We're getting too old for this stuff

Matt and I had one heck of a weekend. We are big anime fans and this weekend was one of the biggest anime conventions in the country, Otakon. We picked up our badges on Thursday at 3pm. The heat index for Thursday was 110F, so it was more than a little uncomfortable waiting outside in the line. Luckily, the line moved pretty quickly, and it only took us about 45 min to get our badges.
After the badges were taken care of, we had to drive from Baltimore to Virginia because the National Symphony Orchestra was giving a performance of music from the Zelda video games. It was amazing. The venue is outside and in the middle of the woods. Matt managed to get us some really good seats, which were covered. It was still really hot and humid, even at that time (8:30 pm). Halfway through the show, it began poring rain. We had seen lightening off in the distance for a while. Sadly, by the end of the show, it was obvious that Matt was getting sick. He who is never ill, got sick right before our crazy weekend.
We got about 6 hr of sleep that night and got up early the next morning. I won't go into all the details of the weekend, I'm sure they aren't that interesting for non-otaku. We didn't get more than six hours of sleep each night. Matt helped me get the autograph of my favorite voice actor, j. Michael Tatum. We also got to see a panel given by one of Matt's favorite podcasters. There was a lot of grumpiness, a lot of waiting in line, and way too much of listening to irritating people. Even with those things, we had an amazing time. My body waited until yesterday to start getting sick, which was thoughtful. I don't know if we'll. Be going next yet, but I am really happy we went this year.

What's cooking Uncle Sam?

Matt and I made an effort to finish all of our errands this weekend so that we'd have Sunday free to have fun. Mission accomplished. We really haven't gone out yet since moving to our new place and we decided to go touristing. I listen to a lot of NPR as I go about my household duties and I recently heard about an exhibit at the National Archives that sounded right up my alley. It's called "What's Cooking Uncle Sam?" The exhibit is all about how the government has influenced the way America eats.

After church and some lunch Matt and I drove on down to the metro station. Being the well seasoned metro rider, Matt helped me buy a smart pass card. He is so cool he doesn't even take his out of his wallet, he just taps his wallet on the space and he walks through. We both read for most of the trip and I only got a little bit of motion sickness.

The exhibit was really cool and with a lot of interesting facts that neither of us knew. Did you know that back in the 30's butter was its own food group? Mmmm, butter. We also had no idea that it wasn't until 1965 that manufacturers had to start putting the ingredients on the food labels. Crazy. Another thing that didn't occur to either of us until we were in the building- the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are all housed at the National Archives. There were very few people there so we had a chance to look at then for quite a while. So, one museum down, a lot more to go :)

Post Thanksgiving quiet

Sadly, Thanksgiving is over. My favorite holiday of the year, gone again. We had a wonderful day though, so that's good. Little Keiko came over to spend the day with us. We haven't seen her in such a long time and it was nice to catch up. She even helped us cook our dinner since I'm not really awesome at cooking meat. Or at least trouble-shooting it. It's entirely possible that I made too much food for two people. We had Matt's 10lb turkey breast, a large pyrex of mashed potatoes, another of sweet potatoes, and a large pyrex casserole of stuffing. I also may have made pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, mini apple pies, and salted caramel. Oops. Everything was fantastic and we paired it with a nice wine that we'd been holding onto for a special occasion. We had thought that we might make it to a showing of The Muppets. Haha, that didn't happen. It was hard enough to get off the couch to go to bed.

My lovely new in-laws were sweet enough to come visit for the rest of the weekend and bring us a bunch of things we had left in Michigan. They even took us to Ikea to get a new dresser. Suzanne and I rearranged the kitchen while the men put together the dresser. On Saturday the four of us went to the Home Depot and picked out our Christmas tree. It's so pretty. After setting the tree up we went and has lunch with some of the Snee cousins. They were a riot and helpful to boot. It turns out that they attend one of the churches that Matt and I were seriously considering. We also managed to get them to divulge the names of their favorite area restaurants. I'm so excited to go check them out. Dan and Caroline and the pups stopped by on their way back to North Carolina, which was awesome. I love having family come visit. Zelda got to meet her new cousin and they got along quite well until he wanted to play. Then Zelda got all huffy. It was a very tiring but fun weekend. We're getting back on schedule an beginning to count down the days until Christmas. Our first married Christmas. Teehee

Getting messy

I am not sure why, but things always seem to get horribly messy when I organize them. Sure, eventually they get straightened out, but the halfway point always makes me want to run and hide. Matt and I used some of our gift cards this weekend to buy plastic drawers for the closet of spare'oom. Now I'm going about and organizing my craft things. Hopefully I can get it all put away in a way that makes sense and is usable. Plus, once they're all hidden in the closet we can make it look man cave-y.

We have been shopping around the area for a new church. There weren't a whole lot of choices back in NC but there are quite a few within a short distance of our new place. We've been to three so far. I think we're going to go back to the first and third a couple of more times before we settle down and pick one. The second was kind of scary. Not scary scary, but it was really dour and nobody seemed happy to be there. We're definitely not going back there.

I'm back (and married!)

It's been so very long since either of us posted. I do not understand how some brides start blogs while planning their weddings. This is a short post, and it's unlikely that any will see it. I thought it might be good to get back in the habit of posting.

I am diligently working on getting our new little home in order and usable. It's a little slow going but I'm chopping away at it. We need to get some new furniture, shelves mostly, and some lamps. I think our new dining room may fit our table at full size. I have to get some more things organized before we test my theory though. Matt and I have been like real adults and have been eating all our meals at our table instead of on the couch with tv trays. Pretty fancy. My goal for today is finish unpacking spare 'oom. Not necessarily having it completely organized, but at least all the boxes should be gone.

I have to start planning Thanksgiving dinner too. It's only going to be Matt and I for dinner but I'm still going to make some very tasty, tasty food. Plus lil sis Keiko is going to come visit on Thanksgiving day to hang out and chat for a while. I promised to make her a cheesecake. I think I'll go with a pumpkin cheesecake with graham cracker crust. I just have to find a good recipe. I also need a good stuffing recipe. Once I make out the menu I can write up a shopping list and look around and figure what stores we'll get things at.

The boxes are calling me, I must start actual work.


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Wiener Dog Fest 2010

Today was the annual Wiener Dog Fest at Weaver St. Getting that many dachshunds together at one time is always a site to see. Zelda met up with her good friends Baxter, Kreuza, and Zero. I think her visit's with the Steins' Montana and Wally are really paying off. Not only does Zelda have a puppy crush on Wally but she's been learning to play like a dog with him. Today went really well with our little girl. There was lots of sniffing, being sniffed, and absolutely no hiding from the other dogs. Zelda normally receives a lot of attention just because she's a dachshund. I'm not just saying this because I'm her mom but, even amongst a sea of doxies people are drawn to her. Today we can probably chalk it up to the fact that she was wearing an adorable costume. We lost the musical sit contest in the last round but we'll get them next year. On the plus side, we did win one of the raffle prizes that includes a new brown leather travel carrier.



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Location:Weaver St, Carrboro

Church is fun!

I'm blogging whilst Matt shops. It's a good system, when I "help" do the shopping we end up being here for two hours versus the forty-five minutes that it takes Matt alone. Anyways, a couple of things happened this morning during church that tickled me and I thought I'd share. Our church is chock full of kids, a lot of them are gingers, but that's another story. There are benches along the perimeter of the church which are often taken by parents with small children who can make a quick exit if they start to cry. Today there was a young family sitting near our pew on one of the benches. Matt and I are pretty sure that the parents had a conversation this mooring that went something like this:
"Did you see what she's wearing?"
"Yes but I'm tired, her brothers are fussy and it'll keep her quiet so I'm not going to fight her about it."
That little girl is definitely a kindred spirit. She was wearing a brown dress with blue polka dots and a tiara. Yes, a tiara. I wanted to hug her. Even better, every time the congregation sang, she twirled. It was so fantastic. Sadly, Matt says that I'm not allowed to wear my tiara.

The other thing that happened was that Matt and I got the giggles. This is not the first time this has happened to me in church and somehow I doubt it will be the last. I really blame Matt though, he started it. He always jokes with me that I should sing the Spanish lyrics whenever they have them. Today I did. I wasn't trying to be funny but the combo of my singing and the odd lyrics of the song struck Matt's funny bone and once he started I caught it. Don't worry, we didn't disturb anyone, we weren't making any noise and we got it under control by the end of the song so we didn't miss any of the mass.

Location:Target

A winner is me

The Chapel Hill Public Library has an adult summer reading program going on. Matt pointed it out to me on one of our frequent trips to enrich our minds. I have fond memories of doing them as a kid so I made sure we wasted no time in signing up. I've been on a bit if a reading kick lately so it seemed like a good idea. It works like this: you read a book, write a little review on one of their forms and turn it in, every Friday they pull a couple of the forms and the people who wrote them win a gift. The third week I won! Yay! It wasn't very expensive-- a notepad and some magnetic poetry, but that's not really the point. I won!


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More food

I have continued my cooking quest from earlier by blowing through several food blogs in search of great recipes. I'm really it itching to try them out. I made a so-so spinach and cheese strata on last Tuesday that left me a little sad. It had sounded so delicious, instead it was kind of bland. You know when Matt says it's bland, it must be pretty bad *wink*. I think if I were to make it again I would cut the recipe in half, add a lot of basil and something more substantial like mushrooms and onions. Spinach just didn't really give off any flavor. I also made some really tasty chocolate chip cookies. I wasn't big on the texture, these were a little too flat and crispy for me, but the flavor was wonderful. The recipe called for a lot more vanilla than I'm used to seeing in a chocolate chip cookie recipe and I used dark chocolate chips instead of regular ones. I continued my new adventures in food with candied grapefruit peel. Surprisingly Matt really like them. I had to cut the peel very thin to get as much of the pith off as possible since that's where a lot of the bitterness comes from. I can tell I've gotten Matt caught up in the cooking too. After he finished cleaning the kitchen he started trying to figure out if we could do the same with orange peels(we can). He now also really wants me to do some lemon peels.
That stuff was all last week (week before?) and vie done some more cooking since then. My friend Sarah gave me a recipe for a panzanella caprese salad. Can I just say that caprese salad is one of my most favorite things as it is but adding toasted bread to it just makes it divine. I made it for Matt's coworker's going away party and it was a big hit. I also made the most disappointing cheesecake of my life. Before this I thought that I had a really amazing recipe, and I do but that is only half the story. When I cook my cheesecake I usually put the pan in a roasting pan of water. I learned the trick from Alton Brown which makes up for the worst cookie recipe I've ever used that is also his. It helps the cheesecake cook more evenly and allows it too heat up/cool off much more slowly. I've never made one without doing that and I decided that I was going to forgo it this time. Big mistake. The darn thing was burn-y around the edges, fell in the middle, and the texture was off. It still tasted fine but, it was not the divine thing I'm used to. Ah well, you live you learn. It also brings me to my next subject.
The reason that I didn't want to do the roasting pan of water is that it would be a huge pain to try and lift it would have been an awful idea. I fell about two weeks ago while stepping over the the doggy door at the top of the stairs. Not graceful but then I rarely am. We were pretty sure that I sprained my wrist but it wasn't really feeling better so Matt made me tell the doctor about it. She made me get an x-ray which didn't show any break. However, she tells me that it's quite possible that my wrist is broken because the bone that she was trying to look at is hard to see breaks in. So I'm too keep wrist wrapped and if it still hurts in two-ish weeks it still hurts I have to go to a bone doctor. At this point the pain keeps getting worse so Matt and I are pretty sure it's broken. So, as my dear friend Linda said, perhaps I should not try making bread by hand until we know for sure.

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One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating. ~Luciano Pavarotti

I've been on a cooking kick lately. I am currently scouring the internet and all my recipe books in search of tasty yet cheaply made meals. Sadly, so many of the ones I have found are either amazing and expensive or blah and cheap. Thankfully that isn't true about all of them. There are so many food blogs out there these days and some of them are quite good but the very best of the bunch is smitten kitchen. Oh how I love it. I've read it for a while but I decided just the other day that I was going to start putting her ideas to work. What got me was this recipe she had for tomato pie. Which is, apparently, a southern dish. I'd never even heard of it before but I am so glad that I have. She absolutely raved about it and her enthusiasm rubbed off on me and I decided to jump off my week of exciting new cooking with it. Really, at $3 for the tomatoes and $1 for corn, it seemed like a win/win situation. I don't even know if I can tell you how amazing it was. Really. That good. It all sounds so simple a little tomato, a little corn, a little cheese, all in a biscuit crust. But as with so many good recipes, it is way more than the sum of its parts. Next time I make it I'm going to put more basil and a little more mayo with a lot more lemon juice but other than that, fabulous. I'm so happy that I only had to share it with Matt because it means that I have leftovers for lunch today. I think lunch is going to come early today. I didn't take any pictures because her pictures where so much prettier, mine looked the same only messier. If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them. mmm, tomato pie

The Best Easter Ever, part II

Kelly already did a great job of describing the proposal – but for anyone interested in what it looked like from my perspective, that’s what this post is about. It’s like Rashomon!

I’ve been told by several people – Kelly included – that they were surprised by how calm I seemed during the night before/morning of the proposal. I didn’t think too much of that, at first, but it is a little bit odd – I can easily be made nervous by things much less momentous than a marriage proposal. My outward calm was partially by design - I had made sure that I was the only one who knew the exact date of the proposal, and I didn’t want to arouse any suspicions that might ruin the surprise. However, I think the main reasons were that doing the proposal – and doing it right – was something I really wanted to do, and that I had a plan.

That first bit – wanting to do it – mainly meant that the feeling I had immediately beforehand was more akin to excitement than nerves. I can’t think of what to best compare it to…boarding a roller coaster that you’ve been looking forward to comes to mind, but seems off the mark. Thinking of that second bit – that I had a plan – might make things a little more clear. There have been a couple times that I’ve really tried to sweep Kelly off her feet with a surprise, and when it works, it’s the best feeling in the world. Some of those surprises ended up on strips of paper inside the eggs I had hidden – the memories from the relationship that Kelly alluded to in the previous post. Anyway, the point is that such surprises take a lot of planning, sometimes starting months in advance. When the time comes, though, there’s usually a point where I just need to do something relatively small to set things in motion – drive her to the theater for a surprise performance of her favorite musical, for example – and then, if planned correctly, the plan takes care of itself.

That’s essentially how the proposal felt. When we got home from church, I had Kelly take a brief nap so I could hide all the eggs, and put the ring in the final egg (I had the ring in my possession for less than 24 hours at that point – getting it was down to the wire, but that’s another story). It was during that time that I had that excited feeling – sort of like the feeling of excitement before any of the big surprises I would plan for her, but of a greater magnitude. Once she started getting emotional on the very first egg, though, the anticipatory excitement changed to “this is going to work…it’s working!” By that point, things had been set in motion, so I could relax (somewhat) and enjoy her enjoying what she still thought was just an egg hunt.

After she found the final egg, it was time for the actual proposal part of the proposal. I had only recently decided exactly what to say, and given the emotionality of the moment, it was a little hard to remember the exact words. I got the message across, though :), and it was pretty easy to remember the last bit: “Kelly Alexandre, will you marry me?”

…And she said yes!

The Best Easter Ever!

I think I'm finally ok that I won't start blubbering just typing this, maybe.
This Easter Sunday started out like any other. Matt and I got up and ate breakfast then got ready for church. Before we left the Easter Bunny brought Matt his Easter basket with some candy, magic cards, and a new shirt. All of which were awesome. Matt had said that the Easter Bunny wouldn't be dropping off my basket until after Mass so I didn't really give it a second thought. Father John really out did himself with the homily, managing to make me cry at one point. We even had a good parking spo and it only took a couple of minutes to get out of the parking lot. Which is to say, our day was going pretty darn well. We got home and Zelda and I took a teensy nap whilst Matt consulted with the Easter Bunny. He came back to the bedroom to tell me that the Bunny had left me a basket.

I should pause at this point and explain my feelings about Easter. Really, it's more about Easter baskets. As a child I had a small addiction to candy, very small, practically not even there. You can imagine though that a holiday where I was presented with a large amount of candy would be high on my list. These days I'm not really huge on candy but the excitement about Easter baskets is still there.

So, back to the story. Matt handed me my basket which was filled with grass and a single piece of paper, no candy. The paper that was sitting there was the first clue for an Easter egg hunt. How exciting was that?! Each subsequent clue lead me to another egg, a clue and a memory from our relationship. I started crying after the first one. Now, you may be thinking that I should have realized what was going on at that point but I honestly thought that Matt was just doing an amazing job this year. The seventh egg (in the freezer) pointed me to Matt for the last egg which I thought he was about to pull out a large amount of candy and maybe a couple of trinkets. He said we had to go to the living room for it. This is where things get a little fuzzy. I think he said he had to ask me something before I got my Easter present and I think he said something about being in love with me and wanting to spend his life with me. The part that I do remember is the sudden realization of what was happening as he got down on one knee and pulled a shiny blue egg from his pocket. Inside was the most beautiful ring I had ever seen. I would have said yes no matter what, but that certainly didn't hurt. I cried, we kissed, I cried, we hugged Zelda, I cried, I stared at my ring, I cried, I hugged Matt, I cried. It took a good forty-five minutes before I was able to calm down enough to call anyone. Of course we went outside first to take some pictures of the ring because we knew people would ask. It was a very emotional afternoon, to say the least. Poor little Zelda was very upset and confused why I was crying and hugging her and Matt every few mintues. We finished our phone calls and we met Dan and Caroline for dinner. It was a lovely way to celebrate. The waiter even brought us a small bottle of champagne to toast with. I think it might have been the best Easter I've ever had.


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So graceful

I used to dance, not, you know, professionally or anything. I was on the drill team in high school, I took tap and ballet as a child, and other stuff. Matt and I also do ballroom dancing around the house for fun. I only mention it because I want you all to know that I can be graceful and move well. I think that only happens when I dance though. I am notorius for walking into things, banging my knees into desks, smacking my hand into door knobs, and I trip sometimes. Actually, I usually only trip on the stairs. I did it over Christmas, when Chris and Moe were here and broke two of my little toes. Don't worry, I've done that several times and I know how to deal with it. On Friday though, I tumbled down the stairs and landed on the barricade that we have set up to keep Zelda from bounding up the stairs. Considering the distance and velocity of which I fell, I didn't get hurt too badly. It knocked the wind out of me. The worst part is the ginormous bruise I now have. Its about the size of my hand. Not pleasant, especially since Zelda knows exactly where to jump to land on it.


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It's been a while

I was having trouble updating the blog from my phone. The Internets weren't letting me update properly. As it turns out, there's an app for that. Which I now have. Some of the reviews are a little spotty so we'll see how it goes. If it works well, I'll be able to update from anywhere. Maybe that will increase the number of blog posts, maybe.

We have just about completed the 2010 Kell-stravaganza! It's been a busy one this year. My mom came to visit for a week. It was nice because I got her to rest for once. She actually just slept the first day and one day I got up from my nap to find her watching an NCIS marathon. That kinda blew my mind, she usually can't sit down to watch tv because she always needs to be doing something. Which is probably where I get that from. On the plus side, I get a lot more crafting done because of it. Of course, she also might have slept the first day because her flight was two hours late and we didnt get back to the fort until three something in the morning. In any case she has spending so much of her time these past few years taking care of Nana and Jerry its good to see her resting. We ate a lot, mom made me some chile, did some shoppin', and enjoyed each other's company. It was a good time, even if she did have to get to the airport by 4:30am to leave. I'm just teasing. I was just happy to have had her come visit.

The day after my mom left, my dad and Deb stopped by for a visit. Sadly, they only had a few days with us. Deb had a thing up in D.C. and Dad joined to see the sights, so afterward they drove down to good ol' Chapel Hill to see the three of us. We spent a lot of our time hanging out, watching the History Channel. But we did some shopping (Matt and I now have two blankets that actually fit across the bed), and of course there was a lot of eating to get done. We had my official birthday dinner on Friday at The Melting Pot. I think all birthday dinners should contain copious amounts of cheese. Mmmmmm, cheese. I don't need to mention that it was scrumptious but I will. It was scrumptious. Whoever decided that large pots of melted cheese made a great meal is a hero. I would like to shake their cheesey hand. Or eat more cheese, whatever. I think we made good use of our time together. It was kinda like the old days, sitting and watching tv together. Learning about history and whatnot. We may be seeing all of the parents in July, but nothing has been officially planned yet.

I should mention, this was the first time any of them had met our little Zelda girl. I think she pretended to behave herself fairly well for a short time. She had my mom tricked for a few days because Mom thought we were being harsh with her. Then after a while Mom also realized that when Zelda starts running for cover it means she's being bad. She too began to yell, "Zelda, what did you get?!" Ahh but Zelda's cuteness always wins the day. There are also some really adorable pictures of her bonding with my dad, who she took to immediately. Every couple of minutes she'd get all excited again and try to crawl into his beard. Debbie was not left out of the puppy-luvin'. Zelda took her into the pack and attempted to clean Debbie's face and ears.

Now it is just Matt, Zelda, and I and the house seems awfully quiet. Matt assures me I won't notice it much after a few days but for now it makes me feel a little sad and homesick. I think I'll have more cheese now.

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Bridge ices before road

I would like to begin with a quick statement in my defense. Having grown up in SoCal and Vegas, roads icing over was not a major concern. Its not really something I think about on a day to day basis. So a couple of weeks ago when we were trying to decide if we were going to try making it to D&D Matt gave me quite the revelation. I had always thought the sign "bridge ices before road" meant something like the bridge ices in the area right before the road. What it should really say is "bridge ices before the road does". I guess that would be a little long for a road sign but it would make so much more sense. Sure, now that he explained it to me it's clear. Obviously due to the smaller volume the bridge would freeze first. Now when I see the sign I insert the extra words. I don't ever drive when the road would be freezing but its good to have that cleared up just in case.

We are making our first joint trip to Michigan this weekend. I'm super excited about it. I get to see Matt's friends and family, where he grew up, and eat at a bunch of restaurants he's told me about a million times. I also have a super cute dress and a cute shoe to wear at the wedding. It should be a great time. The only thing I don't like about the whole trip is that we have to leave our poor little Zelda behind. Her Aunts Steph and Linda have plans for this Valentine's weekend so we are leaving her at the vet's office. :( Not that I think they won't treat her well. The women there absolutely adore our little Zelda girl. Last time we left her  they had here up front hanging out with them the whole time. I guess another bonus from Zelda's point of view is that they also have a couple of cats that live there that just roam around. She gets so excited that she nearly wags herself apart anytime she gets within ten feet of a cat. Its hilarious. Every time we go to Petsmart she tries to convince us to adopt a kitteh for her. There, I feel a little bit better about leaving her behind.

Zelda's Snow Day

SNOW!!!! It snowed last night and this morning and is currently sleeting. Thats what Matt tells me at least. Not having had much experience with such things I'll have to take his word that that is what is falling from the sky. It actually snowed quite a bit, at least to my eyes. Enough that after consulting with the Sawyers we decided that it was probably a bad idea to drive to Apex today to play D&D. Which means we won't be able to take out the death cultists until next Saturday. *sigh* We were all really looking forward to trying out our new level four characters. Its probably for the best though. The weather channel is saying that it is supposed to turn into a heavier sleet and/or freezing rain as the afternoon progresses. So while it might be ok to drive over there it probably won't be so safe to drive back. Which means all the moms can breathe easier. We will be staying in today and having a snow day.

Since the last time it snowed we didn't take Zelda outside today was her very first romp in the snow. I am not so sure that she liked it very much. Somehow I don't think she's a snow dog. She did eat quite a bit of the snow. When she went off the sidewalk the snow reached past her belly. It was pretty cute. We only took her out for maybe three minutes tops so we didn't cover her up. As soon as we came back inside she ran some laps and is currently napping on my lap. I don't think the experience was too traumatic for her. Here are some pictures to document her time in the snow.

Are you guys related? No...YES!!!! part 2

Oh how I love food. Another place that Chris fell in love with on his last visit was the Barbeque Joint. It is a crazy kind of little place. From what I understand it has the best Carolina BBQ around. Even better than the famed Allen Bros. Knowing this, one would expect that they would have little to offer a veggie like me. Nothing could be further from the truth. Along with their amazing traditional southern foods and BBQ they have a gourmet selection of vegetarian dishes. Weird, right? I usually get their eggplant but they were closing for renevations for a couple of weeks so they were running down the kitchen. I had to make due with their homemade rosemary mac and cheese. It was fantastic. Another night, another set of wonderfully, over full bellies.

Matt and I had decided long before they arrived that we wanted to take them to one of our favorite local eateries, Buns. I'm pretty sure I've posted about Buns before. They use all local ingrediants, bake their buns fresh daily, and have really delicious dipping sauces for their fries. I'm a creature of habit and I always end up getting the veggie burger with goat's cheese and a balsamic reduction. Pretty fancy for a burger joint, huh? I think Matt tried the chicken breast this time which we've heard was really good. It didn't disappoint. Do I need to addthat we went home with happily full tummies? I think its a theme for their visit.

I don't want you all thinking that we only ate out during their visit. Michelle and I are very good cooks and we managed to turn out a couple of good meals. We had a large Christmas Eve dinner, consisting of turkey breast, mashed potatoes, candied yams, gravy, and stuffing. It turned out pretty darn awesome, if I do say so myself. Michelle offer to make one of her's and Chris's favorite dinners, tomato and red pepper soup with grilled chesse sandwiches and a carrot salad. I helped by making a rosemary olive oil bread for the sandwiches. The salad was really good. So good that even Matt liked it despite the fact that it was made with ranch dressing and baby carrots. Moe is definitly an excellent cook. For Christmas day Moe and I prepared a buffet for everyone to graze on throughout the day, a tradition stared by my mom, Debbie. There were several kinds of dip and cream cheese spreads, two sweet cream cheese spreads, some cold cuts, a veggie platter, and of course, a cheese array consisting of no less than six kinds of cheese. It was a good day. And in case any of the moms are still unsure, our rag tag group still made it to midnight mass, full tummies or no.

We were sad to see them go. I love having my family around, even my crazy brother ;) teehee. We had a ton of fun while they were here. Even though Chris tried to pretend that he didn't like going shopping with Moe and I. Matt and Chris played a couple of games of Heroscape which Chris, or really the Hulk, won. We watched a couple of movies and took a lot of naps. It was a lovely weekand I wished that it could have been longer.

Are you guys related? No...YES!

It has been brought to our attenion by several parties that Matt and I have been somewhat lax in our blogging. So let me regale you with tales of our Christmas.

In an attempt to save money and because it's getting harder and harder for Matt to take time off of work we did not travel this Christmas. Fear not! My brother and Moe came to stay with us for a week. Although I suspect that their real reason for visiting was to meet our little Zelda-girl. She was very happy to meet her ninos. In fact, she played nearly nonstop with Chris the entire time he was here. Needless to say she slept very well while they were here. They very nearly didn't get here. Their plane was late leaving California and they came close to missing their connecting flight.

I could regale you all with heartwarming stories of our family moments lovingly shared in front of the fire. However we all know the most important part of any trip my family is involved in is the food. Chris, having visited once before, had a small but unchangable list of places he wanted to dine at while he was here. On the very top of the list was Mama Dip's. If you've never been there, on your next (or first) trip to NC, you should make it a priority. Both sets of my parnts love it. Matt and I love it too but, as Steph says, it's the kinda place you should only have once or twice a year. So waitig until people come to visit is pefect. Every single thing I've had there has been delicious and all the meat eaters hav also been in love with their dishes as well. The main reason we really wanted to go was the fried pickles. I am a firm believer that frying foods can only make them taste better. Things that are already tasty come out heavenly. The fried pickle is one of those heavenly items. The pickles at Mama Dip's are fried to a golden brown perfection, they come out warm and have a bit of a spicy bite to them. We got two orders and at first Chris was worried that we wouldn't be able to finish them. They all disappeared, within a matter of moments. The rest of the night we all just kind of laid around the living room. We were too full and extremely happy about it. To be cont.

We're moving

To the Biltmore Estate.  I think with that many rooms they won't even notice us there.  Well, maybe they'll notice Zelda, but I can be real quiet when I need to.  Matt gave me my Christmas present early this year and took me to see the Biltmore Estate all done up for Christmas.  It was a lovely little trip.  We had lunch at Sheetz and then we got to Asheville a little too early to check into our hotel so we browsed a local pet store.  They had this nylabone rib toy that I was thinking of getting Zelda.  I didn't end up getting it but I still want to, I'm pretty sure she would have loved it.  We stayed at the cutest little hotel and the lady who checked us in was nice as could be.  We didn't have time to stay and admire our spacious room though, our reservations for the Biltmore were at 5:30pm.  A couple of years ago Chris and I were watching a program on the Travel Channel about "The most" McDonalds.  The one that they showed at the fanciest McDonalds was located in Asheville.  I promised Chris ahead of time that we would go and take pictures.  The place is pretty ridiculous.  It has a two sided fireplace, a vaulted ceiling, player piano, and wrought iron dividers.  Even the employees were fancier than normal.  It was pretty amazing.  Did I mention how cold it was?  It was freezing outside, literally.  It was snowing when we got into Milo to drive down to Biltmore Village, nothing major, just a few flurries.  Still, it was super cold and windy.  Luckily Matt and I had planned ahead and packed lots of warm accessories to help us through.  I can't possibly describe the Biltmore Estate so I'm not even going to try.  But it is beautiful and if you ever get a chance to, I would go.

Thanksgiving is gone but the leftovers are not

I wouldn't say our Thanksgiving went off without a hitch but I think it was a pretty smooth ride.  It took a little while longer to get the turkey in the oven than we had anticipated which turned out ok because Steph and Linda were also running a little behind too.  The group agreed that Catarina's candied yam recipe was amazing.  Linda stuffing was delicious, really delicious.  And I can't say enough about Steph's filling.  I could have just eaten that.  Matt's turkey got rave reviews.  There was so much food.  S&L also made a veggie platter, brussel sprouts, and green beans.  We all ate way too much and then lazed on the couches and watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, ordered special from netflix since Matt had never seen it.  Before we got to taste the apple pie, which was pretty beautiful, Zelda managed to pull the pie off the table.  Luckily the pie tin landed on the bottom corner so the pie wasn't ruined, just smooshed.  So it became more of a apple crumble than a pie.  I guess she figured that since we had allowed her some turkey with her dinner she would just serve her own pie.  The pie was delicious, crumbled or not, and the ice cream was fantastic.  The pumpkin pie was also wonderful and so was the cheesecake that Linda made.  At one point, Linda fell alseep on the futon and Zelda mirrored her position and fell asleep too.  As you would expect, we had a lot of leftovers.  I love Thanksgiving leftovers, I could eat them for weeks if I could.  As it is we had them at least one meal every day since Thursday.  I wish there were more, but we're slowly running out of them, dish by dish.  Now we're starting to gear up for Christmas.