Our Perfect Pizza

We used Alex's birthday present, the pizza stone, for the first time last night!  We made our own dough and sauce and covered the pizza in 5 different cheeses, mushrooms, and ham.  It was delicious!  We can't wait to use it again!

  

Shaping the dough

 

Grilling our pizza

   

Perfection!

Good Food, Good Wine, Good Friends

Jennifer was in town for Octoberfest this weekend so we had a little reunion!  I had not seen Cari or Jennifer in so long.  It was good spending time with my girls!

  

Cheers to being reunited!

  

We went bowling in Uptown Saturday night.  It was the birthday of one of our residents so a few people from work met us out as well.

  

Darren and Jen

    

 Chancy and Finneran

  

Ashley, Courtney and Aishy

 

 I was by far the worst bowler, but it was a fun night!

Festival in the Park

After the Stiletto Sprint, we went to Charlotte's Festival in the Park.  It is an event designed to stimulate and promote interest in the arts.  Hundreds of people set up tents to display and sell their art work, music, pottery, jewelry and so much more.  There is carnival style food all around, including my favorite, candy apples!  It was really fun walking around seeing all the different products.  It was raining on Saturday, however, so Alex and I decided to go back on Sunday when the weather was nicer.

 

 Alex and Aishwarya

  

 The set up!

  

  

 Chancy, me, Courtney, and Aishwarya

 

Sunday was a much nicer day!

Stiletto Sprint 2013

The Stiletto Sprint is a fundraising event for ovarian cancer.  Teams sign up, raise money, and race in stilettos to contribute to the fight against ovarian cancer.  Our ObGyn program has several amazing gynecologist oncologists who really get into this event.  Our program director, Dr. Higgins, is one of the doctors who gets into dressing up for the race!  Alex and I went with a few of the other interns and a second year to watch the race.  It was super fun to see our attendings all dressed up to support our oncology patients.  Some of the patients were given day passes in order to leave the hospital for a little break to watch the race.

  

Dr. Higgins all dressed up to race for ovarian cancer!

  

 Dr. Tate and Dr. Hall with me, Aishwarya, Drennen, and Chancy.

  

 The CMC Gyn Oncs! 

  

 Dr. Tate won the race!

Picnic in the Park

Alex and I rode our bikes to Freedom Park tonight for a picnic dinner.  The weather was just beautiful and made for a perfect night!  Nothing beats a yummy dinner and a good glass of wine in the park on a spectacular September night!

 

Alex and our feast!

   

 

Freedom Park

 

Alex biked with a picnic basket on his back!

Schneider Visit

Emily and Frank drove all the way from Pittsburgh to come visit us this weekend.  We had amazing weather, luckily, because our air conditioning decided to stop working just in time for our guests.  Em and Frank brought baby Pascha, but unfortunately, Moo was not the best hostess.  We had a wonderful time eating yummy gluten-free foods and spending time outside in the nice NC weather.  We are hoping the beautiful south makes Em and Frank want to move back!  We are looking very forward to their next visit.

 

Fondue dinner on the island!

  

We walked around uptown and found a live band at the Epicenter.

  

 Wine Bar

  

 Emily and Frank buying fruit to juice at 7th Street Market!

  

 We took a long walk to Carolinas Medical Center so we could show Em and Frank where I work.  We decided to rent bikes on our way home because our legs were tired :)

  

 We grilled out Saturday night.  Alex always makes the best burgers.

September Book Club

Our OB group had a book club meeting this month on the book, Gone Girl.  Some of us were bad and did not actually read the book, myself included, but wanted to go hang out anyway.  It was fun spending time outside of work with some of the other residents and resident spouses.  Somehow we always end up discussing our favorite hospital stories.  Maybe next time I will actually read the book!

 

 Josh and Alicia

  

 Kita, Patty, Caroline, and Hannah

  

 Chancy, Courtney and me

Yiasou Greek Festival

We spent our Saturday at the Yiasou Greek Festival in Charlotte!  The festival featured live Greek music and dance, tons of yummy food, and shopping.  We had gyros and baklava ice cream, which was especially awesome!

 

 Kierra, Chancy and Courtney

  

 Waiting in line for our pitas!  I was very excited and hungry.

  

 The ice cream was perfect on such a hot day.

  

 Yiasou Greek Festival

The Portlanders Come to Charlotte

Alex's parents spent a week visiting from Portland!  We were so excited to show them our new apartment and city.  They spent time visiting Alex at work, playing frolf, eating at amazing restaurants, and exploring Charlotte.  We showed them how we barbeque townhouse style and it was fantastic as always.  They spent a day in Cary seeing family friends and got to meet a cute little addition to the Atalese family.  I had to work every night they were here, so I missed out on a lot of the fun :(  We can't wait to have them back again when both of us are working less!

 

Dressed up for dinner!

  

 We went to Bentleys on 27th for an amazing dinner.  We were on the twenty-seventh floor and had awesome views of Charlotte!  I think we could even see Philly from our table!

  

 Hungry and high up.

  

 We had a yummy dessert which our waiter made table side.

  

 We stopped by the Epicenter after dinner.

Pride Festival

Charlotte had a Gay Pride Festival this weekend.  Alex and I walked over to catch the Pride Parade before work on Sunday.  It was fabulous! 

 

 The streets were lined with people waiting for the parade!

  

 What a perfect occasion for our shirts!

  

 Pride Marching Band

  

 Motorcycle gang with pride!

     

    

Oh my!

 

 

 Happy Pride Festival!

Long Weekend Getaway

I had a few days off in a row so Alex and I planned a long weekend getaway!  It had been a few years since I had been to the beach so we decided to head off to Myrtle.  Unfortunately, and I'm starting to sense a theme with our vacations, it rained the entire trip.  We made the best of it, though, and had a great time.  There is definitely no such thing as too much seafood!

 

We drove straight from Charlotte to the Sea Captain's House for lunch.  I have been going there for years and they have the best clam chowder in the world.

  

 After lunch, we walked around Broadway at the Beach despite the rainy weather.

  

  We had an amazing dinner at Landry's and then listened to live music under this upside down house while we waited for the scheduled fireworks show.  They had to cancel the fireworks, however, due to the rain :(

  

 Broadway at the Beach

  

 The cloudy view from our hotel room.  Not a bad view!

  

 We decided to take a walk on the beach and luckily for us, we caught the only forty-five minutes of sun the entire weekend!

   

 Nick and McKenzie had a BBQ for their bridal party members to get to know one another on Sunday.  The couple recently adopted a little puppy and brought her to the party!

 

 Hanging out with Nick!

  

 Amy and Kevin got a new apartment so we swung by before we headed back to Charlotte.  This picture was Take 1.

  

 Take 2... much better!