Where did March go?

It's funny how sometimes your weeks seem to drag like crazy, but then you blink and the month is over. These weeks in March have been sloooowwww and painful (mostly due to work), but somehow it's almost April? So weird!

Nothing big has been going on, really... Last weekend McGee and I went to brunch at his favorite place in Philly: Sabrina's Cafe. They always have a fun brunch menu with a new theme every week or two, and for last weekend the theme was "Saturday Morning Cartoons", so all of the brunch specials had fun cartoon-related names. I took a picture of the menu so you can see some of the fun titles.

I went with the Optimus Prime Cut Special ETA Burger, but now that I'm inspecting the menu again, I wish I would've selected Jambi's "Meka Leka Hi" Mexi Special! McGee got the Fat Albert Sandwich Special (it was fried catfish).

On Saturday night, McGee went into Philly to hang out with his friend Big Mike (the opera singer... who also works at one of Jose Garces' restaurants, and works part-time as a tour guide at Yards Brewery too!). So while they were hanging out, it was just me and Guinness hanging out all evening. I had taken him for a very long walk that day, and McGee took him for a very long run that day, so we were hoping he would be tired and just want to sleep in the evening for me!  But here's what our boy looks like after a very long walk and a very long run: 

He's bored!

He did nap on the couch next to me for a bit while I was watching The New Girl (I just started watching that show on Netflix! It's so funny), but then he woke up and was bored, so I played fetch in the house with him while I continued to watch my show. That was our exciting evening! My goodness I can't wait until we get our backyard back - Did I mention that we have about 3 trees falling apart in our backyard? There are tree limbs falling down everywhere. It's ridiculous and dangerous. Our landlord has been "working on taking care of it" for like a month...

Last night (Wednesday), a local bar (the Iron Abbey) was having a big event for the release of Ommegang Brewery's Fire and Blood red ale (part of their Game of Thrones brews). We had NO idea how big of an event this would be... It started at 7pm, and we got there at like 7:03pm, and the place was so packed!  We had to park blocks away, and we could barely find anywhere to stand. We met up with Juliff (McGee's friend) there, and we all had one beer (it was delicious!), and then we left to find a different restaurant where we could actually talk and maybe order food for dinner. I'm glad we got to try the beer (and we got a free Game of Thrones coaster!), but it was way too nutty to enjoy hanging out there. They were raffling off lots of GoT merchandise, but we decided we'd rather have some nice conversation and dinner. 

Here's McGee (contemplating something?) and Juliff (his first name is Kevin too) drinking the Fire and Blood beers. Sidenote: Juliff just bought a house! So excited for him!

That's our life recently! Nothing too exciting. We're somehow still unpacking our boxes from moving, and work has been really stressful for both of us. We're hoping the job stuff calms down soon... 

I hope all is going well for everyone! 

Happy Things!

So this post will be filled with all good things, because I'm sick of complaining about the stupid winter, and I'm sure you're sick of hearing/reading it! :)

First happy thing: Congratulations to my friend Shannon on her engagement!!! :)  I'm so so happy for her, and she reads this journal so I just wanted to give her a little shout-out!!  It's so exciting!  And Shannon and her fiance (!!) are moving from Florida to ALASKA soon!! And I thought moving from Southern California to the DC-area was a drastic temperature change! I'm so excited for her and all of her upcoming adventures.

Second happy thing: The Philly St. Patrick's Day Parade was this Sunday! McGee and I took a train into the city, and met up with his family. The Philly St. Patrick's Day Parade is always a super good time, and there's always a fair share of college-age people that are a little out-of-control, but for the most part it's a very family-friendly atmosphere. We always have a great time!

City Hall! It's so pretty. That's William Penn on top of the clock tower.

McGee's mom and sister (Maureen aka "Mo")

McGee and his uncle

This was a funny part during the parade. This girl wanted to cross the street, and her and this guy in the parade started dancing!

Third happy thing: We went to the Arcade Fire concert last night!  It was super fun, and wow do they know how to put on a show!!  They were so awesome to see, and we had a blast. 

So much confetti!!  Super fun. 

And the fourth and final happy thing for this post: Guinness got his 3rd Bark Box today!  He's having fun trying to destroy the rooster toy from it, and I've given him some of the bacon-flavored treats and he LOVES them.  It's his first bacon-flavored anything, so of course he's now obsessed with those treats. And those "calming" Licks treats have me intrigued! We'll save those for a time when we really need him to mellow out (because he's never naturally mellow...). 

He's got the rooster! Look at that blurry tail from it wagging so fast

I hope everyone had a happy and fun St. Patrick's Day! 

Is it Spring yet?

I think it's officially Spring now, because we had Daylight Savings "Spring Forward"... Even though this year it really feels like "Winter Forward", but that's not as catchy. Our high temperatures are finally feeling a little more reasonable, but our lows are still below freezing. I'm ready to see some birds and flowers, and I'm ready for the grass to start to recover from this terrible winter! McGee bought a BBQ grill yesterday, so I think as soon as that arrives we'll start grilling lots of our meals and that should force the warmer weather to come... Right??  Right. I loooove grilled food, so we're quite excited for our new BBQ!

We're also starting to plan our trips for the rest of 2014, so that's giving us something really awesome to look forward to. I just booked campsites for my family to go to Yosemite for 2 nights in July, and McGee is coming too! I think he'll love Yosemite (how can someone not??). I love camping... The smells, the campfires, the fresh air, the scenery, the SMORES, the family bonding time... I'm so excited! I love unplugging for a bit, and being without laptops, cell phones, etc. I'm also just quite excited to get McGee back out to California again... There's so much awesome stuff I want to show him, and I'm excited for him to see my family and friends again. 

There isn't really much else going on... Work has been nuts, and is about to get even nuttier in the next few months. Guinness is doing well, so not much new stuff to report there... McGee and I have been doing a lot better with cooking meals at home, rather than getting takeout all of the time. Last night I made a pasta dish with smoked turkey sausage that was a big hit! It was pretty easy, and we both enjoyed the leftovers today for lunch. And this weekend I'm going to make some Guinness Beef Stew that we've made before, and I'm going to attempt to make some Irish Soda Bread too! McGee loves Irish Soda Bread, so we'll see how my attempt goes...

I hope everyone's March is off to a good start!  Here are some flashback Guinness pictures, since I don't have any new pictures of anything to add to this post. I'll do better on the next post, I promise!