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 :)