Christmas Day

I can't have a Christmas Eve post without a Christmas Day post! Here's a pick of the cranberry egg nog French toast we ate Christmas morning. IMHO it is a pretty picture perfect breakfast for Christmas.

We enjoyed the rest of the day with our dear friends Allen and Heather (and their little one)!

A little French Christmas Eve

This year is one of the first times we've spent the Christmas holidays here in DC together. Since we couldn't be in Pensacola or KC, we really wanted to make the two days nice. Unfortunately, since I have also been pretty sick, that has limited our plans to inside our apartment.

For Christmas Eve I cooked a little French inspired dinner. We started out with gougeres. They are light cheese puffs that Chris recently found out I could make and then was very upset that I've never made them for him. He will say "Did you know that Lelaine could make those? Can you believe she hasn't made them for us?"

For dinner we had roasted potatoes, green beans and standing rib roast. Despite a faulty thermometer it turned out perfectly tender and the roasted garlic rosemary crust was delicious. We both had seconds.

My favorite part of the evening was dessert. Chocolate souffle! My first time making a souffle and it turned out very well. I was intimidated at first since I used a James Beard recipe. It does use several bowls so I feel bad for Chris's clean-up this evening. I've always wanted to try making it because the first time I had it was the night we got engaged and I've been dreaming about it ever since.

We are enjoying the rest of the evening by rewatching the Christmas episode of Downtown Abbey. Indeed! 

more anniversary

We couldn't do much around our actual five year anniversary since it happened a couple weeks before election day, but this past weekend we went to the Homestead in Virginia to celebrate.  It is a big, old (1766, which you remember because they plaster that date on everything) hotel/resort in the mountains near the Virginia-West Virginia border.  They claim that 22 Presidents have stayed there.

There were a few issues - the food in the nice restaurants was only ok yet ridiculously expensive and super slow - but overall we had a very good time.  The highlight for me was going on a hike.  Lelaine was a little apprehensive as it was the "most difficult" hike on their grounds and the surrounding area, but when you consider that fact that the average age of their guests is probably well north of Social Security recipient age, we decided to go for it.  When we finished the loop hike, which took us to the top of one of the nearby mountains, she made sure to get a picture of herself next to the sign saying that the trail we had just finished is for "outdoor enthusiasts" only.

Lelaine really enjoyed the pools, particularly the old indoor pool that looked like it was built in the 1940s.  We were going to go to the hot springs that Thomas Jefferson used to swim in, but we learned that it was clothing optional with guys in one pool and gals in the other.  We opted to pass on taking a soak with older, naked strangers.  Other highlights included ice skating (we had the rink to ourselves for a lot of the time), walking around the grounds, playing volleyball when I spiked the ball and Lelaine claims it hit her in the face (it actually hit her in the shoulder), and the pumpkin curry and chicken pot pie at Sam Snead's Tavern.  Next time we will have to do falconry and some of the sport shooting activities (you are in rural Virginia after all)

Hopefully the next five years are as good as the last five.  One night we talked about what we would do for future anniversaries.  I think for our ten year, I want to go back to Brazil, where we went on our honeymoon.  Better start to get in shape now so I can sport a bikini.

5 Year Wedding Anniversary

Chris and I are celebrating our five year wedding anniversary this weekend. I can't believe how fast it is flown by. We are planning on relaxing for a weekend at The Homestead post-election, but I thought it would be nice to share a good meal together.  I cooked Italian Wedding Soup. I made it once last year and he really liked it. Last night, my hubby was also very thoughtful and bought a nice bottle of champagne for us to toast our anniversary as well.

This October is also our tenth anniversary of us together, so it is a lot of big milestones! We are looking forward to many more happy years together.

Renaissance

I want to try and post a bit more on our blog, so I figure the most newsworthy event we do every week is Football Sundays. We gather our good food, good friends and sometimes good football. Today's meal is chablis ham, homemade bread and asparagus.  I also made a carmel banana cake.

trip to maine

Earlier today we got back from a twelve day trip to Maine.  The main reason for the trip was that two of our friends, Becky and Eddie, were getting married in Boothbay Harbor and we decided to take a week-plus off to travel around the state/region.  Fortunately we were joined for parts of the trip with the Manhoffs and Doug, plus the bookclubbers for the wedding.  Here are a few random thoughts and highlights:

Instead of going straight there, we took a few days, making a lot of stops.  It was just the two of us for this part of the trip, and it proved Clark Griswald's statement that getting there is half the fun.  Our stops included breakfast in Providence, RI; seeing Plymouth rock (although it was kind of disappointing); the witch museum in Salem, MA, which even I liked; a spur of the moment Red Sox game at Fenway that, luck have it, involved the Royals (and the boys in blue won!); and the beach in Gloucester, MA.

As usual, we ate well.  Really well.  Lelaine had eight lobsters or lobster rolls, and I even had a couple.  In the first three days we went to two Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives spots, yet a couple of other meals those days were even better - brunch at Nicks on Broadway in Providence and dinner at Fore Street in Portland, which was one of our favorite meals ever.  If you are going to Portland, go there.  Lelaine's Russian boar and my pork roasted on a spit were tremendous, the service was great, and the restaurant, particularly the open kitchen, looked very nice.

As usual, we, but mostly me, drank really well.  Mainers like craft beer.  Maine Beer Company was the best.

It was great to see the Manhoffs, who had moved to Texas earlier this year.  They were at a wedding in Cape Cod the weekend before Eddie and Becky's wedding, and they joined us in Portland on Monday, so we were with them most of the trip.  It was sad when we had to part ways, but they are visiting DC later this month, so that is good.

Early in the trip, Lelaine determined that New Englanders are "big into wieners."  She meant hot dogs.  I responded that that was probably a personal issue and might vary from person to person, and then brought it up approximately 746 times the rest of the trip.

Outside of being with friends, our favorite part of the trip were the days in Bar Harbor.  We hiked, biked, and kayaked across Acadia, Mount Desert Island, and some of the surrounding islands.  There is no chance we do not go back.  We also got to see my uncle Mac, who lives there.  He took us for popovers at Jordan Pond House and drove us around the island.  It was a very nice afternoon.  I definitely liked Portland, but if I could do it all over again, I would spend one less day in Portland and one more day in Bar Harbor.

Friday afternoon in Bar Harbor we split up and did things individually.  I went on a hike, including going up the Beehive, a short little 500 foot mountain.  While it isn't particularly tall, one of it's faces is relatively steep rock and has a lot of rungs and ladders with very steep cliff faces.  If you were doing this hike and smart, you would ascend that side and then descend on the south side, which is less steep and doesn't involve climbing down ladders.  But I had just gone up the mountain to the south of it and as I came off of Gorham and approached the Beehive trail, I went up the easy side and down the hard side.  While I didn't have any problems, I was happy to safely make it down and was pretty proud of myself...until, a couple minutes after getting down, I came across two old women in their 70s who could barely walk, one of whom told the other that she had done the Beehive at least ten times.  That made me feel silly that I was proud of myself.

Doug managed to befriend a variety of shuttle bus and trolly drivers on Mount Desert Island, and could now probably be a tour guide himself.

We consumed a lot of blueberry pancakes and a lot of ice cream.

We need to purchase a summer home in Maine.  We saw some amazing houses when we went on a sailing trip from Boothbay Harbor.  I will also take a boat.

Becky and Eddie had a really nice wedding and managed to fill it with details and activities specific to their likes and preferences, including softball, shots, and wearing silly props.  Even the singer of the band remarked about how the guests were entertaining them instead of vice versa.

Newport, Rhode Island, where we stopped for the night on the way back, is nice.  It would be even nicer if we had millions of dollars to fit in.  Even the people walking around in a t-shirt and shorts looked filthy rich.  A close second to Lelaine's wiener observation was Doug sarcastically noting the abundance of diversity in Newport.  Who would have guessed that a city built around mansions and yachting attracts mostly white folks.

We drove a total of 1,925 miles over 12 days.

Pics are here.

Failte!

Failte is basically "welcome" in Irish Gaelic. I figure I should welcome people since it has been awhile since we have posted.

There was no better time to post than to share pictures about my trip to Ireland. I will go ahead and get the two most common questions I've heard out of the way.

1. Did you go with Chris? No, I went with my book club.

2. Did you read a book about Ireland? No, we didn't read a book about Ireland. We just went for fun.

My friends and I spent a week in Ireland making stops in Dublin, Galway, Cong, Doolin, and Killarney. My favorite parts were seeing the beautiful coast and countryside of Ireland and staying in a castle.

A fun fact is that there are about 4.5 million people in Ireland, but there are 7 million sheep. If you go outside the cities you will definitely see a lot of sheep and since we traveled in the spring we saw a lot of baby lambs running around. We even had to wait on a road for a herd of cows to pass on the road (wasn't quick enough to get a picture). I was amazed at the different kinds of scenery I saw while I was there: rolling hills, cliffs, beaches with surfers and mountains. Also, there are just ruins of towers and castles about every 25 kilometers. You'll see a picture of on the side of the road with a castle in the background. We were just driving and saw a castle and pulled over. It's not a tourist spot or anything...just there.

Speaking of castles, we stayed at Ashford Castle near the town of Cong. We went during off-peak times for Ireland, so we got a really great deal on our rooms for this luxury hotel. Pierce Brosnan was married there and President Ronald Reagan stayed there (among other celebrities). The grounds were beautiful and they had activities like biking, horse back riding and falconry. It was in the middle of our stay and it was nice and relaxing part of the trip.

I left the gals for a day and took a bus tour of the Dingle Peninsula. It reminded me a bit of the drive around Monterey in California. If I remember my tour guide correctly this is where Christianity started in Ireland. Christians settled in monastic beehive huts in the area. It is a great tour, but I definitely recommend going by bus like me. The roads are so narrow and windy that it can be pretty scary to drive.

Our last day we drove to Cork and stopped by the oldest indoor market in Ireland. It was a great market that also had a great spot for lunch called Farmgate Cafe. After a nice lunch, someone had the bright idea to end our trip with typical book club fare of cured meats, cheese and wine to celebrate at our hotel. Over this grand meal, I did tell people about the book I read while on the trip--so it could be a book club meeting after all.

my fitted shirt

One day in high school, probably 1994 or so, my mom bought me a dress shirt to wear to debate tournaments.  For me at the time, wearing a t-shirt without holes was pretty fancy, so a blue striped button up was a big deal.  I liked the shirt a lot - it didn't wrinkle easily, was fairly lightweight, and was blue, which are my three favorite qualities in dress shirt; so much so that I continued to wear it, long after high school.

In fact, I when I woke up this morning I put the shirt on to wear under a sweater.  Sure the collar is a little frayed, but overall it was still in good condition.  But then when I got home and changed clothes, tragedy struck.  I realized that a shirt I have worn for 15+ years had a large rip in the sleeve.

Despite the post's title, it wasn't actually a fitted shirt (if it was, it surely wouldn't still fit).  I just wrote that as an excuse to post a link to one of my favorite Spoon songs.

new year's

After spending a few days in Pensacola and KC for Christmas, we flew back to DC and then drove to Wintergreen, VA for New Year's.  We were joined by Doug; Sam, Alison, and Hudson; and Brian and his lady friend Katy.

It was our first time to Wintergreen and when we booked the trip in mid-October the purpose was for it to be a ski weekend, but a dislocated knee cap and non-existant snow nullified those plans.  However, it was still a very enjoyable trip.  We had a nice, big house near the top of the mountain and arrived late Friday afternoon.  Wintergreen, which is about 45 minutes from Charlottesville in the Blue Ridge Mountains, happens to make up part of the Brew Ridge Trail, an area with a lot of breweries as well as vineyards/wineries.

On Saturday we went to the Blue Mountain brewery and hop farm and had a few beers outside on their nice patio.  Then we were off to Veritas, a pretty nice winery a few miles away, where Brian entertained us with his take on a wine.  At night Lelaine made paella for New Years Eve and we had a few drinks and played a lot of Wii.

New Year's Day was pretty frigid, but still no snow.  We mostly lounged around the house and I had a nice afternoon listening to the Chiefs defeat the Broncos on internet radio while sitting outside and looking at the mountains.

Everyone wanted to stay an extra day, but on Monday we had to leave.  I'm not a big fan of going out on New Year's Eve and renting a big house in the mountains was definitely a good way to spend it.