State Fair, 2009

Ah State Fair, how I love you.  It never dissapoints.  Matt, Steph, Linda, and I took off early to the fair on Friday afternoon and met up with Jess and Jacob.  I'm putting up a slideshow of this year's highlights because otherwise there'd be too many to pick from.  The major part of any State Fair, at least to me, is the food.  This year's new additions were fried HoHos and chocolate dipped bacon.  We didn't manage to get around to the HoHos but the bacon booth was near the front of the line so we headed there right after we got our corn fix.  I'm a vegetarian but chocolate dipped bacon was so insane that I had to try it.  I'm not sure I even need to say it but it was fantastic.  I think its probably hard to go wrong with bacon in general.  But yeah, chocolate on bacon with a little bit of sea salt, mmmm.  I only had one bite but felt it was necessary to do it it in order to faithfully describe the fair experience.  Along with the mandatory fried veggies and fried cheese, this year Steph and Linda had ostrich burgers and Matt tried his very first corndog.  We also made sure to get a cup of the NC State ice cream that they make on their campus.  As always the fair food was both amazing and unsettling at the same time, in the best possible way.  As it turns out a friend of ours won several of the crafting competitions at the fair this year.  Tony Perdue is in charge of the very expensive microscopes in the biology department.  He also grows his own cotton, spins his own yarn, and then knits beautiful pieces out of it.  The little old ladies who are in charge of those competitions were all a flutter when we told them we were friends of his.  Looking at some of the entires this year has inspired me to enter a few of the contests myself next year.  I'm pretty sure I have the skills to at least place in some of the competitions.  This year we made sure to get to the pig races a good 45 minutes early to get seats.  I think that the duck racing portion is actually my favorite part but they're all pretty cute.  To sum it up the NC State Fair delivered once again.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

EEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Well, we're back from Eastern North Carolina. It was a wonderous morning. Matt and I met our puppy this morning. So much to say about it. First, as I was hoping, Matt fell in love with her as soon as she came into the room. He liked her so much he let her knibble on his fingers. I knew she was tiny but I guess not having anything for a size reference I didn't realize just how small. As you can see in the pictures she's a tiny little thing. Don't let the pictures fool you either, she does not stay still for more than a couple of seconds at a time. She loved the taste of my shirt but she loved Matt's watch even more. At some point she figured out that she could "dig through" Matt's shirt and was trying to wiggle her way around his back. Mary (her surrogate mom) told us that she's the most rambuncious of her litter. Boy did she show it. Normally pups are a little shy and stay still for a couple of minutes with people they don't know but she took to us right away. She also has a little cowlick on the back of her head. It was worse a couple of weeks ago but apparently its gotten better, I think its pretty darn cute. I wish we could have brought her home today but she needs more time to grow before we can do that. We did manage to pick a date though, July 5th. Thats the day she'll come to her foever-home. I'm a little exhausted from all the excitement so I'm going to take a little nap but I leave you with a few pictures of our darling little girl. Enjoy.

Go Heels! Boo dookies!

Tonight is the first of our basketball games against dook.  I'm excited about watching it on our TV.  Hopefully we'll make their ugly fans cry again.  That was fun. 
I've been listening to Michael Jackson all day today.  Matt and I saw an old "ripped from the headlines" Law and Order this weekend that was about a MJ type character. I couldn't get it out of my mind so I put my MJ playlist on my pud.  Now, I think that people should at some point stop blaming everything in their childhood for how they turned out.  The poor Jackson family though, they have a lot to blame.  Or really mostly just their dad.  Anyways, I always try and remember MJ as he was when I was a kid and in his fan club-- a black man that turned out the most awesome songs ever!  I still get all giddy when I hear "Another Part of Me".  It boggles my mind to this day that Matt didn't get to grow up seeing Captain Eo.  I have to find that on dvd.  Also on the MJ thought, my friend Mike was MJ for Halloween a couple of years ago and he said that a lot of his high school students didn't realize that MJ used to be a megastar for his music.  WTF!!!  Those kids' parents need to be fined for, I don't know, something.  Thats just wrong.  I digress.  So, take home message of today:  dook sucks and (old) MJ rocks.

Snow Day!!!!!

Matt came home with the pictures that he promised and now I share them with you. There is one from the little balcony outside our door, and of both of our cars with a blanket of snow. Oh, so much fun. The university ended up shutting down at 3:30pm and has a delayed opening tomorrow. I think its cute how you can only see a little nubbin of my antenna peeking out of the snow.

State Fair!!!!

I promised I would get to it and now that I have tidied up the living room a little bit I can.  On Wednesday Matt, Steph, Linda, Kuo-Chen (my super adorable rotation student from Taiwan) and I finally got to the always amazing NC State Fair.  Sure it meant having to leave work two hours early but it was darned worth it.  Let me just start by saying it was sooo cold out that night, Matt will laugh at my saying this but it was 48F.  I should have worn more layers.  Being a veteran of the fair, I took the lead and almost ran the whole way from the entrance to the roasted corn.  I can't even describe how much I love fair corn.  Maybe because its dipped in butter, maybe it is all the things that I sprinkle on it, who knows but it isn't the state fair with out it.  We munched our corn while viewing the display gardens because they are Linda's favorite part of the fair.  Afterwards we headed back into the fried food fray and began our decent into fried-ness.  In an effort to show Kuo-Chen everything that is right with American we might have gone a little over board with the food.  We ordered fried snickers, a blooming onion, fried mac and cheese (new this year).  Kuo-Chen got fried oreos, Dan (our lovely British friend and Kim's fiancé) got the fried pecan pie and ribbon fries for Kim.  Meanwhile, Steph was chowing down on a giant turkey leg.  I'd like to point out though that all food was bought for the purpose of sharing except for the giant turkey leg, that was all Steph.  After making all of that stuff disappear we decided that it was time for some veggies, fried veggies!  It is the state fair after all.  After the veggies and pickles were done, things were sitting heavy so it was time to check out some animals.  We wandered through the exhibits for a while and even got to pick up a baby duck when we realized it was time to head to Hogway Speedway.  Now, my dad pointed out that as a vegetarian I should probably object to the poor little animals being treated like this.  I'm not so sure though, they get treats at the end of the really short track...and they're so cute!  We managed to sneak in some fried cheese and ice cream, albeit separately before heading out.  You all might be surprised to hear that the cheese wasn't my idea.  I had explained it to Kuo-Chen earlier in the week and she was so amused by the idea that she insisted on trying it.  I was in a food coma the whole way home.  It is probably a good thing for my arteries that the state fair only comes once a year.

Dan enjoying his pecan pie

Kuo-Chen and the giant pumpkins which she found hilarious

Fried veggies and pickles

Matt and Steph sitting on a dumpster

Matt and I at the end

Sort of short week

UPDATE!! I posted the pictures. I'm sorry that the first hair picture looks like a myspace picture but the others Matt took made me look funny.

The weekend is over and even though it was quite busy I am sad to see it go. I haven't yet found a dress for Maureen's wedding and I'm not really sure when I can fit that in this week. I guess there is always Friday which is sad because I just wanted family time. Oh well. Derek's party was lovely, his house is so beautiful I could almost cry. Very yummy tasty snacks as well. I made s'mores brownies as per his request. I think it might be one of the best recipes I have. Then again I'm a bit of a sucker for s'mores. Steph has had really bad allergies this weekend so after helping us pick out a lovely new mirror, picture frame, and coasters she was not up to going to the party. :(

Matt and I spent the day at Kure Beach yesterday. It was so lovely and peaceful. Thankfully the water wasn't nearly as warm as I was told it would be. That would have been awful. It was just like I'm used to a little chilly at first but perfect after a couple of minutes. The part that I couldn't understand was the sand, it is so different from the beaches on the Pacific. Or at the least all the ones I've been to. The sand is more like very tiny, flat pebbles that stick to your body. UGH!!! I'm used to sandbox type sand. Fine, little...sand, you know. Sure sand usually gets everywhere but after you dry it is supposed to just brush right off. I ended up having to scrub the sand off me when we go home last night.Matt's favorite picture, you have to look closely at the sign to see why

I'm leaving work early (don't worry I got here very early today, I beat everyone else by nearly two hours!) I'm getting my haircut and goodness knows that always takes about four hours. If it goes well I'll post a picture later of my new 'do. I'll try and post some pics from the beach too. Check back later!

Official Carolina Girl

I spent most of the day yesterday running all around becoming official. I went down and got my own car insurance. Then I drove to Hillsborough to go to the dmv with a quick stop at Taco Bell. Yummy, yummy Taco Bell. Then I went and got my North Carolina driver's license. I actually took quite a good picture. I may or may not have spent a bit of time grocery shopping at the Walmart Supercenter in Hillsborough. I also managed to get to the Licensing office to register Milo and get him North Carolina plates. He looks so cute, plus, Matt pointed out that Milo is now blue with red lettered plates and Audrey is red with blue lettered plates. Too cute.

Tonight Matt and I are hosting a Heroscape night at his place. I've already made too much food but I'll take some pictures so everyone can see them.

--science update--
I ran my western today and from my preliminary results everything looks great!