Happy Birthday!

Yesterday, the first day of fall, was my 23rd birthday- and my first birthday as a wife! Josh carefully planned a wonderful evening. I spent the day in annapolis running errands, hanging out with Erika, and so forth and then Josh was able to get the evening off (he was supposed to have flight school last night). We drove together to the grocery store after work and he had a list prepared. Then we came home and made a wonderful dinner together- all planned by Josh. It was great! We had mozzarella and tomatoes with a 3 herb pesto and then chicken stuffed with goat cheese, scallions, and salt/pepper, topped with a mushroom/white wine sauce. For dessert we had cheesecake!

After dinner I opened some great gifts! See pics below:)....and as usual....Edgar watched and hoped and hoped someone might be kind enough to share their veggies with him ;)

Opening gift from Mom and Dad Gropp



A beautiful china bowl from our registry :)

I wonder if this will be my last navy rifle shirt?? hehe

Cozy under armour sweatshirt

a golf/tennis visor


A new tennis skirt! We need tennis whites to play at the army navy country club and I had grown out of mine :)

Green BEANS and Onion goggles!

Well, most of you know about our dear guinea pig Edgar...and many of you have had the great pleasure of meeting him...but he hasn't made too much of an appearance on our blog, so we thought we'd give him an opportunity to show you how much he really loves his green beans! Click on video to see our cutie in action underneath the coffee table :).




I also thought I'd post some fun pictures from hanging out with Luke and Erika lately. Erika laughed at me when she saw I had onion goggles (yes, they REALLY work!) until she realized how much she needed them when I asked her to dice some shallots hehe.....

We also have enjoyed playing a new card/word game (kinda like text twist) with my mom and Luke and Erika on various occasions...it's called Quiddler!

Stay posted for pics of the 5k race we're going to run (Josh, myself, Luke, and Erika) next Saturday! We will be sad to see Luke and Erika move to CA....we sure do have a lot of fun with them :)

Family Treasures

Josh and I have been keeping quite busy lately as the school year begins for both of us (Josh has transitioned into a new role of swim instructor/assistant and rifle team assistant coach with the new school year). In the midst of our busyness though, we have found wonderful opportunities to spend time with family and friends. Two weekends ago we enjoyed going to CT to visit the Albright family and extended family. The whole immediate Albright family was there and it was a special time (see pics of Josh and Truly ;)). We even got to meet some relatives that we had not met before who were visiting Josh's grandmother.

This past week I had an opportunity to spend some time with my mom as she drove down to Virginia to bring some family treasures (paintings, china, heirlooms) to CT from my Grandma and Granddad Gropp's house in preparation for the house to be sold. I happened to admire a beautiful buffet in my grandparent's dining room and came to find it hadn't been spoken for by my parents, aunts, or uncles. I was so excited to be given such a beautiful piece from my grandparent's. When we moved it into our apartment, I was curious if it would fit a beautiful silver tea set given to Josh and I by my mom's parents (Nan and Pop), as we had not been able to purchase something to display it on yet. I excitedly unwrapped the silver treasures and found new "homes" for many of the nice wedding gifts we received in the buffet drawers and found that the tea set fit perfectly on top of the buffet! See pictures :) It is so wonderful to have such beautiful family treasures displayed in our apartment. Josh and I keep oohing and ahhing at them :).

For the rest of the weekend Josh and I enjoyed having my mom visit. It poured and poured outside, but we enjoyed playing a new card game called quiddler and making new and yummy recipes together. It was so fun to show her where we live and to introduce her to some of our friends.

Now we're off to begin a new week!