Family wedding

On May 22, my cousin Kent got married in Defiance, Ohio. Both he and his wife, Abby are really into horses and incorporated that into the ceremony. They got married at the spot where they had their first date and luckily the weather was perfect for it.

There were four little boys in the wedding, all Abby's nephews...they were so cute, all dressed in dark jeans and white shirts.....except for all the mud where one had fallen earlier in the day
The flower girls are all Kent's nieces and they looked so cute in their matching dresses their grandma made.

Kent and Abby really made their wedding their own. Abby rode up to the aisle on her horse, Patches and Kent's horse Thunder was in the background waiting. Instead of a unity candle, they branded two horse shoes into a wooden plank with their names and wedding date burned into it.

After the recieving line, they both got on their horses and rode around the property for some gorgeous pictures.

Here is their cake with the couple on the horses for the topper.

And their first dance as husband and wife...I love going to weddings and seeing how each one is different. We all had a great time seeing family and enjoying eachother's company. It was a super fast trip, we were only there for one full day but it was worth the drive!

Getting our Preak on...

On May 15th, we went to the the middle race in the triple crown....the Preakness! It was Nick's first time at a horse race (only my second) and we had a great time. The weather was perfect, the horses were beautiful and the beer was cold.

The view from our seats was great...just at the top of the stretch. Here the horses were heading towards the starting gate.

Here we are, enjoying our mug club beer in front of the starting gate.

And they're off.....We bet on a few races, won even less. Defiantely did not come out on top but had a lot of fun trying.

Baby Shower

On May 11, I threw a surprise baby shower for a friend from work. It was a total success.... Maria was shocked. I got her to my apartment with the idea that we'd go out to lunch, but she'd need to meet me here because of my 'broken ankle' hehe. The look of surprise when she walked in the door and realized what was happening was priceless.

Here's a picture of all the party attendees....


Here is the food table with a diaper cake as the center piece.

And this was the view when Maria walked in!!! It was so much fun!!

New Car

So, after months of searching for a new car, we finally decided on the Chrysler 300. It was not the car we were even talking about, but Nick talked me into a test drive. Next thing you know, we were talking numbers. After a long week of getting the trade-in fixed and working we finally bought the beast.

I thought it looked like a man's car from the outside, but once I got inside and drove it, I was convinced that I could drive this day to day. It's got black leather interior, navigation, sunroof, heated seats, sensors to let you know when to stop backing up, and lots of room. Plus a Hemi V8! Luckily it drops down to a 4 cylinder when you're driving slow or once you are over 60 mph. We'll see what that does to the gas mileage. Anyway, it should be a fun car to last us a few years. We're excited to drive it up to Michigan and show it off to our friends and families :)

Spring day at Lock Raven

This past Friday, both Nick and I had the day off so we decided to go to Loch Raven Reservoir.

It was a beautiful day and we spread a blanket out by the water, tied a rope from Bella to my ankle and played fetch until she was exhausted.

We got to try out Bella's new harness and portable water bowl. And I got to try out my new hat :)

Hawaii

Nick participated in the MedCom Soldier of the year competition in Hawaii earlier this month...

They started off with a crazy long road march, nearly 7 miles, that turned his heels into hamburger (as he put it)

They had an hour long scenario with a mock city with suicide bombers for warrior tasks and battle drills.Lots of range shooting and marksmanship stuff...and the beloved combatives.... Until his knee was injured.

He did an amazing job and we are so proud of him!!

Skiing

This year I've been lucky enough to go skiing twice with my friend Becky. Here we are on Roundtop....The weather was beautiful, almost 60 degrees and perfectly sunny. And we nearly had the slopes to ourselves. Perfect.

This is pretty much how our skiing went....Becky would start first and I would follow. (Somehow I always made it to the bottom first :)

Here comes Becky....she's the little tiny black dot coming down the hill...

closer...and closer...and closer....Here she is!! I was just a little bit faster

Valentines day

For Valentines day, I gave Nick a pasta maker... It was a challenge to make the pasta, as it turned out, it's a very dirty job :)Mixing the doughAfter we rolled it very this, we let it dry out for a bit....Then ran it through the cutter and Voila! Spaghetti! Then we took the shells off the shrimp. It was a disgusting job

Our fancy gourmet dinner started with seared fresh scallops as an appetizer and for dinner, homemade pasta with fresh shrimp and fresh green beans sauteed in garlic....and some wonderful wine (that Nick gave me for V-day)

Ahhh, another blizzard

Here is what happens in Baltimore when there is a threat of snow...super long lines and empty shelves. BEFORE the snow even starts to fall. The bread was pretty picked over....

And the milk was all gone

Here's Bella all dressed and ready to go. This is her super-model pose. She was really working the camera. Here's Nick shoveling snow (again). It was the third time since it started snowing. Thankfully it wasn't that cold or windy out.

Here is Bella, playing in the snow. Or rather us playing with Bella in the snow. Somehow she didn't sink and was able to make her way across the foot + of snow :)

Food

Since we had MLK day off together, Nick and I decided to try a couple new recipes. For breakfast we made some toast, prosciutto and egg cups with sliced tomatoes as a side. They were really yummy with a little Parmesan cheese and chives on top.

For dinner, we made our own sushi for the first time. Nick gave me a sushi book, rolling mat, nori, wasabi paste and sticky rice for Christmas. All we needed was to find sushi grade tuna. This actually became our mission for the last month. We finally found some beautiful tuna and edamame last night at the amazing Wegman's.

So, here I am, slicing up tuna and cucumbers.All that sticky rice....it's really sticky!Then you spread your toppings onto the Nori.Then you very carefully roll the sushi.

Once you get the roll perfect, it's time to cut it into bit size pieces!It took a few tries, but we did get a few professional looking rolls. And this was our finished product...a wonderful sushi dinner!

It tasted pretty good! It was a lot of fun and it turned out even better than we'd hoped :)