Turtle Boil

My parents friend that lives on Ocean Isle is a Turtle Nest Mother. That means she gets to stay up until 11 for a few days with some other people and check their specific nest every 15 min or so as it is supposed to hatch. We went over Sunday night because that was Day 51, the day that the other nests hatched on the island. Nothing happened that night so we went back last night. Ryan thought it would be a couple days and it seemed that way when we showed up. We got there around 9:30 and there were no changes to the mound....another check at 9:45 and nothing. Our friend came over and told us we should go home. We about did but my dad was asleep in his chair and the rest of us were just watching the stars so we weren't in a rush to get up. Someone went to check around 10 and I honestly didn't even turn to pay attention. Then suddenly everyone starting moving and buzzing. The turtles were coming!

This nest had 129 eggs and they counted approximately 119 turtles last night so they call this a boil since a whole bunch came up at the exact same time (the opposite would be a trickle). Not being a turtle expert, I really don't know but that seems like a huge percentage of the eggs to have survived and hatched. Since this beach is replenished meaning sand is added to keep it from eroding too much, they have to move the nests back to the dunes so they are protected and won't be washed away. This unfortunately makes for a dangerously long "commute" to the ocean for the hatchlings so these "nest parents" build a trough down from the nest to a cooler and attract the turtles to it using flourescent lights. They then carry the cooler to the water and people stand in the water with lights and the turtles go out to the waves. From that point on it's up to nature. It was quite a sight and a huge, healthy boil. We had a great time and were so lucky to have gotten to see it. You can find more pictures here.

Anyways, that's our exciting news.

Steph and Ryan

*P.S. Jennifer you were right. Our friend said one of the islands north of here, near Topsail, had 89 nests which is a huge number. Ocean Isle had 19 i think but it varies year-to-year.

*P.P.S Pictures were difficult as flash was strictly prohibited (the turtles would go towards it). But Ryan and my mom managed to get a few good ones.

Surprise!

So I don't want to spoil the surprise until Ryan uploads photos--just check back later today! We all got to see something amazing last night that none of us had ever seen before--the kids will probably like the photos. Ryan and my dad are out catching their dinner, which they have not successful done together before. They took the kayaks so they could get to a more remote area so maybe today will be the day.

Fill you in once they return (and remove the fish stink!)!

Pics

Ok, here are 2 pics from this weekend. The first is the poutine. This dish is Ryan's which had bonus artery clogging toppings in addition to the gravy & cheese curds: bacon, peppers, onions, and mushrooms. I had fun learning that cheese curds really do squeak--I didn't really understand it until I ate one!



This is Ryan and I at one of the vistas near the top of Mont Royal. McGill's campus and the Old Port area are behind us (I believe). No that's not how Ryan is styling his hair now--it was REALLY windy! Although there are a lot of spikey hairdo's in this town so he would fit in. :)


Ryan is at work and I am doing school/internship work from the hotel and resting my tired legs. We fly back Wed. We have many other stories and pics but I think they will make more sense together so I will wait until we can upload more photos to write about them.

Montreal

Hi Everyone,

We just wanted to let you know that we are having a great time, but the internet connection is too slow to easily upload photos. We spent yesterday walking around some different neighborhoods and parks and eating. We checked a few of our Canadian food items off our list of things to do: poutine (fries covered with cheese curds and gravy--we have pictures) and Montreal bagels. Both of which were fantastic. I like their bagels better than ours. We also stopped to have a cappuccino and, even though we were already disgusted with ourselves, indulged in a crepe with a homemade caramel sauce and chocolate ice cream--delicious! Needless to say our feet were tired and stomachs full so we came back to soak our feet in the hotel hot tub and skipped dinner. We are off to more "touristy" things today. We are going to Mont Royal this morning and then down to the Old Port area. We will try to upload a photo or two tonight.

Steph & Ryan

Bonjour de Montreal!

Hey Everyone,

Wanted to take a quick moment to say hey and post a few pictures. I have had a good time so far in Montreal. I have been pretty busy with work (as I am basically working 2 jobs), but I was able to get out and see the city this weekend. On Saturday, I probably walked 7-8 miles all throughout the city. I went to the Old Port area, which is full of French architecture and cobble stone streets. I then ventured into Chinatown and ate lunch. I had a fresh and tangy Vietnamese sandwich with 3 kinds of sliced pork covered with cilantro and carrots.

I then wandered up and down Saint Catherine Street which is probably the busiest street in Montreal. It kept raining in stages throughout the day but that gave me an opportunity to explore Montreal's vast system of underground shops and pathways. Since the winters are so cold in Montreal many of the buildings downtown are connect by underground pathways so you don't need to walk outside when its cold. There are also underground malls and shops. Pretty smart!

On Sunday, even though I was very sore from Saturday (I also ran...), I decided to summit Mount Royal, which really isn't as intense it may sound. It basically a large hill just outside downtown Montreal. At the top, there are great views of the city, which you can see below.

I am looking forward to Wednesday when Steph comes to join me. I have had fun, but I think I will enjoy the city much more with her here!

Hope everyone is doing well! Take care.

Happy 4th of July!

We had an event filled 4th of July weekend. Saturday, Ryan went for a bike ride and I went for a quick run then we took off to the Nats game. We went early to try and see batting practice but it was just too hot to sit down by home plate and watch. So we sought some shade and hung out until the game started. We picked this game because Stephen Strasburg was pitching. The stadium was packed which threw us off a little because we are used to having the whole place to ourselves. It was exciting to see that many people care though.

We were supposed to go for a bike ride together Sunday but were exhausted and knew we had another long day ahead of us. We got BBQ to-go from a local restaurant and took some watermelon and went to watch fireworks. We chose a spot near where we went last year and again it was a great combination: fantastic view across the river and not to crowded. This year we were wiser and hung out for a good hour along the river to let the metro crowds die down and it was a great choice.

The fireworks were great and I hope you enjoy our pictures. Click here for more.

George Washington National Forest Camping

Two weekends ago we went camping with some friends at the George Washington National Forest--the guy has a lot of things named after him in this area! Haha! We had a great time even though the rain tried to damper things. We were able to get a fire going eventually and enjoyed sitting around it for a long time. We went for a hike (well my friend and I did, while the boys went for a trail run). They also had a beach area on the lake so we hung out there some. Ryan got to swim in a lake which he had been talking doing for a while. He was a happy camper!

The lake was gorgeous and we had a great time getting away from the city for a weekend. It was a nice change of pace.
Click here for more camping photos.

Since then we have just been working and I finished my summer semester classes. 4 semesters down; 2 to go. Last night we used some of my bday money to go to a great restaurant and had the most amazing food. It's called Zaytinya and they serve Greek, Lebanese, and Turkish mezze (small plates). We could go on and on about the food (especially the crispy brussel sprouts and phyllo wrapped lamb) but we won't bore you. Thanks Mom & Dad & Mr. and Mrs. Bechtel!

For those that don't know already, we are going to Montreal at the end of the month. Ryan's company needs him to cover for someone up there and take a look at their current processes to see if they can be improved. He is going up for about 2 weeks and then I am going up for the last week. It will be a lot of fun to have that amount of time in a city so that we can hopefully see a variety of things.

Two days after we return from that we are going to the beach for a week with my parents! We are soooo ready to be there already and talk about it everyday. So as you can see July is busy but should be a lot of fun. We are looking forward to the fireworks next weekend and will probably take a picnic to the same spot as last year. We are also trying to get to a Nats game soon so we can see the new "phenom" Stephen Strasburg. I'm not sure what's more amazing--his pitching or the fact that people are actually at Nats stadium. I guess we won't have the whole place to ourselves anymore.

Steph's Birthday - Annapolis

Three weekends ago we celebrated Steph's birthday by going to Annapolis for a day, but before we left I got Steph some Calla Lilies that she wanted me to share with everyone!

In Annapolis, we walked around a lot and ate our way through the city. We had a delicious Italian meal for lunch, seafood for me for dinner, and gelato (Steph's "birthday cake") for dessert on the harbor. There were multiple breaks in to shops and coffee houses to escape the heat but it was a great day.

We also toured the Naval Academy as you can see from our pictures. They were out of session so we were able to wonder right into the main hall of their sleeping quarters which is apparently the largest single dormitory in the world. When we needed to relax, we hung our feet off the docks in Ego Alley-- where all the yachts drive by to show off.

Click here for more pictures from Annapolis.

We are looking forward to going back. It was a lot closer than we realized and was a great place to get away to. The following weekend we went camping with some friends so check back for that update in the next few days.

Message from Steph: If anyone wants to see some awesome fireworks, we know where to find them so come join! ;P

Here and There

Brace yourselves, this is a marathon update. Sorry for the long delay--everyone can thank Mr. Jack Debussey for harassing us until we decided to update to get him off our backs! :)

I finished finals 3 weeks ago and Ryan and I went to see the Braves play the Nationals to celebrate. We had a great time but were 2 out of about only 100 people in the stadium. For the first 7 innings it looked like the Nats were going to throw a no hitter against us--the 2nd pic is Ryan trying to decide whether to cheer for the no hitter or the Braves... it didn't look like our night anyways. My favorite part about the Nats is the presidents' race and we got to walk right past Abe when we got to the stadium so I had to take a pic.



The next morning flew to Atlanta to visit friends and family and Ryan was holding down the fort in DC. While I was gone Ryan spent one Sat going to the embassy open house day for the European Union. The one for all of the other countries was the previous weekend but finals prevented us from going. He said it was a great experience and since I will only have one class next spring I am planning on blocking off those two weekends. He said that they served food and drinks and had other cultural presentations to show off each of their countries. He specifically went to the Italy and UK embassies because the lines are really long so next year we will start early and see more!

While in Atl I got to see all of my girl friends and family including Mrs. B. The day I flew in my dad and I drove straight to South GA to see my grandparents and my uncle had purchased a new tricycle for my grandfather. I took this video with my cellphone so it's bad quality but I thought it kind of looked like an old-school home video and he was really cute riding down the street on it. If you see a 92 yr old man on a red tricycle watch out he's riding to a town near you!



Below are pics with each of my little cousins who are the cutest little people ever! I got to meet Lily the newest addition to our crazy large, girl dominating family! :) Fortunately one of our honorary family members is adding a boy to group in the fall! But I guess Ryan's family is balancing that out by adding another girl. :) The pic of Caitlin and I (middle) is from the Fickle Pickle so I got my fix for the fried green tomato sandwich which will hopefully last me until the fall or winter.

As for what's currently going, I started back to school last week but the classes are only 6 weeks long. I also am doing an internship 2 days a week and working the other 3 in the lab. Ryan has been busy with work but is still enjoying it. He is currently enjoying baseball season and looking forward to the World Cup this summer. Two weekends ago we did some volunteering at a DC public school where we cleaned up the grounds and did some landscaping. The school looked so much better when it was over. We did it with our GTDC alumni club but brought along a few non-gt friends to help us and had a great time.

The weather has been gorgeous and just perfect for several weekends. This past weekend we took a nice walk around Roosevelt Island (pics below) and my friend David came to visit. We enjoyed a nice afternoon and dinner with him in the city yesterday and it was great to see an old, familiar face that we haven't seen in a while! And now, drum roll please......





Ryan is now running again!!!! The pic below is of his broken fibula which has finally healed enough to do fun things again. We want to take advantage of the weather and go for some bike rides but we need to tune up a few things on our bikes, hopefully soon!



Finally a cheese update. Two weekends ago we made gouda which has to age for 3 months but will then be ready (doesn't take as long as cheddar). This past weekend we bought goat's milk from a local farmer at our farmer's market so we are going to make another batch of feta this coming weekend. We currently have a ban on using the first feta until we get another batch aging because we're afraid of running out.

Random Update

Hi everyone,

As Ryan will definitely confirm, I am procrastinating writing a paper so I figured I would post an update. This past weekend my friend(& old neighbor) Chris came to visit. We hung out and the guys got to watch and talk sports which I think Ryan really enjoyed. I like and understand sports but when you start talking ERAs and RBIs for some random team's random player I am not the best conversationalist--nor do I really try to be. Saturday Ryan needed to study and his leg was still bothering him so Chris and I left him behind and went to see all of the monuments down on the Mall. I need to get my tourist legs back--I was tired! It was probably a good thing Ryan didn't join us since now we know his leg has been broken this whole time since the ski accident! It was fun to do some touristy things that we haven't done for several months and to have a visitor--we LOVE visitors (**hint hint**)! :)

I'm glad y'all enjoyed our tulip pictures. Ryan brought them back from Amsterdam for me last summer so we were excited all year to have them bloom. The weather was nice enough that we got to eat dinner out on the balcony to enjoy them several nights before it got cold again. This weekend we planted some of our herbs and added another planter so we can have even more! We have a few spots left to fill.

So I was thinking about the day that Gracie (Ryan's niece) made Uncle Ryan draw airplanes over and over again (I personally think they looked more like whales than airplanes :) ) and that reminded me that we never posted a video we took while at Gravelly Park. It's the park we always go to by the airport, but the other weekend we got stir crazy while studying and took a quick break to go watch some planes land. So here is the video so you guys can see how close the planes come.

Tulip Pictures

Hey Everyone,

Pictures of Steph's Tulips are up. You can check out the pictures here!

Cherry Blossoms

Happy Easter, everyone!

We have been really busy the last two weeks, but on Friday we managed to make a little time to go down to the Mall to see the cherry blossoms after work. We found out Thursday that they had just peaked the day before that even though the peak normally lasts a few days but we couldn't really tell the difference. I think all the snow this year probably made bloom predictions impossible. The cherry trees were really pretty and we got a few good pictures (link below). We stayed for sunset and had a great time. There were tons of a people which kind of detracted from the beauty, but the sunset made up for it! We were told by someone that there are some pretty neighborhoods on the northern side of the city that have a lot of blossoms that are pretty to drive around so we might try to check that out once my test is over this week.

Click HERE to see more pictures!



Not much else is going on around here. The weather is gorgeous and is even going to be "summer-like" in the next few days. I hope it goes back to "spring" after that, but my southern bones are still thawing out from the winter so I'm happy with all the sunshine and warmth I can get! Once Ryan's leg heals we hope to start riding our bikes and running. The bikes would have been handy for seeing the blossoms. Oh and to clarify, yes I have to wait for Ryan to bike because I still get easily lost in this city--it's the whole only traveling underground thing. :)

Hope everyone is having as beautiful weather as we are and are enjoying it! Miss everyone and have a great week!

Skication!

So this probably came as a surprise to most of you after hearing us complain all winter about we were tired of being cold and snowed in, but apparently we decided we hadn't had enough and planned a ski trip to Snowshoe, WV. We were told by multiple people that it was a little further than some other resorts in the area but that the extra drive was well worth it for better conditions and a higher vertical drop. For my family...no it's not like skiing in Breck, but for the east coast they had a LOT of snow this year. I was surprised by the conditions for it being March and in the south east. It was little slushy especially by the end of day but really not that bad and at least it wasn't a solid sheet of ice. The weather was absolutely fantastic the entire weekend--warm and sunny, no gloves needed! So it was the perfect winter-spring transition vacation.


We both had a blast. It was Ryan's 2nd time ever and the first was not that great of an experience. However I think I won him over and he now really likes skiing! (I think it was the teacher this time...me! :) ) A trip to Breckenridge with an intermediate lesson for him is definitely the next step. The little resort town was pretty nice but a lot of the restaurants were closed for dinner since it was the first weekend of the late season. However we managed to find one that had TV's so we could watch our Yellow Jackets win their first round tourney game. The food was pretty good too--Ryan had a pimento cheese bacon burger that he really liked!

Anyways, we can't say enough about how good of a trip it was, and we came back very refreshed. We were both a little physically worse for the wear--Ryan is on crutches now from a fall on his first day but still says he wants to go back next year so I think that's a good sign. What's really nice is that it's close enough that we were able to get 3 days of skiing in by only taking Friday off from school/work!

Click HERE to see more pictures from our trip to Snowshoe! A video from the 2nd day of Ryan is below. He improved a lot over the trip! The first day he ended up going backwards down the hill every time he tried to stop. :)




Note: We just added another post right below this one from an outing before the trip. Enjoy!

Fine Art & People Watching

A few weekends ago Ryan and I were pretty stir crazy so we decide to go into the city for the afternoon. We started at the National Gallery of Art. The collection is pretty overwhelming so we wandered aimlessly for the most part but came across some nice pieces in the process. I had been wanting to take Ryan there for a while because the architecture of the building is fantastic and I thought he would like that, which he did. It really is a beautiful building. We were so antsy from being locked up all winter that I thought some people watching would do us good so we bundled up and walked next door to the sculpture garden where they have an outdoor ice skating rink in the winter. We grabbed a cup of coffee and a seat right along the edge of the rink, and let me tell you--we had a great time and we didn't even skate! Let's just say there were plenty of opportunities for laughter. Anyways, click here enjoy the pictures!

Snowfree Weekend!

So we did some fun stuff yesterday and will fill everyone in on that once we upload pics. Basically, we were just excited to have a weekend where it was above freezing (well without the windchill at least) and not snowing so we went in to the city for the afternoon. Last night we had a ping pong and foosball tournament. Ryan won ping pong, and I won foosball. I think he thought he would win ping pong again so he challenged me again today after we finished cleaning the apartment, but he was WRONG! I imagine there will be a tie breaker match some time this week.

For now, to summarize our winter so far I leave you with a few funny/entertaining items. Don't take the stats one too seriously, I just thought it was humorous (particularly the # of animals that escaped the zoo due to the snow storm!)...I have no idea how accurate it is. I got from here on the WP. The other is a video from the most recent blizzard. It's really short, but I think it takes watching it 2 or 3 times before you really capture how cool it is. If Ryan had a remote time-lapse contraption for his camera (I don't know the real name) we definitely could have done this! There are several other videos on youtube that are time-lapses and they all show just how crazy the snowfall was.

Oh and if anyone needs us to house sit a house in The Keys, California, Hawaii...you get the point...we are at your service!

Miss everyone!

Steph & Ryan


Click to enlarge the picture

Waxed Cheese & Cafe Salsa

Just a quick update. We finished waxing the cheese earlier this week and it is now aging in the fridge. Click HERE for pictures. We are going to head to Old Town Alexandria tonight to have dinner at a restaurant we went to last summer and loved - Cafe Salsa. Enjoy your weekends!

What happens when you lock us up for a week....

So DC in general does not handle being locked up due to the snow--a bunch of Type A workaholics get very cranky when this happens. Ryan and I learned that we were no exception to this and apparently fit right in this city. Neither of us has ever been so happy go to work as we were on Friday after having not been there since the previous Thursday. So on Wednesday to pass the time we made cheddar cheese. Click HERE to see pictures--captions describe the steps. It was more complicated than the feta because we had to press it. We used a large tower of my textbooks to do this and they kept falling over as the cheese would sink in certain spots. It would have been entertaining to be a fly on our walls because we would just sit there staring at the Leaning Tower of Public Health Books trying to decide if it was leaning. As soon as we thought it was alright we would walk away they would come crashing down! We are going to cover it in red cheese wax tomorrow and then let it age in the refrigerator for many months. We are so excited to taste it, and I hope we have the patience to wait for it to age.

That brings us to today. Neither of us are big Valentine's Day people, but we decided that it was a good excuse to at least make a nice dinner. So we experimented with something new--butternut squash lasagna (picture below). It was delicious!

Snoverkill (Snow + Overkill)

We are still here and haven't killed each other yet (jk), but are very stir crazy. GW is already canceled tomorrow which is the 4th day this week and my last day of classes for the week. Ryan is at most going in late but might be canceled as well. I'm hoping that it at least won't be snowing tomorrow even if we are stuck here so we can go outside and get some fresh air. The majority of today was whiteout conditions so we just stayed inside. I can't promise there will be any pictures of "Snoverkill" because we are pretty fed up with it and have run out of things to take pictures of. To pass the time we starting making cheddar cheese as our second cheese. It is being pressed right now. We took pictures and will post those sometime this week once the pressing is done. After it is pressed, it has to air dry for 3-5days and then we get to wax it with the pretty red cheese wax! :) Then we have to say goodbye to it for a minimum of 2 months and probably more like 6 months while it ages.

So this past Sunday Ryan woke up early to go take some sunrise pics. The day after a snow fall is always so pretty and we have had gorgeous blue skies every time. Once he came back I was ready to go out so we put on some ski pants (thanks, mom & dad for getting them out of the attic for us!) and went to the public park up the street. We spent a good two hours building our snowman! The snow was so high that we probably each fell down a good 50times so we were sore after the adventure, but it was a good and fun sore! Our snowman is pretty plump (and kind of feminine) but our neighborhood seemed to enjoy him. We had people tell us he was awesome and secretly watched other people take pictures of him (we were so proud!). So here are the pictures from the rest of the weekend's "Snowmaggedon" storm.



Wish us luck--there's more snow in the forecast for next week! Hope everyone else is staying warm and doing well!

"Snowmaggedon" DC 2010

So I'm ready for a vacation to the Keys or Hawaii but since that clearly isn't happening, we are embracing the snow for umpteenth time is this "bizarre" DC winter (or so they say). The skies cleared and snow stopped this afternoon just in time for a pretty sunset so we packed the camera up and ran outside. We didn't have time to make it very far before the sun set so the pics are of stuff most of you have seen before but they show the snow. We estimate it to be 2+ feet around here. It came up to my thighs and even then I think I was standing on packed snow. It is a wetter/heavier snow than the last blizzard or like the news channel likes to call it "heart attack snow" because it is so heavy to shovel. The snow was coming down fast and furiously for a good 24hrs and we enjoyed laughing at the SUVs who thought they could drive on it spinning their wheels from inside the apartment. The snow plows are out in full force now, but they haven't reached the asphalt yet. Ok, that's about it. We may venture to the city tomorrow and will update more pics if we do. Until then you can enjoy today's by clicking here. The pictures of the bird prints are from the "warm-up" snow fall last weekend--when does spring come???? Looking forward to the Cherry Blossom Festival!

-Steph

Blizzard Part 2???

Refer the post on Dec. 22 and you will understand our weekend and what it looks like. We would post new pictures but it really looks the same--lots of snow. Stay warm!

--Steph and Ryan

Stinky Cheese Man! (and woman)

So the birthday festivities went well and having a birthday on a three day weekend makes time for a lot fun. We started off slow with a quick dinner out and a relaxing Friday evening. Then Saturday we went to the movies, and Ryan had coke and popcorn just like he requested for his b-day (such a big boy! haha). Sunday was his actual birthday so we went into the District and had brunch at this place called Founding Farmers which is a owned by a coop of farmers from the midwest and they use only fresh and as local as possible ingredients. We are both suckers for great brunch food but this was WONDERFUL! Ryan's was the best: leek hash browns with roasted red beets and goat cheese, topped with two poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. We didn't have reservations (they were booked) but it was pouring rain so we were rewarded for being a few of the only people to venture out in the rain and got a table immediately. The rest of his b-day was spent digesting/being in a food-coma and then eating homemade (by me!) carrot cake to start the food-coma all over again.

Monday we went for a hike on the C&O canal starting in Georgetown. We overestimated the warmth of 50 something degrees along the water and were a little chilly, but I think we made it about 5-6miles and managed to take some photos along the way. We then went into the city to pick up one of Ryan's b-day gifts (I wasn't lying about his b-day being the whole weekend) which was a new tripod.

Tuesday we went back to work/school but some of his other presents came in the mail. The one from me was a Cheese Making Kit! He had been talking about making cheese for a while, and I was hesitant because I was afraid the apartment (and us for that matter) would stink but decided to give in for his birthday. We spent this past weekend making feta as our first cheese, and it is now sitting in brine in our fridge. We are really excited to try it in about a month once it has aged some, but I am proud to say it actually looks and smells like feta! We can't wait to make more and get better at it.

The curds, made by adding acid to warm milk will turn to cheese when dried and aged.

Hanging the curds to dry

The cheese will age in this salt brine for at least a month and up to a year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RYAN!!!

We have been doing different things all weekend to celebrate and will update about the festivities later!

Blizzard, Christmas, New Year's, and Failed Trip to KY

The holidays are over and Ryan has his first full week of work in almost a month starting tomorrow. Classes also start for me tomorrow. So it is a good time to catch you up on our December and New Year adventures. We didn't have time to post much about the blizzard, too busy playing in the snow, but the pictures speak for themselves. There was a LOT of snow and it was fun for the weekend, but not so fun once we had to get back to reality/work. We ventured to the city and saw kids sledding down Capitol Hill and dogs going crazy in ~2ft of snow. It was a really fun, cold day. After that we tried to stay inside as much as possible to stay warm.

A few days later we drove to Williamsburg, VA to meet my parents for Christmas and had a really good time. It was very relaxing and a fun, different way to spend Christmas. We explored the Colonial Williamsburg area and spent a lot of time being lazy and eating. :) The town makes Christmas wreaths using only materials available back then, and they were all unique and pretty. The whole town/experience was very interesting and fun. Click here see more Williamsburg pics.



For New Year's we went to one of my friends from school's apartment and rung in the New Year there. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed meeting some new people. We ate our black-eyed peas on New Year's Day, and the next day we went for a fantastically delicious meal in the city. It was one of my Christmas presents from Ryan and was wonderful (pic before dinner below).



We also went to the alumni club's viewing party for the Orange Bowl (and unfortunately bball game too) on Tuesday night. We had a good time but were definitely disappointed in the outcome.

This weekend we were supposed to drive to KY to attend Ryan's longtime friend's wedding, and Ryan was supposed to be a groomsman. We woke up at 4:00am, but the traffic reports from the "Arctic Blast" were unfavorable so we postponed leaving until about 9:30. The roads through VA were very well treated and cleaned, but unfortunately the second (literally) we got into WV the conditions deteriorated. We tried our hardest but about half way through WV decided it was not a smart or safe decision to keep going forward especially with more snow starting to fall. So we turned around and spent the night in Lexington, VA then came the rest of the way home yesterday. We are very sorry to have missed the wedding, but are looking forward to seeing pictures. I bet they look like a Winter Wonderland Wedding. The rest of our weekend has been spent watching GT beat DUKE, football and buying wiper fluid fit for freezing weather!