Shiree's Wedding

Last weekend I was able to go to one of my best friends weddings.  Shiree was a gorgeous bride and the whole wedding was beautiful.  I am so glad that I was able to be a part of her day. 

I was so thankful that I was able to hang out with Sarah and Izzie Saturday night after the wedding.  Eating icecream, looking at Christmas lights, reindeer, and repeatedly singing frosty the snowman with Izzie.  I also learned a very valuable lesson, do not let a two year old taste your icecream because she might decide she like yours better than hers and want to eat your whole cone.

Congratulations Courtney and Judd

Yesterday my sister had her second beautiful little girl.  She is so cute!

Welcome to the world

Reese Megan Anderton

I wish I could be there to snuggle with you, We love you already!!

Master

I am happy to report that I am now officially half way through my Masters program!!

And feeling good.

Now if only Joseph was done with finals

The Big 2-5

So last week I turned 25.  It felt like a real milestone, the last couple of years have flown by.  At least people still tell me I look like I could be in high school. (which an elderly lady at church kept telling me last week).

During the day it was not terribly exciting I had work, and at 8:20 when I left my house to walk the 7 blocks to work the weather decided that it wanted to have hurricane like wind and rain.  So what is usually a short and enjoyable walk, seemed to last forever.  By the time I made it to work by skirt was soaked, my hair was wet, my shoes were sloshing, and I had mascara running down my face.  Not a great start to the day.  After a day of work I had class where my 20 page term paper was due.

But after class things started looking up for me.  When I got home around 7:45 I was greeted by this:

presents and a note from Joseph. (He has class Wednesday nights until 8:50).  When he got home we ate yummy desserts Joseph got from a local bakery, opened presents and spent time hanging out together.  It was a really great night.

 

Inside that red box are a beautiful pair of black boots from Joseph.  I love them, they make me feel more like a city girl and they keep my legs and feet so much warmer while walking to work.

This is Joseph singing the happy birthday song and doing a special dance

Then on Friday night the party continued.  Joseph took me to dinner at Modo Mio.  Quite possibly the best dinner I have ever eaten in my entire life.  It was absolutely amazing how delicious everything was.  We each got four courses, and ate every single thing that was on our plates.  When we left it was hard to move I was so full.  It was a fun date night, we each ordered something different for each course so that we could try twice as much food.  For our pasta plates I had to use every ounce of self control within my body to not lick the plate clean.  It seemed such a shame to waste it, it was so tasty.  I love birthdays!

Christmas Decorations

After we got back from Thanksgiving I couldn't wait to put up our Christmas decorations.  I feel like they make our house so much more festive.  Also, I love putting up the ornaments that I have gotten every year as a child.  It is so fun seeing my favorites from over the years and thinking about where they came from.  I am really glad that my parents gave us each our own ornaments every year so that now we have them for our tree.

Our tree is little but I think it is so cute, I just love it.

This is the nativity the year we went to Germany for Christmas, it is one of my favorite purchases.

Our stockings that I made last year (with my moms help), I love them!

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we went down to Virginia and had a nice relaxing weekend with my parents, Matt and Savannah and my Uncle Eric and Aunt Leslie.  The day started off very early (7:00am) for pie making.

I got put in charge of the apple pie, which turned out tasty but not fantastic

Joseph was in charge of the Pecan Pie (because he refused to have a Thanksgiving without a pecan pie and stepped up to the task), which by assessment of the group was the best pie of the bunch.  I was so proud of Joseph and one of his first baking experiences.

Of course before we stuffed ourselves with pie we enjoyed a delicious feast of all the holiday favorites.

The rest of the weekend was spent Christmas shopping, helping mom set up her Christmas decorations and making pecan balls. I now have a large container of these on my counter.

We got back to Philadelphia late Sunday night, just in time to start a busy week of school and work.

Happy Birthday Dad!

We love you!

You're the best!

Saturday Food Excursion

This past weekend we took a trek into the heart of China town.

One of Josephs friends told us about this place where you can get delicious Chinese food, but I have to admit I was somewhat skeptical.  So we recruited our friends Nate and Allison and we trekked up to the heart of China town for some noodles.  This place definitely did not disappoint.  It is called Nan Zhou Hand Drawn Noodle House.  The hand pull noodles in the back of this tiny restaurant while you are eating.  We sat close to the kitchen so we could watch the action.  I wish I had taken a picture of the man throwing around this massive amount of dough somehow magically creating delicious little noodles, but I forgot.  For dinner for a total of 10 dollars we got a plate of noodles and peanut sauce, a bowl of meatball noodle soup and a diet coke to share.

 

The only disappointment of the night came after dinner in the shape of a pastry.  As we were walking home we passed this pastry shop which looked like delicious little cakes, and when we saw that they were only 80 cents we couldn't resist.  But let me give you a word of advice, never buy a pastry in China town! Ever! I think we only took one bite and had to throw it away, it was sad. We had been duped.

Despite the cake mishap, it was a really fun and delicious night. And we will definitely be going back.

I Love the Pioneer Woman

So, I have to admit I think I have a crush on The Pioneer Woman.

Not only are all of the recipes on her blog delicious but her comments are funny, witty and informational.  I have recently started reading the other parts of her blog and I like it all.  If you have never been to her website before I would highly recommend it.

I have made a lot of the items from her blog (but usually with considerably much less butter/cream) and I have never been disappointed.  I made this recipe a fews weeks ago and Joseph has been requesting it ever since.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/06/chicken-with-olives/

New Obsession

Lately I have become obsessed with the idea of making a quilt. I find myself researching quilt information, when I should be doing my reading and papers for school. This is not good. Now before you get to impressed I want to make a baby quilt for one of my friends who is having a baby in a few months. However, I find myself completely overwhelmed by all of this quilting vocab "batting" "binding" "machine quilting" "walking foot" "quilting fabric" (I Thought fabric was fabric, what the freak) and the list goes on. I have been searching the web for tuturials and definitions to the endless amount of knowledge that it appears you have to have to make a quilt.

This is the quilt I am considering making. Mostly because it has the most clear directions and I feel like it is doable based on her step by step instructions.

http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=11337

I feel like it really shouldn't be this difficult. It seems like every time I turn around people are making quilts, so internet world, I need help. Can someone please offer me a word of advice or have a good resource for teaching yourself how to quilt.

Thank you.

Halloween

In our building it is as if Halloween doesn't exist. While I am not positive, I don't even think that there are any children who live in our building (I haven't seen any). Plus the doorman doesn't let strangers up stairs so we didn't get any trick-or-treaters. But we did still have our Halloween fun. A couple in our branch threw a really fun Halloween party on Friday night. Not being terribly creative, or good at thinking of costumes Joseph and I went as Salt and Pepper Shakers. As part of the party we played games from the show "Minute to Win It." It was really fun, and those games are actually much more challenging than they look on T.V. There were seven couples there and it was really fun. The best part of the night was that Joseph and I won! We were able to complete the most tasks. At the end of the regular games there was a three way tie, so with the tie breaker Joseph was able to bring in a Nance victory.

Also, we left Joseph and Dan alone for 10 minutes and when we all turned around this is what they had built in the middle of the room.

On Saturday night we just had a low key night and carved a pumpkin and drank warm apple cider. We had gotten this pumpkin a few weeks earlier when we went apple picking and the carving was a tag team effort.

Overall it was a really fun and festive weekend.

Apple Picking

A few weeks ago while the weather was still pretty warm I convinced Joseph that it would be really fun to go apple picking. There is an orchard about 30 minutes from our house, so we recruited our friends the Bowhuis' to make the trip with us. We went to Linvilla, their website sold me with the promise of pumpkin land, deep fried oreos, and apple cider donuts (since this was pre-Halloween). We picked mostly Fuji's, most of the other apple flavors were already picked. We only ended up with about five apples because while picking we realized it was unlikely we would be doing a lot more with these apples than eating them sliced with peanut butter. I thought it was really fun, and the weather was perfect. Plus it was nice to get out of the city for an afternoon.

Saturday Lunches

Joseph and I have decided that we need to get more acquainted with Philadelphia. And while Philadelphia isn't famous for many things it is definately famous for its food. We want to take full advantage of this before our time here is over, so we have decided on Saturdays we will pick a place we have never been to before and have a lunch date. We have done this for two Saturdays this month, with both times being a huge success.

Our first excursion took us to Jakes Sandwich Board. Joseph got the "Charlie Brown" a twelve inch hoagie bun smothered with crunchy peanut butter, filled with cheesesteak filling with bacon. It came with a free glass of milk, because this sandwich was a lot to handle. While it sounds gross, I can attest that it was actually really tasty. I don't know why it just was. I went with a lighter version and got the Midtown Chicken, and chicken hoagie with avocado, roasted red pepper, chicken, and mozzarella. It was very tasty.

The next lunch time excursion took us to Village Whiskey. We had heard about this place from some of our friends who had claimed that they had "the best burger you will ever eat." We had been avoiding going because it is kind of pricey but in honor of my first week of work we thought we would live it up a little bit. And I am happy to report that the were SO AMAZING! seriously, next time anyone comes to visit it would definately be worth another trip. The bun we perfect, the meat was juicey, flavorful and cooked perfectly. We got our burgers with duck fat fries (yum!).

Internet Apocalypse

With the impending end of the internet Joseph and I thought that it would be an appropriate time to stake our claim on a piece of the world wide web.

I know that there are many of you who have been anxiously awaiting this day (you know who you are) and I hope that you are not disappointed. Part of the compelling force for beginning this blog is my growing guilt in stalking my friends while not contributing anything for them to stalk in return. So here I begin to make amends. I am imagining that on occasion Joseph will also be posting (but lets be honest, probably not that often). So unless otherwise stated you can assume that yours truly is doing the posting.

So cheers to the blogging world, my friends!