Christmas dinner

What follows is an incoherent account of our Christmas dinner party:

This past weekend, I went to my parents' house to drop Lucy off (since we are going to New Orleans tomorrow) and to practice cooking a pork loin roast. It turned out pretty good at home, and I also spent the rest of the time Christmas baking and doing some last minute shopping with my mom.

When I got home Monday afternoon, we worked to get our house ready for the dinner on Tuesday. I went to HEB to find a pork loin roast, but they didn't have the kind that I had cooked in Corpus. I was really concerned. I ended up going to 3 different grocery stores. The HEB in Bryan had some organic pork loin roast but it was $7 a pound!!! I finally got two pork loin roasts at Albertson's but they didn't look quite the same as the one I had previously prepared....

We put the two leaves in the table and moved it into the living room (not in that order).

Our dinner was a fun time with friends. Including ourselves, we had 11 people around our table, with lots and lots of food and desserts. For dinner we had: pork loin; scalloped, cheesy potatoes (I used my food processor for the first time to slice all of the potatoes - it was great); salad; Andrea brought a side dish of delicious shrimp and vegetables; and Mariann brought a ton of leftover fajita fixings from work. AND believe it or not, people actually liked my pork loin. I think I was unduly nervous about it, because that afternoon, as I was preparing all the food, I actually got sick - it was weird.

Then we had a dessert table with a crock pot full of Keith's famous hot candy apple punch, lots of cookies, and some pumpkin spiced bread that I made in Corpus. We also had Bluebell peppermint icecream - yum. We played MadGab and Outburst before people left for the evening. Then, we spent an hour and half washing dishes and changing our makeshift dining room back into a living room. :)

We didn't really take any pictures - here's the only one with half of our guests:

Christmas time!

It feels like Christmas time! Students are taking finals and are winding down for the semester. It's glorious - except I'm not really supposed to be winding down. I should be working - but sometimes it's hard. When I don't specifically have something that needs to be done by a certain time, it is harder to motivate myself to do it. And when it seems like people are finishing for the semester, it makes me want to finish too. oh, well, I am trudging along with my data, although slowly - with many, many distractions...

Adrian and I are also having a Christmas dinner next week with some of our local amigos and amigas. I hope people have a pleasant time. I am a little nervous, because for this gathering, we are kind of mixing "groups" of friends together, and I hope that's okay. We just wanted to have all our friends who are still in town to come and I am a little lazy and don't really want to have multiple dinners (plus there's limited days when it could be done anyways). I am going home this weekend for a longer weekend and will have a trial run of Rosemary-Scented Pork Loin Stuffed with Roasted Garlic, Dried Apricots, and Cranberries and Port Wine Pan Sauce. I've never cooked a big, chunk of meat before, so it will be a good learning experience. :)

fun weekend

We had a fun weekend filled with Christmas parties. On Friday night, we went to Dr. Popp's house for his annual mineralogists' dinner, where he invites old and new mineralogy TAs and his undergrad technicians. It is always a pleasant, low-key evening with a lot of reminiscing of old geology days.

Then on Saturday night, we had the Christmas party for our Sunday school class. It was fun, with a lot of people, in one of the mentor couples' homes. It was such a beautiful home, out in the country - but not really far from anything - you can still see Kyle Field from the road out there. We had a white elephant ornament exchange that was kind of fun. hee hee, we didn't tell which ornament we brought, because the girl who got stuck with it was not too happy...

Today, in Sunday school class we had a pot-luck lunch to celebrate all the couples who were leaving our class, either due to moving locations completely or moving on to a new Sunday school class to reflect their new stage in life (like the first time parents class).

Then...I went to get my hair done, so that we could take our "engagement/bridal" portraits. But our photographer had to cancel due to rain...so we decide, we're going to try and take some ourselves anyways...Mariann and Shawn were kind enough to help us out (and they are engaged now!!!! so much happiness for those two! =) ). It started out all right - and then it poured on us - and we waited under the library underpass for a spell - and people stared at me oddly...sigh...we might reschedule for later this week for happier weather - because for some reason, I am now fixated on having some photos of the two of us looking nice and wedding-ish. I will post some of the pictures we took here once we look at them. (another problem with us trying to take our own photos is that we have no idea how to pose...).

another switchover

okay, I think I'm going to switch my blog back over to blogspot from my xanga site.

ho hum

I haven't accomplished much at all tonight. Just waiting for Adrian to come back from his 3 hour meeting. I meant to go to the lab and get something done, but I couldn't bring myself to venture out. oh, well, I will be extra-productive tomorrow....

Day 2: July 30, 2006

Pretty much a perfect day. We woke up and watched a bit of San Diego news (no Ron Burgundy, though), and then ate breakfast up on the sun deck. Then, we headed out to Torrey Pines State Reserve and Beach. We drove up to the visitor’s center and looked out at the ocean vistas (Amy would be proud). Then we decided to find a grocery store to stock up on food. We found a Trader Joe’s and bought some two dollar wine and this weird blood red orange soda and a box of clementines. Then we went next door to Ralph’s to get other food that was a little cheaper and more available than at TJ’s. We were both wearing maroon A&M shirts and were recognized by a Texan who was a t-sip.

We went back to Torrey Pines and headed to the beach. It was so fun. The waves are so big – a lot bigger than Galveston. I had to get used to that, but it was great fun. I swallowed some sea water. I started wondering how anyone who goes to UCSD or lives in the area gets any work done. I would just want to hang out on the beach and village all day instead…

After we had our fill of the beach, we hiked a bit on a trail for some more picture taking opportunities (although, Adrian doesn’t need much to encourage him to take pictures). It was nice because the clouds had begun to dissipate and the blue skies were out. It is so beautiful.

After Torrey Pines, we headed back to our cute inn and talked and relaxed a bit. Then, we walked around the village some more on Prospect Street. I had read in a guidebook that Prospect Street is like the Rodeo Drive of La Jolla and boy were they right! Just on that one street we saw: a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, a Bentley, a Porsche-Carrera GT, a pink Cadillac, and several Land Rovers (also, throughout our day, we must have seen about 5 Priuses). It was pretty crazy.

After car goggling, we sat on some rocks at the cove and watched the sun set. Once the sun hit the horizon, it really started zooming down (or we started zooming up?). Also, I really think I saw a puff of smoke come up into the air just as the sun completely fell into the ocean.

At around 8:30, we heated up our leftovers from Jose’s (our room has a fridge and there’s a microwave on the premises) for dinner and ate on the sun deck and talked for awhile. Now, we are relaxing and trying our two dollar wine. Sadly, it turns out that we don’t like it too much…

Day 1: July 29, 2006

Mark Ricci took Adrian and I to IAH in the morning, so that we could catch our flight to San Diego. It was so exciting to me to be going to the airport together, where we would BOTH get on the plane together. It seems like all our airport ventures in the past has left one of us behind, while the other flew away. I would always be so sad when that happened, but now it won’t happen again since we’re MARRIED now!


The plane rides were pretty uneventful. I have decided that I like flying with my husband though, because I get to lie in his lap and it’s a very comfortable sleeping position for me. :)

When we got to San Diego, we picked up our luggage and rode the shuttle van to pick up our rental car, which ended up being a Corolla. Then we drove to our hotel for the first 2 nights of our trip – The La Jolla Inn in the La Jolla village. It is a really cute little inn. They have a nice, little breakfast that they will either deliver to your room or up on the sun deck that overlooks the water and the village streets. They also have lemonade and cookies from 2-7 pm. Another great thing about the inn is that it includes parking in a parking garage a block away.


We spent our first night in La Jolla in the village, where we walked to the cove and park. We saw a wedding going on in the park. The cove is so pretty and the water is so blue. After walking along the water, we walked around the village area and looked at all of the shops and cafes that line the streets. We ended up eating dinner at Jose’s Courtroom, a Mexican food restaurant.



We came back to our room pretty tired from the day’s traveling and excited about tomorrow. :)

our honeymoon :)

I have been keeping a journal of each day of our honeymoon to San Diego and I thought I would post them here. :)

wedding reflections...

we're married! overall, i think the wedding went pretty well. i hope people weren't too bored or anything. i suppose there are some things i would change like: perhaps the music should have been louder (no one danced :( ); i felt we were kinda disorganized about some things, but i think that's okay. we got way too much food, but on the plus side i got to use my new food sealer to vacuum seal tons of meat. not very many people signed our picture mat, b/c it was hidden under a football. :( oh, hee hee, also, our kiss was really short b/c i pulled away since i felt so weird about everyone staring at us...

i am glad that we hadn't been planning our wedding for a really long time, b/c it goes by so fast and it would be more disppointing to have things not turn out as expected. but i think it was a good wedding. i think the kids had a lot of fun at it. adrian's nephews were busy trying to catch fish for most of it. :) i did feel like adrian and i for some reason weren't together for a lot of it. and i hope i talked to most of the people that were there...but i think that i am glad that it is over, i was kind of sad at first b/c there was a small feeling like that was the last time in my life to be lovely. but it is good to not have to worry about silly detail things and to just get on with our new life together. :)

less than a week...

so we get married in less than a week...is everything ready? no, of course not. there is slight freaking out going on...i feel like we have the major things figured out, but it is all those little details that are not really in place...ugh...i suppose a part of me wants everything to be perfect because it'll be my only wedding, but then again, i just don't have time due to ITS (which is really cool this session by the way - we are creating a proposal to do educational research based on the intervention we created last summer) and i think some of those details are silly (like wedding favors - do people really want these or care?)...also, i feel like i haven't been very bridely by undergoing beautifying treatments before the wedding, but then again i don't have time and i don't really want to spend the money...but on the plus side i've been riding my bike to and from ITS (sometimes our science team even meets on west campus for extra riding) and also home for lunch so that is about 40 minutes of riding a day in the heat, so perhaps that has helped with weight loss, although it isn't a consecutive 40 minutes...

Past four 4ths of July

Last night at the Bush Museum, Adrian and I recounted all of our 4ths together. Our first in 2003, we were in Shelter Cove, CA. We stood on the beach and watched the fireworks that people in boats shot off. In 2004, we were camping in Great Smoky Mountains NP (no fireworks there, but it was a nice 4th of July). In 2005, Adrian was in Wyoming or Boise (I can't remember which place), and Lucy and I watched the fireworks from the front porch of the old Foster house (kind of a pathetic 4th for me I suppose). This year in 2006, we rode our bikes to the Museum, listened to the symphony and watched the fireworks. It was fun. I particularly liked riding our bikes. We passed tons of cars in bumper to bumper traffic on our way back. I wonder what we'll do next year...

uhh...

someone left a plastic bag on my doorstep this afternoon. Its contents are: a burned copy of the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack, a sports bra, and a tiny t-shirt that says Windsor on the front. I am hoping that someone got the wrong house and it isn't some sort of weird voodoo thing...

an owl!

Adrian and I saw an owl this evening in the backyard!

sigh

Remember when I said I was done with my mini-mester course? Well, I'm really not. The graduate students have to complete 10 short papers on 10 different plants that were assigned to us by Friday. I am not done with those. :( I can't seem to find all of the information that they want included in these papers. I spent hours in the library and hours searching databases and google scholar. I am considering just turning in what I have...it is only worth 45 points and I'm sure I'll get at least some points with the info that I currently have. I just can't spend anymore time on this. I want to start working on things more interesting (and more neccessary) - like my thesis. :( I hate turning in incomplete, low-quality work, but this is getting quite old and discouraging...

pilates!

Today, Amy and I went to our first pilates class! We will be going every Tuesday and Thursday night in June to strengthen, tone, and relax (hurrah!). :)

One thing I learned: we are supposed to be constantly holding our stomachs in! I have been trying it tonight - it's kind of hard and uncomfortable so I'm not sure how long I'll last...

honest or just dumb?

I am done with my mini-mester course (which was actually a pretty good course - I learned a lot). However, we did have to buy $140 worth of books. Since this is actually the official first week of summer session I, there was a possiblity that I could return my books and get my money back. But I don't know, I felt a bit dishonest about it. So, now I'm stuck with these two huge reference books of the Aquatic and Wetland Plants of the Southeastern United States. The're actually pretty nice reference books - I'm just unclear as to when I'll need to use them...