Well, Sh**!

Bad news about the poor Geo. As many of you probably already know due to the high-speed communication highway that is my family, the Geo is a little more (or a lot more) worse off than initially thought.
I felt very car-smart going into Midas saying that the donut gasket was probably the problem and where I thought the problem was...but all my car jargon went down the pooper. Unfortunately the problem lies in the catalytic converter. There is a hole in the catalytic converter, which seems bad enough...but wait, there's more! On either side of the converter the flanges are seriously rusted out. If they replace the converter, the pipes are going to need replaced due to the severity of the condition of these flanges. The Midas guy was very nice, he put the car back up on the lifts and showed us the problem. He wasn't kidding. He said that because of the salt up North the under-carriage can rust a lot faster.
So Ben checked the Kelly Blue Book value of the car...and it is actually worth less than it would cost to fix it and that's in "fair" condition. So we aren't sure what we are going to do. But we will keep you posted.
On a side note...i'm a girl. I cried when I found out how much the car was going to cost. I think it was a mixture of how much the car was going to cost, it wasn't what I had expected to hear, and that she's my first car. The Geo means to me what a man's first muscle car is to him. :) Listening to her V4 engine purr....heaven.

For Shame...

Well, Virginia has gone and slapped us with the sticker of shame. My car did not pass their snooty state inspection. As if it wasn't bad enough that the trusty (or not so trusty) Geo had to tuck her tailpipe between her tires and drive away...the inspector plastered a pink rejection sticker on the front windshield. So the whole world knows, the Geo has been rejected by the state of Virginia. Bastards.
Basically what this means is that we have to get her fixed within 15 days and try the inspection again. The inspector said there is a leak in the exhaust system. Dad thinks it is a leak in the donut gasket between the manifold and exhaust pipe....or something fancy like that.
Midas here we come.

Christos Voskrese!

Happy Easter everyone! Ben and I went to church this morning and thought that if we went to the 9:00 mass that there wouldn't be as many kids and it wouldn't be as packed....we were wrong. We arrived like 5 minutes early, but it took us those five minutes to find a parking spot. The church was packed and we sat next to a couple that had two young kids...they were crying or screaming almost the entire time. After church I asked Ben if he wanted kids...he said "no." :)

When we got back to the apartment Ben set up a little Easter egg hunt for Aida. He put some treats and food into six plastic eggs and hid them around the living room. Once Aida got the hang of finding them, popping them open and eating the contents she had a blast. It was cute.

We miss everyone and wish we were there. Hope you all have a great Easter!

Christos Voskrese! Vosten Voskrese!

Happy Easter!

Today was my first attempt at making Paska. And I must say, they turned out really nice! Of course I haven't tasted either of them...but if nothing else they look pretty. And they smell great. I am really excited.

Hope everyone has a Happy Easter!

We will be seeing everyone in a couple weeks!

Hey there Four-Eyes!

Ben and I got our new glasses today. What do you think? It has been a long time since I have had the correct prescription lenses in my glasses and even longer since I have had new frames. So Ben, being the good husband that he is, really pushed for me to get new glasses this year. And even better yet...they are Coach frames. I know you are all impressed. :)

We were advised to wear our glasses for the next couple of days to get used to them. So far so good. I really like having glasses that i can see out of. But it does take some getting used to since I have been wearing contacts since 7th grade.

While we were gone, we set up the video camera to see what Aida does while we are gone. See we have been trying to leave her out of her kennel while we leave for short periods of time. Every time she seems to do pretty well. The video displayed that after licking the peanut butter out of her bone toy we gave her, Aida sat by the door occasionally whining for the majority of our 30 minute outing. At one point though, she walked into the living room and headed straight for the video camera on the coffee table. She stood looking at the camera lens for a second, dropped her head down and gave the camera a good stare-down for a few seconds...then walked away. I know it doesn't sound funny....but it was.

Hope all is well with everyone!

The lost pictures

I was going through my pictures on the computer and decided to post some of the other pictures I had from this past visit. They are pretty random...but i thought they were cute...

Ben took a nap the first day we arrived and Nathan decided it would be funny, and it was funny, to go up and "spoon" with Ben in bed. Nathan was quite pleased with himself as you can see by his face....he was the big spoon.

Here I am with my singing pig dressed up like a bunny from Aunt Debbi.

After a long day of snow-blowing for me and playing in the snow for Aida, we both relaxed on the couch (& floor).

Aida tends to snooze in the car on the way back to Virginia and this last trip was no exception. She made herself comfortable on the back seat for most of the trip. She is a good traveling dog.

Play with Food

The Christmas before last Mom and Dad got us an apple/peeler/corer/slicer from Pampered Chef. At the last apartment we didn't have any room to really set it up so now that we have the counter space, we pulled out our cool contraption and tried it out. Ben had lots of fun playing with the apple and Aida wanted to join in.

After playing with the apple, Ben decided that it would be fun to try out a potato. So we made curly potatoes with lunch. They actually turned out really good. And I am sure we will make them again.

After all the food fun, Ben and I headed out to the DMV to get my new license. My picture turned out really nice surprisingly. And the Virginia DMV is a little different from Ohio's. When you come in you have to go to the information desk. Once you "check-in" at the desk they pull a number out of a dispenser that prints out an individual business card sized paper, kind of like when you go to a deli counter. Then they tell you to sit down until they call your number. They have like 20 desks and 2 or 3 digital signs overhead scrolling the current number they are "serving." They also have this somewhat digital sounding voice come over the speakers announcing which number is next. So I just thought that the magnitude of the Virginia DMV was quite interesting.

I also registered to vote while I was there. I was pretty proud of myself for getting that handled so I can vote this November. :)

Also, for anyone who may have heard...last time I went to the eye doctor he was concerned about the cup size in my eye. He thought it could be an early sign of glaucoma and seemed a little nervous about it. So he got me in to go through a few tests in order to better figure out my enormous cups (hehe). I went in for those tests today, and, to his surprise, concluded that I am actually at low risk for glaucoma despite my large cups and optic nerves. Whoo hoo! One of the tests I did was to test my peripheral vision. I guess if there is vision loss in certain areas of your peripheral it is a sign of glaucoma. The doctor said I did really well on those tests and asked if I play video games....I said yes and asked why that would matter. He said that video games can actually improve your peripheral vision. So I thought that was pretty good validation for those years of playing video games with Nathan and Daniel...and Mom and Dad....and Aunt Martha and Uncle Larry....lots of video games. But it payed off. Thanks. :)

Fun in the Snow

Ben and i had fun on our visit despite the dumping of snow. Here are a few pictures I took while we were in town. The first one is from Saturday when mom and I were trying to make our way home from Acme, dad and Ben were certain that we'd get stuck at the end of Maplewood so they heroically walked down the middle of the street to push us out of the snow if we needed their muscles. We didn't. But it was a nice gesture...and good exercise for them. Mom and I initially did get stuck and the 4th St end of Maplewood but we got unstuck and drove up 4th street so we could attempt the other side of Maplewood. Then we couldn't to the other side of Maplewood due the the snow and a tow truck blocking our route. So we made our way back, yet again, the the 4th street side of Maplewood. All the while, Ben and Dad were walking back and fourth trying to meet us at whichever end we were coming from. Like I said, good exercise.

The next picture is of Aida out in the snow. She quite enjoyed her time romping like a gazelle. She doesn't get much of that in Virginia...we've only had one snow that she could romp in.

And the last picture is just a random picture out the back door at night of all the snow. Fun.

We arrived back to Virginia to bright blue skies and 60 degree weather. We had to open the windows of the apartment and turn on the fans because it was so warm inside. We are happy to be away from all the snow, but we miss everyone. Aida misses everyone too, but I think she misses the snow more. :)

Itsy Bitsy Spider...

As word travels fast in this family some of you may already know this story. Last night i decided that i wanted a snack. It was about 8:00pm and Ben was in Atlantic City with some buddies from work all day and I headed into the kitchen to get a piece of pita bread. As i turned to get a plate, with pita bread in hand, a dark shadow caught my eye. Running across the floor, almost onto my bare feet, was a gigantic spider. This eight-legged monster was so big you could see it breathing, you could feel the breeze as he ran by, you could....well you get the picture...he was big. And fast. I let out a nice girly shriek encouraging Aida to come bounding in. I thought quick on my feet, like John Goodman in Arachnophobia, and grabbed the trash can and put it on top of him. To ensure his man-eating fangs would not take a liking to me before Ben returned home to play exterminator, I grabbed a cookie sheet and put it over the opening of the trash can. I then grabbed our biggest pot (cookware, not drugs) and stacked it on top of the cookie sheet, along with 4 yearbooks and a 5 pound bag of sugar. As I talked to mom about my near death experience I stood watch over the trash can convinced that the MacGyver spider would surely escape and hunt me down.

Ben returned home and read the "Huge Ass spider under trash can" note and proceeded to put on his superman cape as he offered to exterminate the beast. I warned him of the spider's stealth of foot and giant of stature. So he took off his manly cape (metaphor) and strapped on some high heels (metaphor again) meaning he put on the biggest boots and thickest gloves he could find. He apprehended the intruder and put his smooshed carcass in a snack baggy. And that is the picture you see below.

We are calling an exterminator.

Hide and go Pee

As many of you know, Aida likes to play hide and go seek with us. While she is distracted with a toy or one of us, the other one of us will go hide. Then we tell her to go get "mommy" or go get "daddy." She is really good at finding us, eventually. Well today we had a rousing game lasting about 20 minutes of back and forth hiding until we had an abrupt conclusion. Ben hid behind the door in the guest bathroom. I encouraged Aida to "find daddy" several times as she ran from room to room getting increasingly excited. She went into the bathroom a couple times, but didn't check behind the door. Then...she ran into the bathroom all squirmy and excitedly and instead of looking behind the door she squatted in the middle of the floor and proceeded to piss. And she created a rather spectacular sized puddle. I flipped on the light as I stepped, in my stocking feet, into an apparent squiggle design of pee she had created from the living room into the bathroom leading all the way to her great lake pee puddle. She was scolded, put in the kennel, and the game of Hide and go Pee was subsequently over.

Ol' Crazy Eyes

Ben and I went to the eye doctor today and they dilated our pupils. Now it is after 5:00pm and our appointments were at 1:30pm and yet our pupils are still crazy dilated. We needed to go to the grocery store but we are procrastinating so as to not ensue suspicion that we are high on some kind of illegal substances.

Can't wait until I can see clear again. :)

Happy Half a Year!

I am happy to report that Ben and I have made it through a half a year of marriage! Whoo hoo! I am a little embarrassed to say that I lost track of the dates. I didn't realize yesterday was the 24th, otherwise I would have posted this yesterday.
I know that 6 months isn't much, but for someone who has never been married, it's a big milestone :). Anyways, just thought I would share on our happy "anniversity" (plus 1 day).

Hope everyone has a happy week!

How cute are my cousins?

I came across this picture from the wedding of Caleb and Sebastian cuttin' a rug at the reception. I thought it was cute. Enjoy!

Peppermint Penguins aka Froggy Swamp Muck

The last night Sara was here (Friday night) she was able to leave the conference early enough to come have dinner with us at the apartment. So after a long week for Sara she was able to relax for a little bit. Most nights she wasn't back until 10:30 or 11:00. She called me at about 5:30 to let me know that she was leaving the conference and if we hadn't eaten dinner that she maybe could eat with us. And of course with traffic around here at that time it took her almost 2 hours to get from the hotel to our apartment.

But it all worked out, and we had a spaghetti dinner with killer garlic bread and a salad. And we watched some TV and just relaxed. Ben made us all peppermint penguin drinks. They look gross (the first picture) but they taste yummy. We nick-named them Froggy Swamp Muck because that's pretty much what they look like.

It was really nice having a full "house" for so long. Aida certainly enjoyed the extra bodies in the apartment. She definitely used everybody as her personal toy throwers. And she's so cute you can't help but play with her.

We are looking forward to coming back in less than two weeks for my birthday. Hopefully the weather holds out back in Ohio and here. So we will be seeing you all soon!!

Lunar Eclipse of 2008

This first picture is towards the beginning of tonight's Lunar Eclipse.

This picture is about the time when the entire moon was eclipsed by the earth's shadow. Just the top right portion of the moon is still slightly exposed. You can also see the star Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation Leo, in the bottom left corner. Pretty neat.

Ben and I had fun watching the Eclipse. We made hot chocolate in our cool hot cocoa maker that I got from Nathan for Christmas. And i sat with a wide open window, drinking hot cocoa, taking pictures until my camera's batteries died.

Enjoy! :)

The Hotel 'A La' Ben and Stephanie

Matt and Cat came to visit us this past weekend. We had so much fun. We made some new drinks (Peppermint Penguin) and some old favorites (Dirty Banana)...all were a big hit. We went out to eat at Cheeburger Cheeburger for lunch on Sunday. It is a fun restaurant based on the SNL skit. They have something like 70 different flavors of milkshakes, good burgers and salads. Then for dinner we tried a new restaurant called Ted's Montana Grill. Ben and Matt apparently turned into bandits from the wild west at some point during the dinner (see the third picture down). And Aida made a friend for life with Cat. Aida really liked Cat and Matt. She definitely didn't want them to leave this morning. After they had left, Aida just wandered around the apartment for awhile.

Overall it was a nice visit. We hope they come back again soon. I don't think I have laughed as much in a long time as I had this past weekend.

Sara is coming to stay with us this week because she has a conference in DC. So Sara should be arriving a little later today. It's nice to have so many visitors one after the other. And one of Sara's friends is staying with us also because of the conference...just for one night though.

The Hotel A La Ben and Stephanie...Come anytime. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ben worked on Valentine's Day this year so we didn't really do anything to celebrate. Friday I went to the grocery store and bought myself Valentine's flowers (the bottom two pictures). But when Ben got back from his running around that morning, he came back with a beautiful bouquet of flowers for me. He wanted to get red roses and mango calla lillies since those were the main flowers in my wedding bouquet. I thought that was sweet. :)

What a Deal!

As many of you probably know, Ben and I have started looking at houses this past week. We started our home search online on realtor.com and from there contacted a realtor in the area who has given us a few more prospects. Despite the pushy world of realty, this realtor is actually quite nice and wasn't pushy at all, nor did she try to push beyond our "budget" price. Our biggest issue so far has been that of sticker-shock. Coming from Ohio, our views on a reasonably priced house lie somewhere in the vicinity of $125,000, or less, for a starter home. Here, we have yet to see a house priced in the $100Ks. And believe me, we aren't looking at huge new homes (well, I have, but just for fun)...we are trying to look at smaller homes but with a little bit of land-along the lines of 1/2 an acre or possibly more. Unfortunately there is nothing that would be deemed reasonable. Here is an example of a listing in Sterling, VA, around where we live now:

"Attention investors and handyman, 3 FIN LVLS. Cherry cabinets in kitchen. Home backs to woods. Anderson windows. Huge deck. Extensive water damage to basement and 1/2 of the first level. THERE IS MOLD IN THE HOME, The BANK MAKES NO WARRANTY AND IS NOT LIABLE FOR THE POTENTIALLY HARMFUL EFFECTS THEREOF, but the home is priced accordingly. GREAT BUY!"

Ready for the sticker price on this house of death? $350,000. And no I am not kidding. The lot is less than a quarter-acre. What a deal.
After we reluctantly passed up on this dream home, Ben and I looked out more towards the mountains in Round Hill, Va. We were mostly dissappointed. Although the houses looked nice and were a little lower priced, they were in newer crammed developments and the town center consisted of an old mini-mart. There wasn't even a gas station. Of course we don't have to buy a house right now (good thing) but we are still looking around. We found a few houses we are interested in up in Maryland. They are about an hour from Ben's work, but are slightly more reasonable, emphasis on slightly. But a big plus is they are about an hour closer to Ohio. :)
Like i said, we are just looking right now...I don't actually see us buying a house anytime real soon, unless someone is practically giving away their house. Yeah, that's not going to happen.

*Splish, Splash*

Ben and I took Aida to "Bark N Bubbles" to give her a bath. You can either have them wash her, or to save a few bucks, you can wash the dog yourself. So we decided to wash her ourselves. They provide towels, brushes, shampoo, conditioner and a dryer. And we decided to get her a "blueberry facial." Now, before you freak out that we got our dog a facial hear me out. We didn't have to pay for it because there was a coupon online for a free one. And there isn't much to it. The "facial" is really just a face wash with a blueberry base. It has vitamins and coconut oil and is tearless. To be honest, I really think it made a difference. Aida's face is super soft and shiny. Overall she smells really good and is shiny all over.

On a side note: I feel really bad for all the times we took Aida to the groomers to have them bathe her. She was a spaz! She fought us when we first got her in the tub and especially when the water turned on. She was practically choking herself trying to crawl out of the tub. But once we started scrubing the shampoo on her she calmed down. Every once in awhile she would shake and get us both soaking wet. All in all it was a fun time.

On the way back to the apartment, we stopped at a Barber shop so Ben could get his hair cut. He had never gone to this shop before and it turned out that he really liked the barber and his cut. So all around it was a grooming day...except for me. :)

Does anybody have a mint?

Aida's breath has been pretty ripe, to say the least, lately. So in our recent trip to Target we strolled down the pet aisle and came across a doggie toothbrush kit. We bought it out of necessity. Our sense of smell needed a break. So here are a couple pictures of me brushing Aida's teeth with the finger brush. Surprisingly she didn't mind it.

Make fun of us if you want, but you don't live with Aida and her dragon-breath. :)