Food, Family, & Fun

Frank & I spent a great Thanksgiving weekend on Long Island with both of our families. We left Arlington at 5:30am on Wednesday morning to avoid traffic and made it in our usual 5 hours. We got to hang out with Frank's sister and our niece on Wednesday and then made last minute plans with my uncle and his family to hop a train into the city to watch them blow up the parade balloons and enjoy a late night dinner. Thursday consisted of gorging ourselves at his sister's house on delicious antipasto, macaroni, and of course turkey with all of the fixings. I even got to spend some time with my dad - He stopped over for dessert.

I woke up bright and early on Friday to hit the Riverhead outlets with the girls - I had a shopping bag in my hand by 6:30am! After shopping until noon, I then headed out to my grandparents for a late lunch. The rest of Friday was spent relaxing and improving our Wii skills! (Frank's sis scored one for her birthday.) After an early dinner on Saturday, we were back on the road to Virginia...A busy, but fun weekend!

Let There Be Light!

After searching many, many stores and online for lampshades to match our bedroom, I concluded that none existed to match my taste. So, I opted to make my own. With a little guidance from my mom, I managed to cover lampshades with material that I'd found that matches our comforter perfectly and added some decorative touches as well - Here's the finished products; What do ya think???

Happy Birthday to me!

Goodness, it's been awhile since I've blogged...My birthday has come and gone - I guess I'm officially 'almost 30' now. I have to say though, it's really not that scary! I don't feel old (and hope I don't look it either!). I celebrated my birthday, 2 weeks ago, quietly in Winchester with Frank and my family. Frank and I headed home Saturday night and spent all day on Sunday at mom's. I had a fabulous, relaxing day, complete with a birthday breakfast (birds in a nest) and birthday dinner (ham and pineapple, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, broccoli casserole, etc., etc.) all care of my wonderful mommy! The day was topped off with way too many great presents and a very chocolatey Peanut Butter Playground birthday cake from Cold Stone. What a great way to spend my 29th birthday!

Week 1 of Renovations

We survived the first week of renovations! When Frank & I bought our new house, we had several renovations in mind - the first of which included opening up our kitchen and updating it...Well, somehow that first renovation project turned into redoing our basement. (Frank has some good persuasion skills!) The current basement was partially finished but severely outdated – I’m talking shag carpet, paneled walls, etc. Our renovations include adding a closet in the guestroom, adding a full bathroom, finishing the washroom, redoing the main area into a media room, and adding a small wet bar – We can’t wait to see the end product! Our contractor started work this past Monday and is on track to finish within the next month. Here’s a before and after picture of the ‘media room’:

DC Celebrity Sighting (sort of)

Frank and I tried a new restaurant in Clarendon with some friends last night, Restaurant 3, which turned out to be quite yummy! As we were enjoying our duck wraps, tuna lollipops, and calamari appetizers, the table next to us was sat with a couple that I knew I had seen before somewhere…I kept stealing glances at the woman, desperately trying to place where I knew her from…Then one of our friends spoke up and said “Do you recognize our neighbors?” Turns out it was Wendy Rieger from channel 4 news and Leon Harris from channel 7 news! After dinner and drinks, they left in time to get back to their respective stations for the 11:00 news…:)

Thought of the Evening

Have you ever wanted to know something about a person’s past just to find out that it was better left untouched? Why is it that our curiosity sometimes takes the best of us and ‘forces’ us to dig into someone’s history? I’ve recently affirmed that the past is better being just that – left in the past. There are some questions that are better left unanswered, despite how badly we think we might want to know. A person’s past makes us who we are, it shapes us as individuals – Sometimes knowing a person today just simply has to be enough to accept and love them.

Up on the Rooftop...

We're finally sleeping in our bedroom! Our bedroom furniture arrived last week along with our mattress and boxspring; however, not without a hitch...The boxspring wouldn't fit upstairs but Frank & I were determined to make it work! We managed to hoist the boxspring onto the 1st story roof and brought it in through the outside door to our bedroom. Actually not too hard of a task - I was quite proud of us! With our new bedding set up, I love it! (Frank isn't quite as big of a fan...I'm hoping it will grow on him - I have to keep reminding him that our bedroom is JMU colors! hehe) Next mission: lamps for the nightstands and curtains!

Where'd they all go?

I was so excited to have a house in a great neighborhood for Halloween. Thinking we would get tons of trick-or-treaters, I definitely stocked up on the candy – I’m fairly certain we had over 500 pieces, easily. (Yes, I may have over done it a wee-bit.) Well, after the neighborhood Halloweenie Roast, all of the kids (about 20-30) migrated from house to house for treats, so I sprinted back to our house to meet them at the door with our basket of goodies. After waiting a few minutes for more ghosts and goblins to show up at our door, I decided I would head back to the block party and watch for them from afar. To my dismay, the only other trick-or-treaters that visited our house were kids from the soccer team (who totally made out, because we divided up the rest of the candy in our basket between the 10 or so of them!). All of that anticipation for only a handful of kids? Which leaves me asking…where the heck were all of the trick-or-treaters? I know the kids on our block only ventured down a few streets – But I remember trick-or-treating for hours. Are parents too worried about their kids eating too much candy these days? My child will be out there loading up on candy…But don’t worry, I’ll make sure he/she doesn’t eat too much…I fully intend to help out as well! :)

On a somewhat related note…With all of the candy I’ve been eating, I felt the need to step up my workouts, so I decided to try my hand at a Spinning class. I’m pretty sure I went a little too easy on the resistance though – Since everyone around me was sweating buckets and I barely broke a sweat! After 45 minutes, I was just left with a sore ass and the need to run a few miles to really get a workout in! I have to admit though, I was a little scared to really crank the resistance, but now I’m fully determined to work it next class!