Photos

Today, my order of over 250 photos, yes real bonified printed hard-copy photos! came in the mail. I just spent the past 45 minutes putting them in chronological order, because god knows it's too hard for shutterfly to keep them in order, and I now have the very satisfying task of putting them in a real life photo album!!

And no matter what you say, I'm super Excited about it!!

When I'm not taking photos, I'm crafting! And with Christmas ahead fun crafting get-together a with friends are an awesome passtime! Here are the fruits of those labors...

What have you been doing for Christmas prep??

Learning

It's funny how something like having a dog can make you learn new things about yourself.

Having Brody around the past month has taught me about, well really more Affirmed, my nurturing character and it's strength.  It's been 4 weeks with our pup and I still hate leaving for work every morning, and am sad to leave him in the car when I go into a store.

I went to Petco for the first time last weekend (Mr. Man had been doing it alone prior to that) and Brody was allowed Into the store with us!!  That was so much fun!

Having Brody has also taught me that I love being outside, even when it's cold and windy and possibly raining (ok, maybe not when it's raining, let's be honest here!). I enjoy the fresh air and the time to just walk with him.  It's a great Necessary Motivator to get outside at a time of year when normally I would hibernate.

I also learned that I can't let Mr. Man always be the one to fill the food bowl, because Brody has very much less interest in me when he doesn't think I'll ever feed him!  Oh Dogs!

Wellfleet Oysterfest

Seriously one of the best weekends every year!  Anyone who has ever vacationed, visited, lived in, or grew up in Wellfleet comes to the town for an awesome event.

I am not gonna lie, I don't know how people can go to Oysterfest and walk around for the whole two days and just look around and deal with the crowds for 48 hours.  I have to mix in a bit of shopping, lots of eating, some visiting with friends, and some working of course!!

This year friends came to visit for the 2nd time on this iconic weekend.

There was some Oyster-eating:

Some friendly photo poses:

Lots of cute-Baby admiration:

Some serving of oysters of course:

And some doggy-lovin:

A great weekend all around! Thanks for visiting!!!

I Melt!

How can I not completely melt inside when I come home to this:

New Beginnings

No I'm not pregnant, but my family has grown by four feet this week! Mr. Man and I got ourselves a doggy!!

Any one who knows me at all knows that I am not a dog person, but my husband is. When I said 'Yes' on that beach over 2 years ago, I knew that a dog would be in my future! And the time finally came.

And now let me say, that this dog was made for me!! My husband found him at our local rescue league, put a 24 hour hold on him and we went to pick him up the very next day. He is a 3 year old Husky, and we named him Brody!

Brody loves to go for walks outside at our local park. But then at home he is perfectly content lying in a good spot on the floor, and then another good spot on the floor. And that's about it.

And he makes me smile!

I won't say I'm a full convert, because I definitely don't love every dog, but this one has won me over in just a few short days!

Welcome to the Family Brody!!

Milana

I love kids.  I don't think that's news to anyone who has ever met me.

I've been babysitting since I was 12 years old and been pointing out babies in stores with my mom since before I can remember.

Since I'm not yet at the point of having my own, I fill my days with these cuties to get my monthly fill of baby-time.  Hope you enjoy these cute faces as much as I do...ok probably not quite as much as I do, but that's ok.

Tough Baby

Remember when I mentioned a couple weeks ago that my Man was home randomly for a weekend at some point this summer...?  Well, he wasn't actually "home" for the weekend, he was home for Friday night, and then Saturday morning we headed to Vermont together, with a friend.

Why were we going to Vermont you ask...?

We were going to Vermont so My Man and his friends could run in a 11 mile military grade obstacle course on a mountain of course!

Yes, that's right Ladies and Gentlemen, my husband is officially a Tough Mudder!!

 

And I couldn't be prouder of him!

They finished in exactly 4 hours, and to my amazement, could actually walk under their own power the following day!

Love you Babe

Remember When...

All thoughts and prayers gathering around the greatest city in the world!

12 Years ago today, the world was changed forever.

Here's to remembering the aftermath of this day and how a nation pulled together to Help and support the survivors and families of the fallen.

And to all those who continue to fight and have fought overseas to protect our Freedoms here at home, we Thank you.

God Bless America!

Culinary re-cap

At the start of this year I had a goal.  That goal was to try a new recipe at least every 2 weeks for the year of 2013.  Well, we are now 8 months into 2013, and I'm not sure I can claim 16 truly new recipes (which sounds kinda sad when I put it like that actually) but of the ones I have tried there hasn't been even one Flop!

 

I will also admit that while I absolutely Love to cook, I definitely Love it just a little bit more when I have other people besides just me to cook for, even if it's just me and my Man.

 

This roasted scallion & corn with crispy chicken thighs was a hit, and compared to other recipes I have pulled together, very simple.

 



This pork made its appearance one night where I was lucky enough to have a family friend visit with her daughter, And to have my hubby home the same night!  (I'll be back with an update as to why Hubs was home soon.)

 



 

Very rarely do I use any type of food (besides pastry dough) that's already made for me in the frozen section at the store, but for this recipe I made an exception.  Fish sticks from the store, and chopped avocado, tomato, and celery made awesome fish tacos when paired with a simple cilantro & lime sour cream.



This one was the most recent culinary adventure in my kitchen.  I did have friends coming over, so I attempted to put together a clam-bake type meal.  Cubed potatoes, carrots, & onion, 1lb of Mussels, a few steamers, and Shrimp to cap it off.  All those delicious items steamed in a garlic wine broth, and made an amazing meal for us to enjoy together!

oh, and roasted corn cooked in foil with butter in the oven!

 

Summer...?

How can it possibly be August 22nd already?!?!

How can I simultaneously be wishing all my wishes for it to be October for my Hubby to get home, and wishing for August & these last precious moments of Summer to last longer.

Life was supposed to slow down somewhere in there, and I still feel like I'm going full-tilt.

Hope you all are out there enjoying your summers and family & friends before it gets so cold that no one wants to leave the house anymore.

I'll leave you with this image from my summer, and be back soon with more updates.... Promise :)

Culinary Adventures

So, by now we all know that I love to cook.  I'll admit, I may not have held up my end of the bargain with my goal of a new recipe every week or every other week, however.... when I do get my culinary brain going, it's hard to stop me.

My mom and her friend come up once ever few months, and I use that day as my incentive to challenge myself the most.  The first time they came up I was living in my apartment, and I made Alfredo sauce from scratch.  That seems like ages ago now.  Between then and now I've made tomato marinated swordfish, stuffed artichokes, stuffed chicken breasts, and many others.

This visit sparked a brand new technique inside of me...Pasta Making!  The show Worst Cooks in America gave me the idea, and it actually worked better than I could have thought.  Without a pasta machine (don't worry I'll have one soon) I had to roll it out by hand so it was a slight bit thick, but it was still yummy.

It was kinda too bad that these Cherry-Glazed Chicken Thighs from my now-famous-on-this-blog Bon Appetite cookbook got overshadowed by the ravioli because it was so delicious on it's own!
And have you ever just roasted red onions in the oven with a drizzle of olive oil and salt & pepper?  Well, if your answer was no, then you should try it, they were Delicious!!

Have I made you hungry yet....? ;)

Friends Come to Visit

I am a huge fan of friends coming to visit, and this past Memorial Day Weekend I was honored with a visit from friends I hadn't seen since our wedding day, just about a year before.

Our morning was spent catching up on our year apart, then the afternoon we got to explore Provincetown.  Always a treat to spend time exploring the craziness of those streets and people watching out the windows of a local restaurant.

Lobster Rolls epitomized out Cape Cod day.

Me and this girl know each other because our moms went to college together, and man, am I so glad of that!

My Man of course had to show off his muscles a little bit by picking us both up at the same time to cap off our awesome day!

Thanks so much for visiting Nicole & Angela, I can't wait to return the favor and visit you next!!

Life after Italy

My life after our trip can be pretty much summed up with the words Work & Babies.

This combination seems pretty self explanatory to me...my job had been so busy and crazy, that after work, I have to fill my mind with cuteness and these faces to keep me from going crazy.

Hopefully they help you too!

Then, on the weekends, when there's no work to be had, I have to be sure to sneak in a little bit of this:

even if I have to drive 2 hours to get there :)

Summer has begun!

Italy

Our very special Italian moment came in Rome, with our visit to the U.S. Ambassador to Italy!  I am fortunate to know him through my job, as he is one of the original founders of my company.  He managed to squeeze us in to his extremely busy schedule and spend an hour making us feel like the most important people in Rome!

Thank You David for having us!!

Back to Reality....

...but let's look at the pictures just one more time!

So, as most of you know, the vacation that I went on last month, was to ITALY!! and I didn't go alone, I didn't even go with just me and my Husband... we were lucky enough to also travel with my Parents and my Brother.

We had a great time as a family enjoying the homeland and eating the food.  The Tour group we travelled with was through Gate 1 Travel.  I highly recommend them and I'm so happy that we chose to travel with them.

And now time for a small sampling of the 4000 photos that us 5 people managed to take over 10 days!