Happy Thanksgiving!

My parents hosted Thanksgiving on ACTUAL Thanksgiving day this year! Having two nurses in the family makes getting together on a holiday a little difficult, so it was a nice treat to celebrate on Thursday. We had the Iskows over for dinner which was double nice to have both of our families together. Mom made a ridiculously yummy dinner and Joe made a cheesecake that changes your life once you have a bite. At least that's what he said was the expectation while making it.

Dad trying out his new hunting tree stand.

I don't think I was meant to hunt. At least not in a tree.

Josh kept the fire going.

Practice engagement shots???

Real Simple makes it real simple to carve your turkey!

Pranks

We have a long running history of pulling pranks on our friends, especially if they are out town. They trusted us enough to give us a copy of the key to their house with the expectation that we would use it for good, not evil.

Silly silly friends.

But then we went out of town.

Silly silly us.

Our bedroom before we left.

Our bedroom when we got back.

Our dining room when we got back. And yes, we did have to sleep there. But only because we were super tired when we got home and didn't have the energy. Which I am sure they were counting on.

NYC

November 14th marked 7 years of marriage for me and Joe! They say that once you get to this point you get the "7 Year Itch" which is quite funny for us since Joe developed an upper torso rash and required a trip to the doctor, steroid cream, and a case of the serious itchies on our anniversary!*

We traveled to NYC to visit with our friends Dave and Kristen Luther who got married 2 weeks after us back in 2003 and have been living in the city ever since. We visited in 2005 and have no idea why it took us so long to back for another visit because we have such a great time with them!

We took the Bolt Bus out of Greenbelt for $60 round trip total for the two of us (great cheap option to get up and back in approx 4 1/2 hours). We had some time to kill before meeting up with the Luthers after work so Joe and I went to Rockefeller Center and took an NBC studio tour. Total waste of time and money unless you LOVE Saturday Night Live like Joe and I do. They were doing rehearsal at the time of our tour and we saw Fred Armison and Bobby Moynihan on set. The coolest thing was to see the crew painting all the skit sets and setting all the props in place and running around like mad.

We walked the High Line which was definitely worth seeing. It used to be railroad tracks that spanned across the 3 neighborhoods (Chelsea, Meatpacking District, and Hell's Kitchen). Instead of tearing down the now run down unused tracks, they converted the mile line walkway into a public park. I decided not to bring my camera that night and won the dummy tourist award.

*aforementioned rash is now gone

The start of the Christmas Tree at 30 Rock.


Our new camera makes it hard to do a monkey arm shot. And not sure why we chose the tractor trailor holding up the tree as our background, but oh well!

We went to a German Restaurant for dinner... and naturally had to try the delicous pints of beer. Dave had a 2 Liter Boot that required a $60 dollar cash deposit. I guess they sensed we were the type of restaurant patrons that would bring along big purses to stash barware in just in the off chance they were really super cool like this boot. The $60 scared us away, but in the morning, I reached over to my purse and to my wonder there were 4 shot glasses that Joe must have taken at some point!

This is Tech and she requires 100% of your attention at ALL TIMES! Look at me! Look at me more!!
Some Central Park shots. We walked the mike loop around the lake and then stopped to have some drinks at the sailboat pond.

Laundry Room Redo

The Laundry Room:

"Drop Your Drawers Here"

"Drop Your Drawers Today or Go Naked Tomorrow"

"Loads of Fun"

Since moving in almost 4 years ago I have painted every room in the house except the laundry room. Mainly because it is such a small space and I rarely spend more than 5 mins at a time in that room! And when I told Joe I was painting it today he pretty much summed it up by saying "what's the point?!" But, I love painting and redecorating rooms and if I had the means, I would spend all my free time shopping, creating, and decorating rooms in my house! So, I am really bad at taking "before" pics, but trust me when I say this was one sad little laundry room. Originally there was wallpaper that said "I love laundry rooms" in different colors that the previous owner painted one thin coat of white paint over. So you could still read through it. There are two sad grey shelves that are still there but at least they are freshly white now. And the grand total of this renovation was 0$!! I used paint I already had, decorations that were in the garage, flowers from my backyard, and handmade art with construction paper in the craft drawer. And the answer to the question "what is the point?" is that I am now a much happier person when I walk by the laundry room and it doesn't look like a small bomb shelter that Joe and I were creating to use in the event of chemical warfare. And maybe one day I will have pretty cabinets and purple appliances, but this will do for now. :)

I have no idea what made me spend 2 hours making this, but I cut out his and her clothing shapes and the one in the middle is supposed to be Cosby. Seemed like appropriate laundry room decor.

Curiousity killed the cat in the laundry basket.

This seems silly to be now that it's hanging up, but I drew and cut out the letters and the border

and threw a blue background in an old frame. But it's kind of hilarious because who makes signs that declare what room of the house it is??

"THE FAMILY ROOM. " "THE GARAGE." "THE MASTER BATHROOM."

But in case you get lost in my house you will know where you are!

I hesitate to show you the left side of the room.... but it seems unfair to not expose this side. My plan is to hang curtains that I have sitting in a spare closet from a tension rod and cover up all this crap. But there are some technical problems to be worked out before I can do that. All I need after that is a new light fixture and I am done!

Pumpkins and Grapes

Carving our scarrryyy pumpkins to keep the kids away from the house on Halloween night because we weren't home

Joe's Pumpkin

A bunch of grapes! We were tied together with green rope.