Category Archives: family

Today involved:
- waiting for the maintainer to sweep by the lane so we would be able to make it out through the drifts
- grandma circuit, albiet quickly
- quick stop to see Sarah & Rachie
- Omaha for Christmas #2!!  Between seeing the triple D’s (Derrek, Dalton & Dannika) earlier this week and Josie & Savvy tonight, I’m continually amazed at how quickly kids grow and sad that we only get to see them twice out of each year.   The last time I saw Savvy, she had not yet taken her first steps.  Now, she’s a walking, talking ball of personality.

So this is what they mean by "Drifts"

Eggnog Martini's @ Chad & Jen's

Merry Christmas to all on this blustery day! We are snow and wind bound on the farm today, enjoying a low key day of reading, snoozing, eating, presents, and playing games. Wishing everyone safe travels and time with family today! Stay warm:)

Besides a short visit from Gina, Derrek, Dalton & Dani earlier this afternoon, we are officially forging a new Christmas tradition today which is only used during blizzards. Nick, Merry Lou, Louie and I are house bound, and it does feel oddly quiet without all the kids running around tonight- no big rush to get ready for mass, no big rush to get all the munchies out and consumed so that the present opening can start, no big family pictures in front of the gorgeous tree. Gina’s visit this afternoon provided a bit of daylight resemblance to the norm, but from this point on, we are settled in and ready to ‘weather’ the storm. What will tomorrow bring? The traditional grandma circuit? Only time will tell….

By the way, I am officially amazed that our phones get a bit of the Internet out here. I <3 the iPhone!

Nick & the boys

In our new Huskers gear

Gorgeous place to be snowed in!

So glad that we made it back- without needing to drive! It feels like we haven’t been here in quite awhile and it is so good to be back:). With the snow already started, the question is quickly becoming… Who else will make it back for Christmas this year? Nick and I are preliminary in calling everyone else wimps for not making the trip.

A leisurely day today by a gorgeous tree and with bellies filled with the bestest pizza in all the land- Welsh’s!! YUM! Maybe this will be the trip where I get my Welsh’s t-shirt…. Hrmmm….

We also met Sheeba for the first time this trip- what a sweet puppy!

Gorgeous tree!

Mom loved the soup

Today was pretty busy in practice. We all slept in a bit which was nice, and we ’started’ the day by having my mom experience the wonder that is the Shrimp Tempura Tokyo Noodle Soup at Raku. yum! I think it is safe to say she enjoyed:). Unfortunately, we discovered after our longish lunch that Mount Vernon closed at 4PM (it was about 3 when we left the restaurant), so we completely missed that. But not all was lost – mom and I hit up the stores to finish her Christmas shopping! Fun:). We swung back to pick up Nick and hit up veggie Indian buffet for dinner before heading to the box stores. Back home, we surprised mom with her last Christmas present- give a give a give a Garmin! She seemed psyched! :) .

Mom & I

One looks up, the other looks down

Well – today I was *supposed* to be surprising my mom with her Christmas present – tickets to see the Rockettes in DC, followed by dinner at Farmers & Fishers with Nick, Melanie & JJ.  But – alas, last night around 12:30 or so (I think), I checked my email to find that the show was canceled, and alas, we canceled our dinner reservation to go with it.  *sigh* – I had really been looking forward to it.  My mom didn’t seem overly concerned when she unwrapped tickets today to the show that wasn’t happening.  Aaah well.

We dug out this morning.  First, Nick & Jeff dug out Jeff & Mandy’s car, and those two hit the road back to the ROC by about 10AM this morning.  Then Nick and I went out to dig out our cars- according to the meter stick, we got a good 20″ of snow, unheard of down here.  It was light and powdery though, so fairly easy to move without a shovel.  :)

Digging out my car!

It didn’t take too long, though we weren’t digging with a purpose as we didn’t have anyplace to be.  On the contrary, mom and I baked today for her holiday gifts, and we watched Elf while I attempted to get some miles in on the treadmill (boooo to not being able to run outside!)  We were going to head down into DC tonight for dinner with Melanie anyway, but after taking Pinot for a walk and realizing that it was sort of cold out – we decided against it, and instead attempted to see the holiday light show right here in the Gburg (it was closed) with dinner at Old Country Buffet.  My mom loved OCB, so at least we got that in tonight!  And we watched Christmas Vacation, classic.

A few randoms – so, I’m fairly all or nothing.  Nick sometimes tells me that I see things too much in black and white, with not enough shades of gray.  Which is true – I am.  Especially when it comes to fitness.  If I work out every day – or 5-6 days a week even – I’m golden.  But whenever I try to do the whole ‘moderation’ thing at 3-4x a week, I end up getting lazy, putting it off, and not doing it at all. (You can imagine how good I am at not trying to work out at all.)   So on the whole, I’d rather be at the 6 days a week mark because I just feel a lot healthier.  Combine this with this whole trying to ramp up and train for a race thing.  As I’ve mentioned before, this is (I think) week 20 out of 30, and so far, up until this point, I’ve run exactly what I was “supposed” to run on a given week,  every week up until now.  And then there was yesterday, when 20″ of snow fell.  And the trails were not plowed.  And I hate treadmill running.  But I got a good 8 in today inside (instead of the scheduled 13), which overall, I’m OK with.  Moderation, right? Shades of gray – I’m in them headfirst. But looking out to next week – Nebraska is going to be snowy and frigid.  The next long run is slated for a whopping 15 degrees, with who knows how much snow on the ground.  Which means that I think some/all/most of the runs next week may fall to the wayside.  Which is really bugging me, because I’ve been so darned good up until now.  And half of this whole thing is mental.  Aaah well.  I guess we’ll see how things go once we get back, and do as much as I can this week without being crazy about it.

Our Crisper Drawer: one of these things is not like the others

I woke up today and set off to make breakfast, when Nick described his 5AM ordeal with the smoke detector to me – alas, due to beeping goodness, the smoke detector ended up in a chinese take out container and into the crisper drawer of our refridgerator.  Nice! :)

This morning I made cranberry scones and parmesan chive scones – yum :) Highly recommend both recipes.

Cranberry Scones

Parmesan Chive Scones

Mandy, Jeff, my mom, Nick and I woke up to a good 8″ of snow this morning and it has been snowing all.day.long.  I think that we’ve all sort of enjoyed being snowed in – it’s nice to have an excuse to just take a day off every now and again.  We’ve had a fun day of movies (Love Actually and GI Joe), board games (Cranium!), video games (NSMB!), food (scones!  frittata!  dips!  cookies!  pringles!  pasta!  salad!).  Nick, Pinot & I headed outside to play in the snow around 2 or 3PM (our counterparts opted for the nice warm indoors, thank you very much) – it was so much fun to play in so much powder!  (Snow angels!  Attempted snow balls!  Pinot hopping!)  It’s just amazing to see this kind of snow around here, and just how much everything gets shut down  – we tried to order pizza tonight, and noone is delivering.  Not that we expected otherwise, but still.

About a foot of snow at about 2:30PM

The frozen tundra

Pinot Syrah - Snow Dog

Nick & Pinot

Today was a fun day.  The forecast of snow for tomorrow – well starting tonight – coincided quite well with the fact that my mom was originally going to fly down smack dab in the middle of the afternoon tomorrow.  I did count down the hours until noon (YAY leaving work!  I love the feeling that comes with leaving work and knowing you have an entire week off.)  My drive home consisted of calling AirTran to try to switch my moms flight, calling my mom and telling her she had to be at the airport in an hour (she hadn’t packed yet), and calling Nick to thank him for picking my mom up from the airport.  Long story short, everything worked out – she made the flight and got down here yesterday before it started snowing.

In the meantime, Melanie and Snowball came up to the Gburg to hang out and wait for Mandy & Jeff’s arrival!  So excited that these two newlyweds were able to make the trip down – Jeff had a job interview in La Plata (keep your fingers crossed!) so they decided to spend the weekend with us :)   Mandy hadn’t been to DC at all yet – and Jeff hadn’t been since an 8th grade trip – so we had big plans for the evening.  We headed downtown for dinner at Ella’s, and stopped back to check out Melanie & JJ’s place before we walked around.  Leaving the restaurant, it had started to snow (!) and the weather quickly got very cold.  We missed Teaism by 2 minutes, and the sculpture garden concession stand was closed, so our big DC touristy evening ended up being a quick run to the mall, a few pictures, and taking the Smithsonian metro stop to get back to Bethesda to drive home.  So at least we saw the Washington Monument …  the rest will have to come when Jeff gets the job :)

Nick was amazing driving home in deteriorating conditions – with a crazy driver close to home that spun out over the median even – and alas, our full house warmed up and went to bed on this lovely snowy Friday.

Mandy & Jeff

Dinner at Ella's

It started to snow on the way from Ella's to MM&JJ's House

Foiled! The Sculpture Garden concession stand was closed

We did make it down to 'see' the mall :)

Today, Nick, Pinot & I set off for Mays Landing, NJ to visit with my wonderful cousins, George, Peggy, Jim, Jerry, Lyn and Roman.  And the puppies, Sally and Princess Leia.  It was great to see everyone and have the entire day to visit – wonderful family, great conversation, and scrumptious food – which was not anything turkey related!  (On the contrary – an awesome cabbage meatloaf soup, mac and cheese, ham, german potato salad, coleslaw, broiled shrimp & bruschetta – YUM!)  We were very tempted to ditch the original plan and stay overnight, but then in remembering that tomorrow is the last day of the long weekend and we had to travel primarily on I95S, we decided to leave at around 11PM and just come home tonight.  It was a great day, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again soon!

Princess Leia

Sally

Pinot begs George for food

Mel-and-Snowy1I’m very all or nothing when it comes to a lot of things.  Exercise is one of those things, and with the ramping up of the running, I’ve been back to working out 6 or 7 days a week.  Which is great – overall I fell a lot better when I’m doing that (somehow I lose all motivation with moderation of 3-4 workouts a week) – but I’m finding that it’s taking a bit to adjust and I’m really tired in the mornings.  To the point where yet again today, I slept in till 6:30.  Must start getting up a bit earlier once again.  Maybe that can be the goal for next week.

Anyway, I was really looking forward to getting out of work today because Melanie and I had plans for lunch and a dog walk in Bethesda this afternoon.  The rain held out this week (we’ve had to postpone twice now due to the rain and Snowy’s stitches which can’t get wet), so this was the first time since we got back from our trip that Mel & I had a chance to just hang out.  It was a great afternoon!  Even with the chill in the air, the walk was all festively autumn, and lunch at Cosi never disappoints.

Halloween Cupcakes1Halloween Cupcakes2Got home, power nap – and baking for tomorrow nights festivities.  Wasn’t really sure what to make, but then I saw this post and thought these Ghost Cupcakes were adorable – and was thus inspired to make them at home.  (Added bonus – I’ve never made fondant before, and with the hot tip that marshmallow fondant is much better than regular, found a recipe and was able to try that at home!)  My cupcakes turned out pretty cute – I couldn’t find gumdrops as the ghost base so I used Halloween Peeps which worked out pretty well.  I think I probably should have made the ghost eyes a bit bigger, but all in all, no complaints – AND I’m really excited to try out the chocolate chip cookie dough cupcake!

Tonight, Nick and I are rocking the scary movies for Halloween  – starting with Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which I’ve actually never seen before.  Totally excited :)