What I have been doing.....

I finally uploaded some pictures to my computer so I could post what I have been up to.  In my very limited spare time I have been making pies and doing crafts for Christmas. 

Here are my pies:

Pecan Pie

Raspberry Chiffon Pie

Strawberry Pie - this crust looks the best out of the three because I didn't make it...I got lazy.

I also have been working on some crafts.  The pillow below I saw on the Smile and Wave blog.  I still need to close up the top but I think it turned out pretty cute.

I have been making magazine bows that I saw on the How About Orange blog.  My real simples have been providing lots of pretty pages to make bows out of.  Every time I finish making one I make Ryan give his approval.  I think he is getting tired of judging bows. 

I am hoping to use only magazine bows for my Christmas presents this year (and share some with my mom).  I still have quite a few to make.

That is all the pictures I have.  I am working on a couple more crafts that I will share pictures of when they are finished. 

- ACK

Italia!!!!!

I sincerely apologize for my lack of posting.  Turns out that this semester I have bitten off a bit more than I can chew and have been really busy.  I just got back from a trip to Italy so I thought I would post some pictures.  Ok....so maybe I was prompted by my mom.  So here are some of the highlights.  

Pisa

 Amalfi Coast 

 Our rental car -- a puke yellow Fiat Panda (I think we almost drove the wheels off of it!)

 My favorite picture of the Amalfi Coast

 Pompeii

 More Pompeii

 Vatican - there were so many sculptures and paintings

 St. Peter's Basilica

 Colosseum

Spanish Steps

 The gorgeous Trevi Fountain

 Venice - Piazza San Marco (there were tons of people)

 Gondola Ride

 Venice

Our trip was super short but we crammed in a lot of sight seeing.  My favorite things were David in Florence and the Trevi Fountain in Rome.  Oh....the Sistine Chapel was pretty amazing too.  We already have a list of places we need to see next time.


ACK

The New One.....

I had a comment on my last post asking for a picture of the new car so here it is:

It totally looks agressive in the picture above, but it isn't.  It is actually very nice.

That is new car with old car (Ryan is getting some of the stickers off of it.....I am standing in the shade taking pictures!!!).

A Great Day.....

So Saturday was a really really good day for me.  I got some super good news in the mail and we bought a new car!!!!!  To celebrate this is what we got:

Yep....Pizza Hut, Dr. Pepper and cupcakes.  No fancy dinners for me (though I like those too), just three of my favorite things.  R man is so good to me!  He even went in to get the cupcakes by himself and he came out with two for me instead of just one!!!!! 

I would also like to take this time to say a proper fairwell to my civic. 

It was the first car I "officially" owned and has been the best car ever.  I even got a little sentimental when we drove off and had to leave it with strangers.  This is my third car and I never felt that way with the others.  This one was special......ok enough with the sadness.  I will just say that I didn't feel bad for too long because shortly after leaving the civic I got to hop in the new car which I am madly in love with!


-ACK

Apple Dessert....

I am pretty set in my grocery shopping ways but the other day I decided to branch out of my usual Gala/Fuji apple choice and get a Macintosh one......bad news.  I took one for breakfast and hated it.  Of course I had bought several so I needed to find a way to get rid of them and came across this recipe on a blog I read From Scratch. 

It was really really yummy. 

What a crazy year......

This weekend was full of Springfield friends, DC friends, eating a lot of chocolate, and a little thing called our one year anniversary! R man and I decided to meet up with one of my best friends Beth and her family in Hershey, PA. We had a lot of fun and it was great seeing familiar faces. They are heading to DC today so we are going to get to hang out with all of them more this week. I am planning on introducing them to the to the amazing-ness that is Georgetown Cupcake sometime too.

While in Hershey we ate a lot and even got to make our own yankee doodle bar (that is why it says USA).  See how creative I am......ok not so much. 

Ryan decided he needed to eat his right away.  Of course his says Go Navy!

I may have also eaten two cupcakes (one of them is shown below…it is the York Peppermint Patty one) and bought two 1/2 lb Reese's cups that totally melted in the car :-(  Don't worry....we still ate it!

I took this picture for my dad...he loves these.

We also got to design our own candy bars.  You get to choose what you want in the candy bar and eventually you will even get to pick the type of chocolate you want.  They also let you design your own label and give you a fancy tin to take it home in. 

On Monday we got invited to paddle boat in the Potomac with some of our friends out here.  It was really hot and I will admit that I made Ryan do most of the paddling.  It was fun and it gave us a really good view of the Jefferson Memorial. 

Katherine and I ready to boat.  Oh and my huge glasses gave me a huge tan line!

Jefferson Memorial

Ryan trying to keep cool

Our friends in their paddle boat.

Washington Monument

All of these pictures are from my phone.  I should be posting the pictures from our camera soon. 

So we have officially been married for a year.  I have to say it has flown by.  I am looking forward to many more years!  I thought I would leave you with why I enjoy being married to this man (just to name a few):

He looks REALLY good dressed up!

He will eat anything, which comes in handy if one of my recipes flops.  No I didn't make that...KFC did.

He makes a great hand model for when I need my mom's opinion about something.

He will participate in almost anything I ask him to....even if that means wearing a hair net....

Or taking Flat Stanley all over DC.

Happy Anniversary RTK!

 

Ketchup Date.....

On Thursday I ended up having to work pretty late so R-man offered to pick me up (yay for not having to ride the metro) and take me for a nice dinner. I was watching The Hills a couple of seasons ago and they went to this place called Ketchup to eat.  I found one in DC and immediately wanted to try it out.  The food was pretty good and the atmosphere was nice. Their thing is that they give you 6 different kinds of ketchup. It was cool until I realized I only liked two of them (one of the two may have been the straight up normal ketchup…lame I know). Ryan enjoyed the others....especially the spicy ones.

We both look really tired!

Oh and later in the weekend Ryan ate this:

From the first time the commercial for KFC came on introducing it he wanted one. I thought it was out of control…..but to each his own!
 
I realize from this post it looks like we eat out a bunch....but we don't.  Well we do quite a bit on the weekends but I promise I do cook for us!