Thanksgiving Masterpiece

This Thanksgiving Trent and I decided to stay in Arlington and have a big Thanksgiving feast with some our friends. We hosted dinner at my house and were excited to prepare the Turkey, Stuffing, and pie all on our own. I must say that we did a great job!!! Trent arrived on Thursday morning with monkey bread. We ate and then started to prepare the turkey. My favorite part was to lift up the skin and rub herbs on the meat. I was up to my elbows. While I was preparing the turkey, Trent prepared the Chestnut and Apple stuffing. It was superb. No really, it was sooooo good. Then we made a chocolate pecan pie, which was also very, very tasty.

Our friends showed up with yummy food and we all sat at the table and enjoyed fine food and great conversation. Later that night we played some games and watched Wall-e. It was a perfect Thanksgiving.

Our turkey and stuffing

The next day we went to Alexandria's tree lighting festival. By the time we had arrived the tree was already lit. We saw Santa, walked along the cobblestone streets, and drank peppermint hot chocolate. It was another perfect evening.

On Saturday we had tickets to Scrooge the Musical at the Little Theater of Alexandria. Before the show, we had dinner at the Trattoria de Franco, a little Italian restaurant that we pass by all the time. We kept telling ourselves that we would go there some day. Well that day was on Saturday. The restaurant was quaint. I sat next to an open fire all night long as we ate bread, pasta, and canolli. It was great food and a great atmosphere. After dinner, we watched the show. I enjoyed every minute of it!! It was a great way to ring in the Christmas season.

The little restaurant that we enjoyed!

It was a perfect Thanksgiving break. I was able to do a lot of online shopping, watch cheesy Christmas movies, making Christmas music playlists, and eat Thanksgiving leftovers for four days. Awww........... what a great time.

Flowers, Letters, Dancing, and Derek/Joni

Today I just felt like writing on my blog about everyday life. First of all, the flowers above were from Trent. The other day he showed up with flowers on my doorstep. What a great boyfriend!

Lately I have had the pleasure of receiving letters and gifts in the mail by my grandmother. My grandmother and I are a lot alike so it is fun to read what she has to say to me. The most recent letter was about trusting God and putting our lives into His hands. My favorite line is "I always think that if you have your lover and your family, what else do you need?" How funny is it that my grandmother used the word "lover." A few days ago, she sent me homemade suckers in the mail. She is so thoughtful.

Last night was my neighbors birthday party and ...... I danced. If you know me well enough then you know what that means. It had been a long time since I put it out there and danced my heart out. From the mouth of Trent: "I didn't know you liked it so much" and "You can just keep going, can't you?" Well, yes I like it that much and I can dance all night long. That is why I don't get started....because I just can't stop. It was so much fun. All night I kept thinking about dancing with Jen, Leah, and Jon at Leah and Jon's wedding. We danced to Thriller. I miss you guys.

A big CONGRATULATIONS to Derek and Joni who got engaged!!!!! Tonight we went out to celebrate at Morton's Steakhouse. The steak was fantastic and the company irreplaceable. Derek and Joni's story is wonderful. They were good friends for a long time and then one day decided to date and walla here they are. They have been such good friends to Trent and I. They will be very missed when they move back to Las Vegas.

This is a picture of Derek and Joni's first "real" date. I was so happy to have been there.

Halloween 2008

I already miss October. The crisp-not-cold weather, Harvest festivals, and Halloween events. This years festivities started out by Trent and I going on a Haunted Hayride and through a Haunted Barn at Cows-n-Corn. We actually found this terrific place about 50 minutes outside of D.C. It was a beautiful rural area. The haunted hayride was great. There was this little girl that would get scared of everything, especially when all the monsters started to climb up into the trailer. I must admit that I jumped a few times. The haunted barn was completed by a man with a chainsaw. We ended that night in a great, small town pizza parlor.

Halloween night was started off right by free burritos from Chipotle. It was a fantastic deal. If you showed up to Chipotle on Halloween wearing aluminum foil then you received a free burrito. We showed up with our Robin Hood inspired hats.

Then we went to a party thrown by my friend Mary. I went as a Goth School Girl. This was done in order for me to get over my fear of someday having a child dress goth. I am not sure why it bothers me so much. Okay..Okay..I know why it bothers me so much....

Trent and Derek dressed up as the old guys from the Muppet's Show. All night long they would say *funny* jokes about the party and how old they were. It was pretty amusing all night long.
And let me set the record straight. . . I, in no way, was responsible for Trent having a moustache.Our friends Lincoln and Ali showed up as John McCain and Sarah Palin. They were a big hit. Lincoln even sounded like McCain when he talked. Ali, of course, looked great doing her pageant walk.
The next day we and some of our great friends, Kaylyn, Ryan, Derek, Joni, and Joni's awesome friend from Vegas, , went to the Worlds' Championship Punkin Chunkin. We were explained the difference between punkins and pumkins - "Pumkins are for carving and punkins are for chunkin." Now for those of you that do not know what this is let me enlighten you to the sport of punkin chunkin. There are people out there that spend most of their leisure time thinking about and building catapults, canons, and other forms to throw punkins in the air. Now sometimes these do not work as they should. Thus, we had to form a 20 ft clearance just in case the punkin came towards the crowd. This happened a few times and I was scared for my life. I guess death by punkin would not be that bad.

There was also a lot of great people watching. Take this man for example. I loved his bull horn hat and American tie on the back of his head.
That night we were driving home and got a phone call from Derek saying that they had been stuck in a traffic jam for 30 minutes. When were almost near the traffic jam, Trent said "Let's take a differnt route." He typed into Bernard (my GPS) to take another route and we were off. It sent us on a great trip through the country side. At one point, we came to an old, metal, one-way bridge. Then as we were driving up a hill, we came upon an old couple petalling on a tandom bike. It was like we'd had gone to heaven.