The End of a Warm February

Happy Lent!  The beginning of Lent always means the arrival of Kelly's birthday (haha!).  I had to laugh at ourselves when we happened to get to Mass very early and scooted into confession. We talk our way through an examination of conscience together, which lead us to realize we were confessing almost the exact same things, which lead us to the idea of letting married couples go in together. ;) Really, wouldn't that save a lot of time?

We had a low-key weekend....had some friends over to play guitar and watch the Nova-Georgetown game (we lost).  

Meet Clayton

Mike made delicious barbecue chicken pizza on Saturday - can you believe we had to run to the store just for a bit of brown sugar? Aren't those moments killers--"Well I could try to get by without it, but it might ruin it. Or I could make a substitution...which also might ruin it.  Or I could get my lazy behind to the store, wasting gas and time." 

And we went to

THE CIRCUS!

The ring master

I loved the trick riders

The old motorcycle on a tightrope act.

I was allowed to bring in my SLR camera (sorry Chrissy!). I had a hard time getting it to focus and not let too much light in, but I managed to get some good ones.

The big cats! "Princess" seemed to be misbehaving, and seemed to want to eat Mr. Trainer.

One of my favorite acts

ELEPHANTS

Elephant doing a trunk/hand stand

The motorcycles were insane

You got the dragon in yoouoou

Meanwhile, in the real world...Mike is on his first field service trip to a plant in Tennessee.  I finally got my new driver's license with my new name.  We're probably a little behind on our studying for the FE, but we'll catch up.

I didn't write about two weekends ago, because again I didn't have any  pictures.  We went to 2 Nova games, which we lost, and we had a blast playing tennis with mom and dad on a gorgeous day.  We are itching to get out and play again. Afterwards, dad ordered us some pizza from my favorite local place, Snappy's.  During the week I went on one of my Costco dates with mom - it always makes me so happy to have fresh fruits, veggies and meat. And to spend time with mom! Of course. :p

Happy Valentine's Week

Mike's parents visited us last weekend and it was a wonderful time! I didn't take pictures, because they had that covered.  They arrived Friday and we spent the evening talking and playing cards. For dinner, we made a couple of our favorites (salmon a la turner on our Weber).  They brought us a house-warming gift--a cookie jar that's a chick (as in a baby chicken) that is our official tea bag and K-cup jar.  Mike's mom remembered how much I liked theirs (a giant strawberry) they use for tea. :)  The rest of the weekend we were snowed in (kind of) so we played cards and had pizza and beer, went to Mass, had a couple great breakfasts at the Energy Station, Mike and his dad hung up some pictures, then they had to get on the road, with promises to try to come out and see us every few months or so.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  Mike surprised me with a dozen roses that morning (what a sweetie!) and I decided--last minute, since I had no surprises for him--to make some of his favorite dishes, which ended up turning dinner into a 4 course meal.  :/  I made bruschetta and homemade tartar sauce which we had with shrimp, wedding soup (Mike says was the best ever!) and some steamed asparagus to go with Mike's delectable chicken parmesan.  And we had Mom's apple pie for dessert. :)  I got a bottle of red and white, and overall it was totally worth it to have dinner in!

Also, we got a table from Mike's physical therapist/BFF!  Them being BFFs has NOTHING to do with the fact that Clayton is from Pittsburgh and used to work for the Steelers.

We bottled our third batch of beer last night--a Belgium triple.  It already has a great taste, I can't wait  for it to be ready in 4 weeks.


OK, I'll say it--we are obsessed with food and beer!  Hey, if you gotta eat, you may as well make yourself great food.



Nothing else is really new.  This Saturday is one of our last basketball games we will go to, Nova vs Notre Dame.  I'll get to see my good friend from grad school, Maureen. Also, I just bought tickets for this circus next weekend! :D