We Hate Exams

Moo and I hate exams.  It is no fun when I am at school all day and can't play with the little kitty at home.  We decided to make a We Hate Exams group.  Moo and I are active members.  And do a lot of hating.

     

These are the notes that were on JUST today's exams.  There is a whole other stack for next week.  Boo.

   

Moo hates my exams so much, she sits on my notes.  Take that notes.

Easter Weekend

This was the first Easter weekend that Alex and I were not at home with our families!!  I had TONS of studying to do for my finals this week, so driving eight hours to North Carolina was out of the picture.  Alex was nice enough to stay in Philadelphia to hang out with me for my first Easter bunny basketless weekend :)  

We had dinner with Aunt Pat in Philly on Friday night and she invited us out to her beach house where I could study and Alex could hang out with my family.  We decided to go and it was a great idea!  We were able to see Uncle David and Christian, who we have not seen in forever.  I got tons of studying done and had a nice view!

    

Dying Easter eggs!!  You can never be too old for pastel-colored hard boiled eggs.  Aunt Pat gave me an egg plate!!  Now I can make yummy deviled eggs!

    

My pretty egg has the alveolar gas equation on it :)

   

We woke up on Sunday and the Easter bunny had come after all!

   

Finally nice outside

   

Alex and his guitar

     

    

The ocean is the backyard!

  

First time in the sun!

    

It's a crab!

  

Pretty kitchen

  

On our way home, we stopped at Mike's farm.  He will be planting blueberries here eventually, but right now he is just working on the mile long fence!!

   

The Price's barn that they may turn into a house for Mike to live in.

Oregon Spring Break

Last week was Alex's spring break and he decided to spend it visiting his dad in Oregon!  Alex had a great time and is already planning his next trip out there :)

      

Snowboarding at Mount Hood!

   

     

 Skiing at Mount Hood!

  

There was a bluegrass band at the base of the mountain!

   

Alex wanted to see the Pacific Ocean so they made the long trek to the beach!  There were parks along the way with the most depressing names!!

    

Standing in front of Disappointment Bay

     

    

It has been super rainy in Philadelphia for what feels like ALL of 2011 so far, so Alex had to go all the way to the west coast just to see the sun!

  

      

Snacking on a helicopter

   

You can see Washington across the water!

   

I kept getting text messages from Alex about all the wild life he was seeing.  These elk are hiding in the woods!

    

Alex and his dad have been working a few songs for a while now, so they spent one day at a recording studio to make a CD!  Now I can listen to them while I study!

Spring Has Sprung

Spring has finally sprung here in Philadelphia!!  Now if only the temperatures would follow suit and stop averaging in the high fifties!  The flowers and trees are blooming beautifully though, so to celebrate, I made flower cupcakes :)

Hello cupcake!  I baked lemon cupcakes with a lemon frosting because I was feeling so spring-ish!  I made the flowers by slicing a pineapple super thin, drying the pieces in the oven, and setting them in a cupcake pan over night.  They aren't perfect, but they were a good first try.

  

Yum

         

I love my cake stand.

  

We had our last [exhausting] module exams this week so to celebrate in the few free hours that we have between these exams and studying for finals, Danielle, Hilary, and I had a mini-girls night.  Alex is in Oregon for his spring break.  It was nice talking about something besides hormone replacement therapies and molar pregnancies.

I have been the worst blog updater lately with all of our exams and, unfortunately, it is not going to get better anytime soon.  We have finals over the next two weeks, then I take a quick trip home to watch Lisa graduate, and then comes the most dreaded board studying.  I take Step 1 of my US Medical Licensing Exam on June 15th and until then, it is suggested that we study 10 to 14 hours a day, at least 6 days a week, for 5 to 6 weeks.  So, as you can imagine, I will not be doing ANYTHING exciting with my life.  Hopefully Alex will be able to get out on the weekends to do something fun so that we can have some pictures to post on our lonely little blog :)

World Beer Fest

Alex went back to North Carolina this past weekend for World Beer Fest in Raleigh.  It was a quick trip, but he had a lot of fun!  CJ lives in Washington DC now so Alex was able to pick him up on his way down south.  I'm sure it was nice having somebody to share the long drive with :)

      

With the guys at the cookout before Beer Fest

         

      

    

Joey's little baby is in the bottom of this picture!

   
The camera died so Alex had to use his phone to take a picture of the pretzel necklaces at the festival!

Cheesecake Trial #1: Fail

Our most wonderful, amazing, multifunctional coffee/espresso machine broke a few weeks ago.  It was a present we had received at my wedding shower from Emily and Michele.  The warranty was expired and we could not afford to replace it, so Alex and I were devastated!!  We cannot live without coffee!!  Alex decided to bring the machine back to Crate and Barrel and give returning it a try, even though it was a long shot.  It worked!!  They refunded us all the money!!  They do not make our old coffee machine anymore so we got a new one and had enough money left over to get a special treat... a food processor!  The first thing I wanted to try in our new little addition was a cheesecake.

          

Moo is a good watcher-helper :)

       

Trying it out for the first time!

     

Pureeing raspberries!

   
Of course the recipe we picked had us doing something unnecessary, but it was our first cheesecake and we didn't know that at the time.  The recipe wanted us to bake the cheesecake in a pan surrounded by hot water in another pan, in order to get an even bake.  After the fail, I looked at other recipes and none of them did this :(  We didn't have a pan big enough to put the cheesecake pan in, but found one eventually, after calling every friend living in Cloverly Park.  After allowing the cake to bake for the specified time, it still was not done.  We waited and waited, but it would not finish baking!  We were supposed to be at Alex's faculty party early enough to spend some time there, then head over to Den's apartment for Olivia's goodbye party.  We decided to just pull the cake out and let it continue to cook in the hot water.  FAIL.

The water seeped into the cheesecake pan, even though I had wrapped it all in aluminum foil.  We ended up with a cheesecake soup.  So sad :(

     

 And into the trash it went.

Happy 5th Birthday Furry Girl

Today is Moo's 5th birthday!!  We can't believe the little girl is five years old!  Moo got lots of treats and celebrated her five years by napping all day long :)

     

The birthday girl came and sat in my lap while I was studying!

    

On her birthday chair,

    

looking cute,

    

as usual.

Special Weekend Visit

Alex's mom came to see us this weekend!  We had a lot of fun visiting our favorite spots in center city and munching on our favorite foods.  It is always nice to have visitors :)

        

Eating at the Dutch Eating Place at Reading Terminal Market

      

Getting cheese snacks from Downtown Cheese

        

We had dinner at an awesome French restaurant in Rittenhouse Square

    

The best bread in Philadelphia!

St. Patrick's Day Parade

Alex and I went to the Philadelphia St. Patrick's Day parade today!  We were expecting a bunch of floats, but instead it was just a parade of walking Irish groups, bands, and dancers.  We only stayed an hour so maybe the floats were towards the end?  It was still fun and now we feel like we have a bit of luck on our side :)

      

Some bagpipers to start off the parade

     

The Philly Phanatic was there!

    

A float!

    

A marching band

   

A cute little school of Irish dancers

   

It was cold and windy... what's new?  Happy spring break to me.