Biting My Tongue

I've been known to have a streak of road rage from time to time; however, I do know when to cool it when it's not appropriate. This morning in the church parking lot, Frank was preparing to back into a spot (for quicker exiting) when a minivan flew into the parking lot and snatched the spot his was aiming for. I couldn't believe my eyes! Apparently it wasn't obvious (with our reverse lights on and car in mid-reverse) that we had already claimed that spot. Let's just say that woman was lucky it was the church parking lot...

Welcome, Emma!

Our second niece was born on Friday, January 23rd. Danielle & Tony welcomed their second adorable daughter, weighing in at 6 pounds 10 ounces. (Check out that head of hair! It's enough to make Uncle Frank jealous! ;) )Frank & I can hardly wait to meet Emma this weekend!

Star Struck

We picked the perfect weekend to stay put! The bitter cold temperatures had us starting our weekend off inside...We kicked the weekend off with another Thursday night date night - Dinner at the Olive Garden (did I mention how much I love their eggplant parm??) followed by Slumdog Millionaire. Great dinner, great company, GREAT movie! Friday night we hunkered down in the basement and caught up on some of our DVR'ed shows, then on Saturday, Kelly and I headed out to Ashburn for lunch with an old friend from college. It was so much fun catching up on the last 7 years (has it really been that long since we graduated???) of our lives.

Fast forward to Sunday! Frank & I piled the layers on and left our house around 11am to head to the Mall for the free Inauguration concert. We made it to the city in no time via metro, but then things certainly slowed down. It took us about two hours to walk from the Smithsonian stop to our spot near the Reflecting Pool. There were only a handful of entry points, at which we, and our bags, had to be searched. The show was amazing - Such a cool experience...We saw everyone from Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks to Bon Jovi, U2, and Stevie Wonder (did I mention BON JOVI??). It was incredible getting to see our President & VP elect speak in person, too. After the two hour show, we walked back to Virginia, then picked up the metro home. I quickly made dinner - Had Kelly, Jessica, and Jess's bro for some grub before our big night out. By 10:30, we were in a cab on our way downtown to FUR Nightclub. (Yes, I was heading out on a Sunday night at my usual bedtime!) We caught a glimpse of Ricky Schroder, Ron Howard, Jessica Alba and performances by Nelly, DMC, and Ludacris - What a night...What a day! It's an amazing feeling to see our nation coming together to celebrate such a momentous occasion and be a part of history. (Having said that, I still think I'm going to enjoy history from my living room tomorrow.)

Another Weekend...Another Road Trip

With the holidays fully behind us, we had some time to stop and catch our breath this weekend. Saturday was our lazy day - lounging, gym, then dinner and game night at Chuck & Kristen's. We hadn't played a full game of Cranium since last year's 'sickness.' (6 of us crossed the border into MD for dinner, came back to our place to play Cranium, and then 5 of us wound up on our death beds with the flu. Let's just say we haven't ventured back into MD for food since!) On Sunday, we decided to make a day trip to Delaware to visit my family. My grandparents and one of my uncles and his family were down visiting my cousin, so we made the 2 hour trip for some Garone QT - And were still home by 8:00, just in time to do a quick load of laundry and hunker down for a new Desperate Housewives. I swear, next weekend, we are staying put!

Date Night

Our first full week back at work after the holiday madness proved to be a busy one - work for me, soccer for Frank. We barely got to see each other for an hour each night, so by the time Thursday came around, I was missing my hubby and declared a mandatory date night! I left work at 5 on Thursday, was home and changed a little after 6, and out the door we went. It was a perfect evening - Dinner at Restaurant 3 in Clarendon, a stroll to Barnes & Noble to kill some time, a stop at Starbucks to warm up, then an 8:00 showing of Seven Pounds. I even stayed awake for the whole movie - Bravo to Will Smith, it takes a lot to keep me awake after 9:30 lately! I really enjoyed the movie - a different role for Will. The first 45 minutes of the movie really have you asking "what on earth is going on" but then the pieces start to fall into place. Let's just say that I walked out of the theatre thinking that maybe I should do more to help others...

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

After the whirlwind of holidays over the past two weeks, I'm finally getting a chance to sit back and RELAX! As I mentioned in my last blog, Frank & I headed to LI on the Tuesday before Christmas where we spent lots of time with our niece, Kate, spent time with his family and my family, ate a ton, laughed a lot, and had a blast! I was extremely lucky to have so many wonderful, caring people around me for my first Christmas away from mom. Frank's family was great - and it definitely helped that I got to see my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc on Christmas day as well. We left LI Saturday evening (after Christmas) so we'd have Sunday to recuperate at home before heading to work on Monday. (Sidenote: I'm not sure why I didn't take off the two full weeks - maybe I'll remember next year!) We had a relatively quiet New Year's Eve at Mike & MK's place where she cooked a delicious dinner. Then on this past Saturday, we were on the road again to celebrate Christmas with my mom - Again, more food, fun, and family (not to mention gifts!). Frank & I are really lucky to have such loving, generous families. We still haven't managed to put away all of our gifts (highlights include a new camera for both of us, Garmin Forerunner for me, soccer videos/books for Frank, lots of clothes, shoes, new shades for me, things for the house...)

Here are a few pics care of our new Nikon! We've only used it in manual mode so far - Lots of photography learning ahead of us! I also tried playing around with the software that came with the camera to create these collages.