TGI"F"

Today is Josh's Friday! I love when he has 3 day weekends. It makes the long days during the week worth it :-) We have a lot to get done around the apartment so it may not be the most relaxing weekend. Our goals this weekend are to a) not spend much money...(going to Raleigh a couple weekends ago was MUCH more expensive than we thought!), b) organize! (this is my goal), and c) finally get the car re-inspected, get the title transferred to MD & get our MD license!

I'll be getting the car inspected in just a little bit so we can get everything else taken care of bright & early tomorrow morning then get the weekend started!

I'll be going through our stuff this weekend and making a trip to the Salvation Army early next week. We just have too much junk that is taking up the little closet space we have. We got rid of a lot of stuff last weekend but it seems as if it didn't clear up a bit of space :-/ If we only had 1 more closet...

Surprise Monday Off!

I took Josh to work yesterday so I could run some errands. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that the power was out and he didn't have to work! This gave us a chance to get a lot done.

We wanted to get the car inspected but that fell through. It has really been a pain to get this taken care of. We had the car inspected about a month ago but we had to get a few things on the car taken care of. The inspector told me we had 30 days to fix it & there would be no additional charge. We got them taken care of and he was almost impossible to get in touch with. Long story short...we have to pay to get the car inspected again. Even though it would be cheaper to go to the same guy, we've decided to go somewhere else. None of the places we went to yesterday could fit us in. We did find out that you only have to get your car inspected once up there though. It's crazy, in NC you have to get an annual inspection and you can pretty much drive up to an inspection station and have your car inspected. Up here you only have to get it done once and you need an appointment at most places unless you want to leave your car all day.

We did get a few other things done. We got a pantry so now I have a little bit more storage space in the kitchen. We really needed it! We got an organizer to go in the closet so hopefully we can get the closet organized soon. It's not a huge mess right now, just very cluttered. I wish we still had our camera so I could post some before/after pictures. I transplanted just about everything we had in our garden so it looks completely different. Hopefully it will grow much better now.

Yesterday was the coolest day we've had in a while. It was pretty much perfect weather! After dinner we sat on the balcony and enjoyed a glass of wine. It was so relaxing & peaceful. We haven't had a chance to do anything like that in a while. As far as I'm concerned...balcony+wine+great weather+best hubby ever=super happy me :-D.

Another Weekend Recap Already!

This past weekend my dad and sister came to visit & pick up Natalia. We had dinner at home on Friday night. I made a yummy lasagna. Natalia made sure we knew that she doesn't like "dizonja". We got up early Saturday to go to the Zoo. I went to the DC Zoo when I was in high school but it was cold, rainy & most of the animals were inside so it wasn't very enjoyable. We got to see a lot of animals Saturday but it was VERY hot! Luckily, a lot of the animals were inside. Nikki brought a camera so we were able to get a few pictures.

This is a monkey hanging out in a tree in the Amazon exhibit. This was probably my favorite part of the zoo! Everything was just out roaming. So cool! It reminded me of the rainforest in Australia too...minus the monkeys of course.

When we buy a house I want a pond...I want this to go in the pond...so pretty!

Timon!

Loved the pandas!

After the zoo we decided to just ride around DC a little bit. We originally planned to walk around to sight see but we were all hot & tired. We showed them the Washington Monument & a few other things.

After we came home & got cleaned up we went out for dinner & to show everybody around the inner harbor. I love that place! We saw TONS of crabs in the water. A school of jellyfish was expected to be coming in but we didn't see any of those. We had a lot of fun & it was really nice to get to spend time with my dad & sister. Obviously, it wasn't a very productive weekend so this should be a pretty busy week.

Weekend Recap

This has taken forever to get caught up with this! I've been SO busy this week. Josh and I took a trip to Raleigh this past weekend. We had a friend that was getting married in NC and we decided to make a trip out of it since Josh had Friday off. It was great to see some familiar faces and catch up. We had a cookout at a friend's house Friday night. It was a lot of fun and we got to see a lot of friends that we haven't seen since the wedding. Saturday morning we drove to Lewisville for our friend, Kim's wedding. This was our first wedding since ours. After planning for so long it was nice to just sit back and enjoy a wedding. We took lots of great pictures but somewhere between the wedding and getting back to our apartment we lost our camera. I'm really bummed because we had some great pictures on there. Luckily, I already took all our honeymoon pic off. Since I have no idea where my camera is, I borrowed some pics from the wedding from a friend's facebook account ;-)

Napkins & place cards from Kim & Tyler's wedding. I love this pic!

Josh and I with Kasi & Brittany during cocktail hour

I loved her dress!

I'm really excited for bride & groom & we can relate with them a lot. They are also moving away soon after their honeymoon. They will be moving to Memphis for a few years. They are also honeymooning at the same resort we went to for our honeymoon! I'm super jealous of that! I REALLY want to go back.

Saturday night we went out with some friends. It was a lot of fun but Sunday kind of sucked as a result. Sunday afternoon we had lunch with my family before venturing back up to MD. It took forever because traffic was pretty heavy. I was SO glad to be back home.

Unfortunately, I found out my best friend's dad passed away Monday. I can't imagine her pain and I wish we could be closer to her right now. Please keep her and her family in your thoughts & prayers.

This past week with my niece has been crazy. She's a hand full but I love her to death. The apartment is a mess, I haven't been able to spend a lot of time with Josh, I haven't had time to apply for jobs and I'm DEFINITELY sure I don't want kids for at least another 5 years...I'll really miss her next week though. She's entertaining & it's crazy how much you can learn from a 3 year old. She's so smart. My sister and dad are coming this evening to spend the weekend and she can't stop talking about it. We're planning on taking a trip to DC tomorrow. It should be really fun but its supposed to be really hot!

Annapolis!

Josh and I have at least 2 date nights a month. We like to explore new areas so we decided to travel about 40 minutes to our new capital for our first "real" date in MD. (We went to see Eclipse a few days before but that was really just for me. I love my hubby!) We went on the weekend of the 4th so of course it was really busy. It's a really cute port...very similar to Charleston. We went without a plan, we just kind of wondered around. I'm a big planner but it was actually really nice to not have an agenda. Unfortunately it was REALLY hot outside so we didn't stay as long as we would have liked. We walked around and looked at boats for a while and watched some of them come in. Here is one that Josh really liked. It's a little too close to the water for me! I wish we would have taken more pictures but of course I didn't really think about it until we were leaving.


There was some sort of dog show going on. We watched it for a little while but it was more of a kid thing...nothing too exciting. We found a really cool sports bar to eat at. The world cup was still going on so we stayed around and watched the game for a while. I had my first MD crab cake and it was delicious! They're definitely different than at home. They have a lot more crab meat than ones you would get in NC. Josh got fish & chips & that was really good too! We forgot where we parked so it took us forever to find the car. It was not fun looking for the car in the crazy heat but we finally found it. We ended up coming home & relaxing for most of the day.

U of M

This past Saturday we went to Ikea in College Park to pick up our dining table & coffee table. (I LOVE Ikea) We decided to take a look around Maryland's campus since we were already in the area. We are NOT fans but I like to see other college campuses. I LOVE NC State with all my heart but anyone who has been there can tell you we don't have the most beautiful campus. I like trees and grass...we don't really have a lot of that. Anyway, as much as I may dislike MD, I really liked their campus. Here are a few pics...

This one just made me laugh...it looks like a bad Ninja Turtles movie.

This might have been my favorite part of the campus. It was so pretty and peaceful.

I'm not a great photographer...I'm not sure if you can tell in this pic or not but this squirrel is black. I've never seen one so I was really excited. We watched it build a nest for a while. I'm easily amused :-)

Part of Byrd Stadium

This was a life size sun dial. I have no idea how to use them but I thought it was cool.

Bloggity Blog!

If you know me you know I'm horrible at keeping in touch. I thought this might be a good way to at least keep everybody posted on what is going on in our lives. Hopefully I'll actually keep up with it. This has been on my to do list since we moved to MD and I'm FINALLY getting around to it. There's obviously a lot of updating to do since we've already been here a month! I can't believe we've been here that long.

So...a little about MD. I love it! We considered several places before deciding where we wanted to go, some seriously and others not so seriously. I'm really glad we chose MD. I think it's the perfect place for us to start out but it's not where we want to settle down. It's definitely different from NC but it's nothing we can't adjust to. I didn't think they would be but people are actually really nice up here, that part isn't really any different from Raleigh. We live in a town called Elkridge. It's about 25 minutes from Baltimore. I love Baltimore but I'm really glad we don't live IN the city. I'm just not that much of a city girl, obviously :-) I love the area we're in. We're right on the border of Columbia which is a planned community. It has kind of a small town feel but anything you need is right down the street. Our balcony overlooks trees (which I LOVE, I'm so glad we don't have a view of the parking lot).

Of course there are some negatives. The biggest one...it is expensive up here! We've been working on getting the car inspected & getting our MD license. They are both double what you would pay in NC. Houses are super expensive. People can't drive. I know I'm not the best driver but people here seriously don't pay attention to what they're doing. I don't talk on the phone while driving anymore because people pull out in front of you on a daily basis. Those are really my only complaints so far. That and I think we have an ugly state flag...it looks like a flag you would see at Medieval times. On the bright side, the taxes are lower here. If you know my husband you know that's a big deal for him :-)

A little about us...Josh has been working since June 21 and he really likes his job so far. He's still in the process of getting his security clearance so he's kind of working on busy work until that's completed. His case recently got expedited so hopefully he will have his clearance faster than we thought. I am still a housewife for now. I always said I just wanted to be a housewife...it definitely has its advantages but it's not exactly what I want to do right now. The best thing about it...I love to cook and I actually have time to do it now. I used to have Hot Pockets for lunch & sometimes dinner when I was still in school & working. I just never felt like cooking when I got home. Now I get to cook whenever I want. The house is clean when Josh comes home so we can just spend time together. Of course there are negatives too. I'm not making any money. With a second income we could pay our debt off a lot faster. I don't meet people. I only know 2 people other than Josh up here. I see our neighbors in passing but that's about it. I'm not the most outgoing person so it's really hard for me to meet other people. When I get a job at least I'll have people at work to socialize with and it will be easier to meet people. I didn't mean for this post to become a novel so I'll stop here...I'll keep adding more :-)