BBQ

Hilary and Shawn have an awesome backyard and in honor of the amazing Philadelphia spring weather and the completion of another rotation, they hosted a backyard BBQ.  It is Moo's sixth birthday this weekend, so I decided to make a cake and bring it to the barbeque.  Moo's favorite color is purple (she only sits in our purple chair), so a purple cake was in order.  We watched the UNC - Ohio basketball game during the BBQ and I think it is safe to say that I have scared Hilary from ever watching another basketball game with me :)  I wish I took more pictures!

 

To make Moo's special cake, I made both yellow and chocolate cake batter.  Then you pour them one at a time into the center of a cake pan.  The rings will spread out to the edge of the pan with each added dollop of batter.

 

All baked and ready to go!

 

Admiring her cake :)

 

Hilary and Shawn's cute barbeque set up!

  

Moo's special cake!

Danielle's St. Patrick's Day Dinner 2012

Danielle made us her annual St. Patrick's Day dinner last night.  We had corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and buns.  It was amazing, as usual.  I made shamrock shakes with mint chocolate chip ice cream, whiskey, and milk.  

 

Danielle and Alex with a lucky three leaf clover :)

  

In our greens!

  

Shamrock shake!

Erin Express

St. Patrick's Day is taken very seriously here in Philadelphia.  In fact, Philadelphians participate in multiple weekends of drunken Irish festivities in center city in an event called Erin Express.  For Erin Express, participants ride buses all around town to different Irish bars and raise their glasses to good ole Irish hearts.  Alex rode the Erin Express last weekend with a few friends from school.
 
Kia, Alex and Chris getting their Irish drink on.

Smile

Alex and I were hanging out with a friend last night who recently got a new camera.  It takes pictures and sends them straight to his computer, no cords or memory sticks involved!!  I thought it was really neat and our picture was pretty cute :)

    

February Visitors

Alex's parents came to Philadelphia for a visit!!  They arrived last Wednesday and stayed through the weekend.  It was so nice to have visitors!  We ate like kings while they were here, visiting our favorite restaurants downtown.  Alex and his dad were able to spend some quality time with the guitars and wrote a few new songs.  I picked The Descendents to go see in the theater... not the most upbeat movie ever... but it was good nonetheless.  We also managed to learn a little about drug use in Philadelphia :)  It was an awesome visit and we can't wait to see them again!

 

We ate the most wonderfully perfect dinner at our favorite French restaurant, Parc, in Rittenhouse Square.

 

We had breakfast at Dutch Eating Place in Reading Terminal Market.  It was too crowded to sit all four of us together, so we split up.  Alex had scrapple! 

 

No visit to Reading Terminal Market is complete without stopping at Downtown Cheese :)

 

Sunday morning brunch at Bridget Foys, another favorite.  Alex and Michele got jalapeno bloody marys!!

  

The coffee crew.

Oh The Places You'll Go...

Alex and I have spent the past several months working in several different places.  For me, I feel like right when you get used to one place, it is time to move on to another.  We are going to be very good at adapting to new situations once we leave Philadelphia :)

  

Alex started off training for his Starbucks job at a store close to our house.  Unfortunately, the store he ended up working for was much farther away.  The good thing about Alex's Starbucks, though, is that it is in a nice neighborhood with people who like to tip!  The drive to get there is beautiful too!
   
The Starbucks where it all began!

     
The Starbucks Alex works at now in Bryn Mawr!!

         

After my family medicine rotation in Washington, PA, I moved onto pediatrics at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children.  It is a cute little hospital where Aunt Teresa was a patient when she was little and where Aunt Pat trained during nursing school.  Christina and Dave were probably there for their pediatric rotations too!

   

St. Christopher's Hospital for Children

   

 

My dreaded surgery rotation at Hahnemann Hospital came after pediatrics.  It was three months of my life that I am sure happy I will never have to repeat!  

   

Hahnemann Hospital

   

  

I have spent the last six weeks at Friend's Hospital for my psychiatry rotation.  It is a beautiful hospital that has been around since the early 1800s.  

 

Friend's Hospital

      

 My picture of Friend's in the winter :)

 

Now it is time to go back to Hahnemann Hospital for obstetrics and gynecology.  Time really does fly!

Skate Away

Alex, Danielle and I went ice skating last night.  I had not been skating in years!!  It took awhile before I could actually let go of Alex, but when I did it was pretty fun!  Today I have a very sore back and a blister on my ankle from my skates, but I still think it was a good night :)

 

Alex ready to ice skate!  The rink was outside in downtown Philadelphia, near Christina and Connor's old apartment.

  

The Ben Franklin Bridge in the background.

 

Danielle has a lake behind her house in Illinois that freezes every winter, so she was a pretty good skater.

 

Learning not to fall!

 

This picture was taken right before my triple axel.

  

Danielle and Alex

 

The first lap on my own without a death grip on Alex!

Seven Layer Chip Dip

Woo hoo I finally made the seven layer chip dip from the Regan Recipe Book!!  Mine was more like a five layer chip dip though because I do not like shallots or olives :)  We made the dip for a party that we didn't end up going to but, instead, devoured the whole thing on our own :)  It was super yummy and super cute in our new chip and dip bowl from Christmas!

 

Five layers of yummy

 

And cute

Cupcake Exchange

Danielle and I had a cupcake exchange today!  We both picked new recipes from Pinterest to try.  I picked a chocolate maraschino cherry cupcake and Danielle picked a banana nutella cupcake.  Both flavors turned out fantastic!!

  

To make the hearts, you slice off the top of the cupcake and then use a heart shaped cookie cutter or stencil to cut out the heart.  Ice the cupcake and then put the top back on... piece of cake!

       

 If you have a cupcake corer, you can core out the cupcake to add a second flavor like marshmallow puff or nutella.

    

 

Danielle's cupcakes were amazing.  I am taking hers in my lunch tomorrow :)

  

Snow Kittens

Philadelphia got its first real snow fall of the season last night!  It snowed while Amy, Kevin, and Finch were visiting in October, but didn't stick.  It only snowed about three inches this time, but we were excited just the same.  We were so excited that we had a three am snow party; just me, Alex, and Moo.

  

Snowing!!!  I got to wear my new rain boots :)

 

Alex dressed Moo in her winter jacket so that she could play in the snow with us.

  

Snow kitten!

 

Moo and I are blurry.

 

Carton wheel in the snow!

  

Alex

  

Cloverly Park

Fondue Fun

Alex and I got a fondue pot for Christmas from Emily and Frank!  We decided to test it out tonight with Danielle.  We had baguette, ham, and apples for dinner and brownies, strawberries, clementines, and bananas for dessert.  We are now stuffed with cheese and chocolate.

  

Say cheese fondue!

 

Dessert!

New Year, New Look

Alex and I have been talking about getting curtains for our room ever since we moved into Cloverly Park, but never did it.  Two and a half years after moving in, we finally got curtains!  I had asked for the pretty curtain rods from Pottery Barn that match our lamps and got them for Christmas from the Scheers!  They look lovely with our brown curtains that I also got for Christmas :)  I have been eying some greenery for our room for a while now and finally decided to go ahead and get that too.  Now our room has a new look for the new year.

  
This is a picture from a year ago of our room (we have since added a second lamp).

  

The new look!!  No more bright street lights in our eyes at night!

  

Prettiness

Holiday Cards 2011

Thank you for all the beautiful holiday cards this year!  We loved reading each one of them :)