Halloween 2012

This fall has been really busy for us.  Greg has traveled for business a week as I was wrapping up my project at work.  We added in 2 new operating rooms at a medical office building, and the Superintendent and Project Manager decided to go on vacation the week before we turned it over to the hospital, so I was working days and nights to finish the space while Greg was traveling for work.  The next week didn't get much better, so on Halloween, the last thing we wanted to do was to spend our evening opening up the door to children. 

We bought some pumpkins to carve, but it just seemed like so much work.  All we wanted to do was drink some wine and relax in front of the TV, but it seemed like such a waste to not do anything with the pumpkins.  So, Abby and I ended up just cutting off the tops of the pumpkins and digging out the seeds so we could have a snack, while Greg worked on his computer in the office.

Earlier in the week, I made a recipe for Starbucks' pumpkin poundcake, and it was delicious!  Even though I don't typically share recipes on this blog, I going to do it today because it was so good, and I think you should all make it.  I found it on Pinterest.

 

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup All Purpose Flour
• 1/2 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. Salt
• 1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
• 1/4 tsp. Ground Cloves
• 1/4 tsp. Ground Nutmeg
• 1 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1/2 cup Fat Free Vanilla Yogurt
• 3 Egg Whites
• 1 cup Canned Pumpkin

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a load pan, and set aside.
2. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
3. In another bowl, combine the sugar, yogurt, and egg whites.  Whisk thoroughly until blended.  Stir in the pumpkin.  Add the dry ingrdients and stir until completely mixed.
4. Pour into Pan and bake for 60 minutes, or until toothpick is inserted and comes out clean.
5. And ENJOY!  Try not to eat half of it in one night like we did.  The suggested serving is 8.



Greg and I had a Halloween party to go to the Saturday after Halloween, and we had no idea what we wanted to be.  It worked out well that the party was after Halloween because all the Halloween costume stores had 50% off of their merchandise.  We went on Thursday to look at some of the costumes and just couldn't justify spending money on them.  I borrowed a tool belt from a guy at work and decided that I was going as a construction worker.  Greg couldn't come up with anything on his own, so I went back on Saturday before the party and bought the costume that he wanted the most.  Needless to say, he had the best costume at the party.

The night ended up being really fun!  My friend decorated the house, as you can see the blood dripping from the ceiling and creepy old people in the frames in the picture above.  It makes me regret not doing much around my house for Halloween, but it gets me excited for Christmas because I want to start decorating in a couple weeks!

Dreams of a Beautiful Landscape

Before we moved into our house, I lived with a friend that lives only about a mile away from our neighborhood.  I would actually run by our house since we had a few months from when we bought the house until we closed on it.  I would call Greg after my run and tell him how beautiful the house was and how all the flowers are starting to bloom and we have a gorgeous flowering tree in the front yard.  The grass looked pristine at the time.

We got married the summer we moved in, and if you can remember Summer 2011 was extremely hot just as this summer was.  The week we were gone for our wedding and honeymoon, temperatures were in the 100's, so our grass all died; but, let's be honest, we have never watered a day in our life until recently.  The last time I can remember watering a yard or plants was when I was a child when my mom made me.  I didn't like it then, and I certainly do not like it now.

Too much time has gone by with us neglecting our yard.  Practically our entire street has nice developed landscaping and sprinkler systems to water them, and our yard just keeps getting more clumps of crab grass and "milk" weeds spreading throughout.  I can honestly say I'm embarrassed, and it's time for a change.

I've done a good amount of research on plants in the area and what type of plants do well in our zone, but bottom line, the beds have to be low maintenance.  There are several websites, such as Better Homes & Garden, that will give you a landscaping design for your zone, so I used a lot of these websites to find a design that I liked.  I also had a hard time deciding between hearty bushes and some color from flowering plants.  I like to think that we ended up somewhere in the middle.  I saved several types of plants on my computer that I wanted to look into.  Greg just wanted me to have a plan since he thinks I just wing everything, so I convinced him to start by visiting a Nursery, and then I could see the plants that I was thinking of, and then group them together as I thought looked good.  It was a total plan!; however, when we were at the Nursery,  I couldn't find any of the strange names that I was looking for.  We did take some pictures of bushes that did well in the sun, and we decided to skip the perrenials until the spring. 

We also bought metal edging to separate the beds from the lawn.

What we did end up buying was 3.5 cubic yards of top soil that we were going to have them deliver to our house.  One of the websites that I visited said to elevate your flower beds so they stand above the grass.  I really liked the way this looked, so we needed some dirt to fill them in.  The woman at the Nursery helped us do the calculations, but we ended up with a lot more dirt than expected, so we were able to use it all around the yard to fill in our post holes from the fence and other low spots in the yard.

That evening, I decided to draw up a plan in order to give Greg some assurance that I had a plan for the front yard.  I broke out the old markers from my architecture classes and made it look pretty.  Needless to say, Greg approved of the plan and suggested that we purchase the plants on Monday so we could plant them as we were filling in the beds with our top soil.

So, I'm sure you haven't forgotten about our beautiful flowering tree in the front yard that is no longer in the plan.  The problem with the tree is that the roots were so shallow and the wind blows too hard around here, so the tree always leaned to one side.  Our friends suggested that we list the tree on Craigslist so that others could have it and dig it up for us.  Not a bad idea, but I just wasn't ready to get rid of it, so we moved it to the backyard!  There were also some other bushes in the front that are barely surviving from lack of water that we moved to the back as well.  The tree isn't so pretty anymore from the shock of relocating it, but hopefully it will come back next year.

Please ignore all of the dirt piles.  Those will eventuallty get moved.

As Greg was digging holes for the bushes along the sidewalk, he was realizing that the flowering tree's roots were so shallow because it was planted on top of concrete and rocks, as if the builder was really sloppy with his work when he poured the sidewalk and driveway.  Greg thinks he got the holes wide enough for our bushes to grow, so hopefully we won't have the same problem.

These are supposed to grow to 2'x2'.

These boxwoods are supposed to grow to 4'x4'.

If you're still reading to this point, then I'm sorry this post is so long.  I could go on forever about the crab grass and how we are pulling it all up by hand.  We have filled in all the dips in our yard, and have planted fescue grass seed.  We are slowly getting the hang of watering and being patient waiting for the grass seed to grow. 

Look for future updates on our progress in the yard.  Greg is slowly designing a sprinkler system, we will plant more ornamental grasses and flowers in the spring, and hopefully be able to fill the beds with rock.  We are also very excited about planting a garden if we can get the sprinkler system in.  Let's not get too ahead of ourselves and think we can actually water a garden everyday by ourselves.

Turning 26

We celebrated my birthday with our friends by going to a Wine & Chocolate Appetizer Pairing event at Stone Pillar Winery by our house.  I wasn't sure what to expect because I thought the food was going to be really sweet since the theme was chocolate, but it was actually pretty good.  Here was the menu:

1. Chorizo Chocolate Tapas with Traminette Wine
2. Brisket with Savory Chocolate BBQ with a Cabernet Sauvignon Wine
3. Cocoa Rubbed Chicken Skewers with Mole Sauce with a Chambourcin Wine
4. Cocoa Glazed Sweet Potato Medallions with Hofftoberfest Wine
5. Chocolate Rosemary Fondue with Zucchini with Redneck Rose Wine
6. Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Cake with Norton Wine
7. Chocolate Pomegranate Clusters with Joceaux Wine

We weren't sure at first if we should invite our friends because of the food selection and the weather was in the 50's for the evening.  It turned out better than I expected.  We loved the Chorizo and the desserts.  We were all crammed in the wine tasting house, so we decided not to stay long, and we had people back over to our house to play games.  I made a pumpkin spice latte crockpot recipe that was cooking while we were gone, and everyone seemed to enjoy that.

On Sunday, we relaxed around the house.  Chase and Abby always seem to be so tired on Sunday evenings as well.  This is the only night that Chase will curl up and lay by us.  As soon as Greg got up, both changed their positions and laid on me.  We love our kids!

Monday was my actual birthday, and I went to work and had meetings all day.  I always tell myself that I'm going to take off for my birthday, and it hasn't happened yet.  My last meeting was up until 5 PM, so I couldn't even get out of there early.

Greg and I had plans to ride our bikes up to Spin Pizza for dinner.  They opened up a new location that's around a 30 minute bike ride from our house using the Stream Way trail that goes a really long distance.  I had no idea that Greg was surprising me with a gift, but I teared up when he delayed the start of our bike ride to tell me that he had a present for me.  He got me an Timex Ironman Run Trainer watch that tracks GPS, speed and distance with a heart rate monitor!  I think he's really just tired of me going running without my phone, so now he can track me down.  I'm excited about the heart rate monitor because now I can prove to him that I can't go as fast as him or he will give me a heart attack.  Ha!

Anyway, we went out to the garage to pump up our bike tires, and he says he has another gift!  He also bought the pedals with the cage on the top so we can get some speed on the upswing of the pedal.  I really wanted this for my triathlon, but we couldn't find it at the time (ok, let's be honest, I only looked at one place the night before the race).

At Spin Pizza, you can bring in your own wine and they have only a $1 uncorking fee.  Greg decided to bring a bottle since it was a celebration.  On the way back we took the sidewalks along the roads since it was dark.  Greg's bike chain kept falling off, and I couldn't help myself but laugh hysterically.  He wasn't too happy, but we made it home in 45 minutes, so it wasn't an issue.  I told him that I was laughing at him because of the way he looked on his bike because he was riding cautious.  Let me paint the picture in your head.  Greg has on black tennis shoes, white socks, swishy Adidas pants that up puffed up from the wind blowing on them and exposing his white socks.  Then, he is riding upright on a road bike, where he is typically hunched over, and the chain would get stuck and he would pedal with his legs out as if he was riding a horse.  Gosh it was funny, and I told him that I would draw him a picture of himself so he could laugh with me, and I still haven't done it.  He did eventually laugh, so the night wasn't ruined.

It was a great birthday to say the least.  We will all have to take you to Spin Pizza some time.  We love that place. 

 

New York: Sunday & Monday

On Sunday, Mackie was going to take us running through Central Park, which was really cool and only about a quarter mile from her apartment. I wish I would have taken more pictures, but I didn't stop during the run to do so. At all times there were at least 20 people around you working out and running as well. We felt like we were running in a 5K.  It was nice to see this part of New York. Although, I didn't like running through the city to get to Central Park. I felt dirty breathing in the air that smelled awful of trash.

That afternoon we had plans to go to the High Line, but first we made a stop at Dylan's Candy Bar!  Dylan, is Ralph Lauren's daughter, and she has a 3 story candy shop in New York with a bar on the top floor where the drinks are candy flavored.  We felt like kids in this place sitting inside a cupcake to have our candy drinks at 2 PM in the afternoon.  Mackie got a chocolate martini and I had a jolly rancher cocktail.  Greg stuck with a peanut butter and chocolate icecream sundae.

This was entirely made of jelly beans.

The High Line is an area where they made a nice path through the city over what used to be a railroad line. The buildings that we passed along the trail were awesome. We walked through the Chelsea market place and then headed back to Mackie's place to get ready for dinner and a comedy club.

The Sears Tower could be seen from the High Line.

Greg and I have never been to a comedy club, and it was really funny; well, I guess I would say it was a hit and miss. There were some that were really funny, and others that were painful to watch. The only thing we could all do without was the audience interaction with a really annoying family of 15 people.

On Monday we went to the Central Park Zoo because Greg and I typically like to go to zoos on vacation, but this zoo was just awful.  There were probably 10 animals not including the reptiles and birds, and out of those 10, 2 were awake.  Although, I must say that the zoo was pretty cool seeing the city in the background.



Mackie made us...and Greg was not thrilled.  Oh Greggor Bunny!



We went shopping again on our way home and got some coffee.  It killed us the entire week because Mackie didn't have a coffee maker in her apartment.  Late afternoon, we went running back in the High Line area at a trail along the Hudson River. It was even prettier than Central Park. We had dinner down there, and then went back to Mackie's around 8 PM and we were too tired to go out, so we rented 21 Jump Street.

If you look closely, you can see the trail along the Hudson River that we went running on.

We left on Tuesday, and we were just exhausted the rest of the week at work. New York is quite different than the Midwest, and I just couldn't get over walking down the sidewalk with your head down and not saying hi as you passed people along the street or not smiling as a new person got on the Subway. An older couple that has probably lived in New York their entire lives would get on the Subway, and I would think how much more they have probably been exposed to and have accepted than what we will ever encounter in our lives. I love how travelling makes you appreciate your home, but allows you to experience the culture of a new place while you are there. I would go back in a heartbeat, but next time I'm taking an architectural tour!