Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

 One of these days I promise to try and start posting regularly again.  It's been a busy spring and beginning of summer for me and L.  Lots of stuff happening in these parts.  Since I was last posting on a frequent basis, I went to Miami for Nolly's bachelorette party (POST RING PASS!!!  Yes, we are awesome and we did a ring pass for her since all the attendees were Pi Phis),

L and I spent his birthday weekend in NYC (I'm horrible and didn't take any pics), Nolly and Flad got married in Houston,

my sister and brother-in-law came and visited us for a long weekend (there are no post-worthy pics), L and I went to Austin for the 4th of July (if I can muster it, I'll recap the travel misadventures in a post... it was unbelievably ridiculous... but of course I have zero pics from any of it - do we see a recurring theme here?), and we just got back from HSG's wedding in Mexico.

We're quite the globetrotters this year!

With the decision to stay here and take the new job in place, L and I both agreed in the end that a move is in order.  We've spent a lot of time trying to decide whether or not it would be better to continue renting or to buy... the idea of owning is both appealing and daunting.  Part of the agreement to stay included negotiating a dog clause.  We are now in agreement that we WILL be getting a dog soon, although probably not until after we move. Once that decision was made, we started pondering where exactly we might want to live.  The same weekend we had to decide whether to stay in VA or go back to Texas, we had breakfast on Sunday morning and run some errands.  On the way home, we randomly popped into a condo building we've seen many times while eating at a place that occupies space in the first floor of one of the buildings.  The building is new construction and we knew they were selling different floor plans, so we went in to get more information.  As it turned out, they had an open house going on that day so we were able to walk through the building and see all the different floor plans that were still available.  We immediately were drawn to three of them, but at the time, we still didn't know if we were going to stay in Virginia or move back to Texas.  Long story short, we did research on previous units sold in the building, went to some open houses for other properties, checked into some apartment buildings, and ultimately we decided we think we're ready to buy.  Then we had to figure out what we could afford to buy, so once we knew that, we decided which place we wanted and got the ball rolling.  We submitted our offer about two weeks ago and it was accepted (woo hoo!!!).  We close on September 14 and move the following day.

After living in our current house with its very small one bathroom and very small galley kitchen, I cannot say it enough how excited I am about our new place!  You better believe it has an open floor plan with a kitchen that's about twice the size of our current one and TWO full bathrooms (the master bathroom is big enough to have a small party in and we'll have our own sinks.  You have no idea how amazing this is since we can't both look in the mirror at the same time in our current place).  I'll post pictures at some point, but for the moment, I don't want to jinx anything.

Viva Las Vegas

Hey, you.  Yes, it's been like a month since I last checked in.  And the excuse is still the same - too many long days at work (think minimums of 10 hours) make it difficult to want to come home and stare at another computer screen.  Sometimes you need to just unplug and read or work out or just not be connected to the internet, you know??

Anyway.  I do have things to catch up on.  I'll start with our trip to Las Vegas back in March.  I wish I could express the sense of freedom and excitement I had when I fled my office on Tuesday afternoon!  Such giddiness and glee.  L and I headed out on a Wednesday morning and took our first Virgin flights.  We're usually pretty dedicated to flying American so L can keep his status, but we thought it would be fun to try Virgin and the price was right.  Check out the sweet ambient lighting:

Yes, that's black-ish purple and reddish-pink lighting.  All the planes are like that.

And the individual touch screens at each seat:

You use them to order food, create a playlist to listen to, buy movies or TV shows, or to watch TV.  I tried to go with the Funkin Margarita Mix, but sadly, they were out on that flight.  So instead, I opted for a split of Karma champagne.  Clearly Virgin America is marketing towards the 18-35 demographic and I bought right into what they were selling.  Honestly, the music thing was probably my favorite feature.  Pretty decent compilation of artists and it was fun to make my own little playlist to rock out to.

We had a layover in San Francisco and we grabbed a light snack at Cat Cora's restaurant, where I ordered my first of many Manhattans for the trip:

Our chicken sandwich and sweet potato fries were really good - I totally recommend it if you ever find yourself in need of something yummy and fresh and light in the SF airport:

After our snack, it was time to board our connecting flight.  This made us laugh:

Anyway, we got to Vegas and stayed at Aria (again), which was amazing (again).  We were meeting four other couples there, but we decided to have dinner on our own on our first night of vacation.  I picked Lavo as our dining destination.  The only down side is that by the time we got to the restaurant for our 8:30 p.m. reservations, it felt like 11:30 p.m. to us.  It didn't help that we'd gotten up at the same time we do for work every day in order to get to the airport on time.  So we were pretty sleepy.  But dinner was great - check out this horrible picture of my meal:

It really was delicious.  Our original plan was to meet up with the two other couples that were in Vegas at that point (the missing two couples arrived Thursday morning), but we were so sleepy and full when we finally finished dinner that we ended up just going back to our room and calling it a night. 

The next morning, we met one of the couples that arrived Thursday morning for breakfast.  The venue: Imperial Palace's Hash House a Go Go.  I'll be honest, I was insanely skeptical.  I mean, not to sound snobby (okay it totally sounds super snobby), but it's the freaking Imperial Palace.  Not exactly a place a want to spend a lot of time.  But L has told me about this place for years and it was one of THE things he wanted to do while we were there, so off we went to meet The Ps and Mr. P's boss for breakfast.  And I must say, I was delightfully surprised by my meal!  The food portions are far bigger than any one person ever needs on their own.  Mr. P's boss ordered some sort of breakfast pot pie and I swear to you, the pie crust looked like a sombrero turned upside down. Not even exaggerating.  I tried to get a picture, but it's really hard and awkward to ask your friend's big-wig attorney boss if you can photograph his meal when you just met a half hour earlier.  So it didn't happen.  But here's a picture of my delicious tangerine mimosa:

L and I split chicken and waffles.

Look closely - bacon is INSIDE THE WAFFLE.  Also, if you look in the upper right corner of that pic, you'll see some of the sombrero pot pie.

Meanwhile, Mrs. P ordered some kind of crazy bacon bloody mary and I think some kind of hash, but honestly I was so focused on L's and my chicken and waffle order that I can't remember what that is on her plate:

It definitely doesn't look like hash.  But whatever.  Mrs. P, the other three girls, and I spent that day at the spa in Aria and it was amazing.  I highly recommend their facilities.  Except for the part where the spa pool overlooks the stupid lounge/club pool.  Too much ridiculously loud music - not at all relaxing, but the heated outdoor pool was still quite nice. As were the lounge chairs by it.  Mrs. P and I both took brief naps out there in between hopping among the whirlpools, steam room, sauna, etc. 

TIME OUT: I have Gossip Girl on in the background while I write this.  I'm sorry, but WHAT IS GOING ON WITH DAN'S HAIR??  I mean, I get that the WB/now the CW requires approval before the stars of its shows cut their hair (we all remember the Felicity fiasco), but come on.  Dan's hair is horrible.  It's starting to look a bit like he's channeling the Upper East Side version of Kenny Powers.  And if you don't know who Kenny Powers is, you are missing out on something delightful in life.  Go rent Season 1.  Your boyfriend/husband will thank you.  And me for telling you.

Time in.  Anyway, the spa is awesome.  That was my only pool day and due to my phone not working and one of the girls I was with having a penchant for the "see and be seen" lifestyle (which, unbeknownst to me, took the other four girls to Liquid, aka, the club pool), I ended up only getting about 45 minutes of late afternoon sun.  But that was fine, as I got to read a lot and just relax.  And then I went back up to the spa to shower and get ready for dinner.

Thursday night was supposed to be our "big" dinner night.  The parents of one of the girls we were with are members of the Foundation Room at the House of Blues and they made reservations for us.  It's a reaaaaally long story, but after a lot of drama, six of the ten of us ended up taking this ridiculousness to dinner:

Yes, it's a stretch Hummer limo.  Because that's necessary.  The extra dumb parts of this: we didn't bring alcohol with us and we literally just went straight from Aria to Mandalay Bay.  No cruising up and down the strip or anything.  Thus, why do six people need a limo?  Originally, all ten of us were looking for an easy way to get everyone down to dinner at the same time, but a LOT of drama ensued and in the end, only eight of us went to dinner.  While we waited for the last couple to arrive, we enjoyed the views of the strip:

Pretty awesome, right??  Sadly, this was not the best meal I've ever eaten in Vegas, but to be fair, I've had some really good meals there, so maybe it was unfair of me to walk in expected something that would make me remember the food forever.  Four of the eight plates were good; the other four were just... not.  But the company was great, and that's really what matters.  We were at dinner for a looooooong time and towards the end of our meal, drama from the missing couple started to heat up again so we all went back to Aria to try and help calm things down.  That actually resulted in everyone going to bed around midnight, which was probably better in the long run.  I will say that Frohn Dancis is a REALLY good friend and he and the Redhead totally took one for the team that night with regards to the drama that was going on.

Friday morning, L and I decided to walk down the strip and enjoy the pretty weather (the weather, btw, was SO AMAZING - sunny and warm, but not too hot and not too cold.  Perfection).  The Ps had gotten up early, too, and had ended up at Paris, so L and I met them there and gambled a little bit.  Then we all meandered on down to The Venetian to meet two other couples for brunch at Bouchon.  But don't worry - we did stop on the way so that the boys could take a picture with a Transformer.
 

So back to Bouchon.  This was the food and beverage highlight of the trip for me.  It was just so good.  The setting is so nice and quiet and private (we ate in the courtyard several stories up) and the day was just gorgeous.  The Manhattans were freaking awesome.  I have no pictures of anything we ate or drank because it was too good to stop and snap away. 

After that, we grabbed cabs and went to the Stratosphere.  Yes, the Stratosphere.  (And yes, this was definitely one of the weirder trips to Vegas for me and L.)  Anyway, The Redhead had never been to Vegas before and she loves rollercoasters, etc., so she wanted to go ride the rides there.  So off we went!  The Redhead, L, Mrs. P, and Frohn Dancis all went up to partake in adrenaline-rushing activities, while Mr. P and the Ks and I all gambled a bit.  Mildly awkward moment: when the craps dealer kept on referring to me as Mr. P's wife and to him as my husband. (Back story: we dated briefly a long time ago and we're totally good friends now, but we rarely discuss our previous relationship in a straightforward manner. It's usually always references in passing to an event that happened or something we did together, but we talk about the event or thing, not about us.  This came after Mr. K made really awkward, pointed comments to me the night before about how Mr. P and I used to date... it was just a lot of unnecessary awkwardness for me.)  No amount of mentioning that my husband and Mr. P's wife were supposed to be coming down from the rides soon could dissuade the dealer from believing that we were together.  Anyway, the Ks got bored and went back to Aria to take naps, so Mr. P taught me how to play roulette, so that was fun. Sadly, neither of us won much.  Once our other halves were done riding rides, we all headed back to Aria so the boys could all watch the Baylor/Xavier game.

The ladies, on the other hand, took advantage of that time to lounge around and get relax and leisurely get ready for our dinner that night.  I managed to make it down just in time to catch the last quarter of the game, which happened to be the first time during the entire trip that I had seen the Gamblor, and I even got some bonus points for supporting L's team by throwing on a very classy BU fake tattoo on my left shoulder.  It should be noted that I was definitely wearing a one-shoulder dress.  Yes, I'm one classy chick.  But it was funny and it washed off, so I was willing to look ridiculous for one night in Vegas if it could make L and his friends laugh.  I meant to take a picture but I totally forgot (of course).  But I did manage to get a pic of a delightful sidecar that I sipped on while waiting for all the girls to appear for dinner:

Dinner was at L's favorite casual restaurant in Vegas: Firefly.  The Redhead, Mrs. P, and I all thoroughly enjoyed the sangria.

After dinner, the Ps and L and I headed back to Aria and the other couples went to see a show.  The Ps ended up winning quite a bit of money (yea for them!), while L and I decidedly did not.

Saturday was spent playing craps at the Monte Carlo with the whole group.  I found that in the days leading up to our trip, L had spent time thinking up things he could yell for different rolls.  The best one was what he decided for a hard ten (hard ten = two fives).  What did he yell?  "CEDAR FEVER!"  Yes, it's stupid but it's totally funny, especially when you're not expecting it.  (There's also a little bit of logic to it... both words have five letters, just as each dice has five dots for a hard ten roll.)  Also it's especially funny if you actually know what cedar fever is.  FYI, most people in Vegas don't know what cedar fever is and, as such, looked at us as though we were foreign anytime anyone in the group made reference to rolling cedar fever. The best was when Frohn Dancis threw $10 on the table, looked the dealer in the eye, and said, "Ten dollar cedar fever."  He got a blank stare in return, to which Frohn explained it was a hard ten.  You probably had to be there for any/all of that to be funny, but I assure you it was hilarious.

Anyway, it was a long, strange trip to Vegas.  L and I both agreed it was neither of our favorite visits, but it was just so nice to get away from work and not have to worry about anything for a few days and it was great to see some good friends and hang out.  And that was Spring Break 2012.

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it

I promise I'm not dead.  I've just been working extra long hours of late and haven't had the energy to look at a computer screen once I get home. 

Some notes of importance:

It's a big week in our house.  The Hunger Games comes out on Friday and Mad Men starts on Sunday.  We are both giddy with excitement about both!  And on a slightly less exciting note, we found out who A is (or at least part of who A is) on Pretty Little Liars on Monday night.  Shockingly, L cared about that far less than I did.

I'm going on Spring Break for the first time since college.  Leaving work today and knowing I won't set foot in my office or open my work laptop for the next five days was an amazingly liberating feeling! 

I bought this dress a couple of weeks ago at H&M for a specific night out for Spring Break '12.  I modeled it for L a few weeks ago and he had a visceral reaction of distaste for it.  Prior to modeling it, I took this pic of myself and sent it to my sister and a couple of trusted friends to get input.  Their response: a unanimously in favor. 

Sorry, L, you'll be forced to spend an evening with me in this abomination of a dress.

L and I watched Game Change on HBO tonight.  Very entertaining.  I realize it's very clearly slanted against SP, but if you consider that even some of it is based on truth... omg.  Scary.  Also, I think I might love Woody Harrelson now.

With that, I'm off to bed.  Happy Wednesday!!

Country roads take me home to the place that I love: West Virginia...

Wanna see like 40 pics of our adventure from last weekend?  Probably not.  You might murder me for making the page take an hour to load in your window. 

Part two of our Christmas appreciation month!  When we got back from our Thanksgiving shenanigans and had had a day to unwind, I asked L if we could take a Christmas road trip to either Williamsburg or The Greenbriar in West Virginia (both known for being completely out of control - in a good way - at Christmas).  He immediately took the lead and started researching what events would be going on in both places during the weekend we'd targeted for travel and came up with the plan to drive to WV and spend Saturday afternoon at The Greenbriar and then head to Charlottesville (about halfway between where we live and White Sulphur, WV - home of The Greenbriar) for dinner and lodging.  People, the Greenbriar = A. MAZE. ING.  I don't really know how else to describe it.  It's just so opulent.  It's like an extra, extra, extra luxurious version of what would happen if The Overlook (the hotel from The Shining) and the "resort" from Dirty Dancing had a baby.  It makes the Dirty Dancing resort look like extra W.T. 

The general decor is modern Victorian chic - think lots of florals and stripes and insane crystal chandeliers everywhere- except an updated version of whatever is in your head.  Pictures online made me wonder if we were going to a hotel that was awesome in the 90s (think Waverly wallpaper, like the kind all over the house in Home Alone) but needed updating but still did an awesome Christmas bit, but that's not it at all.  Like, in the least.  The following is a picture dump of the resort (and I swear I was being picky when I included the ones below... I kind of took a lot of pictures):

The Greenbriar's "hall of fame"; the pictures hanging on the wall are all VIPs who stayed at the hotel.  Also, that hall is not covered in wallpaper; those stripes are all perfectly painted.  And this was a long hallway.

A sampling of their many Christmas trees:

I took pictures of the three bathrooms I visited:

Gingerbread house

  

One of several huge collections of toys for the toy drive.

Gazebo in the casino

Minted hot chocolate (super yum)

Huge tree on the front lawn all lit up.

The Greenbriar, lit up at night.

After we shopped and walked and saw and basically had our fill of The Greenbriar, we headed east to Charlottesville where we stayed at what has to be the biggest DoubleTree in America.  Unfortunately for us, biggest does not mean the most sound-proof, and we were neighbors with the most annoying family IN THE WORLD.  If you have kids, DO NOT LET THEM YELL ENDLESSLY AT 7 A.M. ON A SUNDAY!!  For goodness sake, take them out of the room or just give them something to satiate their needs.  Anyway, we arrived just in time to see RGIII claim his Heisman.  L was walking on air for the rest of the night!  It made an already great weekend even better.  Thanks to our un-awesome neighbors, I was up bright and early at 7 a.m.  L can sleep through pretty much anything so he wasn't disturbed at first, but eventually I had to turn on the TV to try and drown out the noisy kid next door, so eventually he woke up, too.  The good thing is that we were able to get out the door and off to Monticello early, so we were on one of the first tours of the day. 

Back side of Monticello

L and Me in front of Monticello.

Mom asked me what I thought about Monticello... it was nice and I'm really glad we went because it was something I'd really wanted to do since I moved up here, but truth be told, I enjoyed Mount Vernon a lot more.  That may be due to the time of year when I went to MV (beautiful spring day).  I don't know.  Definitely go if you're in Charlottesville because it's definitely cool, but don't expect the most amazing thing ever.

Also, there will be no Christmas card for me and L this year.  I tried countless times throughout our road trip to take a good pic and the one above is as good as it got, and you can't even really tell it's us.  We look like the fluffiest people EVER in all the ones we took at The Greenbriar, and in the other "good" one at Monticello that's closer-up, L's eyes are closed.  I planned to try and take some at my work holiday party, but no dice.  Hopefully we'll do better next year.

Celebrate, we will, 'cause life is short but sweet, for certain

Our second anniversary is October 24.  Second anniversary traditional theme is cotton.  But here's the thing: that theme sucks.  So we aren't doing an official gift exchange (yet - the original plan was to do this later on but now I actually think it's just completely unnecessary).  And since the 24th is a Monday, our celebrating took place Friday night.

I like to be surprised on occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries (because hello, I'm a girl and it's frequently more about the thought and effort than the payout).  L's figured this out over the years (okay he knew it within the first six months - I shall wholeheartedly give credit where credit is due) and is very good about planning things and surprising me with them.  Per his instructions, I headed out to Reston Friday after work to meet L at his office and go wherever L had planned.  L gave me one clue about where we'd be going, and that was that we'd be heading somewhere west.  That gave me three ideas of where we'd go: Charlottesville, a resort in West Virginia (yes, there are resorts in West Virginia; weird, I know), or Frederick, MD so we could finally eat at Volt.  L planned a whole evening of surprises, and once we were about an hour into our road trip, he spilled the beans that we were heading to Frederick!  I was super excited.  We are avid Top Chef fans and we've been talking about going to Volt since I moved up here and we've never pulled the trigger.  I was pumped!

FYI- traffic on a Friday night heading out of northern Virginia sucks.  Took forever.  Snacks were involved, but only before I knew where we were going.  There was no chance I was going to lose my appetite and screw up our dinner plans!

So we finally got to Frederick and found our way to the bed and breakfast where we were staying (surprise #2).  We ended up staying in the bridal suite, which I found hilariously appropriate since it was our anniversary.  That really just meant that our room was larger (bedroom and bathroom, plus a sitting room and allegedly a kitchen that was behind a door I never opened).  I have no pictures so use your imagination.  Same typical b&b decor with lots of antiques.  Think Kleenex box covers, crochet bed canopy, and claw-footed tub.  I loved the tub until I took a shower in it Saturday morning and then I hated it.  I seriously never want to shower in a claw-footed tub ever again.  Felt like the shower curtain liners were attacking me (I loathe when shower curtain liners touch me - sick) and the pressure from the shower head was, like, totally pushing me across the tub.  And because of the 360-degree shower curtain liners that were like a cone around the tub, I couldn't escape the water.  At all.  Not on my list of favorite showering experiences. 

But back to Friday.  We changed clothes and walked around the corner to Volt. 

Close-up shot:

We were a half hour early for our reservation so we sat in the bar and ordered drinks. 

Apple cider fizz for me

Manhattany for L (a Manhattan with blackberry liqueur instead of cherry - amazing)

Apparently the Bryan and Michael (we're totes on a first-name basis, now) recently dropped a cookbook that is best summed up as gorgeous. 

We flipped through it while we sipped our libations and quickly discovered that if we owned a copy, it would be a coffee table book.  The gadgets and tools required are not for the novice home cook.

Oh and in case you are not aware, Bryan Voltaggio is the mastermind behind Volt.  And he's also the one who was runner-up in Top Chef.  This astounds me.

Then we were seated.  Surprise #3: we weren't sitting in the main dining room.  We were sitting at a chef's table where we could watch the action in the kitchen.  Our table looked like this:

At the table where we ate, we had the option to pick one of two six-course tasting menus.  We both selected the Kitchen Menu, which was a protein-based menu (versus the Market Vegetable Menu, which was, shockingly, based on vegetables):

I also opted for the wine pairings, because why not?  I'd never done a full meal with wine pairings by course.  If you're at Volt, you might as well go all the way.  L is not a red wine drinker and some of the courses were red, so he opted to stick with the cocktails. 

Then came the food.  Yes, I took pictures (much to L's embarrassment.  Sorry for the iffy quality of everything; my camera battery died as we walked up to the restaurant, so these were all taken on the sly with my phone) of each course.  It's a freaking chef's table at Volt.  We will not be eating like too often in our lives.  Once I pointed that out, L relaxed a bit.  Plus, I wasn't exactly making a scene about it.

First was a trio of appetizers, courtesy of Chef Voltaggio. 

From left to right: beef tartare, duck foie gras bulb, and salsify "oyster".  I think.  I may not have gotten all the words right and I certainly don't have all the details for you.  Everything was delicious.  That goes without saying from here on out.

First course:

Sashimi of fluke

At this point, I actually looked up and saw Bryan Voltaggio plating food and directing his staff.  Luckily for us, we were about 15 feet away and not sitting right next to where he was (I geeked out a bit).  Then he came out and presented a course for the group at Table 21 (there is one "table" that is more of a bar setting where all seats directly overlook the plating area, much like a bar at a sushi restaurant, and all diners in these seats have a 21-course meal.  Think like El Bulle, if you've seen that episode of No Reservations).  Here he is in action:

That giant cantaloupe/egg-looking thing is a celery root.  I don't know what cool way it was prepared, but it was so cool watching him open it.

  

Second course:

Goat cheese ravioli with brown butter air

Third course:

Black bass with nori porridge (porridge is a horrible word; it sounds gross.  I assure you this nori porridge was delectable.)

Fourth course:

Muscovy duck with quince, turnips, leeks, and coffee "dirt"

Then it was time for more pics of Chef Voltaggio in action plating food.  Our food.

Fifth course:

Lamb with Brussels sprouts, farro, Christmas lima beans, and spinach

And now, we break from our current program to be presented with a special course, courtesy of Chef Voltaggio, in honor of our anniversary:

Orange pistachio semi-fredo

And then it was back on track for our sixth course:

Textures of Chocolate (white chocolate ganache, chocolate caramel, raw organic cocoa, and chocolate sorbet)

I also opted for a cup of Voltaggio blend coffee, which was a. maze. ing.  Bonus: totally French press.  So good.

And then, one final plate, courtesy of the chef:

Concord grape fruit gelee, a cookie with chocolate, a truffle, and pineapple fruit gelee

There were fancier, more detailed names for each item, but honestly at that point I'd had six glasses of wine and a cocktail so I'm not a trust-worthy source for the details. 

Then it was time to head home.  We were both insanely full but oh, so happy.  Words cannot express how insanely good that meal was.  I've never had anything like it in my life.  The fact that you can raise the food to your mouth and smell one thing, and then take a bit and taste something totally different, and then, as you chew, the flavors change (sometimes once, sometimes multiple times, depending on the dish), is just so amazing to me.  

Neither of us was hungry for the breakfast the next morning, but since we'd told the proprietor we'd be dining, we felt obligated to go downstairs and eat.  After the worst shower ever, we packed up our stuff and headed down.  Breakfast = just okay.  There were claims of the French toast being "world famous", but I don't see it.  Also L and I were totally not fans of the incessant name dropping regarding Bryan Voltaggio and Michael Voltaggio.  It was out of control. 

Go to Volt.  Eat your heart out.  Totally worth the trip.