I spent all weekend sick with a bug, taking it easy by mostly laying on the couch and watching the first season of Grey's Anatomy on Netflix (I loved the early seasons but had only watched them once - when they were on TV originally). I woke up early on Saturday, knowing that snow was in the forecast for the morning, but was disappointed by a whole lotta nothin outside and went back to bed. Later in the afternoon we got some slush and sleet and tons of rain. I figured that was all we were going to get. But then as Jason cooked our meatball dinner, he came into the living room and said, "Honey, look!" I turned around to look out the window and what did I see? Giant beautiful snow flakes. We hopped outside and took our first family snow picture!
It was funny to take a snow picture with green bushes behind us because it feels like fall has hardly
started around here. There are a few red trees around, and more and more
turn everyday, but it seems like most everything is still green! So, while it was fun to have that little bit of snow and cold, I'd like to enjoy fall a little bit more before we get into the true snowy winter season.
[Two of our four pumpkins and our pumpkin tree]
To enjoy fall we lit some candles next to our little pumpkins and watched them glow. We enjoyed some acorn squash and then cooked its seeds (with olive oil, salt, paprika, and crushed red chili powder). They were delicious.
I was just going back through posts from last winter...
I cannot WAIT for it to truly feel like the holidays.
There is no better time of year.
But for now... Happy Halloween!
We'll be hanging out with our baby cousins and watch them in their neighborhood's Halloween parade.
Can't wait!
How are you (or did you) celebrate?
After being passed by multiple times, we finally got our snowstorm! It started in the middle of the day causing traffic to back up like crazy. It took Jason two and a half hours to get home on the bus and he only rides it for a few miles! Crazy. Throughout the night, I was glued to Twitter following the local updates. It was a thundersnow storm so we got some lightening and even got three huge blasts of green light that lit everything up like day from a transformer exploding.
The next morning, I had a two hour delay and Jason worked from home so we were able to have a little fun in the snow.
After our walk, I went to Target, which was deserted, to get some milk, bread, and eggs for a nice breakfast before work. Jason also cooked up some sausage. Yum! It was a great way to start the day.
Of course the schools were closed so the kiddies stayed busy in our courtyard. Get a load of the size of this snowman! That's your average baseball cap on his head!
If this is the only storm we get, we'll be happy. But of course we would always enjoy another!
Anyone else love snow as much as we do?
Did anyone else watch 24/7 Penguins/Capitals: Road to the Winter Classic on HBO last night? I loved it. Even though my dearest team is not doing very well (they lost again last night making the losing streak a total of seven in a row - ouch) it was really, really cool to get a "behind the scenes" look at my favorite professional sport.
So - SNOW. You already know how snow makes us happy. Today we got what I would call our first REAL snow. Snow that sticks. It looks like our snow storms from earlierthisyear (that's three separate links!)... but only in the beginning. It's expected to stop tonight (tear), and has already slowed down, but I hope it sticks for a while and stays clean and pretty.
Now you can actually see the snow behind us unlike last time.
A young trail-blazer with his sled.
Freezing cold pup.
In snow/holiday fashion, I wanted to make something "cozy" and holiday-like. First I thought I would make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies but we don't have eggs. So I tried making hot chocolate with soy milk (I try to avoid dairy when I'm sick, and I have been quite sick lately). Verdict: gross. Then I figured I would make dinner in the crockpot and decided to make this orange curry chicken dish again except this time I used orange cranberry marmalade instead of plain orange. It smells delicious right now - we'll see how it turns out!
Can you see the snow? No? Well, there wasn't much but I promise you it was there!
Hooray for our first snow (flurries) of the season in DC!!!
Tonight we're laying low. The hubby is feeling kind of down so we're going to do fun things to cheer him up, like eat Chick-fil-a, play Super Mario Bros, and watch some funny TV on Hulu (we love Outsourced and Modern Family the most). I love cheering my love up. It's one of my favorite things to do... even when I'm sick as a dog!
Last weekend I trekked down to Harrisonburg with my family to support my little bro in his First Lego League State Competition. His team didn't win anything but they did a really great job.
I managed to walk away from the weekend with my first taste of a fried oreo, my first snow of the season, and my first cold of the season thanks to the 5,000 middle schoolers I spent all day Saturday and Sunday with. Spending time with my family was really great, watching Jakob put his smarts to the test was amazing, the fried oreo was delicious beyond anything I dreamed of, and of course cheating by leaving DC to see my first snow of the season wasn't half-bad either.
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!
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!
This morning, inspiration struck when we woke up to this:
In fact, we fell asleep to it too. The world covered in white. It's so beautiful, so elegant.
I'm one of the odd ones – instead of loving spring and summer, I love fall and winter. It would be really hard to pick one over the other but I think part of the appeal of fall is its build up to winter. The last quarter of the year is my favorite – the months of October, November, and December. January isn't my favorite, but this January has been pretty amazing because we’ve had snow. Glorious, blissful snow.
I absolutely love the winter. It's so romantic. I love the cold, I love being able to see my breath, I love rosy checks, crackling fireplaces, and cuddling under blankets. I love the quiet of winter that doesn't exist in the summertime. I love drinking hot tea, eating hot soups, and baking. My love for winter deepens in the snow. I still get excited about snow. I figure if, after spending four winters in Ithaca, NY I still love it, I'll probably love it forever. I love the sound it makes beneath boots, I love the way it dampens all other sound. I have a love for black and white photography and often wonder what the world would look like in black and white. When it snows, I get a glimpse into that world.
After our last blog post (RIP wordpress blog), on December 19th, we got the biggest snowstorm D.C. has ever had in the month of December.
I wound up getting snowed out rather than in – at a friend's house while dog-sitting. I was pretty bummed out about it, but after a call from my dear mother-in-law, I cheered up a little bit and tried to see the bright side of the situation. I realized, even though I wasn't home with Jason and Rufus, I was in good company – with a pretty doggie named Foxy, a giant Christmas tree, a stash of delicious teas, and a password for Netflix online! I documented the snow as best I could without my camera (hooray Photobooth) for my friends – this was their first huge snow at their new house and I didn't want them to miss it!
And I had Jason document the snow at our place – Rufus couldn't even see over the snow! He loved it though and jumped through it even when he didn't have to.
This past weekend, we got some more snow and it's funny – I got snowed out again! This time in the company of my little brother at my parent's house. I was in much higher spirits this time. It wasn't even a day away from home, and it was at my childhood home. Not to mention, I love my little brother like crazy and it was fun to hang out with him. And... it wasn't that much snow. I don't even think it could be considered snowed in. It was safe to drive the next day and took me less time to clear the snow off of the cars and shovel the house's walkway and sidewalk than it took me to dig my car out in the December storm.
This morning, the snow was gorgeous. It filled the trees and even blew up the trunks of some of them. I had to bring the camera along for my morning walk with Rufus.
We've been issued a warning: we may be getting another huge "snowpocalypse" - one the size of the storm in December. The best part is this time I'll be snowed in with Jason and Rufus.
Since Thanksgiving, we have had some cool things happen. First, Jason started working at a new job. He is now doing bigger and better things. I am SO proud of him! He is now using public transportation to get into DC everyday. My little commuter! And speaking of jobs, the organization I work for got written up as one of the best 50 places to work in Washingtonian magazine. This actually happened before the wedding but I'm just getting around to telling y'all now. My bad. Even cooler – my parents' company got written up as well!
We have also had our first snow (!!!)
and therefore our first family snow photo of the year.
We're supposed to get a ton of snow starting tonight – hooray! So we might take more pictures of that.
We got the Bells' Christmas tree a few weekends ago – the day after our first snow. Man was it MUDDY. So, going with tradition, we carried Rufus the entire time again. This was last year:
This time Jason took a turn.
He started falling asleep. Life is tough for this little guy.
The search begins.
And then Jason finds one! Here are Terry and Linda with their tree right before we cut 'er down!
Ta-da! It’s magically on the car. A dude from the tree farm chucked it up there – literally.
