Busy weekend!

This past weekend was supposed to be a pretty relaxed one, but it ended up being rather busy! Fun, but busy. On Saturday morning, I had a dentist appointment down in Wilmington. I like my dentist in Wilmington, so I decided it's worth the commute 2 times per year to keep him! I had no cavities, so that wasn't a bad start to the day! Then McGee had to get his car serviced - It was the big 15k mile service. After that, we had to head into Philly for one of my birthday presents to McGee! I signed us up for a beer and cheese tasting at a local bar. They took us through 8 beers and 4 cheeses, and we learned a lot about how the beers and cheeses were made. There were a lot of fun people in our group, and we had a great time!

On Sunday, we went to the Movie Tavern for a 9am showing of 22 Jump Street. The Movie Tavern is super cool, and you can order food and drinks before or during the movie to enjoy while you're watching the film! We'd never gone there for breakfast, and I've gotta say their breakfast was pretty darn good! And we both highly enjoyed 22 Jump Street and thought it was hilarious. If you liked the first one (we did), you'll like the 2nd one. After that, McGee had to pick his sister up from the train station in Philly, and then we went up to McGee's parents' house (with Guinness!) to celebrate Father's Day. Guinness was having a great ol' time with all of McGee's family, and he's still tired today from being so hyped up yesterday. 

And we got home last night in just enough time to watch the Game of Thrones finale! I'm not going to give any spoilers, but man it was a good one. I wasn't disappointed at all. I really want to read all of the books and at least catch up to the series, but I think I said that last season too... Maybe I'll actually do it this time! 

So far, I am not enjoying the summer weather here... It's been so hot and humid. It has been raining like crazy almost every day, and it turns out that's the perfect breeding weather for tons of bugs. There are gross bugs EVERYWHERE, and every time I step outside I get at least a few bug bites. Our backyard has been infested with some sort of biting gnat bug, and if you hang outside for more than 5 minutes they start to swarm around you. It's SO gross. We tried an all-natural pet-safe spray for our lawn (we're afraid to use harsh chemicals because of Guinness...), and I also tried some "bug traps" which consist of apple cider vinegar and some dish detergent. So far, no luck with either strategy. I also bought a bunch of plants this weekend, because I read that certain plants act as insect repellents. So, I specifically bought plants that were supposed to repel mosquitoes and gnats. I have a really nice geranium plant, rosemary (I've always wanted rosemary anyways!), lavender, and lemongrass. I was looking for catnip (it's supposed to be a stronger insect repellent than DEET!) and citronella (I didn't even know that citronella was a plant... but it is! It's a grass), but I couldn't find either of those. Fingers crossed the plants work... They look really nice though, so there's that at least! 

This isn't a picture of MY geranium, but it looks exactly like mine! I just haven't taken a picture yet. 

I hope you're all doing well, and I hope you have a good week! 

Kevin's Birthday Present

One of the presents I got for Kevin for his birthday was tickets to go see the Ireland vs Costa Rica soccer match! They were playing a "friendly" international game here in Philly, and I knew Kevin liked the Ireland team (he has a few jerseys and everything!). So, on Friday after we were both finished with work, we grabbed a few beers and some sandwiches for our new cooler (we just bought one that day!), and headed to the stadium to do a bit of tailgating before the match!

We had fun tailgating a bit and eating our dinner, and then we walked around for a bit, because the stadium parking area has some really pretty bridge views and the weather was PERFECT! The high was in the 70s that day and not humid at all. It was a very relaxing and fun way to wind down from the work-week.

You can see our new ice chest in this picture! I don't know how we didn't own one already... 

The bridge!

We headed into the stadium about 30 minutes before kickoff, and we noticed that we were some of the very few spots of green in the stadium - It turns out that Philly has a TON of Costa Rica fans!!! The stadium was a sea of red shirts and jerseys to show support for Costa Rica. And if you think I'm joking, check out the pictures - I'd say it was 95% Costa Rica fans. I had been guessing that it would be an even split of fans, because I know Philadelphia has a HUGE Irish population... But nope! Costa Rica has some very passionate and intense fans in Philadelphia. 

Here we are looking a little nervous wearing our green jerseys before the match started - We noticed the extreme lack of green in the stadium.  

 The pretty view of the bridge from our seats! 

Umm... Do you see all the fans wearing red? Do you see how very little green there is in the stands?

Again with the red...

And again with the red.... 

The final score ended up being 1-1, and it was a lot of fun to watch!  We cheered loudly for Ireland, even though it was a bit scary at times to be an Ireland fan during that game. The Ireland team played way better in the first half (and that's when they scored), but Costa Rica dominated the 2nd half (and that's when they scored). I think Kevin really liked his birthday present!! 

Ready for the weekend!!

We are actually home this weekend!! It feels like it's been forever since we've had a weekend at home. We tried to keep the plans minimal, but of course we still have a few plans. Last night we had a very relaxing evening of catching up on some Mad Men (we're all caught up now!). We were both so exhausted from the week! It kicked our butts.

Today there was a Bone Marrow Drive that I really wanted to attend, so I went and registered to become a bone marrow donor - hopefully I match someone and can donate! Guinness and McGee are out for a little jog right now while I'm relaxing at home, and then we're gonna eat some lunch and go run a few errands. I think we're going to have a nice relaxing evening at home tonight though!! Here's a picture of our cute boy, just because:

He's sleeping!! I love it when he sleeps... 

At some point this weekend (maybe this evening? Or maybe tomorrow morning...) we're going to go see the new X-Men movie. I've heard it's quite good!! We actually went to see a movie a few nights ago too - We saw A Streetcar Named Desire at that old movie theater that isn't too far from us (The Hiway - built in 1913). Neither of us had ever seen A Streetcar Named Desire, and it was really cool to see it on the big screen. We didn't even know the plot of it beforehand, but WOW can Vivien Leigh play "crazy" well! She was so insane, and it was awesome. They have some more really awesome old movies coming up at The Hiway, as well as a few new ones (we want to go see Chef there next week!).

Tomorrow we have very minimal plans, but we are going out to dinner with McGee's folks. I think they want to take him out to eat for his birthday. His birthday is on Monday! I think/hope I have a really awesome present for him, but I'll let you know if it's a success or not. I'll tell you more about all of that next week! Have a GREAT weekend!!

Maine

Our weekend in Maine was pretty amazing. On Friday, we woke up really early and hit the road, because we wanted to be in Portland by 3pm for our Allagash Brewery tour. The tour was really cool, and the beer was amazing. I've had Allagash White a bunch of times and I love it, but I learned that I love Allagash Saison just as much!

Here's McGee in the required goggles and headphones for the Allagash tour! 

Here are the flights of beer that they give out for free at the brewery!

 After the tour was over, we still had some more time to kill before McGee's friend was ready for us to come over, so we stopped by the Portland Museum of Art. And it turned out that Friday evenings were free admission at the museum! It was a really fun time.

The time in Portland with McGee's friend was a little bit chaotic... It tuned out that she had quite a few house guests in addition to us, and one of those house guests had two dogs. Those dogs slept in the room that our air mattress was in, so we did not get much sleep... Especially since one of the dogs was very old and had dementia (which I didn't even know dogs could get??) and breathing problems... It was a rough night. We maybe got 2 hours of sleep. We were very happy when we got up to Boothbay Harbor later that day, because it meant that we could finally fully relax. Our B&B was as awesome as we remembered it, and after we got checked in we decided to just wander around the harbor a bit. And wow did we sleep well that night!! 

On Sunday morning, we felt SO refreshed after a good night's sleep, and we were so excited for our day of NO plans whatsoever. The breakfast served by the B&B was quite amazing - they seriously make the best blueberry muffins I've ever had. We did lots of shopping and we had lunch at this lobster place right on the water. McGee ate a lobster roll that probably contained the meat from about 3 lobsters. He was in heaven! And you really can't beat the view we had from our lunch table. 

Our view! We wanted the table that was fully in the sun, because it was quite chilly in the shade! 

 After lunch, we wandered around the harbor some more, and we also went on a scenic drive that one of the shop owners recommended to us. The drive had a few awesome spots for us to park and wander around, so I took a few pictures from our walk!

For supper, we really wanted to go back to this rooftop restaurant that we went to in the Fall, but as we climbed the stairs to the restaurant, we saw that they were in the process of closing the rooftop section for the evening! We were bummed, but then the restaurant owner insisted that we go ahead and sit up there if we were sure we wouldn't be too cold. We told him we didn't want to be an inconvenience, but he insisted and said he'd serve us himself. So, we had an entire rooftop restaurant to ourselves! It was so romantic and we had such a great view. We'd also bundled up (I had on 5 layers, including a North Face fleece!) because we had already guessed it would be cold on the rooftop. The food was amazing (we both had risotto, but McGee had his with seafood and I had mine with steak). 

McGee looking at our amazing view of the harbor

Here's our view while the sun was still up! The picture doesn't do it justice. 

All in all, it was an AMAZING trip!!  I really love Maine. If it weren't for that pesky winter season, I'd really love to live there. 

I can't wait for the weekend!

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend, and my work makes us take a vacation day on the Friday before too, so we get a 4-day weekend. McGee decided to take a 4-day weekend too, so we're going on a lovely roadtrip this weekend up to Maine! Tomorrow night we're going to drop-off Guinness at McGee's folks' house (Guinness looooves it there), and then early on Friday morning we'll hit the road! We're driving up to Portland on Friday, and we have a brewery tour scheduled at Allagash Brewing. I don't know how many of you have tried Allagash beer, but Allagash White is one of my very favorite beers. It's sooooo very good. And after the tour is over, we're meeting up with McGee's old roommate and her fiance, and we'll be staying with them that night at their house in Portland.

On Saturday we'll be driving from Portland up to Boothbay Harbor, which is where we stayed when we drove to Maine in September. And we loved the Bed and Breakfast we stayed at in Boothbay Harbor, so we'll be staying at the same place again. We're so excited for a nice relaxing weekend!!

Our B&B! We love it there. 

I think most of you know the un-fun stuff going on with my work, but in case you don't: They want me to start traveling a lot again. I was in Frederick last week to get some practice doing labwork again (it's literally been 2 years since I've been in a lab...), and I'm relieved to find out that I still have some lab skills and I still like doing labwork. However, I am NOT excited to start traveling 2-3 weeks out of every month... That is definitely not the kind of life I want (I like my life way too much right now to want to be away from it that often!), and I also know that these work trips are not good for my health (the stress level is very intense, and the hours required area also very intense). So, I think I'm going to have to start job hunting pretty hard... I'm not looking forward to job hunting, and I'll be sad that I won't get to work from home anymore... But I think it has to be done. 

Besides work, everything is going really well! Guinness is doing great, McGee is doing great, and it is definitely Spring here in Philly! I'm trying to focus on all of the great stuff going on, and not think too much about the sucky work stuff going on. I hope you're all doing really well!!

Vegetables galore!

McGee and I have actually been eating pretty healthily lately! Well, until tonight when we had Dominos... whoops. BUT, prior to tonight, we've been doing pretty good! We went to an organic market over the weekend, because I'd purchased a $15 Groupon that entitled us to $30 worth of groceries there! So we purchased a TON of vegetables and some fruits. We bought some heirloom tomatoes which I THOROUGHLY enjoyed!! They were such beautiful colors, and so very tasty. We also bought some kale, and they had multiple varieties of kale, so we went for the weirdest-looking kind (we assumed that meant it was the healthiest). I can't remember what it was called, but wow was it strange-looking. We also bought a beet, because I do not enjoy beets but I've heard they're SUPER healthy for you, so I thought it would maybe work well with my juicer and I wouldn't taste it if I combined it with other stuff! So, a few days later, McGee and I fired up my juicer and put in the WHOLE beet, and quite a bit of kale, and a ton of carrots, and a few apples. It looked pretty disgusting, but it was actually quite delicious!! It didn't taste healthy at all. McGee and I both had a pretty large glass of the juice, and felt quite healthy afterwards!

Now, I don't know how many of you have had beet juice, or have eaten a large quantity of beets... But let's just say that they can have some after-effects that can be quite scary if you don't remember that you had beets. Just think about the intense red color of beets... and... yeah. I thought I was dying for a quick second, until I remembered the beet juice. 

Away from that topic as quickly as possible:  We had also purchased some rainbow chard from that organic market, because for some reason I've always really wanted to try chard. I sauteed it up last night with some olive oil and garlic and a little splash of balsamic vinegar at the end (I read that you should do that with chard... I don't know why), and it was DELICIOUS! It looked kinda weird after it was cooked, and it really reduced down to nothing, but it was quite tasty! We had a big bunch of the fresh rainbow chard, and by the time it was done cooking it was really just a few bites for each of us. We will definitely buy chard again though! And I loved all of the colors in the rainbow chard. 

Oh, and we also bought a big ol' pineapple, and McGee grilled some of it for me on our super awesome grill, because I loooooove grilled pineapple! I also love grilled peaches and plums.... so we'll have to work on making that happen this summer sometime.

The Pros and Cons of Living in a House

So, I feel that this weekend we fully enjoyed the benefits of living in a house. On Friday evening, we were able to have some of Kevin's friends over, and we all enjoyed playing in the yard with Guinness, and we enjoyed hanging out by the BBQ drinking some beers... And we didn't have to worry about talking too loudly, because we don't share walls with neighbors anymore...  It was pretty great. The BBQ turned out pretty fun, and the burgers and hot dogs were sooooo tasty. The pasta salad turned out great too, and the dessert was pretty good. I made something called "The Next Best Thing to Robert Redford", and I thought the name was hilarious, and I also thought it sounded really easy, and it was something I could make-ahead and keep in the fridge until we were ready for it. I liked it, but it was nothing amazing... I don't think I'll add it to my "Recipes I LOVE" board on Pinterest.  Oh, and McGee's friend's girlfriend was over, and she doesn't enjoy drinking beer, so I found an easy cocktail called a "Dirty Shirley" that we both enjoyed (it's really just a Shirley Temple with some vodka in it).  I meant to take lots of pictures of the BBQ fun, but I was having too much fun and forgot... Whoops!

Today, we have done a LOT of yardwork, because that was getting pretty necessary... Our lawn was getting out of control, and we had tons of leaves everywhere that were starting to get gross and decompose from all of the rain we've had. McGee did the mowing, and we both did a lot of gathering leaves and battling ivy. Remind me to NEVER plant ivy whenever I own a house... The ivy was quite obnoxious, and was growing everywhere. I did get some pictures of our yard! McGee was oh-so-happy that I was taking his picture while he was trying to work...

McGee is standing in the driveway we share with our neighbor (so that's our neighbor's house that you can see). 

You can see our fenced yard in the back... Along with the busted fence (the first tree guys did that... Luckily Guinness doesn't try to escape or anything). We park on the paved area between the house and the fenced yard.

I think he was trying to ignore me... 

Here are McGee's gnomes that our on our patio... We definitely need some Chargers representation. 

 Here is a gross mushroom that McGee noticed when he was mowing the lawn (at the bottom of the tree). It is so huge and disgusting. It looks like a creature. I think we just leave it alone though, right? And halfway up the tree you can see more mushrooms. 

Here's a close-up of the weird/gross mushroom.

Here are the other mushrooms growing towards the middle of the tree trunk.

Here's the side of our yard, after we'd spent a long time battling ivy and picking up decomposing leaves. It looks so much better than it did when we started!

 And here's another angle! You can see our patio area. I think I want to get some colorful potted plants for the patio. 

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!!