Mrs. B

As of Monday I am officially Mrs. B. I'm happy to be Mrs. B - I love my hubby and his family to pieces. But I loved being Ms. C too. I identify with that name and it was really hard for me to change it. I know I am still a C at heart and it is still my middle name. But I struggled with the initial change too - now I'm not KEC like my dad. I don't think many people know that Jason and I had very different beliefs about changing versus not changing names after marriage. Early on in our relationship, when he learned that I didn't want to take a man's name as my own, he basically said things might not work for us... and I was very set on keeping my name. In the end, we both got over it - it's nothing worth ruining a great relationship over - and he told me I could keep my name and I wound up taking his name anyway! Compromise.

I got a package from Erin that addressed me as MRS. which made me feel really old because #1 Only "old" people can be a Mrs. in the eyes of a child and #2 the package was for my birthday. I'm 25 today. I know that's not OLD by any means, but as my brother pointed out it is a quarter of a century which is, if you ask me, definitely a landmark in life.

Another landmark we celebrated was Rufus' homecoming day/birthday! As of March 1, we have had our sweet pup for two years and he is about three years and three months old! To celebrate, we got him some new treats and he enjoyed a pumpkin puppy pop from our favorite frozen custard place.

Jason and I have been going for extremes in haircuts lately. He got his hair chopped pretty short. Here is his cut as of Valentine's Day, the day after he got it cut... so it's still getting used to being short and looks kind of funny on top. It looked good though, trust me! And, for the record, our Valentine's Day was very nice. We went out for brunch and I got some pretty red roses and Jason got some homemade fudge (he said it was good but... I think he's just being nice... it was a little bit of a disaster. I tried...).

Then, I got my hair cut into cute bangs the other weekend. I needed a change! It looked really cute, thankfully. The last time I got bangs cut was in 5th grade and that ended in tears.

I really liked the bangs! But the cut was uneven so I went to get it cut again elsewhere. Now my bangs are not as cute (dude cut the cute longer side bangs without me noticing - so sad) and at that point, my hair was still uneven and a lot shorter from "evening" it out. Lord, have mercy. That's what I get for going to get my haircut from somewhere other than my mother-in-law (who has been giving me great haircuts with NO issues for five and half years now). Lesson learned. She straightened it out for me last night. I'm lucky - my hair grows fast! We'll see how long I can escape photos until at least the side bangs grow out a little more!

My birthday weekend has been very nice, minus the fact that I am only getting a 23 hour birthday and one less hour of sleep thanks to Daylight Savings. Yesterday morning Jason made me waffles with our new waffle maker! I've been wanting waffles for the longest time. We spent the afternoon with his parents and Jason cooked us all dinner - my choice - clams fettuccine. It was his first time making it. He even winged the sauce and it was delicious. To end the night, we all shared some cupcakes. This morning, my family took me out to a delicious brunch in the city where we were treated to the largest complimentary birthday dessert I have ever seen in my life. It was a variety of caramel and chocolate goodies and there was so much the five of us couldn't even eat it all! We headed back to their house to hang out for a bit before heading home. It's been a pretty low-key weekend - it's pretty dreary here. We're on a flood watch although I'd say the flood is in full force - the Potomac is totally flooded. When we drove across the bridge after brunch this morning, Roosevelt Island was under water and the harbor had its flood walls up. It's not exactly the kind of weather that makes you want to go out and do things. Spring is just around the corner though... the weather is definitely warming up and we're headed to the lake for Easter in a couple of weeks! I do love winter, but I think I've had about enough. I can't wait to spend more time at the lake soon!!!!

Snowpocalypse 2.0

It was quite a weekend! Snowpocalypse 2.0 hit us and hit us hard. We have about two feet of snow on the ground and things are still shut down today! We had a nice and cozy weekend being snowed in!

Our front door got a little bit blocked off by a poor tree that split into four pieces. And check out that snow on the roof! That snow falls off in huge sheets that make our apartment shake and the gutters fall off. Our back door won't open all the way because of all of the snow blocking it from the sheets that have come down!

Rufus enjoyed the snow too. This snow was a bit deep for him so he didn't go leaping through it like last time. He dug around quite a bit though, trying to find things buried beneath the snow!

A little bit of the black and white world.

I'm a bit of a trail-blazer. I wanted to see how high the snow was. There was so much snow that I was actually standing on a good couple of inches of compacted snow so it's actually higher than it looks. Not to mention, the snow wasn't done falling and got higher after this picture. I sent the picture of Jason and Rufus to the Washington Post. I think it should have been February 7th's cover picture!

More black and white world. I love the texture in these two pictures.

Tons of heavy, wet snow doesn't come without consequences. There are dozens of broken tree branches and trunks. It killed a lot of plant life for sure. There is a tree that fell on a car on our street. Bad news. It pulled on power lines as well. Thankfully, our power never went out!

This is the best representation of how much snow we got. This was about two hours before the snow stopped - so a little more fell.

Here's a before and after shot of our walk. We accumulated a lot of snow on ourselves. Check out my hair! I have to say, I am very thankful for my snow gear. Growing up around here, you don't need gear like this regularly, but going to school in Ithaca required proper snow boots and a heavy duty coat. And crew necessitated the purchase of water-proof pants (for rainy regattas which we had a few of). I may as well use the stuff, right?! I may look like a fool but I'm a warm and dry fool!

Rufus stays stylin' in his winter jacket too. We always swore we would never dress a dog and we'd laugh at people that put their dogs in clothes. Well, we take it back now. This Jackahuahua is a shaky little guy - he doesn't have thick fur and he gets the Chihuahua shakes when he's outside in the winter time! Look at that little face! He's cold even with a jacket on!

Drying the pooch off and getting him into his warm sweater. He was a little exhausted after the snow adventure.

The next day the sky was clear as could be. Look at all that blue! Rufus is jumping for joy!

Snow is still everywhere and completely stuck to everything, including our car. We had a heck of a time getting it out of the snow. We used our trashcans to dig the snow out around it since we don't have a shovel. It worked pretty well! We met a few neighbors who were using pots and pans to dig their cars out! And then all of us met yet another neighbor who lent us all his dirt shovel and brooms! Hooray for friendly neighbors!

We had fun a lot of fun hanging out together. We indulged and ate some fun things, watched some TV, I baked some banana muffins and made some smoothies (which we tried to document but we started laughing and progressively got more and more hysterical - Jason is trying hard to take a good picture but I'm laughing so hard I'm crying in the last picture).

It was all simple fun, but we really enjoy doing things like that at home together. And to make it a little extra special, I plugged our Christmas lights in again. It made it feel like it was December again. We're embracing the winter while we still can.

All in all, we had a really great weekend. It's so much fun to be snowed in with the ones you love! Oh and, we're supposed to get more snow tomorrow and Wednesday!

Hooray!!!

Snow & Subarus: Dog Tested. Dog Approved.

Our car is still pretty new to us and it's the biggest purchase I've ever made (other than, you know, four years of private college). And Rufus is the most rewarding purchase I've ever made. (Who says you can't buy/choose your family?) So when I got an email that coupled the two together, I got excited. Subaru a new "Dog Tested. Dog Approved." ad campaign that features dogs in Subarus. The videos aren't anything ground-breaking or fantastic, but they made me smile none-the-less. I like to think Rufus enjoys our Subaru! Speaking of our 'ru, here it is in the snow.

That was around 9:30 this morning and the snow is still coming down like crazy! We're all loving it! I'll definitely post more pictures once the storm has passed us by. Until then, we'll be enjoying being snowed in while watching movies and eating homemade chili, corn muffins, and all of the other delicious treats we stocked up on for the storm!