Milestones

Lots of landmarks this week! First, a couple of days ago (not sure exactly what day to be honest) marked my second anniversary of blogging. Thanks to all of you crazy people who keep coming here to read this insanity. Second, yesterday was our fifth wedding anniversary. It makes me feel old. Yesterday we had exactly the kind of weather I was afraid of for our wedding: cold, windy, generally miserable for Florida in March. Alfred and I went out to dinner. Pizza and beer, nothing fancy, but it was somewhere I had been wanting to go and it was really good so that's all that matters. Third, today is Ella's seventh birthday! Talk about feeling old! We sent her a couple of sundresses for her gift. She's definitely old enough now to have her own opinions on clothing and stuff, so I hope she likes them. Happy birthday Ella!

We've been house/dog sitting for Max and Robyn the past couple of days. They're in Milan for about 5 days, Max went with a friend of theirs for work and invited Robyn to come. Lucky stiffs. Really, we're just keeping Ellery company while he takes care of everything. Although I have walked the dog a couple times, so I've been mildly useful. It's a whole different traffic situation going to work from here, but at least I had to go to work really early yesterday (yeah, that's really a great thing) so I beat most of the traffic. I get to go in today too, but the weekend should be fine traffic wise too. Oh, and speaking of traffic, I thought of something yesterday that I definitely do not miss about our old house: all the motorcycle traffic from Bike Week! They're loud and go too slow and band together so you can't pass them. But I don't have to deal with them this year!

long time, no blog

I know that people aren't checking this as often, most likely because I'm not writing as much. Sorry, it's just tough to find the time right now. Mainly because we still have the internet card that we used on our trip, which Alfred takes to work every day, so I don't have internet access when I get home from work, which is when I generally used to at least start writing my posts. It just seems harder to write now, too. Ah well. Excuses, excuses. Anyway! On with the news of the week!

Celebrations: it was a big week for events. Katie and Ingo kicked it off last Saturday with their wedding, then Katie continued the fun with her birthday on Tuesday. Tony and Cathy were also celebrating their anniversary on Tuesday. Wednesday was both Egee and Max's birthday, which we were able to celebrate with him. Then yesterday we went to Mercedes' birthday party; her birthday is this coming Tuesday. Lots going on.

Work: we're having a Halloween festival, so the other girl I work with has been stressing herself out over that for the past couple of weeks. She's the type to plan things out way in advance and then worry about it for as long as possible. Pretty much the opposite of me in that way. But there's a scarecrow riding a bone motorcycle on display out front now, so that's neat. We have rats living in our ceiling, we put out some poison, and I found a dead rat in our break room on Friday. There's lots of construction going on, so we have lots of shirtless men roaming around, none of whom are worth looking at shirtless. It's a shame.

Weather: suddenly, it's fall. Today's high is only in the 60s, although it's supposed to be back in the 80s later this week. It's a nice change. It makes me want to bake some brownies or something.

I don't think our break in guy was ever arrested. There was an article about the guys who beat him up being arrested, so I have his name, but google doesn't tell me anything about him being arrested.

four years ago today...

... we got married! Happy anniversary to us!

I'm totally cheating and writing this ahead of time, because by the time this posts I'll be at work already. Today we have 2 new programs running at the new museum, so it's going to be another long day. I was at work until 7 on Wednesday, and had to be back at 7 this morning. I'll probably be there until about 6 today. Awesome! But Alfred bought us some mussels to make a special anniversary dinner, so we'll at least have a good meal tonight. And hopefully go to sleep by about 9:00!

happy birthday, dad!

Yup, it's Big Guy's birthday today. I called him this afternoon and spent 10 minutes hearing about how one of the dogs bit the other, and so he was trying to take a picture for me so I could see what he (the dog) looked like. Apparently he looked like Rocky (as in Balboa). We also discussed politics, which is always interesting. We don't tend to agree on politics, my dad and I. But that's ok. He doesn't read this, I don't think, but happy birthday anyway, just in case.

I also forgot to mention that yesterday was both Lindsay's and Allison's anniversary. They got married the exact same day, just a few miles apart, 3 years ago. I don't have any pictures of them to post. Sorry.

We just got back from dinner, I joined Alfred house sitting tonight so he took me out to eat. We went to a Cuban place, and it was pretty fantastic. I learned that I love fried plantains with a passion that burns from the bottom of my heart. We got a bit of a late start because Alfred's car battery died, so I had to go pick him up at work and hold a flashlight (tough work) while he took out the battery. Stupid car. We're trying to figure out a plan now to get him back to his car tomorrow. I think he thinks I'm not listening and is getting annoyed. Sorry honey. Ok we have to go pick up a car from his parents. Peace out, girl scout.

belated anniversary

Tony and Cathy's anniversary was last week, the 13th, and I realized that I forgot to blog about it. Looking at the pictures made me want to post some, although I decided to stick with normal ones since we're so young looking, instead of going for the funny ones. We took a road trip out to MN for the wedding, we were so young.

Aw, aren't they cute. I guess that's why they made such cute kids. I don't really remember the cake, but I bet it was good.

Until our own wedding, this was the only picture we had of us together in nice clothes and posing nicely. We used this picture for our wedding announcement in the paper, Robyn gave away frames with this picture in it for rehearsal dinner favors... I feel like we used it more, but I can't remember.

The best part of of this one is Katie. She was only 12. I was 20. One of Tony's relatives on his mom's side thought Katie was me. It was a little embarrassing.

Ok, I know I said no funny pictures, but how could I resist this one?

Alfred's birthday celebration weekend

I love getting all these comments! I feel so popular. :) Yes, the tiramisu was delicious. I mean like super delicious. And there wasn't even any chocolate in it. So you know it must have been good.

We had a good weekend, Saturday was fun with Alfred's birthday party. We had an awesome meal at his parents' house: ceviche with red snapper and scallops, caesar salad with steak and shrimp, and of course the tiramisu. It was great. We ate at about 3:00 and didn't even need dinner, we were so stuffed. We all got to dress up like Superman, and Robyn bought these little potato guns that you stabbed into a potato then shot the little potato nugget out. They were really fun, we all had little starchy spots on our clothes from shooting each other. And there were about 10 pounds of potato bits on the porch afterwards.

Sunday we went over to his parents' house again to watch the Bills/Jaguars game. That game is always fun, because of course I root for the Bills while everyone else is rooting for the Jaguars. It's even better when Buffalo wins, like they did yesterday! So I have bragging rights for another year. Not that I really follow football all that much anymore, but it's still fun. Plus I got pizza and wings, and we finished the tiramisu.

The other thing that happened this weekend is that gas went up. Stupid Ike. It went up from 25 to more than 60 cents a gallon at different stations. Luckily I had heard that it was supposed to go way up and got it on Saturday morning, by Saturday evening it had already gone up and some places had actually run out. So that sucks.

One last thing: happy first anniversary to Rosemary and Greg!

more ghosty goodness

Today's my parents' anniversary. Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! 29 years, yo. Impressive.

I just watched another episode of Ghost Hunters while I exercised, it freaked me out a little. It was in a house, which is always a little creepy anyway, and Alfred's not home yet. So I'm watching The Soup to un-freak myself. Luckily I have never thought or felt like our house is haunted in the slightest. Billy's house makes me feel creepy sometimes, but not ours. So that's good. I was reading a book about ghosts in St. Augustine once when we were living in the apartment there, and had to stop when I got to the chapter about mean ghosts. It scared the crap out of me, although really I never thought that house was haunted either. What's with all these ghost posts lately?

So we had a good weekend, it was nice and relaxing. I actually picked up the branches that were knocked down by Fay already, generally we leave the branches around for at least a month before we get around to it. Our neighbors' branches were already picked up, of course, but there were some clumps of Spanish moss still on the ground. And the one-legged man that lives next to him went out in his kayak on Saturday. That man is tough. He's in his 80s and has one leg. That's why we call him one-legged man. I saw him in Publix once, it was the coolest. I felt like I was seeing a celebrity.

One more big development of the weekend: Alfred installed my Sims game for me on the laptop. Yes, I'm a huge dork, but you know what, I don't care. I'm proud of my dorkdom. Plus you all know I'm a dork, so it's ok. It's good timing, since football season is starting. Alfred watches his game, I play mine. It works quite nicely. So I was (and still am, really) a happy camper. God, I'm a dork.

last night

We had our second anniversary dinner last night with Alfred's parents. They made a huge delicious Mexican feast, with a yummy chocolate cake that I was in charge of cutting. The pieces were a little uneven, I ended up with a slab that probably weighed about half a pound. Totally on accident, I swear. Our first anniversary dinner was at a restaurant that happened to have an all-you-can-eat crab leg special that night, so we both had that. Also delicious.

I called Ella last night to wish her a happy birthday, but she was far too busy opening presents to talk on the phone. So I talked to my brother for awhile, and my nephew (who's 3 1/2) for a few minutes. I asked Mason if he had a yummy dinner and he didn't answer right away, then I hear my brother in the background, "she can't see you nod your head buddy." He's too damn cute.

The most important development of last night was our gift from Max and Robyn - a Kitchen Aid standing mixer! I am so pumped. All I've wanted to do today is go home and bake some bread. I found a recipe for white wheat bread, which is Alfred's favorite, so I think I'm going to make that this weekend. I've also decided that I want to start my own business now, but that's a story for another day I think.

3 years

So that's our wedding. Unfortunately the minister is blocking Alfred, but I'm pretty sure he was there. This was probably taken pretty soon after the minister called me the wrong name. He called me Alfred's sister's name instead. No, it's not funny yet.

All day I've had a song from a Will and Grace episode in my head. It's Will's parents' anniversary, and Jack and Karen carry the anniversary cake up all these flights of stairs because Karen's afraid of elevators, and when they get to the restaurant they light the candles and Jack and Karen both sing "happy anniversary, happy anniversary, happy anniversary, haaaaaappy anniversary!" They're both clapping and jumping around and Jack's kind of whipping his head back and forth. I tried finding a clip of it on youtube but alas, youtube failed me. But it's funny, and every time I think of the word anniversary that little song comes to mind.

Anyway, today's our third anniversary. We're going out to dinner. Not sure where yet. And Alfred bought me flowers. They're on my desk right now. Aren't they pretty? I didn't buy him anything, but we spent about an hour in Costco yesterday, so I figure we're even.