What we did this summer...besides move

This summer went by in a blur!  Since it's officially fall now, I figured what better time than this week to recap our summer.  Besides the move, and traveling all over the country for work, we managed to squeeze a bunch of fun things over the last few months.

 In June, I took our annual trip up to an Orioles game with a great group of friends.

In between work trips to Boston (for me) and Dallas (for M), we celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary!  Time sure flies.  We had dinner downtown at a fantastic, relatively new restaurant called Mintwood Place, and used a free rewards night to stay downtown at the Park Hyatt.  Cady was still at Camp Grandma's from having the house on the market, so it worked out nicely!  

For the 4th of July, we went over to Ocean City for a couple of days at my cousin's condo.  While we didn't make it to the beach, we had a great time splashing around in the pool and ate some delicious food.  We also went to M.R. Ducks and 3 of the 4 of us participated in their Chug-a-Duck tradition.

On the way home from OC, we stopped and met the newest member of our family, beautiful baby boy Ryder!  He was only 8 days when we met him.  

Despite a tropical storm on the original date of the Elon golf tournament, we were able to reschedule - and got the round in despite more rain on the make up date!  It was awesome to have Coach Swepson, Coach Hill, and Jon come up from campus for the annual event. 

With only one summer weekend that worked for all 3 of us, LR, CC and I were able to continue our tradition of a girls summer get together.  This year, we meet in Charlotte - we shopped, ate, drank, laughed, and had a great time!

Dave came to town again this summer, and we were jamming in the pit at the show.

I was on the softball team again this summer - not sure you can call what I do playing - and the tournament did not disappoint.  This year, we were lucky that we had perfect weather both days, and the Elon team was out in full force. 

My work travel has taken me all over the country this summer - Denver, Boston twice, Kansas City, Houston, LA twice, San Francisco, NYC a few times, and Chicago.  Luckily in a few cities, I was able to enjoy the surroundings a bit.  In Newport, we rented a little dingy boat for an hour cruise of the harbor - it was just beautiful!

In Boston (on both trips!) I was able to catch up with old roommate Kimbo.  It's been a few years since we've seen each other, so it was great fun to reconnect...and on this night, my coworkers and I saved her from a looser date!  Glad we could be of assistance!

In August, both M and I celebrated our birthdays.  With the house and all of the new house purchases we're making, they were both pretty low key.  We did have dinner with 3 of our favorite DC couples one night, and on separate weekends our parents visited - I think more to see the new house than to celebrate our birthdays :)  

While my parents were up, we all went across the bay to Kent Island for another baby cousin visit!  It was a great afternoon, it was so nice to be able to spend time with everyone without the chaos that is the holidays, when we usually visit.

Over Labor Day weekend, I think I had the surprise of my life.  I knew M's best friend KT was coming up from Alabama to visit for the weekend...what I didn't know was that MY best friend Lola was on her way too!  The three of us were checking in with the hostess at a restaurant on Friday night, and she asked if we still had 4....confused a bit, I said no, three, and turned around to confirm with M.  Walking in the door right behind me was Lola!!  She had planned this trip with M back in July, and left her 2 small children and husband back in Miami for a surprise weekend in DC.  Rumor has it I screamed really loud when I saw her, but I think they're exaggerating a bit... :) 

It was great to have the 2 of them in town with us for the weekend.  On Saturday, the boys went out to Catoctin Creek and Lost Rhino, while we went to an Elon game watch party.  Then we met up with some other friends to watch football, and Sunday we drug them around couch shopping with us, and fed them a big, delicious brunch at Ted's before we took them back to the airport.  

What a fantastic end to a great summer!

5th anniversary celebration

Time sure flies when you're having fun!  I can't believe that we just celebrated our 5th anniversary! 

I feel like just yesterday we celebrated our 4th, and to that point, just got married! 

In past years, our tradition has been to take a vacation day on our anniversary.  This year, we lucked out and it was on a Saturday.  M surprised me with an overnight stay downtown DC at the Madarin Oriental...

View of the Washington Monument from our room

...and dinner at the famous DC restaurant, CityZen!  We opted for the 6 course set menu, and it was delicious.  The staff and service was unmatched.  They knew it was our anniversary and spoiled us from the minute we walked in the door.

I'm going to try to remember each dish...bear with me.  We started with a surprise from the Chef, a roasted quail leg.  We also each had a glass of rose prosecco.

The sommelier was fantastic and suggested a delicious bottle of Burgundy.  Then began the tasting menu - first was a veal carpaccio with mini crab cake and béarnaise sauce.  

Next was a savory lobster french toast - this was our favorite.

This was a sea trout and very different than we expected - it was delicious.

Fourth was a rabbit roulette which was incredibly rich - we both could have finished with this.

The least favorite of the dinner was the lamb, which was disappointing.  I love lamb, but this one just didn't do it for us.  But the bread they served with it however melted in your mouth.

Then we had a small sorbet as a palette cleanser...

before dessert.  The corn cake was strange, but the rhubarb cream thing on top was very good. 

They also surprised us with a sparkling muscato and extra dessert, which was delicious.

They also gave us coffee cake and coffee 'to continue the celebration the next morning.'  It was a lovely touch. 

With my bad luck in seeing the chefs, I was surprised when James Beard Award Winner Eric Ziebold was in the kitchen!  He's on the right in the blue apron.  This was taken from our table, right at the kitchen!

The dinner was good, but incredibly expensive.  While it was delicious and certainly memorable, it will be a long, long time before we return...

The next morning, we hopped up early slept in until 10am!  When I woke up and looked across the room, I saw 4 black wooden letters, L O V E.  Wood is the traditional 5th anniversary gift, and how creative was M!  They're now on our bookcase in the living room.  He also gave me beautiful David Yurman earrings.  It's a bit of a tradition for him to give me a piece of Yurman, my favorite, each year.  Keeping with the wood theme, I gave him a big, fancy, official wine rack for the basement.  He's so excited to be able to organize the wine that's currently laying all around the floor!

After exchanging gifts, we laced up our sneakers and headed out to enjoy the beautiful morning and walk around the monuments.  

After brunch, we headed back out west and stopped at Lost Rhino brewery in Ashburn.  We have been meaning to go for months, and thought what better day than this to visit!  They've got quite the set up there with a nice bar, a few food options and tours of the brewery.  They're open Wednesday-Saturday with tours all day Saturday.  My favorites were the Blond and the Brown, and husband enjoyed the IPAs.  For $5 each, you get the tour and tastings - great deal! 

After a super fancy dinner of Chipotle in the car, we headed to Nissan Pavilion, er, Jiffy Lube Live for the Dave Matthews Band concert! 

We had pit tickets, which we love to get when we're seeing Dave.  When we saw him play at Nats Park in 2010, we ended up about 3 rows of people from the stage, and it was awesome!  

We weren't quite that close this time, but still had a fantastic time.  He's one of my favorites, and I love seeing him live. 

We had an absolutely great time celebrating our 5th anniversary!  Five down, so many more to go :)

I love you MB!

Anniversary celebration

As I mentioned in my last post, Thursday was our 4th anniversary.  Part of me feels like the actual wedding day was so long ago - some of the details that I pondered over and worked on so diligently for the year of our engagement are starting to fade from memory.  But at the same time, the last 4 years have really flown by.  Time just moves so fast, and I'm sure it will only continue to get quicker.

It's been our tradition to take a vacation day on our anniversary.  Since our first was a Monday, we thought that was pretty lame so we decided to take the day off, and have continued it each year.  Some years we've played golf, gone to local wineries, and just spent the 'free' day together.  This year we did the same, but it was a little different.  We signed up over a year ago to volunteer at the 2011 U.S. Open, so we both had shifts on Thursday.

We woke up Thursday morning, and husband had run to the store to get flowers - and he brought home peonies!  Peonies are one of my favorites, and it's what I carried in our wedding!  It was such a nice surprise - and he also took my hints of leaving several internet windows open on my laptop to specific pieces of David Yurman jewelry that I would like, and gave me a beautiful bracelet. 

After opening presents and lounging around with Cady a bit, we headed up to Bethesda for the tournament.  We worked our separate shifts and decided to hang around for a little while and watch some golf.  We caught up with Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy for a couple of holes, and watched a few other groups come through the green we were sitting on.  Then the sky got a little dark and we decided to book it out of there, just in time before the rains started.

Dinner was a the newest Michel Richards' restaurant Michel in Tysons Corner.  We've been to Central downtown and loved it, but after being at the tournament all day, we knew we didn't want to mess with driving into the city.  Michel proved to be a wonderful choice!

In an attempt to branch out (and not spend $100+ on a bottle of wine), we asked for a French wine recommendation.  The sommelier suggested a couple and we selected the 2009 Mercurey, La Perrière Michel Sarrazin for $65, which was really wonderful.  We started with the Japanese Eel Carpaccio.  It was very different - extremely thin slices of eel with a very light sauce on them.  Husband loves things like this - it was good, and only enough for a couple of bites so not too rich.  Their bread was amazing - big, rustic pieces.  I had the braised lamb shank with flageolet beans and rosemary.  It was delicious, the meat was extremely tender.  Flageolet beans are found in French cooking and typically served with lamb.  They were delicious. 

Matt had the onion carbonara and a side of macaroni gratin with prosciutto.  The onion carbonara is a starter, but he had it for his meal.  It's delicious - it looks just like spaghetti but it's steamed onions with cream, bacon, parmesean, and some herbs, topped with large, beautiful slices of parmesean.  The macaroni was to die for - the crusty top was so delicious.

Please excuse the dark, grainy cell phone pictures.  I'm not usually one to take pictures in a restaurant, but we decided it would be a nice blog addition!

We opted to not get desert as our last few desert experiences haven't been the greatest.  You're already full, and rather than over stuffing yourself and spending $15 on something you don't really want, we decided that a Ghirardelli chocolate square (or 3) at home would be just enough.  I highly recommend Michel if you're looking for a nice place for dinner.  We had an amazing dinner, and it wasn't crazy expensive like some places can be.  Plus it's right in Tyson's, so you're not treking into the city for us suburban folks. 

It was a great day overall getting to spend time together!  Here's to many more anniversary celebrations in our future!

Four years of wedded bliss

Today, husband and I are celebrating our 4th anniversary!

The traditional gift for the 4th year is flowers and fruit.

For our last anniversaries, I've tried to give something small along the traditional gifts, and something else. The first year gift is paper - so I gave husband tickets to Mama Mia.

The second year is cotton - he had just finished his masters degree earlier that year so I gave him a tshirt from the school and a diploma frame. 

Last year it was leather - so I gave him a leather bag tag from his undergraduate school and a new watch. 

This year I'm giving husband new Spiegelau wine glasses to replace some that have broken over the years, framing 2 posters that we brought back from the Dogfish Head Brewery to put in the basement, and a bottle of wine from the Flowers Winery.  I'm pretty proud of my creative twist on the traditional 'flowers' and 'fruit' gift for the fourth year!



Time flies when you're having fun :)