would qualify for a loan that would allow him to get his dream car - the 2006 Mustang GT. Turns out we did qualify, and so late Thursday I got a message from him declaring that we were now the proud new owners of a cherry red Mustang GT coupe. That boy!! We picked up the car today (Saturday), and I think we're both officially in love with it! It's so shiny and new and FAST! Woo!! V8 engine baby! All leather interior! 6 stacker in-dash cd player! Some nifty gizmo that lets us change the color of the instrument panel to one of 120 shades! Yay!! I've claimed dibbs on it for the last week of work down at Bob and Marianne's, because I know that once I move in he'll be driving it every day to work and I'll be using the Jeep. It sure is fancy though!! Check out the picks!

Leather seats, leather wrapped steering wheel....leather everything!

Soooo shiny!

Twin exhausts, of course!

Imagine this beast coming up behind you!

Oooohhhh...

Pretty flashy, huh?! By the way, that's Jeremy's (and soon to be my) apartment complex in the background. Notice that black SUV in the background? That will be my car.

And I think that's all the news. I start work with the new family on the 5th of September (wish me luck!). I'll be moving in with Jeremy next weekend, after I make sure that Jessica and the girls have settled in and everything's organized. How exciting!!

I want snow!

2006-08-21T05:45:00.000-07:00

Well, this week and weekend have been fairly uneventful. I`ve spent the entire week trying to get my assignments done and have been lazy about other things in the process. I may have been crazy trying to do study at home. Oh well. I`ll just keep on trucking through I guess.

Anyway, I guess you`re all wondering why I want it to snow so badly. The reason is....and it`s the best reason ever....Jeremy and I bought our very own snowboards this weekend! Whoohoo! I`m so excited! One of the snowboard stores by us was having a big clearance sale, so we went for a look and came home with boards and bindings (for those of you who don`t know, bindings are the straps that hold your foot to the board. Check it out!

The backs of the boards. Check out the cool woodgrain finish on mine (on the left)

That'd be the topside of the boards.

This is just a close up of the graphics on my board. I love it!

Pretty exciting stuff huh?! So now everyone has to come over during the winter so we can take you all snowboarding with us. Woo!

Finally, some relief!

2006-08-14T05:22:00.000-07:00

The disgusting, sweltering heat of summer has finally left DC. Thank God! After a week or two of 100 degree, 100% humidity-filled days, we are finally getting some beautiful weather. The temperature has dropped a good 20 degrees, to a balmy 80. The humidity seems to have left us for now (you guys think Brisbane is bad, try putting up with days that are so humid that the air is hazy), and we've been blessed with some absolutely gorgeous weather. I can finally walk from the house to the car without becoming drenched in sweat. Yay!! Hopefully the summer days are over, and fall is on its way in. Autumn over here is so beautiful - days are filled with the oranges and reds of leaves preparing to fall, and rainy days are few and far between. It is truly wonderful how the seasons change over here. It's as though you can almost tell exactly to the day when one season ends and the next begins. It's much more drastic and exciting than than the seasons back in Australia. I don't think that "hot" and "not as hot" really qualify as being seasons!

Anyway, Jeremy and I took full advantage of a beautiful day on Saturday by spending our afternoon at a local winery. We decided to pack a picnic lunch and head on out to Chrysalis Vineyards for a tasting. Being that we'd never picnicked (hmmm...that word doesn't look quite right...) before, we first had to find ourselves a fancy picnic basket. Well, apparently people don't believe in picnic baskets anymore. We searched online and then at two stores without any luck. Finally we settled on a picnic bag from our favorite outdoors store, REI. Although I had my heart set on getting a basket, the bag is pretty damn cool. It's all decked out with plates, cutlery, and wine goblets for two, as well as a cheese board/knife, a wine cork, and an insulated bottle holder. Woo! I guess we did pay a small fortune for it, so if it didn't have all those extras I'd have been disappointed. After picking up some food we were on our way. The winery about 30 or so minutes from Jeremy's, at the base of the Blue Ridge "mountains" (I'm not convinced they really are mountains). It was so nice, picnicking with our fancy backpack and our bottle of wine. We left with our stomachs full, and with 3 bottles of wine. What a great day!!

Then, on Sunday Jeremy and I both woke up feeling less than perfect. I'm not sure if it's just because of the sudden change in the weather, but we both have pretty minor headcolds. So we spent the morning sniffling and feeling sorry for ourselves, and then decided to head out to brunch. We decided on Harry's Tap Room in Clarendon, which is about 30 minutes drive from Jeremy's place. We had been there before for brunch, and the food is so delicious! I had the Crab cake Benedict, and Jeremy had an omelette (with a Bloody Mary, of course). Mmmmmm...What a good way to spend Sunday morning.

And that brings me up to now. It's Monday morning, and for some unknown reason the kids woke me up at 6:15 with lots of yelling. Apparently they had thought it was ok to go downstairs and turn on the tv/computer, which had inevitably led to a fight. God knows why they would do that, seeing as they both know that they are supposed to stay in their beds until 8am. Boy was I mad. Especially because they aren't even allowed to watch tv because they slept in their parents bed instead of their own (which is something else that makes me incredibly mad, but oh well), and to top it all off I had barely any sleep because of my stuffy head. So now I'm tired and a little cranky, and the girls are both tired as well. I'm thinking that they might be taking a nap after lunch today, whether they like it or not. Oh boy, I'm so mean!

I know, I'm slack!

2006-08-07T18:48:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah...I know it's been two weeks since I last wrote on here. Last week I kept meaning to get it done, but I kept getting sidetracked and before I knew it it was Friday and there was no point. But now Jeremy's been bugging me about getting it done, and so I figured I had better put in some effort!

So...to fill you all in....Last weekend (as in July 29/30) Jeremy and I were in Cleveland for his grandma's 80th birthday. We got on the road Friday night, and arrived Saturday around midday. Thank goodness we weren't driving the whole time. By about midnight Friday we had had enough, and decided to stop at a hotel for the night. Boy, was that a mistake! Imagine, if you will, the most uncomfortably small bed you've ever slept in and you will have some idea as to how we spent the night. Poor Jeremy was miserable. So after much tossing and turning we left on Saturday to finish the drive. Cleveland is a little over 6 hours from our place, which really isn't too bad of a drive. Anyways, after a hectic hour or so shopping to find me something to wear, we all got ready and made our way to mass. Jeremy's uncle is a priest, and so we stayed in the Rectory of his church (by we I mean me, Jeremy, and Jeremy's parents and sisters). After church we headed over to a hall for dinner. Most of Jeremy's mum's side of the family was there, so it was really nice to get to meet them all finally (although a little confusing!). Sunday we went out to breakfast at a pub right by the Rectory, and then it was home again.

Monday I was exhausted. The weekend had just flown by, without stopping for so much as a hello! But of course it was work as usual - in 100 degree heat!! Man, last week was absolutely disgusting! It was extremely hot and humid all week. The girls have been in swimming lessons, so I had to sit outside for an hour everyday sweating my butt off. It was pretty gross. Thank goodness it finally rained here last night/this morning, so most of the humidity and heat is gone. But really...yuck!!

Then this weekend just gone I went out with one of my aupair friends who is leaving in a couple of weeks. It was good to have a girls night out (much to Jeremy's disgust), and I'm sure I'll miss her when she goes.

And that just about brings us up to now. Tonight I bought tickets to something I have wanted to see for years and years. Cirque du Soleil is coming to town and Jeremy and I have tickets!! Yay!!!! Tickets went on sale yesterday and, although most of the good seats were sold out, I still managed to get us seats 5 rows from the front. I'm so so so excited! I've wanted to see a Cirque du Soleil show since forever - I always used to watch it on tv when it was on on a Sunday afternoon. And now that it's coming to DC of course I couldn't let the opportunity go by. So mark your calendars for November 3rd - it's likely to be one of the best days of my life! WHOOHOO!

On a completely different note, I have been looking very hard for a snowboard/bindings/boots. I'm so excited to get my own gear this year, and I can't wait for the snow season to be here. Jeremy and I are thinking of getting season tickets to some ski resorts that are close to us, and I'm looking forward to going as often as we can. I wish summer was over so that we could hit the slopes!! Yay for snowboarding!

And that's about it, I think. Nothing too exciting has been happening over here really. Only two more weeks and then Jessica, the new aupair, arrives. So it's only about three or four weeks until I move in with Jeremy. Yay! That's something else I'm excited about!

I guess I'm just excited about everything tonight!

I am the smartest woman alive!

2006-07-21T05:40:00.000-07:00

Remember that ridiculous Statistics class I was whining about not too long ago? Well, I just got my results and I'm proud to say that somehow I've managed to get an A. Yay!! I'm so relieved to know that I passed it, and now I'm all the more confident. I mean, if I can take a stats class online and pass, then I can do ANYTHING! Woo!!

Not such a great weekend...

2006-07-17T17:15:00.000-07:00

Well, this weekend was fairly uneventful. Friday night my poor fiance was up all night with a stomach bug. Yuck! But now he's better, so that's good.

Saturday we went to the movies to see Nacho Libre. Jeremy had been wanting to see it since it first came out, and because he was sick I decided to humor him and go. What a waste of time and money. It was probably the worst movie I've ever seen. Don't go see it when it comes out over there.

Saturday night we went over to Mark and Lauren's place for a bbq. Most of Jeremy's old workmates will be leaving the area soon, so it was one of our last chances to see everyone together. But because we'd been up a lot of the previous night, we didn't stay too long.

Sunday we lazed around at the pool for a bit, then went out to lunch at a great restaurant right by Jeremy's apartment. Nothing too exciting there...

And now it's Monday night, and I'm back at Bob & Marianne's miserable with a fever. I guess I caught some of Jeremy's germs. I just hope it goes away soon because I feel like crap!

So much fun!

2006-07-09T15:28:00.000-07:00

Wow!! What a weekend we just had! We've been pretty busy this weekend, and it's been so much fun. Have I mentioned how much I can't wait to actually be living with Jeremy and seeing him everyday?! Spending this week with him has been so great, and I wish I didn't have to go back to Bob and Marianne's. Oh well. Only two more months to go...

Our week was pretty uneventful. Although I had the week off, Jeremy still had to work. All I did was sleep in and sit around watching MTV, waiting for him to come home. How exciting! Tuesday was the 4th of July, so Jeremy had the day off. We didn't do a whole lot during the day - we went shopping for a bit, nothing too exciting. For dinner we went into this gorgeous part of Virginia called Old Town. It's very old, very expensive and very pretty. The houses are pretty much all row houses, like this, but are huuuuge and can cost up to $3 or $4 million (did I mention that the people I'll be working for live there?). Anyway, we went to a really nice restaurant down on the water called the Chart House, which is known for its seafood. My food was average, but Jeremy raved about his, so at least one of us was excited. Afterwards, we staked out a place on the dock to try to watch the fireworks in DC, but to our dismay there were trees blocking our view. So much to Jeremy's disgust, we left Old Town after missing the fireworks. And that was our 4th of July.

Friday night we joined some friends in Baltimore, Maryland for a night at the symphony. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is doing a Sounds of Summer concert series, so we made our way there for the Best of Baroque. It was really nice - I had never been to a symphony performance, so it was certainly something new for me. Afterwards, we went out to dinner where our friends lay a huge surprise on us...our good friends, Eric and Shannon, are having a baby! It's so exciting!! Shannon's 6 weeks along. We're all so happy for them - they're wonderful people and I'm sure they'll make great parents. I'm so excited!! Another baby to play with!

Saturday we spent the day lounging around, watching movies and recovering (we got home after 2am). Then today, Jeremy and I went to Kings Dominion amusement park. I was so excited! I can't even remember the last time I went to an amusement park! And the parks here are 100 times better than anything I've ever been to. We went on 6 rollercoasters, 3 of which were old-school wooden coasters, 2 water rides (Jeremy and I got soaked!), and walked about 100 miles. It was soooooo much fun! My favorite was the crazy Hypersonic, which uses compressed air to launch you straight up in the air, and then you hurtle straight down and around a little bit. Oh my god! I never, ever thought I would want to go on a ride like that, but I'm so glad we did. It was the most awesome thing ever! Woo!! Poor Jeremy blacked out up the top, that's how fast we were going. I kept my eyes open the whole time. It was sheer craziness!

The Hypersonic, baby! Yeah!

Me at the bottom, waiting in line to go on...

And that brings us up to now. It's 7pm on Sunday, and I'm exhausted after a looooong day at Kings Dominion. Now I'm dreading going back to work, but at least I have lots of good memories from this past week.

Oh, and in case you can't tell by the photo above, my hair is now back to dark. I decided to get it colored back to my natural color, so I can let it grow out and not have to worry about roots showing. It cost me half a fortune to get it done at the salon, and now I'm adjusting to it being so dark. But it looks really good, and I'm excited to know that I won't have to worry about dyeing it any more!

Late edit: I had my first ride on Jeremy's bike tonight! Yay! We rode it only a couple of blocks to Chipotle for dinner, and then to the gas station. It was sooooo much fun! Although we were only going about 45 miles/hour, it felt like we were zooming along. Now I really want to get my motorbike license so I can drive it too!

Jeremy on his monster bike!

Me

Take me out to the ballgame...

2006-07-03T05:47:00.001-07:00

"Take me out to the ballgame,

Take me out with the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack

I don't care if I never get back.

Let me root, root, root for the home team,

If they don't win it's a shame.

For it's one, two, three strikes you're out

At the old ball game."

So if you haven't already guessed by the song, on Saturday night I went to my first Major League baseball game. The Washington Nationals were playing the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and we got free tickets through one of Jeremy's friends. Tim (the guy who got us tickets) is friends with the announcer for the Devil Rays, so he managed to score us great seats and a couple of Press passes. Even though I just barely knew what was going on, it was still really fun. We went with a few of Jeremy's friends from SS that we hadn't really seen for a while, so that was good. Afterwards we went out to bar for some drinks with the guy who had got us the tickets. We ended up back at home sometime around 3am. It was a great night.

Jeremy and I in our seats. What a view!

Other than that, not too much is going on here. Marianne's son, Joseph, is visiting from New York for the summer. He'll be here for about a month, which is great because it means that the girls go to him when they want to annoy someone instead of me! Haha.

Also, I have this week off (YAY!). Marianne has taken the girls and Joseph to visit family in Florida, so I'm spending the week at Jeremys. He's still working though, so really I'm spending my days with the crazy puppies. Tuesday is 4th of July, so we're trying to decide what to do for that. We're considering going into the city to watch the fireworks, but there will be people everywhere so we're not sure yet. No doubt we'll do something fun!

And that's about all the news I have. Not very exciting, I know, but hey! You all say you want to know so I'm telling. It's still storming here on and off, although it's nothing like the 14 inches we had last week! I'm still trying to send some over there, but I'm not sure it's working.

Oh, and for all you car buffs....Guess what car we saw on Sunday night after dinner? Parked right next to us was a Maserati! That's right, a car that's worth almost AU$250,000 was sitting right there in the lot next to us. Just goes to show how much money is floating around the area where we live.

Dave in the rain

2006-06-25T06:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to the concert of one of Jeremy's favorite bands - the Dave Matthews Band. It was my first real concert experience (unless you count John Farnham when I was 12 and Human Nature when I was 14) and it was so much fun!

We got to the concert venue early for a long-standing American tradition - tailgating. Tailgating is essentially drinking beer and grilling burgers and hotdogs out of the trunk of your car. Although it's not exactly legal to drink beer in parking lots, we got around it by drinking it out of plastic blue cups. Woo! High class right there! So anyway, we got to the Nissan Pavilion at about 3:30pm, ready for a fun afternoon with friends. We met up with some friends of Jeremy's - Bill and Kathleen (Bill works for the SS), and Keith (who works with Jeremy at CACI). One of the great things about tailgating is that everyone's there to have fun, and so you end up meeting so many random people that by the time the concert actually starts you have a dozen new friends when you started out with just three. By the time the concert began, I had become old friends of Gina and Jason (Jason's like a savant when it comes to numbers), Jill and Brandon (who have an adorable 1 and a half year old son), Josh and his girlfriend (Josh was the reigning champion of all beer games), and some guy in a blue checked shirt. After a long afternoon of beer and chips and hotdogs, and after staking out a prime viewing position on the lawn, much to our dismay it starts bucketing down rain. And I mean buckets and buckets and buckets. It was ridiculously wet and I was ridiculously cold. Luckily Jeremy and I had bought some stylish ponchos ($1.29 at Sports Authority) that actually kept us pretty dry. Good thing too, because I was wearing a white tank top, and everyone knows what happens when a white shirt gets wet! Still, I somehow managed to come home covered in mud (probably due to the mud-slide that some crazy kids beside us had made) and scratches (at one stage I was in the bushes - don't ask!).

Rain, mud and scratches aside, it was a great night. I had so much fun even though I didn't know any of the songs they played bar one, and seeing Jeremy so excited was priceless. We met some great people, drank a lot of Budweiser, and went home soaked and covered in mud. What a great night!!

Kathleen and I

Jill, Kathleen, Gina and me

Kathleen and Bill

Awww...we're so goodlooking!

Bill and Jeremy

And I'm posting this much to Jeremy's disgust because I think it's hilarious.

On a completely unrelated note, yesterday (Sunday) saw even more torrential downpours. The rain was so bad that roads were flooded all around the DC area. It took me 6 hours to get home from Jeremy's place! The highway I usually take home had been cut off by a huge mudslide (they reported as much as 5 feet of debris), so I was sitting in traffic that was dead still for hours. To make matters even worse, I had turned off the car and once traffic started moving again it wouldn't start. So here I am, at 10 o'clock at night, in the middle of the highway with a dead car! It was pretty terrible. What really made me mad was the fact that absolutely no-one stopped to help me. It's not as though people were actually going anywhere - traffic was crawling along - and yet people just went around me, gave me dirty looks, and continued on their way! Finally, a knight in shining armor (well, he was actually in a U-Haul rental truck) stopped and pushed my car off onto the shoulder. Much to my disgust, once I was out of the way I tried to start the car again and, what do you know? It started right up. So I was back in action. Not that it really did me any good to be moving again - we went about a mile and then were dead stopped again. Finally, (I'm talking about 3 hours later) I made it up to the site of the slide, when I was re-directed onto the other side of the highway going back in the direction from which I had just come!!! It just keeps getting worse...wait for it! So I figured I could go back to another highway that I knew would get me home and just take that route. So I'm driving along, through DC, in rain so heavy I was going a mere 20 miles an hour on the highway and I still couldn't see a thing. And then, to my utter dismay, the highway I was on was closed as well!! So we were re-directed yet again, except this time I was put onto some road I didn't know and had no real clue how to get home. So I just kept on driving, hoping to see a sign pointing me in the right direction. Finally I came upon a state highway that I knew, and managed to find my way slowly-but-surely back home. By this stage I'm utterly exhausted (especially after our big night out on Saturday), and can't wait to crawl into bed. Poor me! I got to bed at 3am. Good thing it's still rainy out today, so I can just laze around the house and not do a whole lot of anything.

If only I could've sent the rain your way! Then everyone would have been much much happier!

Summer fun

2006-06-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

So I get home from Jeremy's on Monday, and I discover that Bob & Marianne have bought this giant inflatable water slide. Why, I'm not entirely sure, but it's fun anyway! Here's some pics...

The girls sliding down

Making their way out

Carina looking so cute and innocent (don't let that fool you!)

Marisa getting ready to launch

Me at the top with the kids

Me looking oh-so-beautiful!

Me looking fancy again with the kids.

Crabs and Statistics!

2006-06-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

Well, today is Monday and I only just got back to Bob & Marianne's. We had a great weekend...

Saturday was a nice, lazy day. Jeremy and I went to Sports Authority to pick me up - wait for it.... a tennis racket of all things!! He has a really nice tennis court at his new apartment complex, so we thought we'd go hit some balls. Then it was off to my new favorite place to eat, Chipotle for a tasty burrito. Mmmm...burritos! Hehe. After that we did some window shopping at some of the fancy schmancy stores by his new apartment. We went into this one store called Wylie Wagg to see if we could find anything for his puppies. It was such a snooty dog store - they had all sorts of fancy doggie treats (we got his puppies some doggie donuts, complete with icing and sprinkles!), as well as strollers for your dog and all those funny doggie outfits! Haha.

Then on Saturday night we went over to Eric and Shannon's house for a CRABFEAST! Woo!! Jeremy used to work with Eric when he was SS, so we've become good friends with them. They had ordered 3 dozen crabs, already cooked with yummy Old Bay seasoning on them (Old Bay is this spicy stuff they use a lot on seafood). So we spent the night cracking open crabs, drinking wine, and being eaten alive by mozzies! Jeremy wussed out after cutting his fingers on the crab shells, but I could've eaten them all night!! Once you get past all the intestines and lungs they're soooooo yummy! It was great fun!

Sunday morning I did a little studying, then we headed out to the tennis court for a friendly little fiance vs fiancee game. It was really nice out to start, but then it got unbearably hot!! It was 94 degrees (or for all you back home, about 34 Celcius), and humid! It was terrible! I think my game suffered because of it. Haha. Of course Jeremy beat me, but had it been cooler he would've got his butt kicked!! After spending about an hour in the excruciating heat, we cooled off in the complex pool - it was so nice to be able to actually get in some water that goes past my knees! Sunday night I made Jeremy a typical Aussie roast - we had roast beef with broccoli and cauliflower in white sauce, honey carrots and baked potatoes. It was pretty darn good, if I may say so myself!

Then today, I had my dreaded stats exam. Oh boy... It was sooooo hard! But I guess it's my own fault for not studying as much as I should have. I'm sure I'll pass, but I'm not sure by how much. Oh well. At least the class is done now! Goodbye and good riddance statistics!!

And that brings us up to now. It's still super hot out, so I'm just hanging out inside the nicely air-conditioned house with the kids. Later we'll probably fill up the pool and jump in. But for now I'm content to just sit and stew over how ridiculous stats are, and how much I wish I was back at home lying on the beach.

Time for something new

2006-06-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

As some of you probably already know, I have been talking about a new nanny job that I would be starting in mid-September. The job was pretty much exactly what I wanted - afternoon hours only, close to home, and with decent pay. I had been all set with this new family - they had done a background check on me and we had spoken about getting together with the kids a few times before I started. Then, everything got turned upside down.

Although I had found this "perfect" job, I kept my profile up on Great AuPair. So last week I received an email from a man named Bob who was looking for a nanny for his three kids. I ignored the email, thinking I had already found a job. Then, a few days later, he called. After speaking with him, he invited me to go for an interview. I agreed, thinking "what the hell...I may as well keep my options open". So on Sunday I went for the interview, came home 2 and a half hours later, and today he called and offered me the job!

So now I will be working for Bob & Elizabeth Schmidt. They are separated, in the process of going through a divorce. Bob has a great new girlfriend named Janice, who I met on Sunday as well. I'll be looking after 3 kids - Caroline (14), Russell (11) and Will (7). Most of my time will be spent with Will, as he's the youngest and and the only one who actually needs care. I'll be working afternoons, with the occasional Saturday morning. The kids spend a week with their dad and then a week with their mum, so I'll be between two houses. The kids are great! They're all really into sports (ice hockey, baseball, soccer, tennis and more), and both Caroline and Russell are straight A students. Will is having a few problems with reading, so I'll be spending a lot of time helping him out (I'm used to that - I had to teach Carina & Marisa to read!). The job will basically consist of me shuttling the kids to and from sporting and other activities. They're members of the Belle Haven Country Club, so I'll get a nanny pass to there and will be able to take the kids there to swim, play golf and tennis. They also have season tickets to the ice-hockey team in DC (Capitals), and also to the baseball team (Redskins), so we'll be spending some time there. The pay is fantastic (for the work) - they offered me $375 a week, which is over double what I earn now for less than half the work!

I think that's about it in a nutshell. I'm so excited to start working for them!! They really are the nicest people I've met here - very friendly, and very loud, and they all get along great (even though they're in the process of a divorce). I'm excited that I will be able to work with kids for whom I can be more of a friend and a mentor, rather than just an authority figure. I think it will be a lot of fun working for them, and I can't wait!!

To keep you all informed

2006-06-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

Well, I've finally decided to start a "blog" as a means of keeping everyone I love up to date with my not-so-exciting life. Hopefully this will eliminate the need for me to email everyone on a constant basis (something I'm notoriously bad at remembering to do), while providing a colorful-yet-informative way for me to keep in touch. Check back whenever you want, but I can pretty much guarantee I won't have much to post except for a weekly rambling. Feel free to pass on whatever you read to whomever you want - like I said, I'm not the most exciting person in the world so I'm sure there will be nothing too sensitive on here.

Oh, and Grandma & Grandpa, don't worry - these things are super easy to use! Yay for technology!