28!

Last Sunday, Brian had his tenth birthday since I met him at the tender age of 18. He says it was his best yet, most likely because he had someone to help him blow out the candles. A little one who was himself a day shy of his half birthday. And he didn't really help as much as he started screaming as soon as I lit the candles. He was already ready for bed. He did great at dinner though, as we went out to Ole Tapas and he charmed multiple waitresses as he sat in the booth between us. He even started throwing his foam block on the floor and had a few different girls pick it up for him. For records sake, I like to post the tapas we tried, so we can remember what we've had as we try to complete most of the offerings on the menu (minus most of the seafood choices).

The Chefs Compliment was a carrot dish, and Brian enjoyed his glass of Riberal.

Then we started with a trio of quesos (cheese), all tasty: Idiazabal (sheep), Manchego (sheep), and Mahon (cow) and the Aceitunas Marinadas (house marinated olives).

Then we had both "of the day" items, in the Coca del Dίa (pizza) and one of my favorites, the Empanada del Dia.

Our fish tapa was a Piquillo Relleno de Bacalao (piquillo pepper stuffed with salt cod) we paired with the surprisingly tasty Lentejas Morunas (moroccan style lentils).

Then we finished with meat and potatoes, including the Croquetas de Jamon (serrrano croquettes), Bocadillo de Cordero (spiced lamb meatballs sandwich with oregano) and the Patatas Bravas (fried potatoes with spicy mayonnaise).

It was a great meal!

And yes, this was way too much for two people. We were a little too full to have birthday cake later. But we managed.

Kiki also celebrated her 5th birthday. She is aging beautifully!

With Some Friends!

Winter/Christmas 2009

Picture of the Atlantic snowstorm:

Dec. 19. Saturday: I wake up early to find the entire complex covered in snow. It’s been coming down pretty hard for a few hours, and no one has really mussed up the streets yet. I make Brian get up to see it, and Cori loves bouncing around in the snow. The car dealership closes, so we can’t take our car in to get its oil changed like we had scheduled. We take our Christmas card picture with the windows open so everyone can see the snow. “The Blizzard of 2009” ends up being pretty substantial, definitely setting some records for the area. I see on facebook that our church has canceled services for the next day.

Dec. 20. Sunday: I bake pretty much all day… We get a call in the afternoon that Appo has already canceled school for the next day!! Get a lot of wrapping and letter writing done.

Dec. 21. Monday: The baking continues. I’m making up for last year, when I didn’t get any Christmas cookies made at all… I get another call saying that Appo has called the next day as well, and am officially on Christmas vacation! Get the Christmas letters mailed.

Dec. 22. Tuesday: Bake a few more things… decorate our sugar cookies! I normally don’t have the patience to decorate, but tried to make them cute this year.

Dec. 23. Wednesday: Wake up to find a tragedy in our fish tank. Apparently a bubble fish anemone has attacked our Nemo fish. Brian got it knocked off, but by then the fish was pretty much a goner. We hoped he would perk back up, but he never did. Good-bye Nemo fish.

Started on our way home. First stop is the Gap cheese shop, to pick up some extra aged gouda (Rembrandt) for Brian’s sister. We also add the following to our cart:
· Campo de Montalban (semi-hard Spanish cheese, made of cow, goat and sheep’s milk)
· White Stilton with Mango and Ginger (AGAIN! We always get this)
· And one of Bill’s Christmas Cheddars (Beecher’s Flagship Reserve, Seatle, WA)

We then decide to stop for lunch at the Gap Diner, since we always drove past it. We finally get going, and make the following progress, averaging 30 mpg. The cat and dog actually traveled very well together. No fighting, hiding, or getting sick.
· Left Newark at 10:17 AM
· Estimated Drive Time: 10 hrs, 43 min, Estimated Total Mileage: 627 miles
· Actual Drive Time: 12 hours, 33 min, with 2 hr, 44 min in stops, and actual mileage of 637 miles · Arrived Huntington at 10:50 PM

Dec. 24: Thursday: Spend the morning in Huntington, and head up to G & G B’s for our early Christmas. We then head to my old church for communion, and then up to Roanoke for a Lutheran Christmas Eve service. We sleep at Brian’s house. I’m too tired to make sure someone put out cookies for Santa.

Dec. 25: Friday: My mother ends up not having to work another shift, so we do get to have Christmas morning with my family when she comes home from being at the hospital from 7 pm-7 am.

We then head to Grandma Knight’s and see some of the family there. Little cousin Madison does a good job of leading Cori around like a steer and tiring her out.

Then we make it back up to Huntington to spend the afternoon with Brian's family, including Grandpa Eddie, excluding Mike and Ashley.

Our last stop of the day is the Banter Christmas that evening, where we get to meet baby Dylan.

Dec. 26: Saturday: We head to Ohio for Brian’s family Christmas. After a freakish car malfunction that left us sitting in a parking lot for about 45 minutes, we make it to the party. After eating, the Hutson aunts do an awesome job showering us with gifts for the little one.

Dec. 27: Sunday: Brian and I attend my church for worship, and then I have a “last super” (before one of us is a mother) with Mariah and Ashley. Following this we head to my second baby shower, hosted by my sister. She did a great job with it! We did the candy-diaper game, one where they had to guess my girth, a guessing game, and also the game where you lose your necklace if you say “baby”. It was cute, and pretty fun. My older sister in Alaska got to attend over the internet through Skype, which was really cool. I’m not much for video cameras, and this had the same feeling to it, so it took a while to get used to, but it was really awesome. Nephew Aydan acted like it was totally normal for him though. Good food and great gifts rounded out the shower.

(Pictures from the showers to come...)

Dec. 28: Monday. This was our first break in a while. We returned one double gift we got, went to the Bath & Body Yellow Sale (a personal favorite of my mothers, and a big surprise to Brian-“This normally costs $12????” Everyone in the store heard his opinion on the price for a bottle of lotion), and ate at Biaggi’s for lunch (you can now get refills on the soup!!! I have not had the chicken Florentine in years and was very excited). I got to read through most of “Hunger Games” and Brian spent most of the night playing poker with Matthew and my father.

Dec. 29: Tuesday. We ended up going to see my mother’s new hospital unit… see more in baby update posting. We then headed up to Huntington to have our official Christmas dinner with all of Brian’s siblings.

Dec. 30: Wednesday. Hung around in Huntington all day… I finally finished this needlepoint for baby Alison. I almost had it done with she was born, but it took me forever to get the last details done. Picked up “Chasing Fire” to start reading.
Cori had a lot of fun playing with Gus, most of the time. She had more energy to play than he did though, and he got grouchy about it a few times. Here they are in her cage together.... they both went in together on their own.

Dec. 31: Thursday. We had a busy day, having breakfast with my grandparents, and then eventually heading over to Megan and Ben's for a late lunch. She made us really tasty chilly, and we enjoyed some time with them. My sister thinks she is moving to Germany soon to live with Ben while he is still in training, but I'm not thinking about that until I see the actual orders in her hands.

We then have a quiet New Year's celebration with each other. For TEN years (!!!) Brian and I have visited the Marion lights every New Year's eve. We continued that again this year, and then headed to Ivanhoe's for tenderloins and ice cream. It was fantastic, and a nice little quite night together. We then headed to my parents where Brian worked on cooking meatballs and I fell asleep long before midnight. Brian missed waking me up to see the ball drop, but we said our "Happy New Years" a few minutes later.

Jan. 1: Friday. We partipated in my cousin Joel's 8th Annual Meatball Contest. There were 13th entries.  Even with crumbled bacon on his, Brian was not able to pull out a win. Afterwards we spent over an hour packing the car, getting almost all the Christmas and baby gifts in the car. We finished with dinner at BWW with Kari & Josh and Mariah & Kory. Even though it was absolutely FREEZING out, we finished off with DQ ice cream. My ribs hurt quite a bit after today-I think it was all the giggling.

Jan. 2: Saturday. We attended our last Christmas party in Toledo at Brian's grandpa's. Afterwards we drove straight through for nine hours and finally arrived home. Unpacking and getting our house back in running order will be on the agenda until we go back to work on Monday.

Is molasses bad for dogs?

I just went by the table, and noticed a torn up paper towel on the floor. I couldn't figure out why it would be there, but it looked like Cori had definitely done it. Then I realized it must have been the paper towel that had been used to cook cookies on earlier in the day. When I let Brian know what his puppy had been up to, he asked if I had moved the cookies off the towel. That was when it hit me that she didn't just shred a towel, but she had pulled about a dozen cookies off the table and eaten every bit of them. There wasn't even a crumb left. This should make for an interesting night.

Cori is growing up so fast.

She's in a slightly awkward stage here. She really loves laying on blankets.

My Old Man

So my husband is officially getting old.... while I'm still closer to 20 (for a few more weeks), he is rapidly approaching thirty. It is so strange to think I knew him as a teenager, and now he's 27.

It turns out I'm the only one that loves him. Me and my grandma. We were the only two to wish him happy birthday. His mother gets half a point for texting him, and his grandpa did send a card he got a couple days later. I forgot to wrap him anything, so he didn't have anything to open except my card (he doesn't appreciate singing cards as much as he should). His gift wasn't wrapped; it was his National Geographic subscription for the year, which had already come earlier this week. And you cannot pry those out of my husband's hands until he has read cover to cover.

So Brian is not very good at having birthdays. Every time I would ask him what he wanted to do, he turned it around and would let me decide. We went to Bob Evan's for a large brunch, and then ended up coming home and napping for most of the afternoon. Brian chose grilling out for super, but then after grocery shopping, the rain clouds gathered and changed those plans.

Brian did choose his own cake. German chocolate, sans the coconut icing. It was actually quite good-he chose bunny and butterfly sprinkles (left over from Easter). The cake is the most important part of the holiday for my husband. It would disappoint him the most if he didn't get one.

We also celebrate Kiki's birthday with Brian. She is four years old!-and enjoys icing!

The next day, on Sunday we attended a Cole Brother's Circus. They set up every year on some grounds just across the street from us, so we thought we would have to check it out. I think I have a somewhat romanticized view of circuses. It wasn't quite what I expected (I haven't been to one in like a decade), but it got better as it went along. We had to walk past PETA people protesting, and it was very hot, and started long past the time on our ticket. But once the show started it was fairly entertaining. My favorite things were the little dogs doing their tricks, the "butterfly" trapeze-like artists, and of course the elephants.

Guest Post: Brian Introduces You to Coriander and Our Other Pets

Shannon has been bugging me about doing a post for a while now, so I figured I'd do the official post about our new dog.

We acquired Coriander on June 11th. She is a mixed breed, probably somewhere around 25-40% Beagle (her sire looks like a Beagle, but is quite a bit larger and lankier, with smaller ears) and her dam looks kind of like some kind of Collie, but not in coloration. Cori is about three months old and well behaved for her age, obeying commands about 60% of the time. Despite being a fairly calm puppy, the cat is not happy about having a new animal in the house.

So far I've learned that our dog likes:
Being near Shannon and me
Eating sticks
Drinking water
Chasing and chewing on tennis balls
Chewing on ropes
Sleeping in the cat's bed

She does not like:
Treats
Ear medicine
Baths (although since she discovered she could drink the water she doesn't mind as much)
Being growled at by the cat

Dog breeds that scare her include:
Staffordshire Terriers
Bulldogs
Golden Retrievers
Miniature Poodles
Papillons

The last two are particularly embarrassing.

In other critter news, I also put a Percula clownfish in my tank. There is a local breeder that has been supplying them relatively cheap to the fish store across the street, and Shannon has been wanting me to put a fish in there for the last few months, so I thought I'd surprise her with one when she got back from her "Girls" trip. In the background of this picture are my colony of Aiptasia, which is kind of like the dandelion of the Cnidarian world.

The other thing that may not interest people as much is that I also have a red alga that has been growing vigorously, and looks pretty cool. As near as I can tell, it looks like some kind of Laurencia sp. but I'm not 100% sure. Other things in this picture include a red anemone and about a dozen little white feather-duster worms.

Shannon also wants me to not forget to mention the cat. I think Kiki feels a little neglected because she can't come sit at the dinner table with us anymore due to the dog, but she's been coming out and roaming the house again, so she isn't completely anti-social, just bitter.
Now, I've been a good boy so I'm going to help myself to some ice cream.