Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone's Christmas was fantastic. Andy and I are enjoying a nice long weekend together -- very low-key. For Christmas Eve, I made crab cakes and then we went to a candlelight service and drove around looking at Christmas lights. We slept in a bit on Christmas morning before opening presents.

Here's what Andy got me for our new house:


In case you can't tell, it's a beautiful painting of the city docks in downtown Annapolis. Great present!

After presents I made eggs benedict, our Christmas morning tradition. They turned out so nice I had to take a picture. I know, I'm a dork!


Yum!

It was Andy's turn this holiday, and he cooked a Southern feast for our somewhat non-traditional Christmas dinner. We had so much turkey for Thanksgiving we just weren't quite ready to do that again.


See what I mean, this was our Thanksgiving dinner. For two people!

So for Christmas, Andy made pulled pork and we had beans and greens and cornbread to go with it. Topped it off with some peach pie!


Again, yum!

After dinner we headed to downtown D.C. for one last bit of Christmas festivity. We went to see the National Tree. Sorry, forgot my camera, but you can see pics here.

So that's about it for our Christmas holiday just the two of us. We enjoyed our first holiday in our new home together. While it was very nice, we do miss you all very much!

Miracle on 34th Street

That's right -- two blog posts in one day!

Last night Andy I met some friends to go see Miracle on 34th Street in Baltimore. No, not the movie, it's a street in Baltimore that goes all out for Christmas. They take their location on 34th Street seriously!

Apparently it's quite a Baltimore tradition to go check out these lights and then grab some dinner at Cafe Hon -- as in, "what can I get you, hon?"

Apparently Cafe Hon is quintessential Baltimore. It's definitely got a unique personality! I honestly didn't think much of Baltimore when I moved here. Thought it was an OK city. Very pretty in the Inner Harbor, but also very scary. After all, it's the city "Homicide: Life on the Street" was penned for. But the more I'm learning about the unique personality the city has, the more I'm warming up to it. It's no Atlanta, but it has its charm.

Anyway, here are a few of my favorite decorations from Miracle on 34th Street. You can check out the rest here.




Yes, a Christmas tree made out of old records.


And here's one made of hubcaps ... along with bicycle rim snowmen! Guy who lives here is a sculptor.


Another of his works of art - nothing says Christmas in Baltimore like crabs, Old Bay and beer!

Cookie Throwdown

Last weekend Andy and I hosted our first annual Holiday Cookie Throwdown. It wasn't really intended to be an annual event -- just our housewarming party -- but it went over so well we have to do it again next year!

We had about 25 or so people here and about 15-20 different kinds of cookies in the competition. Needless to say, Andy and I are STILL eating cookies! I made everyone take home goodie bags full of cookies and we still have a ton left.

Here's a shot of just what was left over after everyone left!





The winner made a chocolate chip espresso cookie that was phenomenal. I don't know if I've ever had a cookie that good. The espresso taste was faint so it wasn't overpowering and the cookie texture was amazing. So soft inside and a nice little bit of crunch on the top. Those went fast -- although Andy claimed the last one and has been holding on to it for a week now. If he doesn't eat it soon, I'm worried it will go missing. I'm just saying ...

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the party, but a friend did so I'll post those when I get them.

In the meantime, here's a few shots of our Christmas tree and first snowfall. It wasn't much, but it was still pretty :)

I'm back!

Yes, that's right after a VERY LONG break, I'm reactivating the blog! Sorry for the delay but there has been so much going on!

We bought our first home -- then just as I was ready to blog about the new house, the computer died! And not just a little bit, but compeletely. We had to buy a new one. Now, little by little, we've been putting the new house together. We still have a lot of painting to do, carpets to replace and some furniture to buy, but overall, it's coming together.

We're hosting a holiday housewarming party next Saturday so we're doing a lot of last-minute cleaning and unpacking and all that fun stuff to get it in shape for company. The theme of the party is a Cookie Throwdown. So there's been a lot of cookie trashtalking since I sent the invite out. Pretty funny actually since I had no idea a cookie could incite such emotion :)

Tis the season for holiday parties and we kicked it off last night with my company's party at the Camden Club at Camden Yards. If you're familiar with Camden Yards (where the Baltimore Orioles play), then it's that big warehouse you see behind center field at the park. It's where the offices are for people employed by the Orioles but it's also a popular spot for parties and such. They had some of the lights on at the park so the view was pretty cool. Andy especially liked it.

We're headed out to buy our Christmas tree in a bit but I wanted to sign on and officially announced that the blog is back up and running. Sorry for the long hiatus. I'll post a few pictures of the house now and a couple more once we get it decorated for Christmas!


Here's the front of the house. Isn't it cute? :)


One of Layla's new favorite things: people -- and squirrel -- watching through the front door.


Layla's other new favorite thing: Watching the geese and squirrels out back near the pond.


Check out all those geese!