I hope its only MOSTLY dead.

Woo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your [car] here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.

Matt just got home from Young Men's with the news that our car is dead. It won't turn over. It wouldn't start with a jump. So hopefully it's just mostly dead and can be revived with a AAA trip to the car place in the morning. And hopefully that revival won't cast too much money. Because we weren't really planning on getting a new car. We had decided we couldn't even afford a used car. I mean we'll make it if we have to, but here's to hoping we don't have to.

Baby update

I want to document that I'm pretty sure I'm feeling the baby move for the first time today. It's very faint, but the more I pay attention to my body, the more I'm sure that's what it is. We get to find out the sex of the baby on June 5th. That's just in 2 weeks! How exciting!!!!!!

That's all for now.

A whirlwind review of a whirlwind trip

I feel like I should give a quick review of our trip since all I've talked about is the food. It turned out really well. We had a great time in Philly. We mostly hit historical sites, the Masonic Temple, and their Museum of Art. We got to hold and leaf through a first edition print of the Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith gave to the Masons. (He was a Mason.)

We drove to Reading to see Matt's mission. He was there in the same ward a whole year of his mission. The testimony meeting was cool since their ward is half Spanish speakers and half English speakers. It was nice to be able to understand them both. It was fun getting to meet/visit with 3 of the prominent families of Matt's experience there.

We spent the majority of our trip in Hershey with my sister Julie and her family. We had lots of fun. We went to Hershey world (a huge Hershey candy shop with a little ride talking about how chocolate is made), got to tour a potato chip factory (and taste test some of their delicious chips. yum), went to Gettysburg, celebrated my niece Becca's 4th birthday by getting the afore mentioned Gelati and lighting sparklers, we played Settlers of Catan, and went to Hershey Park. At the beginning of the day at Hershey Park I was a little mad that I couldn't go on the "cool" roller coasters, but I got over it quick enough. It was good when my niece Sarah came after school was out since I could ride her rides with her. It was fun to let Julie ride adult rides with Matt since she never gets to when she has the kids.

When we were in NY I got to go jogging with my brother in the morning before our walking tour of the city. We really enjoyed touring the city below the grid. You can't beat a NY historian as a tour guide. He knows soooo much!!! I was continually astounded by his knowledge. We got to meet up with my brother Nate after his class. After we went to Queens and got the Indonesian food for dinner, we got to hang out and visit at Bryan's while listening to some awesome records (and I mean vinyl) Bry picked up on the street for $1 a piece during our walking tour.

It was really great to see my family. Especially since we don't get to see each other but every couple of years.

The only drawbacks to the trip: spending money and getting a cold from poor little Becca. But I'm over it now. It was worth it!

It's about time!

I've always loved short hair. It's just so much quicker and easier to maintain and control. Plus you have to buy/use way less shampoo, conditioner, pomade, mousse, and hairspray. The cost of maintaining long hair adds up!

Until last Saturday, the last time I got my haircut was in UT for my birthday, April 2006. (first picture) A little over a year later I felt like my hair was out of control and too much to deal with. (second picture taken May 19, 07) So I called up my friend Kelly (I teach 2 of her kids piano) and booked an appointment with her for last Saturday. When looking through my past pictures I thought I might do an A-line bob, but after asking Matt what he thought, I changed my mind. This is what we decided on. (third picture taken today) She did a great job, and boy am I HAPPY! I'm also very lucky that I have a husband who likes my short hair too. I'd die if I had to keep it long for an extended period of time.




Plus I just LOVE drastic changes. I think it's because I love attention. And when you work with lots of women, they tend to notice things like this. Heck, even the men noticed this one! My 9 year old next door neighbor looked like she was going to cry when she saw my short hair. She's very much a princess-type girl and it was horrifying and shocking to her that I actually like and chose this short of hair.

Also, on a side note, I just bought 6 new shirts since all of mine are getting too small. Julie gave me lots, but they're for a little further down the road. I needed some in-between shirts, and you'd never believe where I found the best selection! Kohl's Jr.'s section!!! Since baby doll shirts and long shirts are in right now, I was able to find some really cute, cheap, and great stuff on the 60-70% off racks! (I'm wearing one in the last picture.) It worked out nicely since the Large shirts often are on the sales rack in the Jr. section. hehe. Most of them are pretty retro looking. When I tried on one of them for Matt, he said, "That looks like something my mom would have worn when she was pregnant with me!!"

Food of the East

I don't know if anyone will find this remotely interesting, so I won't be offended if you skim, but we were really looking forward to good eats on the East coast. Almost anything is better than TX cuisine, so we were not disappointed in our finds.

1. When in Philly you just can't leave without the classic: Cheesesteak.

We ended up getting cheesesteaks from two locations (one week apart). The first was #6 on the citysearch favorites, but we chose to go there because of its proximity to our touring. The name was Campos. The cheesesteak was top quality. The steak was cooked well. The bread was good. The cheese and onions gave good flavor. The only drawback was it was a little pricey. The second was Dalessandro's. It was #3, but a people's choice winner. So we took the drive (in Friday rush hour!) to the northern location. The best thing was you got a lot. And I mean A LOT of food. It was a huge cheesesteak with tons of meat. The meat seemed a little lower quality, and I thought it wasn't as flavorful as Campos, but it was a better deal overall if you're in the area.

2. Reading, the home of the Monopoly Reading Railroad, is also home to some dang good cubano sandwiches. We had to wait at a semi-ghetto corner store (Santa Barbara's) for 1/2 an hour to get this treat. It was a panini pressed hoagie roll stuffed with a shredded pork, ham, lettuce, cheese, pepperoncinis, and mayo. Delicious.

3. Rita's water ice. Well, in Reading and Philly it's called water ice. In Hershey it was called Italian ice. But I ended up getting a gelati. That was water ice (my flavor choice was tangerine) layered with the most incredible vanilla frozen custard I've ever tasted. YUM! I was almost convinced to buy a franchise and open it up here. YOU HAVE TO TRY IT IF YOU GET A CHANCE!

4. Kitchen Kettle Village in Amish/Mennonite Country was delightful. They had delicious (fresh) kettle cooked potato chips and even more delicious beef jerky. The best store there was the jam pantry. They had tons and tons of jams, and they had open bottles of each for taste testing. Their salsas were some of the best I've ever eaten, way better than anything found here in TX (sorry Pace commercials). And their pickles were down right tantalizing. Its amazing how much better and delectable fresh foods and preserves are. You just can't beat it.

5. Shady Maple Smorgasbord Grill. This place is a gigantic all you can eat buffet. Every night something different is featured on the grill with tons of sides and desserts. Unbeknownst to us beforehand, we unfortunately went on seafood night. It was the most expensive night, and our least desired of all the nights. Neither of us actually enjoy seafood, but we got to try lots of things we'd never have tried otherwise. The only thing we liked in the way of the seafood gill was the Cajun catfish. It was quite mild and the texture wasn't bad. In my opinion, the place was pretty cool but a little over rated, especially if you can't eat $20 worth of food (per person) in one sitting.

6. Probably the best food came from a hole-in-the-wall dumpling shop in NY's Chinatown. It was the cheapest food (3 adults ate for $10 total--including drinks!!!! We were STUFFED!), but dang it was good. We got both fried and water dumplings as well as these amazing stuffed "sesame pancakes". It was a delicious handmade dough cut open and stuffed with vegetables (though you could have gotten beef also). It was gigantic and just $1.50!!

7. If you're a Food Network fan like us, you may watch Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Well, Bryan doesn't watch that show, but he told us of a great doughnut shop near his house. When we entered the Doughnut Plant Matt recognized a picture of the owner on the wall from the doughnut throwdown with Bobby Flay. That was pretty cool. We got a PB&J doughnut (jelly doughnut with PB frosting) as well as the dulce de leche doughnut. My favorite was the dulce de leche.

8. We got our Saturday dinner from a cool Indonesian place near Nathan's apt. in Queens. Their chicken coconut curry was amazing. I also got to try jackfruit in one of the dishes. That was very interesting. It tasted a lot like artichoke hearts but was a little squishier. I'd never been to Queens and it was quite nice. I almost forgot we were in NY because the buildings were so much lower than Manhattan.

9. Lastly, I have to say that I also enjoyed eating at Julie's very much. It's amazing how quickly you can get sick of eating out and you just want a good home cooked, well balanced meal!!!

Hours in the day

There just aren't enough of them. Sheesh. Sorry for the delay in programming.

Thoth

When we went to Central Park I forgot my camera, so that last post I just did an image search for him. Apparently the host of the picture wasn't so fond of me using it, so I took it down.

So instead of a picture, I bring you a 4 min. video intro to his (2002?) Oscar winning documentary compliments of thoth444 on youtube. It really is great. You should watch the whole thing. You won't be disappointed. At least I wasn't.

Home again, home again

We made it. Mostly in one piece. We had a marvellous time with my siblings. The trip went very smoothly.

I will write about our adventures soon, but I am a bit too tired tonight. I've thrown up two dinners in the last two hours, and I'm hoping the strawberries I just ate will stay down instead.

Since NY was the last stop on our trip, I'll leave you with a picture of the most interesting street performer I've ever seen in my life. (Ok, so it's not like I've seen droves of street performers, but even if I had, he'd still rank among the most interesting.) His performer name is Thoth. He dances in his loin cloth, stomps and bangles, plays the violin, and sings in an amazing castrati sounding operatic voice. It was quite the show. Seriously, I hope anyone who goes to NY will have the chance to see his performance in Central Park. It's a quite a singular event.

How time flies.

Sometimes its weird to think about time. Its hard to believe its been 12 years since I took my first plane ride across the country to visit my brother in Boston. Or that I've been driving for 10 years legally. How about the fact that I graduated from high school 8 years ago and from college 3 years ago? I started dating Matt 7 years ago. And we come now to today's date.

May 3, 2007

Today makes 4 years of wedded bliss. And I'm glad we're not moving today. Since that's been the trend for our anniversaries. Though we are going on a 10 day trip to the East coast tomorrow. So I may not be writing all that much the next week. We'll see how I feel when I'm some place with Internet access...

I love being married.