First Friday

Our old neighborhood, Hampden, celebrates First Friday every month. We love to go in December! It's always so festive, and there are always bits of food and treats along the way. 

Andrew's Birthday Dinner

For Andrew's birthday we decided to celebrate at Woodberry Kitchen. It's one of our favorite restaurants, but we don't eat there often because of the price. There food is seasonal, and for the most part very local. The ambiance is really fun, and it's in our old neighborhood. We don't go on dates as often now that we have Lydia, so we decided to splurge. 

Andrew's old roommate, Micah, also works at Woodberry as a chef. We knew he would be there, but we had no idea how spoiled we would be! (Micah is an incredible cook! Anyone remember the seven course meal? That was all Micah.) 

We ordered one appetizer: a flatbread. We were brought five appetizers: deviled eggs, a bread and cheese board, a pear salad, and chilled tomato soup AND our flatbread. Oh, and the standard bread basket.

For the main course Andrew ordered the Pork Chop and I ordered the Braised Beef with Polenta, stewed tomatoes, okra and jimmy nardellos and beef gravy. We also were gifted the potatoes augratin, and mushrooms. (The mushrooms were the biggest surprise of the night for Andrew: something he never would have ordered, but ended up really liking!)

And then came dessert. You can't NOT have dessert on your birthday. Even if you've already eaten nine different dishes. We agreed we should just split something. I don't even remember what we ordered..Andrew ordered it. 

Our server brought out FIVE full size desserts. 

I think the biggest surprise for me was the butterscotch pudding. I'm generally a big brownie sundae fan. It's not terribly exciting, but always delicious. This time, the pudding was BY FAR my favorite dessert.  I think the tables around us probably thought we were gluttons at this point. 

The chocolate writing was so incredible to both of us! It's wasn't like a frosting, or a syrup, it was hard chocolate. 

It was such a fun night! So many surprises, and such a slow paced meal. We were gone for four hours and had a wonderful time talking and dreaming and of course, eating. (Thanks Brent, for watching Lydia-the-baby-who-refuses-bottles!)

And a BIG thank you to Micah Martin, for spoiling us rotten and really helping us celebrate in style. :)

Ravens Game

A friend from church works for the Baltimore Ravens. She has season tickets, but she and her husband couldn't go last Friday night so they gave us the tickets! (Pre-season, but still super fun!) We were so excited! Our one glitch was Lydia. We COULD take her the game, but it was raining, and that only sounded so fun: a 4 month old in the hot and muggy rain. We have some adorable teenage neighbors who live a few houses down, and miracle of miracles they were free to come watch Lydia. (I WISH I had taken a picture of them with Lydia, as her first non-relative babysitters so you all could see how cute they are.) Note that on our first Lydia-free outing, we went BIG. None of this, we'll just run to dinner and be back business. Nope-FIVE hours. :)

 Not just any tickets, on the 17th row in the Employee-Players-Family-and-Friends section!

It's really nice to live so close to the stadiums. Our friends had given us awesome parking, but we live so close it was easier to just walk down. It was a really fun night.

Seriously, Baby?

Dad and I thought we could got to dinner tonight. You know, since we haven't been in Baltimore together for about a month.

So you slept, you pooped, you ate, we held you. We did everything possible to make sure YOU were taken care of so I could eat in peace. And right after we ordered our food, you had royal breakdown.

And so we got our food to go, and organized the basement instead.

Was that really necessary?

Doughnut Day

We are always up for celebrating a good holiday. Yesterday we celebrated Doughnut day. Nothing says date night like a trip to Dunkin' Doughnuts with a screaming baby! (We are such cruel parents, making her sit in her carseat.)

Fun Friday

 I spent all day at the Women of the World: Baltimore Conference. It was a mix of panels and speakers and hands on workshops all about women in a whole lot of different topics. I listened to women talk about education, cooking, relationships, hair, knitting, and more. So. Much Fun!

 Then Andrew picked me up and we went to Joe Squared Pizza for dinner. So Yummy.

And after eating our delicious dinner, we headed to Center Stage to see a very quirky play, that I really liked. I'm not sure how Andrew felt about it, but it made me laugh. A lot.

And then we went to bed earlier than we had on any other day of the week. Because that's how we roll. We're just so tired by Friday night!

Date Night

Just because I haven't been blogging, doesn't mean we aren't still alive. Andrew was SUPER busy in November, and to make up for it he planned a stellar date night in the middle of the month. His budget was $30, and he did good work. :)

We started by going to Chipotle, and sharing a bowl. We used to go there every Thursday and split a bowl before his Hopkins classes, so it was nice to go back. Plus, he didn't want to spend all of our budget on dinner!

Then we went to a documentary at the Charles Theater, a local independent theater that we both really like but rarely actually go to (because let's be honest, how often do we really go to movies?).  He found out that the film Being Elmo was opening the night of our date, and got tickets in advance. (In advance, people. HE BOUGHT TICKETS IN ADVANCE. This was a huge indicator that he thought about our date. :)

The man who created Elmo, and still does his voice is from Baltimore. The entire film was about how he became Elmo. It was such a great film, and he was there with lots of friends and family. He did a Q and A session, and brought out Elmo. It was a super fun night, and the energy at the theater was so positive and supportive. If it's in your area, I suggest you go see it.

Then we walked out of the theater and there was a diner we had never seen before. (The Charles isn't in the best part of town, we like to call it "up and coming".) The diner was super cool, and it turns out Andrew's-old-roommate's-boyfriend works there! It was fun to see him, and our Pumpkin Shake was DELISH.

Good work, Husband. Date Night = TOTAL Success!

Oh, and on our way out of the diner, we walked with Kevin Clash's parents (Elmo) to their car. They are near 70, and Baltmioreans through and through. They were really funny, and told more stories about Kevin. It was a great ending to great night.

Bikes around the Reservoir

Andrew was in Philly this past Monday through Wednesday. He came home for about 15 hours before flying to Salt Lake on Thursday. While he was home he ate, slept, packed, went to a bishopric meeting.

And rode bikes with me.

A Picnic with Ira Glass

For my birthday Andrew bought me tickets to go see Ira Glass. 

The night finally came.

So wonderful. 

Andrew had class, and I had busy visiting teaching to do. I picked Andrew up and we had our very first picnic. Ever. (Can you believe that?!) 

At our favorite park: the tulip park.

With my favorite person.

And then we were off. To see him. 

Love that husband of mine. Thanks for such a great night.