Birthdays and Backsplashes

Birthdays and Backsplashes

These past few weeks have been a whirlwind! First we decided," Wouldn't it be a great idea to put up our own backsplash? I mean they make it look so easy on HGTV?!?!" Well I can't say it wasn't a success (as you can see from the pictures below) but it was definitely not a walk in the park. Putting up the tiles seemed easy enough, but grouting was possibly on of the worst ways to spend a weekend....ever. Grouting is, I realized, one of those character building experiences that separates the men from the boys - fortunately Bryan has way more patience than I do for things like that, so after about 25 minutes of smushing grout between glass tiles - I relinquished and he continued for another 4-6 hours! But his hard work paid off because the tile looks fantastic and really makes the kitchen stand out. Now putting in our own wood floors might be a little too overachieving - even by our standards. We'll have to wait out the summer and finish getting the grout out from under our fingernails before we can tackle that project.

Literally hours after we finished putting up the tile, Nabeela flew into BWI for a summer program at University of Maryland. It was SO wonderful to see her and I couldn't wait to share everything in Baltimore with her! Sunday morning we all went to the JFX Farmers Market and got Sunrise smoothies and fresh donuts for breakfast, along with summer squash, spring onions, beets, strawberries and of course tons'o'milk. Nabeela agreed that although 8am is a horrible time to wake up on a Sunday - the fresh donuts make it worth it!

Monday 6/21 found all of us celebrating Bryan's 25th birthday! We all met up with some neighbors at Mezze ( a Mediterranean tapas restaurant in Fell's Point) for some delicious food with some great people. Afterwards we found ourselves (as we almost always do) inhaling copious amounts of gelato at Pitango - the best gelato place in the world. It was a nice night and Bryan definitely enjoyed himself (food+ice cream = happy).

After Bryan's birthday I dropped off Beba at UMD, which was a surreal experience because I remember my parents dropping me off at UCD my freshman year at the dorms. Beba was 8 (making Liya 5!) and the girls couldn't believe I'd be living there from that point on - my mom said they cried the whole car ride home. After dropping Beba off at her program I felt the same way - although she's only be there for 2 weeks - I joked at her "Am I obligated to cry the whole car ride home?" She laughed at me - probably thinking I was crazy - but I realized as I drove away how quickly she went from 8 and crying in the car to 16 and swiping into her dorms with her roommates. I was so proud of her and I know she was nervous but she handled everything like a champ, and she's having a great time!

July 4th weekend coming up and we (Bryan, Beba and I) are off to NYC! Beba's first time - well not technically she went there at 3mo. old - in the Big Apple! Pictures of us eating everything imaginable will be posted soon! Have a wonderful long weekend!

Cutting tile on the balcony 22 stories in the air. Check. 

 

Semi-finished. This is before grouting AKA hell. 

           Napoleon relaxing in the sun...while his stupid humans work on Saturday.

                                         

Southern Hospitality

Southern Hospitality

This past weekend we drove our way down to visit our good friends the Chappell's and their newest addition Miss Saylie in Greenville, South Carolina! I must say the road trip down to the South was very interesting...upon crossing the state border into North Carolina we started seeing huge billboards for guns and fireworks...(fireworks were also being sold at a gas station - if I remember correctly the ad said "Fuel and Fireworks" - always a good combination...).

Chris and Jenny were amazing hosts, and Saylie was perfect entertainment. Bryan got to change some diapers - which he strangely enjoyed ( lets see how he feels after a couple of kids...) and I got to snuggle with the baby on the couch while we watched movies!

After resting for the day we headed out to the BMW Spartanburg Plant (the headquarters of BMW in the United States) for a tour of the factory -  courtesy of Chris who currently works there. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures of the amazing machinery inside the miles of factory space (BMW is a little secretive about their new plans...also they had some cool prototypes hanging  around that they probably didn't want on blast on the internet).

Later we headed into downtown Greenville- which was really charming and totally reminded me of downtown Davis and the Arboretum!  We enjoyed pigging out at dinner and also on some gelato afterward... (Hazelnut Gelato is MONEY!)

A special thanks again to the Chappell's for hosting us again, they are wonderful friends and we love'em so much!!

I guess that's ends our summer trips for now, we really don't have anything big planned until our CA trip in July/Aug  - kind of a bummer since we love traveling so much.

We do have tons of summer projects going on right now...we are planning on installing a glass mosaic back-splash in the kitchen - I will post pics when its done! And hopefully after that we plan on tackling bamboo flooring... wish us luck! Hope everyone is enjoying the summer and warmer weather so far!

Me and the Saylie-Bug!

The Chai's + lots of BMWs

Bryan, Chris, Jenny & Saylie

Impromptou Boston

Impromptou Boston

Last week we decided to take a very spontaneous trip to Boston (we just couldn't wait to be in Martha's Vineyard). It was fun! We didn't tell anyone we were going to be there and we just hopped on a plane and spent two days and a night exploring good old Beantown. JetBlue had a crazy deal for $10 flights from Baltimore to Boston so we thought, "Why Not?"

Bryan has never been to Boston so we hit up all the tourist attractions, Faneuil Hall, Quincy Market, Harvard (Havaahd) & MIT.

Faneuil Hall

 Granary Burial Grounds - Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock & Paul Revere

Enjoying a red velvet cupcake at Harvard Square

Bryan's new glasses bought at SEE Boutique in Harvard

Thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and now completely in love with Cape Cod!

S.

MVY

MVY

We just returned from an amazing few days in Martha's Vineyard - a lovely, sleepy beach island off the coast of Cape Cod. We got really lucky with the weather conditions since it was a balmy 75F most of the time - according to the locals this time of year is usually chilly and rainy. We stayed at a lovely B&B called The Hob Knob Inn in Edgartown and we rode cruisers to the beaches almost everyday! The first day we got there we biked over the Chappaquidick Island - famous for the Ted Kennedy 'incident'  in the late 60s - and visited a Japanese Garden that is maintained by locals on the island, we also had lunch on the beach, which was beautiful and mostly deserted!

Day two consisted of a 3 hour kayak around Edgartown and into the estuary where we saw tons of wildlife and were treated to some beautiful views of the island. Day three was a trip to Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven to walk around the towns and into all the local shops - we also feasted on some amazing fresh calamari and mussels.

Day Four was a wonderful morning spent in Aquinnah and Menemsha admiring the lighthouses and coastal scenery, we drove back to the hotel for the afternoon and then biked a few miles out to Katama Beach (it was a toasty 78F that day!). Finally we headed back to Menemsha, with a stop by the Menemsha Fish Market and picked up some smoked bluefish and two fresh caught lobsters. We toasted to two wonderful years of marriage on Menemsha Beach at sunset overlooking the Nantucket sound, with our toes in the sand !!

We are now perfectly relaxed and stuffed full of lobster (I'm not kidding we had lobster almost everyday - upon Bryan's insistence!).  It was so wonderful to spend  a weekend away together because we realized how much happier marriage has made both of us! I posted a link for some pictures from the highlights of our trip below, enjoy!!

S.

Welcome

Welcome

So why blogging?

I started to realize how impersonal social networking was becoming, and more importantly, it didn't provide any insight into the lives of others. All I could pretty much do was stalk friends on Facebook via pictures or comments and hope that they would return messages. Additionally, I was tired of having to do the perpetual 'catching up' conversation with anyone I hadn't spoke to in a while, so here is an effort to try and make ourselves more available and present to our families and friends who care about the goings-on in our lives (and not just our Facebook statuses). Here is a way to actively participate (or spectate) at the things we've been up to here in Maryland. I promise to post at least once a week and provide pictures or video as well. Happy blogging!


S