Christmas part I

A few weeks after Thanksgiving my family came up to celebrate "Our Christmas".  I had to work on Christmas day, so we decided we'd celebrate a bit early!  Mom and dad came up on a Thursday night and got to stay for the weekend.  I welcomed them home with a hot bowl of chili and cornbread!

On Friday Stuart arrived!  Since I'm writing this post about a month out, I can't remember exactly, but it was either Friday or Saturday that we drove out "into the country" to go get a Christmas tree.  I was a little bummed about working on Christmas and not having our usual family traditions, and I had decided earlier that maybe I just wouldn't even put up a tree.  I'm glad the fam convinced me otherwise!  The drive out to the Christmas tree farm was beautiful, and of course full of good conversation.  I was almost giddy with excitement over actually cutting our first Christmas tree!  Fresh trees are hard to come by in south Alabama, so we always cheated and got one at Lowes.  But this year was the real deal!

Road out in the Sticks to the Christmas Tree Farm

We got our own little tree wagon and walked out to the farm!  

Nothing like a wagon ride on a December afternoon

After a good 30 minutes of hunting we found the perfect tree!  Not too tall, and pleasingly plump.

And when I said "we" cut down a tree, I meant Stuart cut down a tree

With dad's help of course!

Timber!

Mom and I watched at a safe distance from the dull saw and cheered on our husbands.  It was hard work for us too!

The final trimming of the tree

Leaving with our first fresh-from-the-farm tree

It turns out that getting the tree may have been the easy part.  The hard part was getting it up 4 flights of stairs, into an apartment, and then decorating it.  Decorating it was difficult because apparently farm fresh trees have REALLY prickly needles!  Fortunately Stuart was patient with my sensitive skin, and we got the tree decorated.  We don't have a lot of ornaments at this point.  I'm not the type for matchy-matchy ornaments.  I'd rather have sentimental ones that we collect along the way. So short marriage so far = not a lot of Christmas decor!

Personal Protective Equipment

One of my faves.  A Moravian star that we picked up when I did  a month rotation in Winston-Salem, NC

Mardi even helped us find all the ladybugs in the tree

You can't decorate a Christmas tree without a good Christmas dinner!  I had been craving chicken pot pie for a while, so decided to make it from scratch (without cream of chicken soup, thank you).  Mom helped me in the kitchen, dad napped on the sofa, and Stuart and Winston relaxed and caught up on our Bon Apetit magazines while they waited.

The Spread.  Chicken pot pie, salad, biscuits, and chocolate bourbon pecan pie!

 Then after dinner Santa came!

Reese's Trees are an integral part of any Christmas season

Pets are always helpful with preset opening

I'm willing to embarrass myself with this picture.  I got some good cold weather stuff!   Ignore the loud pants please.

We got dad this really awesome pair of dress pants, but apparently the size label was incorrect because they obviously did not fit.  He was looking like a fool with his pants on the ground!  No worries, we swapped them later.

And mom got an earring surprise!

So glad my parents could come up for Christmas, even if it was a few weeks early.  I'm so blessed to have such wonderful Godly parents and I'm glad theyre willing to drive up to Virginia to see us!

Next up, Christmas part 2!

Friendsgiving

Well it's half-way through January and I'm just now blogging about Thanksgiving.  I guess intern year is busy or something.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and this year I had to work all week.  Which meant I couldn't be with my husband or family on Thanksgiving.  Which made me super sad.  So when life hands you lemons, make lemonade!  I decided to host "Friendsgiving" for my fellow interns.  About 12-15 people showed up, and the meal was a big success!  Here are some pictures

Mis en Place

Turns out when you chop 3 butternut squash you get this funky orange coating on your skin.  And a sore wrist.  Next time I'll buy the pre-chopped kind.

The Roast Beast!  It somehow was done 2 hours earlier than I expected!  Not sure how that happened but it stayed warm until the company arrived.

Thank goodness this Southern guy (Isaac) knew how to carve meat.

For some reason Winston and Mardi were a bit anti-social.  Mardi was immodest and Winston kept licking this one spot on the carpet that must have had some turkey gravy on it.

I didn't take pics of the crowd but got some of the food!  Turkey with homemade gravy and cranberry sauce, biscuits, roasted butternut squash, celery root and potato puree, asparagus salad, and desserts galore!

After a few days in Washington, D.C., it was time to hit the road and head to Pennsylvania!  Stuart had been to Philly before and I had never been to Maryland, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia - all the states we drove through to get there.  Stuart likely got tired of me getting thrilled over the picturesque sights we passed and yelling out, "Oh wow!  Look at that!  Oh!".  I just can't get over how beautiful this part of our country is!  Virginia is wonderful, but I really loved how all the towns were layed out in MD and PA.  You'd drive around a corner on the interstate and then suddenly below you would be a valley filled with houses!  Lovely!  Of course, iPhone pictures through a Prius window are not ideal, but here's a few quick snaps of the drive.

I must live on a farm one day.

Rolling hills!

Before getting too far down the road we stopped at a convenient outlet mall and conquered our Christmas shopping for the year!  A week before Thanksgiving!  Score!  All that shopping made us hungry, though, and so once we reached Cumberland, MD we stopped for a late lunch at Curtis' Famous Wieners   You guessed it - their hot dogs are famous!  We feasted on 4 dogs between the two of us, a plate of fries, a cherry coke, and a vanilla coke.  I think the total cost was about $7.  Of course it's a hole-in-the-wall place, interestingly run by a guy who looks a little punk-rockish, and his wife who wears scrubs.  But man those wieners sure were tasty!  Mustard, chili and onion is all you need!

Caught him off guard there =)

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Shot of the store-front

Shortly after we left, we passed this white stuff on the sides of the mountains around us.  What is that stuff?!

Once in Pittsburgh, the most important task was finding Stuart a place to live.  He had picked out a couple places to visit, but first we found where he would be working so we could map out the driving distance.  Apparently living 45 minutes from work when we were in Daphne got kind of old???  So he wanted to make sure he found a close place.

Where gas-making happens. Kind of.  The paper-work part at least.

After two days of hunting we found the right one!  It's a really nice place with a fire-place and garage (important for those frigid winters), and it's only about 10 minutes from work!

And how else would we celebrate, but with ice cream?!?

What a handsome guy I'm married to  =)

Once we accomplished our mission of finding a place for Stu, we got to experience some fun Pittsburgh activities!  Turns out it's a pretty ginormous city (at least compared to where we've been before).  Stu lives in a "suburb", if you will, and the actual city is about 20 minutes away.  There's lots of little neighborhoods that all have their own character.  The main one we explored is Squirrel Hill, a large Orthodox Jewish community with delicious ethnic foods.  Not sure of the connections there?  We also went downtown to a brewery Stuart wanted to visit, rode the "incline" to see the skyline, and explored Stu's suburb of Moon Township/Coraopolis and watched Lincoln!

Korean food in Squirrel Hill.  We had Bibimbap with a seafood pancake, and even tried some Soju (like sake).  It was all delicious and the waiter was so nice to explain everything we were eating!

"They're chocolate, they're mint, they're delicious!"  At Lincoln.  I predict it will be up for best picture!

Pierogi.  We had never heard of these but there were signs for them all over town.  It's definitely a "Yankee" food, and super popular in Pittsburgh.  It's basically a dumpling stuffed with various and sundry things - traditionally potatoes - and served in a buttery sauce with sour cream.  They were okay - definitely not the most exciting thing I've ever eaten.

This was the brewery Stu wanted to visit, and where we had the Pierogies.  It's called Church-Works Brewery and used to be, you guessed it, a church!  It apparently closed down and the building was going to be destroyed until these people saved the historic place.  Good food, and it felt a little strange having a beer in an old church. 

In addition, we experienced some terribly terrific P-burgh traffic.  Apparently the night we chose to go down-town was also the night they had their Christmas lights festival.  Poor planning on my part!

BUT this view was worth it!  We rode the "incline" (look it up - interesting stuff!) to the top of the Mount Washington neighborhood.  Other than Stuart having to exchange a $20 bill for exact fare in quarters, it was a really enjoyable experience. A bit cold and windy!   Especially since it took me like an hour to get a decent picture without a tripod.

The big bright spot is the Steelers stadium

In the incline on the way back down.  This is what my face looks like when it's frozen in place from 20 degree winds!

We had a great trip, and I'll be excited to go back and explore the city more with Stu!

Vacay part III

Since I have a lot of blogs to catch up on, we'll keep this one brief.  A story in pictures!

We toured the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and watched money being made.  It was pretty neat, though our tour guide made a lot of cheesy jokes.

Obviously no trip to DC would be complete without at least a short walk on the Mall.  We passed the Washington Monument and got a good view of the Capitol on our way to the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

I've already forgotten what this building is (!), but it's mine and Stuart's favorite.  A couple shots to follow ...

I was hoping to catch a peek of Barack, but no such luck!

This is Michelle's garden!  Gosh I just love that lady!

This afternoon was concluded with lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, Zaytinya.  It's a Turkish/Greek/Lebanese restaurant and Stuart was a bit suspicious.  He was won over after the meal though!  Here's dessert ...