A road trip

I'm not sure if you are aware, but I am moving to Canada. Though I never thought I would say those words, I am excited to see what Canada has to offer.

My mom likes to joke that she used to pray for me to find the right man to marry. Apparently the Lord answered her prayers entirely. She blames herself for not naming the location.

For Memorial Weekend, Rich and I had this great idea to pack a bunch of my stuff in my car and drive it up to his house. Nine and a half hours away. We figured if we could handle being in the car for that long together, we could handle anything that marriage throws our way.

See the smile? I believe this was hour two or three...

I am happy to report that we made it with no problems (beside the fact that we were stuck in a car for a million years. That gets old mighty quick). We sang songs, told stories, ate a lot of Muddy Buddies and Goldfish..and made it to his house a little after midnight.

In awesome news, we didn't even have trouble at the border. See, I am not supposed to look like I am moving to Canada. I managed to pack all my stuff in vacuum pack bags put in suitcases so you couldn't tell what I was bringing up. Magically, the border control guy didn't even get up as he was questioning us. Rich and I were both pleasantly surprised how easy it was to cross the border.

(Ask me about crossing back into the US. When the guard asked me where I was born, for some reason I said Miami, which is totally not true. He looked at my passport, looked at me like I was a crazy person and said "Your passport says Texas". I tried to explain while that was true, I grew up in Miami, blah blah blah...he just laughed at me and waved me through)

I drove back to DC on Monday and was making great time until hitting traffic about an hour and half outside the city. But I made it safe and sound and now I am in the process of selling my furniture and kitchen stuff and packing the rest of my stuff. 

And I leave for Miami on June 21st.

Tidbits

One of my friends is a fellow blogger. When she has all sorts of random things to put into a post, she calls it tidbits, things that don't really need a whole post, but still important to note. I have decided to adopt this idea.
Here is my first tidbits post

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I like to keep my readers informed of my countdowns. This is what I am looking at:

Days until I see Richard again: 2

Days with students: 27 (although technically, I only have 19 teaching days left)

Days until I leave for Florida: 30

Days until the wedding: 66

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Kate and I ran the Warrior Dash this past weekend. 

Besides scraped knees and sore arms, we managed to escape unscathed. 

We completed the course (a 5k with 10 obstacles) in 1 hour and 15 minutes, which we were pleased with. There were some people there who were doing the course more than once...kudos for them!

Feeling good!

 Overall, it was a great experience, and so fun to do it with Kate.

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I get to see my love this weekend. We are packing a bunch of my stuff and heading up to Canada. Nine and a half hours in the car together.
If we can get through this, we can get through anything!

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There are many women in my life who are birthing babies. In the last month, six new babies have entered my world. I can name seven more that will be born within the coming months.
I love babies!

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Yum!

These are called Brown Butter Double Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies. Yes I made them. And yes, they were goooooodddd!

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30 Before Thirty: Will I finish the list?

I have been seriously slacking on this list. 

I will be honest with you: secretly #32 on this list was get married (but who dares write that on a public goal list?). #31 was to kiss a Canadian (yes, Richard added that one). With 31 and 32 taken care of, I was feeling pretty good about myself. 

And then I remembered why I put this list together. I wanted to improve myself, in all of aspects of my life. So, I am starting to pick things up again. I have six months before I turn thirty (did I really just type that?), and I have a lot of work to do! 

Here is an update:

1. Buy a car on my own

2. Reach my goal weight

(slowly, so slowly, making progress)

3. Go to Greece

(Probably not going to happen, as I am honeymooning in New Brunswick and moving to Ontario)

4. Learn a new language

(Maybe I can pick up learning French again)

5. Design a quilt with all my college t-shirts

6. Go on a blind date

7. Learn how to make gnocchi

8. Attend a St. Patrick's Day parade

9. Survive a zip line through the forest

10. Have some of my writing published

(Does my blog count?? What if I publish my blog into a book?)

11. Learn how to play guitar

(I can tell you this will not happen, as I just sold my guitar)

12. Take a cooking class

13. Attend a live session at the Salt Lake Temple

(I highly doubt this will happen)

14. Make homemade sushi 

(Have you seen this little gadget?? My cousin has it and he loves it!)

15. Go to Chicago and Boston

(Quick trip? Anyone??)

16. Attend a live broadcast of a talk show

17. Stand in the middle of The Swamp and take it all in

(Happening in July!)

18. Go to Vizcaya

(Happening in July!) 

19. Own my own temple dress

Arriving in the mail in about a week!

 20. Have the perfect kiss

21. Spend a month in a European city, just living 

22. Attend a Jane Austen event 

23. Read more books for pleasure (this is a work in progress, but I am doing really well!!) 

24. Volunteer at Miriam's Kitchen 

25. Pay off my credit cards

26. Visit the Adriatic Sea

(see #3 for explanation)

27. Be a vegetarian for a month

(started today!!)

28. Learn how to box

(Maybe I can change this one to run a 5K. Which I will be doing next Saturday)

29. Learn how to do The Rueda 

30. Get Tim Tebow's autograph

(Can someone help me with this? Please?!?)

I have completed twelve on this list. I think I can complete at least six more.

Newlyweds: The Pandos!

Just got back from Phoenix.

May I tell you how much fun I had? 

And how absolutely exhausted I am...

But it was so great to see Brian and Meredith get sealed.

They are so cute!

They were married in this beautiful building

Mesa Arizona Temple

Their sealing was amazing. It was so wonderful to be able to share those special moments with them and with the rest of the families. 

Speaking of...

Check out this good looking group.

 

The Pandos.

Looking forward to seeing them (and more!) in July.

Official wedding countdown: 82 days

Missed it again

As in, I missed my blog's anniversary.

Four years. 

Where has the time gone??

As a brief overview, let's review the years:

According to my page counter, this is my most viewed blog entry. Probably because there is a song named By My Valentine by a band, Shenanigans.

This one was great because people were able to get tons of recipes and duplicate what I did for the shower

And who could forget this one, when I finally got a job?!?

Do you remember this Halloween? It was so fun to plan!

Good times. Good times...

Here's to another year!

Some Updates

Randomness:

1. Heading to Phoenix on Thursday to see this lovely couple get married

My cousin Brian and his bride Meredith

2. 50 days until school is out for the summer (well, 47, but I have to come in for the last few to report grades and to take down my classroom). 36 days if you don't count weekends!

3. Laura finally gave birth to Noah! He was actually due the 14th, but was born yesterday (4/29) around 1 pm. Welcome to the world Noah!!

4. I get married in 89 days. Sometimes it seems the days are flying by, sometimes they are crawling.

5. The Warrior Dash is in19 days! Here is the video I am using for inspiration

Inspiration -Powerful Beyond Measure - (User Gen.) - Click here for more home videos

Rose Cake: A story

My friend Kate just recently had a birthday. Her husband contacted a bunch of her friends and we put together a surprise party for her. I volunteered to be in charge of the dessert. 

I had been wanting to try a new way of decorating the cake by using the frosting to make huge roses all over the cake. I knew that the frosting had to be pretty stiff in order to make this work, but I also knew that I love my chocolate butter cream frosting. 

I tried to make the roses stick on the side, but my butter cream was melting too fast. Not a problem, I just did the roses on top (they did melt a little) and just did a textured frosting on the sides with embellishments on the bottom of the cake. Not too shabby, I thought to myself.

Because it was raining all day, in order to move the cake I enlisted the help of my roommate Melissa. I walked her to the car with an umbrella as she held the cake. We got to our destination and I opened the car door for her, opened the umbrella with keys in hand...

and managed to drop the keys on the  cake.

Oh, how my heart broke!

We went inside, I managed to take my keys off the cake. And smooth out the roses.

Kinda boring now, isn't it?

 But I did make these little guys. And that was fun. As was the party.

The end.

And 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATE!!