Happy One Year Anniversary, Hawaii! I moved to Hawaii with Nick on February 4, 2010. Which means next week I will have now lived in Hawaii for a whole year.  First license in a new state! Woot! So crazy to think about. Not that the time during deployment flew by at all, but definitely the time since Nick has been home has. The only time I have left Hawaii since moving here has been for a few days to go to California for training for work. I haven't been back to Maryland and have not seen my family and friends for one whole year now.  My going away outing with my good friends before the big move. That must be the reason I have been thinking about them all and missing them so much. I did get to see my sister and niece back in July when they came to visit me, which was amazing. And I have gotten to Skype with my parents, my sister, my niece, and even my grandma over the holidays. But my heart is aching for my friends back home. Don't get me wrong, I have friends here. But they're not the kind yet that I feel comfortable calling up after a rough day to talk to. Nick is here for that...some of the time. And none of the girls I hang out with live anywhere nearby me. With the island’s traffic, that is a big deal. A girl needs her best friends.  To my two best friends back home, Erin and Rachel. I miss you two SO much. Erin has been my best friend and partner in crime and sarcasm since junior year of college when I went from commuting to class to moving onto campus and got "stuck" rooming with her. It was a randomized assignment and the first thing I see when I walk into the dorm room is a huge poster of David Duchovny from X-Files and a little David Duchovny action figure perched tauntingly by her computer.  Me and Erin...So young here! Erin and I hit it off right away, much to her surprise (and a little bit of mine!). She told me story after story of her nightmarish roommates, ones that stalked her, ones that walked in on her without asking, and ones that would just stare at her like they wanted to kill her. Erin and I had the same major, were the same age, and were in very similar dating situations at the time. While I had never seen X-Files before (although Erin got me to watch a few episodes while living with her and they weren’t bad, I must say), we did stay up WAY too late when we had early classes and tell scary stories until we fell asleep.  Erin and I continued to room together until graduation. Afterwards we had our own stuff going on and didn’t see each other much. A few months after graduation we got together for a reunion and decided to go do karaoke at a little bar nearby our college where a friend of mine (Rob!) was DJing. And then we went faithfully every week for 5 months straight.  Still my favorite picture of all time. Oh my Lord. Erin has and always will be my best friend. I regret that we don’t talk much. She is a busy girl with a full-time job with a hefty commute, a fiancé, and a punk band called Dead End Lane in which she is the amazingly talented lead singer. The time diff doesn’t help either. But despite not getting to talk much I know that if I need her she is always there and vice versa.  Rachel! I also found Rachel, my other best friend, in a very serendipitous type way. I used to date her brother! While the relationship with her brother clearly did not work out, I was fortunate enough to meet Rachel who is like a kindred soul to me. We got along SO well that her brother started getting jealous of our talking the whole time we were all out! Not too long after meeting Rachel, she invited me to move into her spare bedroom at her place.  Such an awesome friend. Rachel was such an awesome roommate too! We watched the same shows, worked nearby, loved a lot of the same things. It was only a little awkward having pictures of her brother hanging around everywhere…but this is also the same brother that led me to find my husband so it looks like two AWESOME things came out of that!  ignore the brunette behind the curtain. I guess Nick has to come out as the winner of being my favorite roommate ever. I mean, we do have a blast together. But….my two favorite girl roommates and best friends will always be Erin and Rachel.  There are no two friends like these two. :) So this blog is dedicated to Erin and Rachel. Of course I miss everyone else back home SO much, my mom and my sister especially.   I also really miss my other close friends: Rob, John, EP, James, Cory, Beki, Bernadette, and all my other friends I didn't name on here….you all are the best. I miss you guys a ton. Karaoke again soon please? Guys?  Miss you guys a ton. Sing 'Fatbottom Girls' for me please? Side Note: I know Erin wouldn’t want you to believe she is still obsessed with David Duchovny. I mean I wouldn’t want to embarrass her. It’s not like I would ever do something crazy like put up a poster of her with a really bad picture in the elevator of our dormitory or anything like that. So for the record, despite owning a cast of David Duchovny’s head, Erin really isn’t obsessed with X-Files anymore. For the record. ;)  Add Comment A Very Mele Kalikimaka 01/20/2011
 Palm Christmas trees, beach days,Hawaiian shirts, sunblock, and Mai Tais...ahhh, Hawaii for the holidays. What an experience.  Nick was more than thrilled to wear his Hawaiian shirt for Christmas Eve. As nice as it would have been to visit my family and/or Nick's for the holiday's, our schedules (and wallets) disagreed with us. Thus we were forced to spend our first holiday season as a married couple, stuck (GASP!) here on a tropical island with our two lovable pups.  The dogs had a very laid back holiday too. My awesome non-profit job gave me paid vacation Christmas Eve through through New Year's Eve and Nick's leave began a few days after mine. The only holiday day he was scheduled to work was Christmas Eve, and he was released early in the day since they weren't busy.  Christmas Eve at Jared & Melissa's in Kaneohe! On Christmas Eve, we were fortunate enough to have dinner with two of Nick's Naval Academy friends on the Kaneohe Marine Base (one of which is stationed here and the other was visiting- neither of whom we have seen in quite some time) and their wives with whom I am also friends. It was such a nice thought to invite us over! (Thank you, Melissa, Jared, and Gunnar!)  'What exactly was my Christmas present?' Christmas day we slept in (as late as possible with a yapping beagle puppy), had banana bread and yummy leftovers from dinner with friends the night before. Then for dinner, since I don't eat meat and Nick's not a huge turkey person anyway, we had favorite foods: bacon wrapped bratwursts for him and whole grain spaghetti with roasted garlic spaghetti sauce for the both of us. With mixed drinks! We even decorated our first Christmas tree (Yes! a Christmas palm tree!) that morning.  The palm tree worked so well as our first tree since we don't have a lot of ornaments yet. :) I was lucky enough to chat with my whole family via Skype on Christmas Eve while I awkwardly was making cheesecake squares and happened to have my computer on the counter- I felt like they were watching me to see if I'd add an ingredient incorrectly! On Christmas morning I opened my presents from my sister over Skype while she watched then she and my niece and brother in law opened the ones I sent/ordered. It was a very technologically inspired holiday.  My family finally got to meet our latest addition, Lili via Skype! New Years Eve is a more important holiday to me and Nick than Christmas. We only spent our first Christmas together last year. Three years prior we had met early in December. On New Years Eve I had started to fall for Nick pretty hard and couldn't picture myself kissing anyone else at midnight. To me, it felt important to start the year off with Nick. Nick had been visiting his family in St. Louis, MO at the time on leave from the Naval Academy.  Flashback to our first NYE together in 2007! Brave (crazy?) as I was, I wanted to see him so badly I drove 14 hours overnight from Maryland to Missouri to arrive in time for New Years Eve. We had such an amazing time that Nick canceled his plane ticket back to MD and drove back with me. We officially became a couple just a few days afterward and I really believe things wouldn't have progressed the same way had I not made the decision to go (so thank you to my best friend Erin for not thinking I was crazy for wanting to go when I asked her for advice). Since there's a chance Nick won't be off next year for NYE and for all we know we may not still live in Hawaii two years from now, I thought we should experience Waikiki on New Years Eve at least once.  View from our waterfront suite in Waikiki We booked a hotel for New Years Eve night and the following night so we wouldn't have to rush home. We went to Tiki's Grill for New Years Eve dinner. Tiki's is one of my favorite restaurants on the island. It's fun, light-hearted, and we had our wedding reception there after we got married in March. Well, a dinner of 5 people but still. :)  Although we must be getting old...After an amazing dinner we walked around Waikiki with every intention of returning to Tiki's for a crazy night of drinking and dancing and watching fireworks at midnight. Instead we returned to our waterfront room and chugged lots of water while sitting out on the lanai watching the fireworks in sweatpants and no makeup. I even forgot to open the champagne at midnight! (My 23 year old self would be ashamed.)  Sunset cruise! (Ignore the goofy faces...) We had an amazing mini-vacation/mini-moon. The following night we went on a very enjoyable sunset catamaran cruise in Waikiki with complimentary beverages included (booze cruise). Nick even bought me a beautiful pearl necklace after the cruise to celebrate our 3 year dating anniversary.  View of Diamondhead from the sunset cruise It was so much fun to kick off the new year on this gorgeous island pretending to be tourists. We moved here one year ago in February- I can't believe we have been island bound for nearly a whole year! I'd say it flew by- and it kind of did- other than that whole deployment time. :)  A very touristy New Years Eve vacation While it was a bit of a bummer not to see my family for the holidays, the 80-something degree weather is very consoling. I hope everyone had an amazing holiday season and a happy new year! Here's to a healthy, happy new year! :)  All Things Cupcake! 12/03/2010
If you follow my Tweets, you’ll notice that I like to bake. Not just anything- but cupcakes in particular.  Cupcakes. Oh, cupcakes. Who doesn’t love cupcakes? Has anyone ever looked at a plate of cupcakes and groaned, “Oh no. Someone brought cupcakes.” I mean after eating a whole plate of cupcakes I think I could understand that comment, but otherwise I think cupcakes are one of those universally loved objects- like puppies.  Cupcakes: As lovable as puppies. (BTW, Lili is on the left!) I never grew up baking. In fact, some of you may or may not know but I had a pretty strange childhood. I will have to blog about that at some point, but essentially I grew up in a traveling closet. It practically had an Easy Bake Oven as an entire kitchen. I was a picky child when it came to eating and after years of trying to get me to try various foods, my mother, God bless her, simply gave up. Don’t get me wrong- she made me eat things that were good for me (which most of the time I now ironically prefer eating). But I think she figured it would be silly to teach me cooking or baking since I didn’t like to eat anything anyway.  Definitely NOT a born baker. Or blonde. Shh! At least I was knowledgable of hip sunglasses. My first memory of baking came from my middle school home ec’ class with a six foot tall teacher with frizzy hair the color of merlot whom everyone referred to as Big Bird. It was hard to take her seriously. Especially because she also taught the eternally awkward sex education class. In fact, I can’t remember cooking or baking any one thing in particular- just general cooking. Pasta, I guess? Maybe a cake? Hmm. But then, after moving out on my own (one of the many times) I started experimenting with cooking simple things like chicken and making box cake (Funfetti!). I discovered eBay at age 18 which led me to the discovery of cute little homemade aprons- which truly made any form of cooking or baking automatically a masterpiece because at least I looked the part.  Love Holly's style! I think I used to watch too much Girls Next Door circa the Holly Madison era. That girl dressed up in costume to do everything- including all those house-wifely activities like baking. I think she made it look cute. Enter Charleston, South Carolina a few years later. Charleston was like a city of dreams to me. There were so many things to try and discover. I had already begun liking different types of food before coming to Charleston, but Charleston is known for its food. And for good reason. But one of the things I remember most about Charleston was this amazing little shop simply called Cupcake.  I love Cupcake- the food & the shop! Cupcake is the simplest idea for a store ever. It’s not a restaurant. It’s not an elaborate, pretentious bakery. There are no orders of fries on the side. There are no fancy wedding cakes (but they do make giant cupcakes!). Nothing but wonderful, yummy cupcakes. Cupcake has a variety of flavors of cupcakes, and they bake 9 flavors daily. The cupcakes themselves are just beautiful, with huge mounds of pretty-colored frosting smothering the tops, enough to make a poor lactose intolerant person like me suck it up and pop lactase pills like a maniac just to gobble down. Cupcake also had cute merchandise- aprons (of course), mugs (I bought one! Love it!), and adorable little tees. One of the things I loved about Cupcake is that they had a few little tables inside so you could meet up with a girlfriend and have a cupcake. I think they even rent the shop out for Cupcake parties. They even had little wooden Cupcake voucher coins you could purchase and give to a friend- their version of a giftcard but for exactly the cost of one cupcake each. I loved the whole concept behind Cupcake. That darling store still appears in my dreams and makes me think about owning my own little cupcake store one day. A cute little shop where girlfriends would meet and have cupcakes and some light drinks. I just love the idea. (If you live near or visit Charleston, SC you MUST check out one of the Cupcake shoppes! Their website is www.freshcupcakes.com. If you can't make it there- check out the Cupcake blog at http://charlestoncupcakes.blogspot.com/.) But until we live somewhere long enough so that I can settle down and realize my latest dream of owning my own cupcake bakery, I will continue my obsession with cupcake baking and apron purchasing in my own home.  My fabulous apron & this picture are from http://www.etsy.com/shop/sassyapron I just bought my third cupcake cookbook and my 7th apron- my first actual apron with cupcakes all over it (with matching headband). It will be dedicated solely to baking cupcakes. (From an awesome apron shop on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/sassyapron) I'm already planning my next adorable Etsy cupcake purchase. I've become obsessed with an adorable pair of hand-stamped cupcake stud earrings (from http://www.etsy.com/shop/CatherineMarissa).  Obsessed with these! From: http://www.etsy.com/shop/CatherineMarissa I spent some time experimenting with various cupcake recipes this summer. Which was unfortunate since Nick wasn’t here, so it was just me in the house, baking for nobody in particular. I would bake batches of 12-24 cupcakes then give away most of them to our neighbors. I thought, at least it will hopefully change their minds from calling me “the crazy neighbor who talks to her dog” to “the nice neighbor who bakes things and gives them to us.” (Ah, the joys of being a military wife when your husband is on deployment.)  White cupcakes with homemade vanilla buttercream frosting I’ve baked peanut butter cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes, yellow cupcakes and white cupcakes. The latter had homemade vanilla buttercream icing which I received some compliments for. I made macadamia nut maple cupcakes with maple cream cheese icing. Last week for Thanksgiving I really wanted to bake pumpkin cupcakes since I wasn’t really doing any traditional Thanksgiving food otherwise. Unfortunately everyone at the store the weekend before Thanksgiving wanted to make pumpkin pie, go figure, so of course there was no pumpkin puree or pumpkin spice. Instead I stuck with the non-traditional “Holidays in Hawaii” theme and made pineapple cupcakes with citrus buttercream frosting. Yum!  Cup-A-Cake holders- stupid yet somewhat ingenious. I also recently discovered Cup-A-Cake individual cupcake holders. I only recently learned that cupcakes could be frozen and eaten at a later date. If only I had known about that this summer, also known as “The Summer of Cupcakes.” Anyway, now that I have my nifty cupcake holders, next time I bake I plan to freeze a few cupcakes and stick them in the freezer for emergencies. Sometimes, you have a cupcake emergency. It happens. Basically this blog was a tiny rant on how much I love cupcakes and why you should too. (And puppies!) Also, I wanted to tell you about this awesome new cupcake book I ordered, which isn’t so much about cupcake recipes as are my other two cupcake books, but more about fun, creative ways to decorate cupcakes. And it has fun pictures. And it’s cheap on Amazon. Check it out and look at the pretty pictures! It’s called What’s New, Cupcake?  Highly recommend! (By the way, if you haven't noticed by now, I am an Amazon.com addict. Just a side note, but they are one of the very few companies that actually have a free shipping deal- $25 or more of qualifying items- that is still applicable to Hawaii. Most companies, even with a "free shipping" option, often still add a surcharge to ship here. Cough-cough-Victoria's Secret-Cough. Also, Amazon tends to be cheaper than a lot of companies- I only go through them for mp3's too. In other words, I link to the items I talk about almost exclusively to Amazon because, frankly, Amazon rocks.) And because I’ve possibly made you hungry and craving small round cakes inside pretty paper wrappers, here’s my Hawaii for the Holidays cupcake recipe from my first cupcake cookbook, Easy Cupcakes. Tropical Pineapple Cupcakes with Citrus Cream Frosting Makes 12 (Sarah’s note: Unless I used the wrong kind of flour, I found this barely filled 9 cups and didn’t rise much. Came out delicious but you may want to double the recipe!  The perfect Hawaiian cupcake. Ingredients: 2 slices of canned pineapple in natural juice 6 tbsp butter, softened Generous 3/8 cup superfine sugar 1 large egg, lightly beaten Scant 5/8 cup self rising flour 1 tbsp juice from the canned pineapple For the frosting 2 tbsp butter, softened Generous 3/8 cup soft cream cheese Grated rind of 1 lemon or lime (I loved the lime!) Scant 1 cup confectioners’ sugar 1 tsp lemon juice or lime juice Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put 12 paper cases in a muffin pan or put 12 double-layer paper cases on a baking sheet. Finely chop the pineapple slices. Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat together until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the egg. Add the flour and, using a large metal spoon, fold into the mixture. Fold in the chopped pineapple and the pineapple juice. Spoon the batter into the paper cases. Bake the cupcakes in the preheated over for 20 minutes, or until well risen and golden brown. Transfer to wire rack and let cool. To make frosting, put the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl and, using an electric handheld mixer, beat together until smooth. Add the rind from the lemon or lime. Sift the confectioners’ sugar into the mixture, then beat together until well mixed. Gradually beat in the juice from the lemon or lime, adding enough to form a spreading consistency. (Sarah’s note: I actually found I needed to add a little more confectioners’ sugar to thicken the mix.) When the cupcakes are cold, spread the frosting on top of each cake, or fill a pastry bag fitted with a little star tip and pipe the frosting on top. Store the cupcakes in the refrigerator until ready to serve.  Thanksgiving day! Then serve, and pretend you are in Hawaii enjoying the 80-something degree weather out on the beach with a Mai Tai in your hand. Enjoy! ;)  Meet Lilikoi Cupcake (Lili) 11/28/2010
 Miss Lilikoi Cupcake at 10 weeks Meet our new puppy, Lilikoi Cupcake. Lilikoi is Hawaiian passionfruit. It was actually the filling that Nick and I had in our wedding cake when we got married here in Hawaii back in March. Since Lilikoi, who we just call Lili for short, is a purebred beagle, we thought a daintier name would be appropriate.  First meeting! My absolute favorite name was Charlotte, but we were really hoping for something that would have a Hawaiian influence, but that wouldn’t be hard to pronounce or be weird when we leave Hawaii. I think Lili was a good choice. Oh, and I’m obsessed with cupcakes.  Loves grass. I've loved beagles for a long time now. I think their eyeliner-ed eyes are adorable. I know they are loud, nose-driven dogs, but they have a reputation for being sweet and lovable and getting along well with children and other dogs. We wanted something smaller than Maggie (who is at about 45 lbs) and were looking at cocker spaniels, Cavalier King Charles and beagles. The first two tend to have long hair, and we thought it would be easier to stick with a shorter haired dog. Also, Maggie met a Cavalier King Charles one day at a dog walk and Maggie barely sniffed it before it went yipping off frightened. I couldn't have a prissy little dog like that. :)  Also loves stealing Big Sis' bed! Lili was born on September 2, 2010. We picked her up on Sunday, November 7, when we got back from our honeymoon. She was just under 10 weeks then. (We also got a new digital SLR camera just days before getting Lili- our slightly used Nikon D40, with which most of these pictures were taken.)  'What IS this thing that keeps bugging me?!' When we got our first dog, our black lab-border collie mix Maggie, she was already about 6 or 7 months old. We missed out on all the really young puppy phases- including crate training, house training, teething…all the fun stuff.  Don't let the innocent looks fool you! Puppy karma is catching up. We got off WAY too easily the first time. Lili is an adorable puppy. She has learned a lot in the last 3 weeks of having her but she is definitely a challenge. House training especially.  'I wanna be just like big sis!' But she has already picked up “Sit” and is working really well with “Stay.” When we would walk out of the room or go to bed the first week she would cry and whine and bark and howl. She is doing much better with her vocalization now. We also discovered that turning on a sound machine of waves and soft music keeps her relaxed and quiet the whole night. Thank God.  Sleepy time with Daddy! We do have fun when Lili falls asleep after a lot of playing. It's the equivalent of a drunk person passing out and people writing on his face with Sharpie. One night we took some fun pictures of a passed out Lili. Three pairs of sunglasses, a pair of shoes, a beer bottle, a hat, and even a rose in her mouth. Ahh, fun.  Cruel I know. But so much fun.  Just like daddy. Nick and I have been studying Cesar’s ways. Snagging moments to read his bookHow to Raise the Perfect Dog (perfect puppy training book if you are looking for one!) and watching Dog Whisperer every chance we get, we are definitely making progress. Having a puppy really does make you feel like you have a baby! I had no idea we got off so easily with raising Maggie, who is already a wonderful dog, but in comparison to the new pup is just the most well-behaved dog ever.  Me? NOT well behaved? Pfft. Maggie is being a great big sister. She was confused for a while as to what this little critter that kept trying to eat her ears is. We also learned quickly that we can’t give them treats that take a while to eat, like rawhides. Maggie is able to finish hers in minutes and Lili continues to chew them or loses interest, then Maggie goes after her food.  Getting used to the camera, I think.  Sisters! Maggie is getting much more used to Lili’s antics now. She lets Lili chew on her for a little while now. When playing fetch (Lili is learning to bring us the ball back too!) if Maggie gets to it first, often she will drop it in front of Lili so that Lili can have it or bring it back to us.  See- we share! It’s definitely been a challenging experience so far. But they do seem to care about each other already. I almost wish we could fast-forward to the already trained days but Lili is so adorable as a puppy and is already growing so quickly. I think she has already gained about 4 pounds since we got her! Wow.  Grass-muncher Another great thing about having Lili? If there were any cute fuzzy feelings about having children asap, they have dissipated rapidly. We want to enjoy our time with just our canine family hopefully for at least another 2 years. ;)  Kisses! PS. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Nick and I did. We stayed low-key, for fear of abadoning the dogs for too long. We spent the morning at the beach with Pineapple Juice/Ice Tea/Rum concoction, the spent the evening watching the puppies wrestle and eating some of our favorite foods: bacon wrapped bratwursts for Nick (his fave thing I make- bratwursts wrapped in bacon and coated with brown sugar and cayenne pepper), spaghetti and 5-cheese Texas Toast (which I never buy!), and pineapple cupcakes with citrus frosting- Yum! We also got our Christmas tree. I can't wait to show you all pictures after I decorate it. We're not going to be able to go home for the holidays this year, so it should be interesting to spend Christmas on a tropical island. Challenge accepted! Another blog update soon!  Happy Memorial Day 05/31/2010
Nick has been gone 5 weeks today. Experiencing the military this way- going through a deployment and only having a vague idea of what danger they are actually in- really makes you appreciate everything military does for us everyday.  Last year's lantern floating- Image via photolulu.com To celebrate our military ohana (family), Hawaii has a lantern-floating tradition. Early in the day on Memorial Day, many people get together to make lanterns, then in the evening they float them out into the ocean. This ceremony is to remember those who gave their lives in conflict, allows for reflection on the memories of loved ones and dedicates prayers for a peaceful and harmonious future (http://www.lanternfloatinghawaii.com). While I won't be able to make it tonight, I definitely plan to go next year with Nick by my side. I think I would rather do it that way. For anyone interested in seeing this beautiful ceremony who does not live on the island, there is an article and a link here to watch it live streaming tonight at 6:30pm Hawaiian time, 12:30am EST. To all the military everywhere past and present, thank you for your service. We're Engaged!!! 12/07/2009
Aghhh! Well, you know me. And you know there's a story. :)  Crazy Gloria dancing My sister had planned a bus trip to New York City for me and her as a Christmas present about 3 months ago. We've gone a lot of times before on a chartered bus with this crazy old lady named Gloria who who claims she was a Rockette and does high kicks and can can dancing to Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" when we enter the tunnel to NYC....Love it. This time around, since Nick's birthday was Wednesday I decided to look into staying overnight- something I've never done in New York before. Nick booked a room at a military hotel for Saturday night and even got tickets to see Shrek on Broadway- my first Broadway show!  Posing in front of a HUGE wreath in Little Italy  Thank God for Starbucks! Saturday my sister and I left at 6am to catch the bus up. We arrived shortly after 10 and had a blast shopping. We walked to Macy's and H&M then went down to Canal St and shopped through Chinatown and Soho. We took cheesey pictures in front of huge wreaths on restaurant doors. By mid to late afternoon the light drizzling of the morning had turned into rain mixed with a few snow flakes (it was the first day of snow!). We were both cold and wet.  drowned rats! We ate at a little restaurant called Il Fornaio on Mulberry St. The food was awesome and the canolis were the best I've ever had. Nick ended up meeting us there for a drink.  Catching some drinks in Little Italy My sister Tina needed to meet the bus at 6:45 and we were going to see the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. Nick didn't have the tickets to the play with him though so we swung by the hotel before the tree...then realized we didn't have time to see the tree before the show. We barely caught up to Tina's bus on time- I scrambled to get my bags off before the pulled away and took me with them...it was a close call! I was anxious about being so close to Tina missing her bus when we got to the show. Since we were a little early and we both wanted to eat before the show we went across the street to this little pizza shop called Italia Mia. The 40something Italian lady who worked there (and probably owned it) was hilarious. Nick went up to the counter to give her our order and she just waved her hands and told him to sit down and told him not to get up. The whole time we were there she was answering her cell and talking in Italian. She told a table once how bad a waitress she was...I told Nick we should adopt her as our 3rd mom. Shrek the Musical was amazing. I was so impressed by the set alone and how it kept rotating. Shrek is one of my favorite movies and they did an amazing job portraying it. Lord Farquaad was my favorite- a huge burly guy played him and since Lord Farquaad is supposed to be a midget, the huge actor performed on his knees the whole time with little fake legs attached to his real legs. His real legs were hidden by the cape. It was ridiculous. Such an awesome show. Afterwards, feeling exhausted and pretty gross-looking from spending 9 hours walking around in the cold rain and sleet I really just wanted to go back to the hotel and clean up since Nick wanted to go out. "Why don't we just see the tree tomorrow?" I suggested. He insisted we see it then. And added that it was right around the corner anyway.  Rockefeller Center He was right- the tree was pretty. Still just a tree but a pretty one with all the lights on at night. I got my camera out and took a few pictures of the two of us before a couple about our age offered to take our picture if we took their picture too.  The 'Before' Picture I quickly agreed and they took a picture of us. Then we switched and I took a picture of them in front of the tree. It was a nice couple and the girl was from Baltimore too. "Thanks so much!" I said again as we handed their camera back. "Can we get one more?" Nick asked them. I looked at him funny. "Did the other one not turn out okay?" I asked him. He just shrugged. My camera has a habit of taking random blurry pictures so I thought maybe he had gotten a glimpse of the picture they took and it hadn't come out.  I almost forgot to say 'Yes!' We got into position again for another photo and the girl started to take a picture. Nick paused, and said, "Oh, just one more thing." And he got down on one knee. :) Everything happened pretty fast but I do remember him asking me to marry him. I almost forgot to say "Yes!" I was really surprised. I just kept kissing him and telling him I loved him. I was really thankful too that the girl kept getting pictures for us.     Yeah, that deserved a kiss.  He put a ring on it! We called both of our moms from the Plaza before walking back to the hotel. Nick went out and bought a bottle of champagne while I showered and got cleaned up to go out. The hotel itself was laughable. It was this military hotel that you rent by bed. It was only $100 for both of us- but the communal bathrooms and showers were on different floors. I showered in socks because I was scared to death to let my bare feet touch the bottom of the gross shower. There were these pipes in our room that every time someone on the floor above flushed you could hear the water rush through the pipes followed by a long continuous LOUD popping sound....all night. We even had to push the twin beds together so we could sleep next to each other...definitely memorable. Hah.  the ring! After a few glasses of champagne, we walked around the corner to a bar called The Wharf and I had much more champagne and some midnight snacks while I stared at my ring under the lights and heard 5 Lady Gaga songs followed by Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind." Gotta love crazy New York bars that are open late. The next day I was determined to go to Serendipity Cafe- Serendipity is one of my top 5 favorite movies and Tina and I even stayed up Friday night watching it before the bus trip. I got pictures of Serendipity and would have loved to have eaten there but that's going to have to wait for our anniversary return trip some day- the cafe was booked through all of December and the walkin wait was 2 1/2 hours. I did get a mug though. :) It's funny Tina had told me earlier Saturday about all the great New York prints and pictures I could get but I said that I wasn't really interested in anything like that. While NYC is a nice city to visit and of course to shop, nothing really significant had ever happened there for me so I had no reason to have anything hanging on my wall that signified NYC. Suddenly everything changed on Sunday. I wanted to find something to hang up or have in our new place that I could remember was from New York City the weekend Nick proposed to me. I really didn't find any cool pictures or anything so I was fortunate that Rockefeller Center had a gift shop and Nick bought me a beautiful snowglobe of the tree and the Plaza.  What will 2010 bring??! (Oh yeah...Hawaii!!) The entire weekend was...well, it had character. I kind of like that it wasn't perfect. It only made that moment stand out even more to me. I wasn't entirely sure that Nick had the ring. I was pretty sure he was going to propose sometime within the next 3-4 months but I thought he was going to wait until he asked my mom first (I made him ask her when we called to tell her we were engaged..haha). Maybe it worked better that way because I would have known it was coming had he already asked. It's so funny to think a year ago we had just moved in together. I didn't even really know how he felt about me. I'm so happy to have him in my life. It's nice to be able to look down at my hand and see a sign that someone loves you so much that they want everyone to know it. Ahhhhh. So many more adventures to come. I can't wait. ;*)  We're engaged! PS. Thank you everyone for all the congratulations!! xoxoxox Bacon, Beer & the Boy. 11/29/2009
It's been an amazing week. I've neglected blogging because frankly I've been enjoying spending time doing really stupid stuff with Nick. He drove in Wednesday and got in about 11pm. Thursday was Thanksgiving. While pretty much everyone but me at the Rusty Scupper had to work, I got to have Nick spend the first holiday with my family. (Christmas day I'm flying to St Louis to spend Christmas with his family).  My sis, niece, & me on Thanksgiving We were totally lazy Thanksgiving- aren't you supposed to be? While everyone else was toasting to sparkling cider, I brought two bottles of champagne and had a good time with Nick. I fell asleep (passed out?) on him during the Dallas game (couldn't care less) and woke up to watch Four Christmases with Nick, my sister and brother and law and my brother in law's ex son in law (got that?).  Bacon Menagerie & Beer-Mosa at Hightopps Friday morning my favorite Baltimore radio station 98Rock put on an event called Bacon and Beer/Purple and Black Friday at Hightopps in Timonium, MD to celebrate the upcoming Baltimore Ravens vs. Pittsburgh Steelers game. The event was basically a Kegs and Eggs event- it started at 6am (which is legally when you can serve alcohol in Baltimore County) and had drink specials. 98Rock broadcasted live. It was a blast. I wish Nick had been a bit more into it...he was still feeling the effects of the champagne, the 6 pack of IPA, and a Captain and birch beer (a surprisingly good combo!) from Thanksgiving night. We did get some awesome breakfast food, a load of bacon, and I had two amazing beer-mosas. (Yup, that's right- beer-mosas.) A really fun morning. We came back to my parents house and slept a few hours, got up and ate and fell asleep on the couch again. We basically spent all of Friday in comfy clothes and catching up on episodes of Fringe from the last month. Oh, and eating pizza. Awesome day.  Bacon & Beer!! Nick left this morning though. I'm pretty psyched to see him again this weekend in New York City. My sister and I try to go every once in a while when someone from her work charters a bus for a day trip to NYC. She booked it again like three months ago for this upcoming Saturday, December 5th. Nick's birthday is Wednesday so I had the idea that maybe I could just change the bus ticket into a one way to NYC for Saturday and come back Sunday night instead. I've never spent the night in New York City before. It worked out well- My sister Tina and I are going to hang out all day Saturday. Nick is going to drive in and take the subway the rest if the way in on Saturday (since Groton, CT is only 2 hours away) and meet up with me for dinner when Tina takes the bus back that night at 6:15. We're going to see Shrek on Broadway (yay! our fist Broadway show!), stay at a military hotel which was a third of the cost of every other motel there and I can go back Sunday night. It will be a nice way to celebrate his birthday and spend some time together. I still already miss him like crazy. It's sad to see all his stuff from this weekend gone when I came home from work today. Ugh.....two months from this Friday until Hawaii. It needs to come faster- it's way too cold here. | BEACH BLOG
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