Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Well we thought the snow was done for the year... apparently we forgot where we live now! We heard on the news last night that we would be getting some snow overnight, and sure enough we woke up to snowfall - about 3 inches by the morning. It continued to snow all day at work - we got about 6 inches total. I took this video at work to catch the beautiful snowfall :)

My car was covered in snow by the time I left at the end of the day - ugghhhhh. Gotta love it! These are the two pictures I took before I turned into our condo complex.

Cars covered in snow

Snow pile at the end of the road from the plows

Please GOD let this be the last snow of the year!!! Our families were telling us that it was in the 60s last weekend in South Carolina - oh boy. In an attempt to stay warm we're cuddling on the couch and we made a crockpot meal for dinner tonight :) Everyone stay warm!!

Shutter Island and more

Over the weekend John and I went to see Shutter Island (new Leonardo Dicaprio movie) with our friends Tom & Caroline. We went to dinner at Max and Ermas in Birmingham first and it was great, definitely a place we'll go again. We had tickets but the movie was completely sold out and the theater was packed when we got there, and we were early! So we changed our tickets out for the later showing and went to get a drink at a trendy Asian restaurant around the corner. We sat at the "Reserved" table - so swanky - next to these two creepy guys (see picture, haha).

Tom & John






Yikes

The movie was pretty good - John had actually read the book a year ago and I hadn't! There's a first for everything ;) It was so much fun hanging out with Tom & Caroline - having friends here makes the adjustment so much easier!

I'm talking to you Tayler, Meredith, & Lindsey...

START A BLOG!!! It's great! :)

Hello World

So this is how blogging works huh? Jen has been the gracious one over the months feverishly capturing our lives as she has the gift of words. Living in RO has been wonderful, but we have both been missing home since the holidays. Seeing your college friends only once in the past 8 months can be difficult but we've met some great friends and Pat and Nancy have been a lot of fun.

Even though we were not able to go home for the holidays, it was great for Jen and I to spend the holidays with each other. It has made us realize how important we are to each other and awesome it is to have found someone with whom you're compatible.

It's fairly obvious that Jen is the amazing planner of the two of us, and I love it! But every now and then (once in a Blue Moon..which is a great beer) I surprise Jen with a little something something. For instance, I loved seeing Jen's reaction when she found I had a remote car starter installed in her car. Lindsey came up for Jen's birthday and somehow I was able to play it cool and keep the secret. It was funny when we walked up the stairs (knowing that Lindsey was in the apartment) and Jen tried to unlock the door and found the bottom knob to be locked. She immediately turned to me and said "why did you lock the bottom?" I instantly responded, "I dunno." This of course was false since I warmed up the car before she left because I had to hide the apartment key for Lindsey, so Jen actually locked up!

Valentine's Day was a lot of fun even though Jen was feeling under the weather. I really love just hanging around the house with Jen! While she was in the shower I put up a few decorations I bought at the Dollar Tree (I freaking love that place!) I know it sounds cheap, but the one near us has some good stuff (of course I would say that because I love garage sales). She wasn't expecting anything so it was nice to surprise her a little bit.

Anyways that's my little update. The job is going extremely well. Everyone at HAP is incredibly nice and a pleasure to work with. I want to give a shout out to my favorite person there, LaTonya who may be reading this!

Be back later..

Love day :)

John and I had a very quiet Valentine's Day because we actually celebrated it on Friday at the concert. He did surprise me and made it very special for me - he had bought decorations and hung them in the living room for me! I got out of the shower and I guess he prepped everything while I was in there, so he led me out there to see it and to get my presents :) I gotta have my heartshaped box of chocolates, and he got me two cards and some soft socks - love it! We went to Lily's Seafood in downtown RO for dinner and it was great. We tried their cream puff for dessert and it was HUGE, I mean mammoth and there was no way we could eat it all. John was such a sweatheart to me all day and has been taking care of me while I was sick - I have the best husband in the world!

John Mayer is my hero

The John Mayer concert was on Friday night and I was feeling the best I had in three days, thank goodness! I did have to sip on a Sprite all night in order to feel relief from the sore throat though. The concert was so good - Michael Franti and Spearhead opened and they were great to hear live. It was my third John Mayer concert and John's first, so he got to see just how good of a guitar player John Mayer is - and he played almost all of my favorites! Here are some pictures from the show:

Michael Franti out in the crowd pulling people onstage


Michael Franti


John Mayer's opener - Heartbreak Warfare

Taking a bow with the band

Sick sick sick!

Well I'll start this post by recapping my past week - I've been horribly sick! I wasn't feeling too great Tuesday night but it wasn't anything horrible, and then I woke up on Wednesday and I had been hit hard. I had a horrible sore throat, body aches, headache, and was feeling generally awful. I tried to get up and take a shower but it wasn't helping, so I called in sick spent the day in bed and on the couch feeling miserable. I had no energy and John called around lunchtime and we decided I should make a doctor's appointment. He was nice enough to do it for me and actually drove home around 2 to take me to my appointment, which thank goodness he had the chance to do because I don't think I could've driven myself. I got into the room and the nurse was taking my vitals - she took my temperature and was said "oh my goodness Jennifer" and I looked down and it said 102.2!! She went out and actually got a mask for me to wear because obviously I was sick, but it kind of scared me because that's never happened before! The doctor did a strep test and a flu test, and we had to wait for the results which took quite awhile. Poor John was in the waiting area and after they'd taken the flu test I asked if they could get him to sit with me and they did, which made me feel better at least emotionally. Both the tests came back negative, so they assumed it was some other viral infection and told me to just treat the symptoms and take tylenol/advil to lower my temperature and drink lots of fluids. I was in a lot of pain and very uncomfortable on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Friday night I was feeling a bit better but my throat was still very sore. John even bought me a humidifier to help with my sore throat. We had been planning for the John Mayer concert on Friday for months because it was our Valentine's Day present to each other, so I was trying to do everything I could to get better in time for it. We went out for dinner at Kalamata and eating did give me a boost because I had had no appetite for the past few days. I also got a smoothie at Orange Julius which was soothing on my throat. The concert was amazing (I'll do that post next) but it took a lot out of me. The next day, Saturday, I was back to feeling bad again and was taking my alergy meds to stop the post nasal drip which I thought was causing the sore throat. I also tried a Neti pot for the first time to clean out my sinus - it was definitely interesting and I think it did work. I was drinking tons of fluids and trying to rest - I felt bad for John because we did NOTHING on Saturday except watch the Olympics and stay home. Finally on Sunday I felt a big difference in terms of my sore throat which was really the worst part - just in time for Valentine's Day! Today, President's Day, I have the day off so I've been catching up the blog and I'm definitely feeling better - my throat's still a little sore but I think it's just residual from all the pain last week. Whew - glad to be on the other side of that virus!!

Super Bowl Par-tay

We were invited to a super bowl party at our friends Tom & Caroline's apartment - it was mostly the people from our kickball team. We are so grateful to have fun friends to celebrate with :) It was also Tom's birthday so it was a dual party - so much fun!

The group


Caroline had put together a Jeopardy style game about Tom in honor of his birthday - such a great idea!


Birthday boy


Me and my hunny


Baxter


Sara, Tom's sister, and Baxter with his duck hat! He loves it.

Lately...

Over the weekend I went to the Bridal event all over downtown Royal Oak with Kim, who's getting married in May! It was so much fun and unlike any other bridal event I'd ever heard of or been to - businesses all over downtown were participating and giving tons of things again, it was nothing like a typical bridal convention with booths set up. We got free coffee, makeovers, wine tasting, tons of cake and food samples, and lots of coupons without paying a DIME. We also got to do a photobooth, which you can rent for your wedding guests, and we each got a copy of the pictures. It was really great and I actually went into a ton of stores I'd never been to and found some great ones that I'll definitely be going back to.

I've had a lot of junior league meetings/dinners and we're planning a fundraising event at Commune in downtown RO, so I'm looking forward to that. John and I went to see TONS of movies in the last month because someone I work with at Motor is also a manager at a movie theater and had tons of passes that were going to expire in February so the months of December and January were packed with free movies! We loved it because we're big movie fans. We went to see:
Up in the Air
It's Complicated
Sherlock Holmes
Nine
Leap Year
Edge of Darkness
The Book of Eli
When in Rome

I may even be forgetting one or two! It was great. Other than that it's been pretty quiet around here, just working and cooking and watching our TV shows like the Bachelor (Jake the pilot!) and American Idol. I'm gonna end with a picture from our balcony a week or two ago - beautiful!

BAHAMAS BOOZE CRUISE!!

We are SOOO excited about the cruise we just booked to the Bahamas!

We are going with three other couples who are also our best friends - Tayler & Matt, Margaret & Brian, and Meredith & Reed! Tayler, Margaret, and Reed were in our wedding and we love their spouses also. We are going to be departing for a 4 night cruise on June 17th out of Jacksonville, FL. We will be making two stops, one in Freeport and one in Nassau. We are so unbelievably looking forward to this vacation - I'm sick of all the cold and gray and snow we've been surrounded by for months!

This will be us soon!!! (On our first cruise together in March 08)

Dad and Susan visit Motorcity!

We were really looking forward to Dad and Susan coming to visit us for the first time. I had recently seen them at Lindsey's graduation, but I was there for such a short time we really didn't get to spend much time together, and John hadn't seen them since we visited them in July. While they were here we also celebrated Christmas and my birthday :) We picked them up from the airport after work on Friday and headed back to the apartment so they could get settled. That night we drove downtown for dinner and so they could see the city at night. We went to Andiamo for dinner and had a great view across the river of Canada. I tried Osso Bucco for the first time and it was amazing. After dinner we did the same thing we did with Pat & Nancy and took the elevator all the way up to Coach Insignia for dessert and drinks - we had a great creme brulee there.

Suz and Dad lounging in the huge chairs at Coach Insignia

John had been hinting that he wanted to go to the casino with my dad and I was really hoping they wouldn't want to do it but of course they did - Suz and I not so much. After dessert we headed over to Greektown casino and, ugh, what a nightmare! It was so crowded and filled with smoke and just not fun. I know that John wanted to play some blackjack but we couldn't find the card tables anywhere! Just tons and tons of slot machines, which dad played and actually won some money, which of course he ended up losing. We only stayed for about half an hour and I couldn't get out of there fast enough!

On Saturday we made our famous breakfast sandwiches and then gave them a quick tour of Detroit with a pit stop at the Hard Rock cafe so dad could get his shirt :)

We had lunch at the Traffic Jam & Snug and then made a quick pitstop at Motorcity Casino so they could see the difference between a nice one and the crappy one we'd gone to the night before. We headed home to relax for a bit and watched True Lies on TV, one of dad's favorites. We also exchanged Christmas gifts, and dad and Suz got us some really great gifts. We got 8 settings of our formal flatware, which I had been really wanting, along with the beautiful Reed & Barton storage box.

They also got us Wii Sports Resort which has a ton of fun games, and they got us a gift card to use at any Marriott, which I LOVE because we plan on doing a lot of traveling in the next year. That night we went to dinner at 220 in Birmingham and then headed over to the Comedy Castle in Royal Oak for a little stand-up comedy - it was so great and well worth the ticket price. We grabbed a drink at the Royal Oak Brewery after the show and then headed home for some much needed sleep after a long day.

On Sunday we made some breakfast and just relaxed around the apartment. We got Mexican for lunch and then headed off for the airport. It was a quick visit but great to have them and show them our new home :)