Our 1st Wedding Anniversary

On Monday Adam and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary.

Here is one of my favorite photos from our wedding day - our frist dance as husband and wife.

To celebrate, we went to Baltimore for the day. With the city only an hour away from our new house, it was a great getaway. We saw a lot of the city we had never seen before.

We started our day walking around Camden Yards and then visited Babe Ruth's birthplace.

Unfortunately, it rained the entire day so after our visit with Babe, we made our way to a nearby bar to wait out the rain. After 2 orders of fried pickles for me and some local brews for Adam at Pickles Pub, the rain held steady. So with our new Orioles umbrellas, we ventured to Little Italy.

We ate at a cute place called Chiapparelli's.

I had homemade manicotti and Adam had a caprese panini.

We will definitely visit this restaurant again!

After lunch we made our way to Inner Harbor for dessert.... 2 delectable pieces of cheesecake from where else than the Cheesecake Factory!

Next we headed to the National Aquarium. Even though it was a busy Saturday, we got to see everything, including our favorite - the sharks and sting rays. We even saw an enormous sea turtle who was missing his front left flipper, which made him all the more adorable!

Here I am on my wedding day and then... a little rounder... 1 year later, along Inner Harbor.

After a short rest at the hotel, we visited the neighborhood of Canton to feast on a dozen crabs at Bo Brooks. A great treat!

Adam picked his crabs and saved all the meat until the end. He had a big bowl of buttery crab to enjoy.

After dinner, we ventured to Fells Point. We wanted to visit America's oldest saloon, The Horse You Came In On. It was packed. We had to wait in line just to get in. Even though I felt awkward in a lively bar with my big belly, we had a good time (for the 20 minutes I lasted). There was a fun band and the girls liked the music. They were kicking away!

Before we headed back to the hotel, I had to have some gelato at Pitango - chocolate and pistachio. A great ending to a great day!

So when our official anniversay rolled around on Monday, we got the top tier of our wedding cake out of the freezer.

The gorgeous cake on our wedding day:

 And one year later:



Not as delicious as we remember, but it was fun to reminisce about our beautiful wedding day.

It was a wonderful anniversary! I can't wait to celebrate next year with our girls!

My 5th Year College Reunion

 Last Friday, Adam and I began our journey to Roanoke, VA for my 5th Year Reunion from Hollins University. It felt good to be back - the last 5 years flew by.

We stayed two nights at the beautiful Hotel Roanoke.

After checking in, I took Adam to the top of Mill Mountain to see the beautiful view of the Roanoke Valley. Hollins is to the right, about 11 miles away.

 I just love all the things that tell us we're in the south - like this huge magnolia blossom.

Adam took this picture of my 18 week belly. Those baby are getting big - and I just started feeling them move around!



 This is a photo of everyone from my class that attended reunion, taken right after the parade of classes.

Here Adam is chatting with some of my classmates during the Tinker Day Lunch.

The highlights of a traditional Tinker Day lunch is fried chicken and chocolate cake. Both were just as delicious as they were when I was a student.

For those of you who don't know, Tinker Day is a Hollins tradition that takes place in the fall. Students are surprised early in the morning by seniors banging pots and pans to wake everyone up. Then we all go to the dining hall in our PJs for Krispy Kremes, followed by getting dressed up in crazy costumes, hiking Tinker Mountain, having lunch and entertaining each other with skits. It's a special day that you have to see to believe!

This is me in front of a building on campus before dinner on Saturday night.

This was a beautiful spread for cocktail hour.

The tulip and lemon centerpiece for the dinner buffet was picture perfect.

And for our send off from the Star City, we had brunch at the First & Sixth Restaurant in the newly renovated Patrick Henry Hotel. It was delicious and I highly recommend it. I planned a spring cotillion in the Patrick Henry the year before it was renovated so it was fun to go back to see the changee. Below is Adam's Bloody Mary - green bean and all!

Adam and I are already looking forward to my 10 Year Reunion!

Weekend in D.C.

Last weekend Adam, Nick and I ventured to Washington, D.C. for a weekend of food, fun and basketball. We got Nick tickets to the Georgetown basketball game for his birthday so we made a weekend out of it. We explored new parts of the city and ate and drank along the way.

< 1 > Bloody marys to start the journey at 7:30 am

< 2 > French press coffee at Chinatown Coffee

< 3 > the boys with the Georgetown basketball program at the bus stop.

While the boys were at the Georgetown Basketball game, I enjoyed some tapas at Jaleo.

< 1 >Serrano ham, manchengo cheese and tomato on a crusty little roll < flautas >

< 2 >Ham & cheese fritters

< 3 >Patatas bravos

Next we ventured to Georgetown on the bus. The bus left us off right in front of Sprinkles Cupcakes. As avid Cupcake Wars watchers (the founder of the bakery, Candice, is a judge), we had to stop in to try one. We had the vanilla cake with chocolate frosting & sprinkles, of course. And it was "the thing" to eat your cupcake with a fork & knife. With much jesting from my travelling buddies, I used the fork for one bite and continued with my hands, as it should be done!

We enjoyed even more cupcakes at Georgetown Cupcake. Salted caramel, red velvet, chocolate, vanilla, coconut and peanut butter fudge! All were delicious except for the coconut. The salted caramel was the best by far! If you ever go, make sure to place your order online ahead of time. Then you can just go right into the store, give them your name and you'll have your cupcakes in a few minutes. Otherwise, you have to wait outside in a line of 50+ people.

Then we went to dinner at The Caucus Room. Steak, sorbet and wine. Yum!

After dinner we took a cab to The Gibson - a speakeasy. When you arrive, there are no signs or windows on the exterior - only a number on the door. We entered, gave the name the reservation was under, and then we were whisked into a dark, very seductive atmospheric bar that has a sweet and fruity smell. The bar was packed - it only holds 48 people and reservations are highly recommended. We were given a very exotic drink menu. I ordered a drink with Edelweiss liqueur and lavender bitters. It was strong and floral - very good. Kind of reminded me of Switzerland for some reason. I highly recommend The Gibson and we will definitely be going back!

Christmas in NYC

The weekend my mom, dad, brother sister, husband and I ventured to New York City. Here is the story in pictures (sorry mom, I didn't get a picture of you):

The Rockettes, Top of the Rock, Rockefeller Christmas tree, dinner at Beacon, Papaya hot dogs, Shorty's Philly bar, Rudy's bar

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German Foods = Honeymoon Foods

After our wedding on July 23, we left 2 days later for our honeymoon in Munich, Germany. We had a great time and I wanted to share some of our food experiences. We ate a lot! And it was all so scrumptous. I failed to take pictures of everything we ate but I did get photos of our favorites. g

To begin, as soon as we arrived in Munich, we dove right into exploring the area. We stopped at a restaurant at the Marienplatz - city square - around 10:45 am for a snack and to watch the Glockenspiel - a 10 minute show of figurines dancing in the bell tower of the city hall. We ordered weisswurst, a traditional white sausage in the Munich area. It's historically eaten in the morning because it is not smoked and can spoil after noon time. You eat the sausage with a pretzel and mustard. Our waiter failed to tell us that you do not eat the skin of the weisswurst :( But we still enjoyed it's unconventional creamy texture.

We also had a bratwurst and sauerkraut. The sauerkraut was the best I've ever had and I'm a huge kraut fan!



During our touring adventures in the old town of Munich, I took a break and slipped into a bakery and got a huge meringue. So sweet and crunchy!

While Adam was in a crowded soccer shop getting his Bayern Munich jersey, I enjoyed a gelato! So many flavors to choose from but I settled on raspberry! Look how divine the flavors look all mounded up in their containers, screaming at me to try each one!

We then wandered on to the Viktualienmarkt to see what the vegetable, fruit, meat, cheese and florists had to offer. I really wanted a pickle. Adam played along and tried it first so I could get a photo. It was both sweet and spicy at the same time - like no pickle I've ever had before. I like it but Adam did not (he's strickly a bread and butter pickle man).

Oh the beer!! We drank lots and lots of beer! Again, the beer was so much better than any beer in the U.S. And I think Adam has only had one U.S. beer since we've been home because nothing can compare to the brews in Bavaria! Pictured below is weissbier and a radler we enjoyed near the English Garden. During our trip Adam drank mostly weissbier. I fell in love with radlers - half beer and half lemonade. So freshing, especially for someone like me that can't drink a ton of beer.
Adside from all the beer we had at cafes, we visited beer gardens and beer halls. Adam's favorite beer was Augustiner and we visited the Augustiner beer hall. We also visited the famous Hofbrauhaus. While in the English garden we drank at the beer garden by the Chinesischer tower. Below are photos of the Hirschgarten, a beer garden a few blocks from our hotel. We went there twice!

Here, Adam enjoys a liter (or mas) of dunkel beer.

Of course we need pretzels with our beer! I ate several soft pretzels on our trip. The outsides were quite hard but the inside was so soft and doughy! In the background of this picture you can see the little shanty where you go to get your beer.

Ahhh! The beer garden cuisine! Let me say, I am hooked on currywurst! A sausage covered in curry ketchup with a side of fries! I was sure to bring home a bottle of curry ketchup and we're going to recreate this dish! I had currywurst 3 times on our trip!

Adam's favorite beer garden fare was schweinshaxe - a pig leg with incredible crispy skin! In this photo he had it with potato salad but other times he had it with fries.

After spending 3 days in Munich, our friends Susi and Jeff came to pick us up to take us to Susi's hometown, Furth im Wald - about 2 hours from Munich.

While in Furth we had some great food! We had one of the most traditional Bavarian meals, schweinsbraten - sliced pork served with gravy and a knodel. One of the best pork dishes ever!

We also enjoyed some local schnapps one evening! And we knew we loved schapps because we've had it several times at Susi's house in Maryland.

In Furth Adam mostly enjoyed Erdinger beer, brewed locally.

One night we went to a beer tent and Susi and I enjoyed gluwein - a hot spiced wine - because it was a very chilly night for July!

Below is a photo of Susi's sister serving up a snack of little sandwiches - delicious bread, some smothered in herbed cream cheese topped with cucumbers and radishes and some topped with sliced cheese and a gerkin.

We were also in town for Susi's son's christening. It was very special becuase I am his U.S. godmother and we was able to be there for the service. After the christening, we went to a restaurant for a champagne toast, dessert and coffee. Here is Susi in front of the dessert table.

To sum things up, we had pork and beer every day and were as happy as can be! We had an amazing trip and we cannot wait to go back soon!