My In-Laws

Really, I have the greatest in-laws.  My mother in law (Momma G) wanted to go out to eat with the kids (Kevin & I, and his sister & her husband) for her birthday! Great, fun, cool.  Good food for dinner, some fun martinis, and we decided to head to the other side of the restaurant to where the bar was. 

And do you know what the birthday girl wanted to do while we were in the bar? Irish Car Bombs! Woo!

Well, Mom, Kevin, & Brother in Law did Car Bombs at least!

 Happy Birthday Momma G!

Neglected Blog: I think so

I felt pretty good for a few weeks, finishing posting about our honeymoon, which was exciting - some fun things actually happened in our lives, which were fun to write about.  But lately, all I've done is work, work, work, and go to the grocery store.  None of which are really that exciting - and I'm sure you don't want to hear about my trip to the grocery store!

We've done a few fun things in the last few days, and I do need to write a post about a wonderful weekend I had with my best friend.

So, I'm going to try and dedicate myself a little more to writing things down and remembering to take photographs so I am reminded of all of the fun things, because those are the moments I want to remember (not so much with 9pm at work on a Wednesday).

Happy Valentines Day!

Thanks to the wonders of Bakerella I made the men a quick, sweet, treat for Valentines Day.

Red Velvet cake mix, cream cheese, and butter! Easy & Yummy!

 My favorite kind of baking.

Happy Valentines Day <3

Date Framing

New DIY project - I'm so in love with this one, I might actually complete it.  I found it at Frame The Date - oh yes, these people are ridiculously creative! As opposed to the DIY re-do our bedroom project that has exploded to 317 photos in a file labeled "bedroom needs help", but not actually resulted in any purchasing, sewing, or curtains.

From: Occasions Niagra

Regardless - I'm going to find background paper at Michael's, either Google or neighborhood stalk my way to our wedding date, and get this bad boy finished and on the wall! I think I'm going to stick with black and white so it will go with everything, I just need to determine the logistics of photo size and frame size!  And, if I can figure it out - this might be a go-to gift, although a little difficult to use as a wedding gift, since I won't have the photo.  But whatevs.  Logistics later, creativity now.

Numbers... who knew they could be so cute?

Happy Spring Training!!!

Oh yes, that's right - we are headed back to the wonderful city of Clearwater for some Phillies 2011 Spring Training action! I can't wait to share spring training with two awesome friends (shout out to Moe & Andy)!

We leave mMch 9th & come home March 13th! Yep, and that's about all the further we've gotten with planning.  I mean, we only came up with this hairbrained idea about a week ago.  And I only booked plane tickets last night at midnight.  Hey, we're young, might as well live it up while we can, right?!

200 : 100 Challenge

Self admittedly, I need a goal to motivate me.  Running over the summer would never have happened if I wasn't training for the Baltimore Half Marathon.  I just have a hard time without a set workout schedule,  and I'm okay with that.

Goals for 2011 may include a bike ride or two and some running.  However, in addition to not being able to motivate myself, I also am a total sissy about being in the cold.  Enter: Winter Goal for 2011. 

200 : 100

TwoHundredSquats : OneHundredPushups

The challenges are 6 weeks and are set-up the same.  There is an initial test where you do as many squats/push ups as you can to failure, and then you use that number to determine which column you'll operate out of.  There are Progress Tests (test to failure) at the end of weeks 2, 4, 5, and the final test at the end of week 6. 

Both programs are set for working out 3 days per week, so my days will be Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.  My real goal is to do these in addition to riding my bike 2 - 3 days a week, but as we all know - snow and/or work can throw a real wrench into those plans.  If nothing else, the sets shouldn't take more than 10/15 mins, and even I can make time for that!

I am super excited to give this a shot, and we'll see where I end up in 6 weeks! I'll try to keep you updated as I go along - anyone interested in trying it out with me?

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Plans found here:

One Hundred Push Ups

Two Hundred Squats

CSA - Fresh & Local Summer 2011

Kevin and I have decided to join a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) for the summer! I am super excited after having heard about them from several other people in our area.  There are about 9 farms in the general Chester County area that participate in West Chester Open Market, as well as a 20/22 week CSA Share program. 

The farm that we joined is North Star Orchard, based out of Cochranville.  Their primary focus until about 3 years ago was fruits, but they have a huge variety of vegetables as well.  You sign-up now (February - April, depending on your specific farm), pay for the produce, and wait.  But, you get to lock in the produce at a set rate, and regardless of how high the prices may rise at the grocery store, your price can't change because you've already paid for it! North Star does vegetable and fruit CSA shares, although I only signed up for the vegetable, because I don't think we would eat that quantity of fruit, but am more comfortable with the veggies. 

We chose to pick-up our vegetables on Thursdays,  and the pick-up location is about 10 minutes from home and is open from 4pm - 6:30.  Something really exciting is that North Star is also partnering with a local bakery and a gardener, so we will have the opportunity to pre-order baked goods (muffins, pastry, bread, doughs) and flowers (cut or to plant) throughout the summer.  Our season will run 22 weeks, and will start the last Thursday in May. 

So... here is the list of types of vegetables we may see throughout the summer.  I'm going through cookbooks now to get some ideas, and am excited already!

2011: The Year of Weddings (Numero Uno)

Have you ever heard people say "you're that age where everyone (fill in the blank)"?

I used to tease a friend of mine, because every year for her was the year that everyone got married - I mean, this girl had like 5 weddings every year! Welp, that girl is getting married (got married now) and so are 3 of our other friends! Yeppers, 4 weddings in 2011.  Hint: that means I'd better not get surprised with any more!

Lori & John - January 29th. 

Beautiful Bride, Wonderful Vows, Great Party, Oustanding Band - Oh and a photo booth!

7 people in our pew: cozy

The Reverend had a great message, about the 4 layers of the rings and what they all mean.

Mr & Mrs John Gebert, Jr!

 Oh, and let me tell you who my favorite dancing partner was at the party - Pop-Pop! Lori's grandfather is quite a good time, let me tell you! Oh here, you can check him out for yourself!

I think we clean up pretty nicely though... if I do say so myself

...and Good Night! 3 weddings to go

Delayed Honeymoon: The final day...

Saturday was sadly, the last day of our wonderful 10 day honeymoon.  Yopie and Timmie had big plans for us, the beach and dinner with friends (Ken & Monique!).

The beach was beautiful.. and hot.. and topless. 

Don't worry, the only topless photos I'll show you are of the men :)

Bas, Kevin, and Timmie had a great time playing catch in the water, while the girls mostly floated. 

I read almost an entire book that day on the beach.  And also got sufficiently toasted by the sun.  We all laid under umbrellas, on beach chairs and enjoyed the relaxing day! We took a break at lunch for food & rose (because why not drink 2 bottles of wine at lunch, split between 4 people, on a Saturday). Right, that's the way the dutchies did things, and we were more than happy to join right in!

A slightly cramped ride back to La Salamadra, and there was time for a little relaxing before dinner.  Ken and Monique brought beautiful tomatoes, and I could have eaten just those for dinner - although the rest of the meal was wonderful as well!

One last, or 10 last rounds of Shithead (the European version of the card game Bullshit) with Emma and Bas, and Kevin and I headed to bed.   I was so sad to think that we would be leaving at 5am the next morning, to plane hop our way home. 

Timmie was amazing, and took us to the airport in the morning - about a 45 minute drive.  A bit longer line than we'd anticipated at the airport in Nice, but we made it on our plane in plenty of time! Nice to Frankfurt, a change of planes, and my husband got us in biggggg trouble.  Well, mostly some moody TSA agents gave him hell for stepping over the line rather than going around.  While the line had zero people in it. Right. Frankfurt to Philly was a long flight, and I got teased relentlessly for reading a book and watching 2 (or 3?) movies.  Home safely in Philadelphia, my wonderful inlaws picked us up, and brought us home. 

Home. such a wonderful vacation...... now back to the real world.

Delayed Honeymoon: Mougins - Heaven on Earth

*Warning, photo heavy post*

Our train got into Cannes on Wednesday night, and Timmie and Emma picked us up.  Well, they came to get us, and mostly make fun of the amount of luggage that we packed for our 10 day trip.  It was like they expected us to only bring on carryon sized bag or something?!?! Whatever, it fit in their van, and that was all that mattered at the time! We headed back to La Salamandra - "the compound" - where the ever wonderful Yopie had made dinner! Yay food! We're so easy to please sometimes.

Then it was off to take photos of the house, the pool, everything - this was a once in a lifetime kind of vacation!

Front of the House

Well, why not play ping pong in the driveway?

back of the house, looking up from the pool



Pool, heaven, yes please!

Thursday we woke up late - and found freshly baked bread! With Nutella! Laying around the pool for the day was relaxing, refreshing, and wonderful! Later that night we headed into Cannes for the Thursday night fireworks.  The fireworks are a regular occurance in Cannes throughout the summer and are sponsored by different firework manufacturers, and the viewers get to vote for their favorite.  We hung out for about an hour before we figured out that the fireworks had been postponed to Friday.  So... back to the house, and some rose!

Friday morning our wonderful hosts drove us to the train station, where Kevin and I hopped on the train to take a ride into Monte Carlo! Yes, home of the Grand Prix! Supposedly it "never rains in Monaco" but you'd better believe it rained on Friday, July 30th damnit. And we're so cool, we bought an umbrella. A freaking $50 umbrella. But, we stayed dry and were able to stalk cars - because wasn't that half the point?!

Beautiful cars around every corner..

So many of them around the circle that is in front of the casino.  I can't imagine how much Valet Parking must cost, I was scared justreading the dress code!

We grabbed a map - because that race course is complicated - and got walking! Yep, we walked about 2 miles of curbing and roads, and only got lost a few times.  There was lots of hanging out on the red and white curbing - how often do you get to do this in a lifetime!!

And do you recognize this turn?

The Prince of Monaco also has a car museum in the city, and we spent a few hours there looking at everything from stage coaches to Ferraris!

And one more for Christopher -

Oh right, except the day wasn't over yet! Remember those fireworks we were supposed to see on Thursday, yes they got rescheduled for Friday! Back on the train to Cannes, to meet with the Dutchies.  We found a seat on the wall, and did quite a bit of people watching before the fireworks started!

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Okay, time for bed.  We were exhausted, and I needed to download some photos.  Because I did the unthinkable, and filled the entire memory card!

Delayed Honeymoon: Goodbye Paris (for now)

Wednesday morning we had a few last stops to make before we hopped on the train again to head South.

First stop - well, actually 3 train stops later - we were at Pixi & Cie! This is the store that made our cake topper.  *Which, my wonderful bridesmaids so wonderfully tracked down and purchased for me* It was a gorgeous store, although a bit expensive.  Kevin & I did manage to find two gorgeous pieces that we could both afford and wanted to bring home with us - one of the Eiffel Tower and one of Maillot Jaune! Both were intended to take places of honor on our Christmas Tree, along with the wedding ornament. 

A quick lunch - Kevin's was filled with chocolate -

and then back to John & Stacy's apartment one last time.  We said goodbye to their wonderful dog Lola (who loved Kevin & he loved her back). 

A quick walk to the wrong train station and we were on our way to Cannes.  Yes, that's right - I said the wrong train station.  See, when we came into Paris, we came into Paris Norde.  So, since I had purchased our tickets to and from the same place, I assumed.... Well, safe to say I assumed incorrectly, because we got to Paris Norde, and there was no 3:40 train to Cannes.  A panic-filled 5 minute train ride, and we found our way to the correct train station - Gare de Lyon.  I completely felt like an idiot, and probably apologized to Kevin 500 times, but he swore it was okay. Oh well, considering how much planning I put into the trip, I suppose I was guaranteed to screw it up somewhere.

Time to relax, in our first class seats, and enjoy the view.
(Don't go thinking we're all high rollers because we were traveling first class - it's nothing like flying first class, more like it was just an easy way to have internet)