I'm back!

After a long, unintentional hiatus from writing - I'm back!

The past month has been busier than ever; including a trip home to St.Louis/Illinois, Thanksgiving, some fun holiday activities, checking out Maryland's first capital, AND ...accepting a full time job. Slowly gonna get back into recapping stuff I'm doing out here.

For starters we had a great trip home in November. I drove from Maryland all the the way to Illinois and the whole 10.5 hours were actually not that bad. My co-pilot Zella and I drove through Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. If you ever want to drive out for a visit, it is beautiful going through the mountains - especially in West Virginia!

            

Due to fortunate timing, I was able to spend some time in St. Louis. IT WAS THE BEST. I've missed the interstate system, the food, and of course, the friends. First, I went to lunch with my friend Emma at Blues City Deli, back just a few blocks from our old apartment. Some may say it's just a sandwich shop, but it's SO GOOD. Besides the "Mike's Spicy Beef 'n' Cheddar," my favorite on the menu is the Delta Bayou.

             

After lunch, of course I couldn't pass up an opportunity to drive down Cherokee Street since it was only a couple blocks away. If you're not familiar with St. Louis neighborhoods and popular areas, Cherokee Street is worth the time to check out. There are a bunch of antique stores and little shops...and quite a bit of street art.

While in town I also did some other errands, but the most fun was showing up my friend Hannah's door with all my bags for a girls' night! Don't have too many of those anymore haha so it was nice to get dressed up and...  Go to Humphrey's (an old college bar favorite!), and then out to dinner at Bailey's Range - a restaurant known for it's burgers and shakes. Highly recommend!!

After a great night out with friends, I spent the next morning finished up some errands and then I went to pick up Andrew who had been at a work conference for 2 days, and drove back over to the Illinois/Indiana border for family dinner in his hometown. I think I can say one thing we both miss about home is family, but especially the littlest family members - who's personalities change more & more each time we visit. And our moms' cooking. We spent the next 24 hours bowling, playing pool, spending time with family, and going to Andrew's hometown high school quarter finals football game.

Last, we made the 4 hour drive North to visit my family. I got to meet my nephew Beckett James (and have a sleepover, including homemade cooking by my brother Mike) and meet my new niece Sadie Jean! It was great to see all my family for their baptisms. 

        

Driving home we hit quite a bit of snow,
but we made it back safely!

After we returning home, we celebrated our first thanksgiving away from home. And weren't too bad at imitating our favorite dishes.  Before thanksgiving, I had gotten a full time job offer and I'm happy to say I accepted. I am now a "teacher" at a daycare/preschool. Which hopefully is a great stepping stone for (near) future plans. 

So before I sign off - notice my new header?? I don't have Photoshop, so bear with me while I mess around with my layout on Paint, which I know is so 90s.

But I'm excited to say that we are back in Illinois, again, for Christmas. Just wanted to get this post out (finally) so I can back on track with posting what we've been up to. Hope everyone has a great Christmas!!! 

Halloween, Bingo, and... a Recipe.

It's November, already?! Can't believe it. The temperature has cooled off  here (50s & 60s) & I even saw that it snowed in Chicago over the weekend. INSANE. Snow is supposedly one of the things I will not have to worry too much about around here. Due to lack of snow plows, an inch or two has every one on house arrest, and typically there's no more than a few inches.

After a total of zero trick-or-treaters graced our presence Friday night, we did go out and celebrate Halloween. The main necessity for Halloween is a costume, and of course... we did not have costumes. As I said in a post before, I did not think we were going to need them. Wrong. We resorted to digging through our closets and googling "easy couples costumes." With lots of golf clothes to choose from... we decided on dressing as Happy Gilmore and his caddy (the homeless one, not the skinny blonde one, obviously).

It was a no-brainer that I would be the homeless caddy man. Shout out to Andrew for putting my eye shadow beard on my face so nicely. And for making my golf bag (poster canister) with a golf club (curtain rob & an old sock). I even had water crackers to boot.

Our creativity went noticed at the costume contest at one of the bars in town, when we won the couples' costume contest (and a gift certificate!!)! It was us versus superman/superwoman, and thanks to the few friends we had there cheering us on... we won by popular opinion.

To follow up this excitement, Sunday we played BINGO. I've only played bingo in a school setting, and once at my local American Legion which hosts bingo every Thursday night. People are INTENSE about the game. I, one day, hope to have my own bingo bag full of daupers... and the money to throw down 20 dollar bills like they're one dollar bills. But, this Sunday Bingo was for a good cause - the Stephen's Fund, a local organization that raises awareness for down syndrome. No one was there to win money, instead the prizes were donated Longaberger baskets and other Longaberger items. There were a few Vera Bradley items, and even a Coach purse (that I had my eye one). All proceeds from the event were going towards sponsoring athletes to go to the Special Olympics, buying wheel chairs, and sponsoring people with down syndrome for the annual Buddy Walk.  Sad to say I won ZERO games or prizes, but it was actually a lot of fun!

I started this blog to keep friends and family up to date on some of the things that I've been up to since moving out to the east coast... and I'm realizing there will be some unexciting weeks here and there. This week being somewhat just that. So, to end this post, I'll entertain you all with a recipe.

People seem to want to know about how I feed myself (do you like to cook? what do you cook? what's your favorite dish your mom makes? what's your favorite food?). To be honest... I don't care for cooking (but I love to eat). Primarily, I believe this is because I'm nervous that what I made won't taste like what I expect. ESPECIALLY when I'm feeding someone else. And I'm known to be a picky eater.... and well Andrew might be a little pickier. Most meals end with a conversation that goes a little like "Next time, if this meal is made again (not suggested), change recipe in _ way...". Can't help but laugh at the mistakes, but hey at least nothing has ever been NOT edible.

I have had some successes so I'll share one for now that has been a hit!

Parmesan Crusted Chicken
(just like Noodles & Co!!) - for TWO


Ingredients
2 Chicken Breasts (whole, or cut into strips)
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated parmesean cheese
1/2 tbs paprika
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg (lightly beaten)
2 tbs Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)


Directions (LOL - bear with me)
**you can use a frying pan, george forman, panini press... I use a frying pan.
1. Trim chicken breasts. 
   - if you keep chicken breasts whole, cover with saran wrap, and pound to 1/4 inch with mallat
   - if you cut into strips, make slices thinner or cover and pound to 1/4 inch like with whole breast
2. Mix all dry ingredients in a medium size bowl. 
3. Beat egg *lightly* in small bowl. 
4. Coat chicken breasts (or strips) with egg wash and then with dry mixture. 
    * I do strips one at a time - dip in egg wash. roll in dry mix, and straight onto the frying pan.
5. Heat EVOO in frying pan on medium-high (~6), add chicken, cover with lid.
6. Cook chicken until golden brown. 

The chicken is best served over buttered egg noodles (in my opinion). Cook egg noodles according to directions on bag, add butter (or EVOO), garlic powder, and salt mixed to taste.

This recipe is in part from Tastebook - find the original here. From experience, I cut the dry ingredients in half from the recipe I linked (original recipe wastes A LOT), and I cooked my chicken in a frying pan since I don't own a george forman or panini press. Hope someone tries this and it's delicious!! If not... you didn't get the recipe from me ;)

Are you ready for some football?!

What's more fall than tailgating and football?

I wouldn't say I'm a big football fan, but it's not foreign to me. Three of my brother's played in high school, and one continued on to play in college. Of course they taught me how to properly hold a football, and throw a decent spiral.  Also, my family used to go to the University of Illinois football game on Thanksgiving for a few years.

As I've gotten older, I'd rank football on the lower end of my favorite sports. I went to a university that didn't have a football team, and in it's place - soccer. That doesn't mean SLU never had a football team. To my knowledge, SLU (primarily an all boys school until the 1940s) had lost most of their football players to the military draft. Interestingly enough, the forward pass in football was "invented" at Saint Louis University. Don't believe me? Read on here. The only football experience I got in college was when I played the position of Wide Receiver on my sorority's powder puff football team in the annual SLUper Bowl tournament, and scored a total of one touchdown in three years. LOL But it was a glorious moment, and fun times!

We were lucky to get the opportunity to go up to the Naval Academy this weekend to watch Navy play San Jose State with Andrew's work. The Naval Academy is in Annapolis, Maryland - about an hour and a half drive North from the small town we live in. It was a BEAUTIFUL day.

By the entrance where the team runs on
to the field.

This was the first time I've ever been up to the area, and the area around the football field had some cool stuff to look at - they even had a Blue Angel plane! Unfortunately there was no fly over, like we had hoped, but seeing a plane up close was good enough. We got to spend some time before the game tailgating, and got some free Navy tshirts and BBQ. Before the game, we watched many of the students march in uniform from the academy to the football stadium in a parade.

The parade, as you can see, also included their band & bag pipes! Once they marched to the stadium, they went onto the field and stood in their platoon (correct me if I'm wrong).

Not your normal start to a football game, but it was a great site to see.  It was Homecoming for Navy, and they took that literally - more than one class reunion was being celebrated at the game. I can't even begin to think about my 50th college class reunion in 2063. So you can imagine the atmosphere at the game with many Alumni presents, who obviously are all active or retired military. Talk about feeling like you're in the presence of something great.

 

The game itself was pretty exciting, and we had some great seats! Most exciting play included one San Jose State offensive player just BARELY missed stepping out of bonds and barely missed putting his knee down as he barrel rolled over a Navy defender. Caused a lot of uproar. The score stayed close throughout the game, but Navy made out with a Win and a final score of 41-31.  

I can't say we'll be pledging our allegiance to Navy football anytime soon, but hoping to see some of our favorite teams play the local teams in the future.  We were lucky to catch a Orioles/Cards game in the fall. For the winter, SLU Men's Basketball is in the A10 Conference, and they play George Washington (an A10 Conference team) in January, and I'm already looking at tickets! And University of Maryland is now in the Big10 Conference, and I wouldn't mind watching them play U of I this season.  Lots to look forward to!

Speaking of things to look forward to... only 16 more days until our trip "home" (STL/Mt. Carmel/Gardner) !! Really looking forward to seeing everyone! 

Another weekend, another festival (+ guests)

If you haven't picked up on it yet, they really like their festivals out here on the East Coast. And we've obviously been making it to a LOT of them since I moved, minus just a few. (Did I mention we opted out of the Renaissance Fest 2 weeks ago - jousting [state sport] match included?? )

This past weekend's festival was the St. Mary's County Oyster Festival, which also featured the National Oyster Shucking Contest on Sunday. You can click - here - for an abundant amount of information on the festival. (and more to come, from my end, if you keep reading!)

Besides there being a festival this weekend, my brother Patrick and his girlfriend Jordan came to visit - our very first visitors! And all the way from Illinois/Pennsylvania.  Since the Oyster Festival was going on at the fairgrounds in our town, all the hotels were booked by us. So they stayed about 20 minutes away in Solomon's Island. Solomon's is pretty cool - most restaurants have a deck/patio by the water and a dock to drive your boat right to the restaurant, boardwalk along the river, little shops, a marine museum,historic lighthouse, etc.

Night View of Solomon's Pier Restaurant

First, we took them out to Solomon's Pier for the drink of choice out here in Southern MD - an Orange Crush, and I'm not talking about the pop. It's a mix of vodka, fresh squeezed oranges, triple sec, and a splash of lemon-lime pop. They're pretty good! Besides the drinks, it was really nice to catch up with my brother, and Jordan.

The whole gang: Jordan, Pat, Me, Andrew                             My brother Pat aka #5, and me aka #6

** Side Note: There are SIX kids in my family. Pat & I jokingly call each other by number because of our birth order in our large family.Pat = #5, me=#6

After the Pier, we took our guests around to two more places: the Lighthouse Restaurant & Dock Bar, and Tiki Bar.

<<<<The Lighthouse was closed, but that didn't stop a photo op for the tourists!

Tiki Bar luckily was not closed, and so we walked on down the road and stopped in there. Kind of a neat bar, more popular in the summer. It is all outdoors, and has a beach by the water. Next weekend is closing weekend for all the outdoor bars on the island, and they celebrate with a big bash! (because yes, it's finally cooling off here! Highs are only in the 70s these days)

After all the fun on Friday night, we all went to meet Andrew at the Oyster Festival on Saturday for lunch. (Andrew had gotten up pretty early, and worked at the wine tent at the festival.) Before this weekend, I had never had oysters before. The closest thing (in my mind) that I've eaten that is (what I thought) would be comparable to an oyster is mussels, and I'm not a fan. So, I was hesitant to try them. You can have oysters in many different forms: raw, boiled, steamed (served on a half shell), fried, etc.  We opted for fried, and my brother was the first, brave one to take a bite...

I'm not going to say fried oyster were the best thing I've ever eaten... but they weren't too bad! Putting some spicy cocktail sauce on it definitely improved the flavor. The most challenging part of eating the oyster was being able to see the insides after the first bite. I'm not sure what the green stuff is inside... but it doesn't look appetizing lol After trying this out, we grabbed a shaded table and hung out until Andrew was done with his volunteering, and then walked around a little bit before heading out.

The back of this year's festival t-shirt. A merman riding crabs...
not you're typical t-shirt design to Midwesterners.

 



After the Oyster Festival, we took a little drive tour of Leonardtown to show our guests aroun, including a trip down to the wharf!

And Pat decided to walk out onto the kayak launch....

Next, we went to Port of Leonardtown Winery! We each tried a few samples of wine before choosing the kind we liked, and then drank outside - and had some cheese and summer sausage! There was even a guy there playing acoustic music. Zella, once again, got to join in on the fun. Andrew took her walks down by the nearby creek, and she surfaced with some muddy paws :O

Andrew found a magnifying glass in the gift
shop to help him read the menu ;)

Cheers!

After the winery we had a pretty low key night, including Mexican food, naps, and video games!
Okay, I was the only who napped - but wine will do that to ya (or maybe just me?). :)

On Sunday, before leaving, I met up with Pat and Jordan once more over on Solomon's Island for lunch. This time The Lighthouse Restaurant & Dock Bar was open! We sat inside, but windows line the whole side of the restaurant that faces the water, and we had this view....

Not a bad lunch view, right?? I made sure that Pat had his first crab dip before leaving Maryland, and the food overall was delicious!

Lunch was a great end to a fun weekend, and extra special shout out to Pat and Jordan for making the trip down - THANK YOU! It has made me even more excited for the trip Andrew and I will be making "home" (St. Louis, Mo + Mt. Carmel, Il + Gardner, Il) in just THREE weeks. Lots of new babies to meet (Sadie & Beckett!!!), nephews & nieces to play with, and friends & family to hug!