Busy Bee

So this week has been a busy one for me. Mike and I got back from San Diego late Monday night and we had a full week ahead of us. On Saturday we are having our annual xmas party at our place and then Sunday I am having my book club girls over for a cookie exchange. So mike and I needed to get our house in order. We were finally able to put up and decorate our xmas tree. (the gifts that I had wrapped 3 weeks ago now have a home). So that was fun as usual. This year we actually bought a second tree. A artificial 5ft tree and we dedicated this tree to our love for PSU. So a blue and white tree. We just finished last night so I don't have any pics yet. (I will I promise). So the house is all in order, all the lights are on timers, and we are set for the party. All we have to do is buy the booze and make some muchies on Saturday. Tonight we are headed to a nice dinner with some friends for a late birthday celebration. We are stopping at my favorite wine bar for appetizers and I can't wait.

So speaking of SD we all had a great time. Mike and I have both been before but some of our friends had not. So it was fun playing tourist again since I had not been to a lot of the places in a long time. I put a few pics from our trip but have many more to share. We were very productive during our trip so we went a bunch of places and ate a lot of good food. The few pics below are from old town, SD, the charger game on Sunday, la jolla, coronado, and sea port village. The carousel picture is a tradition in my family. Every year when we used to go to SD for Thanksgiving we would always go to seaport village to ride the horses first. So we have pictures from many years ago. So the two times mike and I have been in SD we have carried on the tradition.

Today we saw some flurries in DC and it made me so happy. I am very excited for my festive weekend ahead. I hope everyone has a nice weekend and is enjoying the holiday season. Only 15 more days till Santa!!!










PS. I still haven't given up on Louies brother....

Let the fun Begin

Ok everyone it is safe to start celebrating Christmas and getting into the holiday spirt. Today is December 1 ! I for one have been in the spirt for a while but I am excited Christmas is just around the corner. Mike and I watched the Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting last night so we are officially in the mood.

And let the fun begin. We are headed to San Diego tomorrow with some friends and I can't wait. So I am sure I will have some updates next week from our travels. But until then remember the best way to spread holiday cheer is singing loud for all to hear! Happy December

PS. wouldn't it be awesome if Santa brought Louie a brother :)

Old Lady

Well I am officially old. Or at least considered old in my book. I have joined the dirty thirty club. Yesterday was my birthday but I celebrated all weekend. After Thanksgiving Mike and I headed up to PSU for the last game of the season. My parents were fortunate enough to join us as well so I was very excited to share my PSU experience with both of them. But Boy oh boy was it a cold weekend. With a high of 30 we were freezing our tails off but as always it was still a great time. Friday afternoon we were able to walk around campus with my parents and of course the trip wouldn't have been complete without a picture with the lion. Friday night we all went out to dinner at The Tavern and enjoyed a great meal and good company.

Saturday it was rise and shine early for a 8:15 departure. The game was at noon so we had to get a few hours of tailgating in before we went into the stadium. It was cold, windy, and snowing but we all had a great time. You can see from our group picture we were all bundled up. The tailgating experience was a first for my parents and they had a blast. They both enjoyed tailgating before the game and we walked up to the stadium to see the team bus pull up and all the players come into the stadium, which is always cool. Then we took another touristy picture with the joe pa statue. As I have said before the Dunklebargers never disappoint so we had a great day. Although PSU couldn't pull out the win it was still fun. After the game we came back to the house to warm up, eat, and watch some of the other good football games. My mom surprised me with a cake so we were all able to enjoy that. ( I still can't believe I am 30!!)

On Sunday Mike and I kept up our Thanksgiving tradition of cutting down our xmas tree. We went to a local tree farm in State College and found a perfect tree for us. Louie was able to help as well. After we found our tree we headed back home to DC. All in all it was a great weekend and I am so thankful for all my friends and family who made it such a special weekend.

Something to look forward to---Mike and I are headed to San Diego this weekend with some friends. So I better start packing! :o)

Here are some pics from our weekend.

Giddy with Excitment

I can hardly contain myself right now. It really is the most wonderful time of the year! Where do I even begin……Fall flavors, pumpkin, holidays, wine, family, Christmas music, presents, holiday decorations, cookies, baking, sweatpants, fire, hot chocolate, Christmas anything! I am going crazy. So you all know by now how much I LOVE fall and pumpkin so I think it is time to introduce you to my next love CHRISTMAS!!! This is my favorite holiday by far. I love the lights, the decorations, the cookies, the holiday cheer, and presents. I am such a sucker for the holidays. I absolutely do not care that there is Christmas decorations up already. Heck, I have most of my Christmas presents bought already. I can’t wait to wrap them. I love to wrap presents (which I know most people hate)

I always have high hopes for Christmas baking and parties but most of the time the holidays slip away from me and before you know it we are into the new year. But THIS year will be the year. Mike and I have finished working on our house so we can finally enjoy it and fully decorate for the holidays. This will be the first Christmas in our new house so we are very excited. I already have plans to decorate around Thanksgiving so we have full enjoyment potential. We also have our holiday party scheduled so that is a plus.

I have a new goal this year. I want to be one of those awesome cookie bakers/decorators. Have you ever receive those amazing cookies that just look too good to eat? You know the perfect santa’s, snowmen, and xmas trees??



Well I want to start making those. I know this year won’t be perfect but I want to at least start to perfect my cookies and make a tradition out of it. So wish me luck.

I know this will be the first of many Christmas posts….so for all you scrooges out there you better get over it. 38 days till Santa Comes. Hope you are all on the nice list.

November Visit

This past weekend we were lucky enough to have some great friends come and visit. This was their first visit to our new house so it was nice to show them around. This month has been very mild in terms of weather so we took full advantage of this on Saturday. We decided to go to National Harbor for the day and do some shopping, eating, and sight seeing. It was beautiful weather so Chase had a ball running around outside. What would a National Harbor visit be without sitting on "The Awaking" a very popular statue....

We stopped for some lunch at Rosa Mexicana and had a fantastic meal. We enjoyed some table side guacmole and great lunch plates. We did some more shopping after lunch and headed home. Since it was still so nice out when we got home all the boys threw around the football outside.

The weekend recap wouldn't be complete without talking about our breakfast. I have been dying to make some pumpkin pancakes and Zak and Christie were the perfect victims (guests) to try them. So Saturday morning I whipped them up and let me tell you they were delicious. So good that we had them again on Sunday morning. I would recommend these puppies to anyone who loves the fall flavors and pumpkin. (Click here for recipe). I also made some awesome stuffed shells for saturday but forgot to take a picture. We all scarfed them up too fast to get a photo.

All in all it was a great weekend with friends and we look forward to have them back in the near future.

#400 Legendary

History has been made and I am so glad that I was a part of it. In case you didn’t know, Joe Paterno achieved his 400^th career win this past Saturday in Happy Valley. It was such a great weekend filled with food, football, and fun. Mike and I headed up to Sate College on Friday afternoon. We stopped to get our friend Ashley and then we were on our way. (Food-I had made Cranberry Crumb bars and Chocolate chip pumpkin blondies. I must say both recipes were a great success).

Saturday morning we all woke up in great anticipation of the game that afternoon. So we packed up all the goodies and headed to the stadium. The game was at 3:30 and we were tailgating and drinking mimosas by 10am. The weather was a little iffy in the morning but it cleared up later in the afternoon. It was still a bit chilly (as you will see from the pictures) but we all stayed warm with all the good food and drinks.

The game was a little scary in the beginning. PSU was down 21-0 until about 2 minutes left in the first half. We finally scored a TD going into half time. The second half was a blast. PSU scored 28 unanswered points!! After the game was over (the whole stadium was still in attendance) the crowd went wild! Joe Pa had just won his 400^th game! It was such a great moment in sports history. There was a small celebration on the field for Joe and we all cheered our hearts out. One of my favorite quotes from the evening was when Joe Pa said..”People ask why I stayed around so long and I say Look Around!! Look Around!! I love you guys!!” It was so cute I love him.

So needless to say it was a great PSU weekend. We spent it with some of our favorite people and we had a blast! Now on to our next game vs. Ohio State. It will be a tough one but hopefully we can pull out win #401. Until next game…………. LETS GO PSU!!!!

SURPRISE!!

YEAH!! I did it! I pulled off my first every surprise party. And let me tell you it was great! Both of my parents turned 60 this year so I had the idea to throw them a surprise party back in the summer. Dads bday was in September and Moms bday was this past Friday. I have always wanted to throw a surprise party so I figured this would be perfect.

Once I knew I wanted to do this the next question was where to have it. So I thought of one of our favorite restaurants at home, San Nicola, and figured it would be perfect. (Mike and I had our rehearsal dinner there). So getting mom & dad to the restaurant was easy. We said we were taking them out for their bdays at San Nicola. So naturally neither of them had a problem with it. The hard part was convincing them to go to a late dinner (8:45pm). The resturant only lets you have private parties on Fridays and at 530 or 830. So we went with the later time to allow everyone time to get there. I got all of moms friends names from her tennis partner (thank you Nancy!) and all of the boat people names & addresses from our good friend Barb. With their help I was able to compile a great guest list. I aslo had a couple neighbor friends coming. Along with the guest list our dearest family friends drove down from CT. I would say they are more like family than friends, The Buckleys. So they called mom & dad and told them they wanted to visit. Mom thought it was perfect so we could all be together and Judys bday was on Saturday so a perfect excuse to celebrate 2 great birthdays.

Venue- check, guest list-check, next stop invitations. I had some invitations made and sent them out..... and then everyone said yes! I couldn't believe it...although I should bc my parents are great people so who wouldn't want to come. But anyway everything was falling into place. Now it was just a waiting game until the special day arrived.

I can not tell you all the anxiety that I had. I couldn't sleep the week of the party I was so excited and nervous at the same time. The night before I hardly got a wink of sleep. I was so worried of everything that could go wrong and I did not want the surprise to be ruined. Mike assured me everything was out of my hands and it would be a great party no matter what.

So Friday afternoon Mike and I head to West Chester. The Buckleys were at our house already so they were able to keep my parents occupied. But as suspected mom & dad called on our way wanting to know when we would be home so we could head to dinner. When we got home we were all able to stall a bit saying we had to change our outfits. I took a little extra time getting ready.

And now we are off to the restaurant. I was able to text someone on the way to let them know we were coming. I was sooooo excited. So we walk in and have mom & dad go first. We had a back room in the restaurant so the guests we able to "hide" in the corner. As soon as mom walked around the corner the gig was up SURPRISE!!!!!!!! Oh Boy what a surprise it was. Mom instantly started crying (as suspected) and she turned and hit my dad. She thought he had done this.....but of course he had no idea either!! Oh man I was so happy everything went off without a hitch. The BEST surprise EVER. Neither of my parents had any idea!! It was just a wonderful evening. I couldn't have asked for a better night. So we drank, ate, and talked the night away with great friends.

Of course here are some pics. I have a ton of everyone that was at the party but these are just family pics....

All of us walking in after the surprise. Mom is still crying.

Mike & Mr. B with a drink. Both happy we pulled off the surprise

Mike & I thanking everyone for coming and talking about my sister and wishing she was there with us.

Mom (crying again) toasting to my sister

Dad trying to be funny

After, after, dinner drinks at home with great friends

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM & DAD. Love you