Ghoulishly Good Times

Finch had a medical school interview in New Jersey this week and was so close to Philly that he decided to make a weekend visit out of it!  Amy and Kevin decided to come along too!!!  Alex and I planned a super spooky weekend in Philly for some Halloween fun, but the weather had other plans.  We were going to go to the haunted Eastern State Penitentiary like we did last year, but the temperature shift to the low thirties and the sleet and snow definitely changed our plans.  We still had an awesome time though!!!

  

Alex and I picked a few Halloween themed cocktail drinks for the weekend to get us in the Halloween spirit!  This drink is called Brain Hemorrhage... gross!!

 

Cheers!

 

Alex went out to a late dinner Thursday night with Finch, Amy, and Kevin and had jellyfish!

  

Alex and I both had to work Friday, but Finch and Kamy got to spend the day exploring Philly!  Good thing they did because the temperature dropped twenty degrees that night and spoiled our outdoor weekend plans!

  

Halloween candy bracelets!

      

More Brain Hemorrhage at the hotel Friday night!

  

The Jack-O-Lantern cocktail!

  

At the Continental Martini Bar!

 

We made hot apple cider for the first snow day of the season!  I wasn't sure if I should play my Halloween music or go straight to "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas."

 

Instead of waiting outside in the snow for the Eastern State Penitentiary, we decided to go to a concert downtown.

  

Waiting for the train!

 

At the concert!

  

   

  

We went to Reading Terminal Market for breakfast before everyone had to leave on Sunday :(

   

Bloktoberfest

Alex and I went to Bloktoberfest last night in downtown Philly.  Bloktoberfest is an event where they close down several blocks of South Street and local venders come to sell food, microbreweries showcase their beer, and bands provide free music for the crowds.  We got there a little late because Alex had to work all day :) but we were able to try some Thai food and hear some good music.  After the festival, we met a couple friends at an Italian place and had the best dinner!

 

Waiting for our Thai food!

 

Our amazing desserts after dinner :)

Spirit of Halloween

Moo is getting into the spirit of Halloween!!  Now all she has to do is decide on a costume for this year :)

     

     

Pumpkinland

Danielle and I picked up Alex from work today and went to Pumpkinland!!  Pumpkinland is this cute little farm about forty minutes outside of Philadelphia that sells pumpkins, plants, and all sorts of items at their country store and also has hayrides, pony rides, and haunted tours.  Danielle and I have been dying to go to a pumpkin patch so this was perfect!

   

Pumpkinland!

  

Danielle and I picking out pumpkins!

  

Alex found a weird looking pumpkin.

  

The farm had tons of little stands with candy apples, funnel cakes, jalapeno poppers and more!

   

We got apple cider donuts and apple cider slushies.  They were so good!!

   

Yum!

RiverCity Festival 2011

This morning, I went with the Drexel ophthalmology team I have been rotating with to work at the RiverCity Festival in Fishtown.  One section of the festival focused on healthy living and had several booths set up for different areas of medicine.  We set up our booth for the festival goers to come check their visual acuity and intraocular pressure.  Unfortunately, there was no electric plug near our booth and someone forgot the numbing drops for the eyes so we could not do all of the screening we had originally planned to do.  We did give out a lot of information about cataracts and glaucoma though!

   

Our ophthalmology group!

   

Our booth

  

Have you had your eyes examined recently?

Goodbye Summer Picnic

Alex and I had a picnic on Kelly Drive this afternoon.  It was our goodbye summer picnic!  Kelly Drive was still pretty muddy from the hurricane, but we found a dry spot to eat our lunch.  Of course the weather did not cooperate with sunny skies, but at least it wasn't raining!

  

On the stairs avoiding the mud!

 

We packed turkey sandwiches, blueberry and bleu cheese salads with balsamic vinaigrette dressing, and a baguette with cheese for lunch!

  

Our muddy view

  

 

Pumpkin cheesecake for dessert!

Pumpkin Season

With the first official day of fall yesterday, Alex and I declared it pumpkin season!  To celebrate, we drank pumpkin beer and made a pumpkin cheesecake.  I am happy to report that this cheesecake was most certainly not a fail!  The cheesecake was super yummy and was a perfect way to celebrate the beginning of pumpkin season!

  

Cheers to pumpkin beer!

  
Okay, so the cheesecake cracked when I took it out of the oven.  It is still better than the last cheesecake I made that turned into soup in its water bath!

Celebrations

We had a lot to celebrate tonight!  Alex has decided that instead of being a teacher for the less than desirable Philadelphia Public School System, he is going to work at Starbucks!  We are both really excited to see how this job will turn out, and who doesn't love discounted Starbucks coffee?!  We also celebrated the completion of my pediatrics rotation.  Spending the next three months in surgery, however, was not one of our reasons to celebrate tonight.  Happy fall!!

  

Our fancy celebration dinner!

Beach Wedding Bliss

This weekend Leslie and Mike got married!!  Their wedding was in beautiful Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  Alex and I met up with Emily and Frank at the airport in Philadelphia and then with the Scheers in South Carolina.  It was my parent's anniversary weekend so they were also in Myrtle Beach celebrating!!  The wedding was held Saturday night at a country club in the area.  The bride looked lovely, the food was amazing, and the company was fantastic.  We spent all day Sunday hanging out with both of our families at the pool and at the beach.  It was a pretty perfect Labor Day Weekend :)

  

Leslie and Vinnie arrived to the ceremony in a horse drawn carriage!

  

So pretty

  

First kiss

 

Newlyweds!!!

 

Most important guests at the wedding :)

  

First dance

  

The dining room :)

 

This trip was our first vacation together in nine months!

  

Laura Scheer for the night :)

 

Cake cutting

  

Mommy and Michele at the beach!

 

I wish I could have this view everyday!

 

Goofing around before dinner :)

  

We walked around Broadway at the Beach before dinner and went into a taffy store.  This taffy looks yummy!

  

Crab legs!

Dollar Walk

Instead of spending a beautiful September evening studying, Alex convinced me to come to the West Philadelphia Dollar Walk with him.  At this event, restaurants lining the street sell food for $1!!  We met Alex's friend and his girlfriend at the walk and stuffed our bellies full!  My favorite food items at the event were the samosas.  They were super yummy and we had to go wait in line for them a second time :)

  

I got Carolina pulled pork and a biscuit!!  It was very tasty!

  

We waited twenty minutes to get our second round of samosas!

Stocking Up

People in Philadelphia are going nuts over Hurricane Irene!  Alex and I went for our biweekly groceries this weekend and walked into a grocery store almost completely out of food!  Apparently the last hurricane to hit Philadelphia was in 1999 and people have forgotten that category 1 hurricanes do not mean the end of life as we know it (unless of course you live by the beach or a body of water prone to flooding or live in a home surrounded by trees that want to fall on your house)!  So we stocked up on the only thing we could, cookie ingredients :)  We made monster cookies today for this "monster" storm!  We are all stocked up now!!

   

Alex's monster cookie

  

My monster cookie

 

These are category 3 cookies :)

  

Protecting Moo from Irene!!

Summer Days

Alex and I went to visit Aunt Pat and Uncle Dennis this weekend in New Jersey.  They have a beautiful pool in their backyard that we were able to go swimming in today.  I had not been swimming all summer so it was nice to finally be able to dunk my head under the water!  Little Den is starting grad school in New York this coming week so we were able to see him one last time before he starts.  We also got to see little Lucy who is as energetic as ever and probably chased four hundred tennis balls today :)

      

We were mean and threw Lucy's ball into the pool!

  

Such a good little swimmer!

 

Starting to study for peds... although I only read seven pages in three hours, bleh.

   

Very tired from all of the tennis ball chasing :)

New Wheels

Alex got a bicycle for his birthday!!  He has been wanting a new bike for as long as I can remember and now he finally has a new way to get around town.  The bike is red, black, and white... sound like a wolfpack fan?  The bike is a single speed and weights hardly anything so the only problem now is finding a space for it in our tiny apartment :)

       

With the new wheels!

  

Biking to the music store!