Year End in Review Pt. 2

So for those of you that have known me for a while or know my family, you know that my Dad and I love Astronomy. My dad has his masters in Astrophysics and has been an Astronomer since long before I was born. He does voluntary research for Lowell Observatory in Arizona. So I was very excited when we talked about going to Kennedy Space Center over Christmas Break to avoid theme park lines! It had been years since I'd gone to Kennedy Space Center and since the space program is no longer active you can go and see all sorts of great things that you wouldn't have been able to before. We took the Bus tour out to the Launch pads and explored the rocket gardens as well as the Saturn IV rocket. I would highly recommend a trip to Kennedy Space Center. It was awesome! 

 The VAB , Vehicle Assembly Building.

 My leading Men! I love my husband and my Dad! We had such a great time and we actually ended up getting annual passes so we will get to go back again this fall when we go back to Florida! 

 This is the actual gangway that the astronauts walked across for the Apollo 11 mission. It was so neat that we got to walk across it. 

I can't imagine being hurled towards the earth like this. BLAH! Can we say motion sickness???? 

Sunset over the Rocket Garden. It was Beautiful. 

XOXO The Mrs.

Year End in Review Pt. 1

Part 1: The Homestead
Rating: A+

Nothing beats being home for the Holidays. Especially when home comes with a beach house, ocean views, and all you can eat food. I am a lucky native Floridian. Which means Winter to me is 76 degrees and sunny. A "White Christmas" is rollers coming in over the shore and white shells on the beach. South Florida was a great place to grow up and an even better place to go visit!

 These are my two beaches. The top 2 pictures are of Palm Beach. We got to go almost every morning we were home because my dad's (lucky guy) office is a block from this beach. The bottom two are of Lake Worth Pier/beach. I grew up dancing, twirling, and shell hunting on this beach. It was our first destination after the airport.

 My family has a beautiful 9ft artificial tree. Fun fact about me... I'm allergic to real Christmas trees. I get a fever, sore throat and cough. YAY. But I love our fake one. It has just enough room for our hundreds of lights and ornaments we cram onto it!

 It is a Christmas Eve tradition that my family has Spaghetti and Meatballs for dinner. My mom and I handmade the meatballs! YUM.

This was my favorite part of Christmas this year:

This to me is what a Christmas Gift should look like when being opened.

Let me tell you about my Mom. My Moms Christmas list is usually simple and to the point. She wants something useful, and small. She rarely asks for anything expensive or fancy.
So getting her a present worthy of her awesomeness is a challenge.
However, one of the items on her list this year was that she wanted a trip to NYC to eat pizza, pastrami and see the sights. She of course threw it on there as a joke, I took it as a challenge!
SO... I got uber creative and ran with it. Obviously the Mr. and I can't fund a trip for her to the Big Apple. So we had to think outside the box. What could I give her? Pastrami.
I made a card using my sweet In Design skills that I never get to use anymore that basically told her she was the lucky winner of a trip to NYC, all she had to do was take her credit card out and book now. Funny me, there was even fine print at the bottom saying the offer was only valid for parties of 4 or larger, meaning please take me with you.
The present part of it was that to wet her appetite for her trip I was giving her a complimentary Pastrami Sanwich. Curtesy of Carnegie Deli. I ordered 2 lbs of pastrami from the world famous Deli in NYC. I even tricker her into thinking that it was a cheesecake for my husband to explain the huge styrofoam box in her fridge the 3 days prior to Christmas!
Now for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I highly recommend eating at Carnegie Deli if you are ever in NYC. They have the best Pastrami and Corned Beef in town!
Needless to say her mouth was watering and she couldn't wait to heat it and eat it! It may not be an object that lasts forever, but a pictures worth a thousand words, and her expression was true Christmas Joy. YAY!

This was our Christmas Dinner. Lobster Fisherman's Pie. I based the recipe loosely on one of my favorite recipes from, where else, Disney. It was surprisingly easy to do and was absolutely delicious! I encourage everyone to give it a try cause it was simply amazing!

Lobster Fisherman's Pie
Serves 6-8

Ingredients:
Lobster Bisque*

Mashed potatoes:
4 large Idaho spuds, peeled and cubed
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 - 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream (depending on potato size)

Fiserman's Pie Filling:
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced carrot
about 2 3/4 tablespoons flour
1/2 lb lobster meat, cooked and chopped
1/4 teaspoon tarragon
Hot sauce - to taste, We probably did a few tablespoons of Franks
1 cup Sharp Irish Cheddar Cheese

Instructions:
Potatos:
1. place in large pot of boiling water, make sure you lightly salt the water. Cook over high heat for about 20 minutes, or until fork tender.
2. Drain and whip/mash potatoes until soft.
3. add butter, heavy whipping cream, and mix until it is all combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Lobster Fisherman's Pie:
1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Butter, and olive oil go in a large saute pan over medium. Saute onions, celery, and carrots (the trinity) until soft. about 10 minutes. Add flour and stir until combined, will be a little pasty. Don't over cook a t this stage or the flour will burn.
3. Stir in the lobster bisque, continue stirring and cooking until it comes to a boil. 8-10 minutes.
4. Add the cooked lobster, tarragon, hot pepper sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper, stir to combine.
5. Using a ladle for the neatest results, carefully pour mixture into small ramekins or baking dishes. Top with mashed potatoes, and cheddar cheese. We did and individual dish for each adult and then took the leftovers into a larger one for refills.
6. Place baking dish in preheated oven, we set all of ours on a tray with wax paper on it so if they bubbled over it wouldn't be messy in our oven. Cook for 25 minutes or until golden and bubbly on the top. Let sit 5-10 minutes after removing from oven.


*The original recipe makes it from scratch, I didn't have the time so we used Costco's pre-made Lobster Bisque Soup. It worked just fine.

Hope you guys enjoyed your Holidays! Stay tuned for the rest of My Year End in Review!

XOXO
The Mrs.

Adventures in SOVA

This Thanksgiving we had the opportunity to go to my Brother in-laws river house with the family. It was so much fun being all together and getting away from the hustle bustle of Northern VA. 

While we were down in Southern VA, or SOVA as I'm going to call it, we got to go on some awesome adventures! The day after Thanksgiving we took an awesome bike ride along a trail. We rode 4.5 miles to Petticoat Junction. Along the way we came across this awesomely scary bridge. It was like an amusement park bridge. It swayed back and forth with every step, there were boards missing, and it was super high! Ok, so maybe it was more of a horror film bridge... but it was still beautiful! 

Underneath the bridge the water was super shallow, but you could see the beautiful colors of all the different river rocks. It was gorgeous and the sun even came out for a half minute!

Our Second adventure was to a TOP SECRET location in SOVA. I am so excited to go back here this Summer! There was the most beautiful amazing swimming hole with an all natural "infinity pool" that overlooked a gorgeous valley. This infinity pool of nature was actually the top of an 80 ft waterfall that we hiked down. It poured into natural springs that were warm water! It was honestly one of the most beautiful untouched things I've ever seen!

View from the top at the "Infinity Pool"

   

I love adventures and I love family time! Hope everyone else's Thanksgiving was great as well!

XOXO

The Mrs.

Here's to you Gossip Girl.

Tonight is a bitter sweet night for me. This might seem absurdly silly to a lot of people, and that is ok. But I also know there are a few of you out there that will totally appreciate this because you have been there with me, through thick and thin, going through our own drama, angst and heartache. And of course those all night marathons.....

Tonight marks the end of an amazing production on television. Gossip Girl. The end to a great show on television, and almost symbolically it feels like, an end to a chapter in my life as well. (It's ok go ahead and laugh all you that don't understand. This post isn't for you. It's for me and my fellow Upper East Siders. )

When I was 20 GG premiered. But, being behind on the up and coming I didn't watch it when it first started. In fact, my good friend Gentri Lee introduced me to the show when it was on it's 6th episode. This episode definitely changed my life in more ways than one. It was an episode about a masquerade ball. Glitzy and glamourous, with beautiful people with exquisite settings and everything they wanted at their fingertips.  (As a side note this episode was the inspiration for my most successful event in my college career. My own masked ball at BYU-Idaho. That holds the school record for the most well attended dance ever... toot toot, thats my own horn.) 

I quickly became entranced by the crazy drama of the show and the amazing actors, the love stories of course, and the fashion. OH THE FASHION! I'd never seen such stylish things. It put everything else I'd ever seen to shame. I immediately had to go out and buy 30 headbands just so I could do my hair like Blair Waldorf's.  Without Gossip Girl I'd have never been introduced to Henri Bendel. I wouldn't have fallen in love with lace and brocade and high waisted skirts and ruffles. This show is single handedly responsible for every single drop of my fashion sense.  

Some of you might be wondering where I'm going with this, I know this is just a TV show to so many people, but for me it was an over exaggerated step by step guide to my life from 20-25.  It really went through everything that I was going through and experiencing, definitely a lot more dramatic, but yet still so relatable, and it helped me feel like that no matter the drama I was experiencing with friends or loved ones that at least it wasn't as crazy as what happened on Gossip Girl last night! 

When I had heartache, Chuck and Blair were there to give me hope of that great passionate love over coming everything. When I was the victim of pointless roommate drama, or of others spreading awful rumors about me, I was able to deal with it the same way S and B did. 

I am grateful for the inspiration, creativity, and confidence that this show brought to me in my early twenties. I'm grateful for the friendships it brought me and I am so grateful for the entertainment and excitement it brought to me every Monday night. 

So here's to you Gossip Girl. We've had a great time. And now I'm ready to grow up and move on, so let's make the next chapter even better.

I am dedicating this post to those girls of apartment  5 1 2: Angela, Allie, Beth, 

and to Brianna, my very own S. 

XOXO

The Mrs. 

The best dip ever...

Cranberry Jalapeno Dip.

In a nutshell this is divine. It's not super spicy so don't let that jalapeno scare you away. The ingredients all meld together perfectly and create one of the most scrumptious holiday treats I have yet to discover!

Here's how you do it!

What you will need:

1 12 oz package fresh cranberries

1/4 C green onion, chopped

1/4 C cilantro, chopped

1 small jalapeno pepper

1 1/4 C sugar

1/4 t cumin

2 T lemon juice

dash salt

2 8oz packages cream cheese

What you do:

Combine everything except the cream cheese and let it sit in the refrigerate for 4 hours. I know this is a long time. But it's worth the wait! Promise. You have to let the flavors meld.

Once you are approaching your 4 hour mark, take the cream cheese out and let it soften a little, spread it out over your serving platter and then spoon the mixture  on top and enjoy with your favorite crackers. I used Wheat Thins.

XOXO

The Mrs.

Gettysburg

Time has once again been flying by. I can't believe we are already through the month of October. My parents came to visit and to get a little taste of fall weather! We decided to take them up to Gettysburg, PA. It was beautiful! The leaves were amazing and the weather while overcast wasn't too cold. It was so amazing to be somewhere that something so meaningful had happened. Hard to believe it has been almost 150 years since the battle at Gettysburg. It was really cool to be there. 

 I would NOT want one of those cannons pointed at me! 

 The landscape was absolutely beautiful! 

 Up on Little Round Top. It had an amazing view of the battlefield.

We explored the battlefield via Segway! 

 We had Lunch at the Dobbin House Tavern. It was really old and very cool! It was built in the 1700's. Their apple cider and French Onion soup was to die for! 

 Downtown Gettysburg was so beautiful! 

On the way out of town we stopped at this place called Ma's General Store. It was full of Junk. But it was really cute junk! They had tons of little mini fountain coke 50's diner style kitchens set up. It was so cool! They also had this little shed that I thought was adorable. 

I highly recommend visiting Gettysburg! It was an amazing town and the views were beautiful. Such a fun trip and even better that I got to share it with my parents!

XOXO

The Mrs. 

Blogging Fail.

Guys. If anyone is still out there, I'm sorry. I am such a failure at blogging! What happened? I was doing so good. And then Summer came, and now Fall is here and I feel busier than ever. Between Primary and Work the last thing I want to do when I get home is be creative and cute. Let's be real I want my yoga pants and the remote. BUT, I am going to attempt to get in the habit of blogging again. Partially because I miss it, and partially because I think it will help me de-stress from my work day. Work by the way is SO stressful. Think twice before you decide to become a surgical scheduler. It is NOT for the feint of heart.

Anyway. I'm going to try and do a highlight real of the last few months for anyone that hasn't given up on my blog. So mom, here ya go!

 We finally took a beach trip at the end of Summer to Assateague Island. Beautiful, but cold and rainy weather. Oh well better luck next year... We still had a good time! 

I became an aunt for the first time in my family, and for the fifteenth time overall. He is perfect and adorable and I think he might be the love of my life. I LOVE HIM!

We went to Disney!

 My job while being extremely stressful occasionally has it's perks. We had an Education Day about a month ago. Let's just say I had an awesome time and I may or may not have gotten to touch a real human spinal cord and assist on some cadaver surgeries. Bomb DOT Com.

John and I took a trip to Philadelphia with our friends the Nokes. It was a beautiful city and we are definitely going to have to go back because it was so amazing! 

I became an Aunt for the 16th time. Winter is right around the corner. It took me 4 hours to make a yarn wreath, and I can't eat enough zucchini now a days. I put it in everything. Yum.

XOXO

The Mrs. 

P.s. The shark week thing. I was so into it. And then our cable and internet went out for the rest of Shark week. Fail. Needless to say we kicked Comcast to the curb and are now basking in the hum of Fios.