New Year's Resolutions

I have never been one to make new year's resolutions, in fact I don't remember ever making one.  This year I decided to change that so to speak...  I didn't actually make a single resolution, but I made lists of what I hope to accomplish in 2011.  There are two lists.  List one was inspired by the fact that this could be our last year in DC and there is still a lot I want to do here, so it's a list of local museums and activities I hope to enjoy this year.  List two is my culinary adventures list, which is a list of those items "I always wanted to make".   So far I've knocked one off each list:

List 1 Item: Newseum

The newseum is an interactive museum dedicated to the what, when, where, why, and how of news.  It's one of the few museums in the city with an entry fee, and a pretty hefty one at that $20, but of course I got a Groupon for less than 50%, so we finally ventured out to one of the city's best museums.  I would highle reccommend spending even the full price for entry to this museum, allow yourself at least 4 hours to visit.  Some of the highlights: a beautiful section of the berlin wall with a great exhibit, a moving 9/11 exhibit, and a collection of newpapers dating back to the 1500's including the first publication of the declaration of independence and the constitution...AMAZING!  Only complaint, the museum closes strictly at 5:00, they usher you out, so make sure you get there early enough to enjoy all the sights.

 
List 2: Ravioli and Lamb

Richard and I love to cook, and will be a bit more adventurous in 2011.  The last couple of weeks we've done very well for ourselves.  We started out with Ragu d'Agnello (lamb), a stuffed roasted lamb cooked in a tomato sauce.  And as promised we made Ravioli.  We have some work to do on our ravioli technique, but they were delicious none the less.  We stuffed them with a four chees mixture including: mozarella, Romano, Parmesean, and Mascarpone, with garlic and basil.  So here are the pictures... doesn't it make you want to come visit?  We eat good here :)

This Year I GRADUATE!!!!

Richard and I spent our first new year's eve outside of Texas ringing in the new year in our nation's capitol! 

We went to a party at Lauren, Kate and Sean's place to celebrate with some our of favorite DC peeps.

 Me, Lauren and Nicole (Heyni we missed you!)

This are four of my classmates we got to celebrate with!

It was a great time, Tony taught me the Dougie, Nicole and Richard both belted some faux Karoke in a beautiful handcrafted microphone (thanks to me and Lauren), Jake clearly rocked the sombrero, and Nicole and I spent the first two and a half hours of the new year dancing and singing our hearts out to a medley of salsa, rap, and some nice 80's throw backs!

As great as it was it's the first new year's in quite a while we didn't ring it in with our friends in Texas, we missed you guys!

Happy New Year from the East Coast!! 

P.S. This year I finish school!!! (start praying now that I'll be able to come back to Texas)

Pasta alla'Uovo

The best Christmas present I got this year was from my loving husband.  He gave me the pasta attachment for my kitchenaid mixer, which I have been wanting for a long time.  So the day after Christmas, Stephen, Richard and I came home and set out to make our first batch of fresh Pasta alla'Uovo (Egg Pasta).  It went pretty well for our first try, we ran into a few technical errors, but overall it was delicious! 

In case you are interested in trying this out for yourself, here is the recipe I used which was the perfect consistency, not too wet or too dry.

4 eggs
2 1/4 cup of flour
1 Tbsp EVOO
1 tsp salt

Here is our Fettucine con Gambieri...

We are going to try our hand at Ravioli today...We'll let you know how it goes!



Another Christmas Here and Gone...

Christmas 2010

As you all know by now, we were not able to come home for Christmas due to my work schedule.  However, we had a great Christmas here in Virginia.  We spent the holiday with Richard's family.  Sara, Tom, Leo, Josey and Luca are all here, just about 20-30 minutes from us.  So we had good bargaining chips to get the rest of the family here for the holidays, and Maria, Stephen and Nana flew in to join us for the festivities. 

Our family here in Virginia

We essentially had a four day eating festival, with intermingled rest periods filled with lots of family fun.  On Christmas eve, Richard and I hosted lunch at our apartment, consisting of Shrimp Linguini followed by Baked Salmon with Veggie Lentils, and Hello Dolly's for dessert.  Then we went out to Sara and Tom's for the traditional Christmas eve festivities, including Chicken salad sandwiches, velveeta cheese dip, and ambrosia.

Christmas day we had the whole traditional holiday feast complete with Turkey, dressing, cranberries, etc...  We also enjoyed a day full of playing with the kids new toys.

Then the day after Christmas we were finally able to indulge in Sara's delicious lasanga!!!  Thanks Sara!

We just had a great time spending some quality time with our family.  We hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and we sincerely miss all of our friends and family back in TX, and hope we will be able to spend the holidays with you next year!

Christmas Cookie Extravaganza!!!

This year my Christmas spirit cup has been running over.  For those of you who don't remember last year we skipped Christmas altogether, and spent a week in Mexico.  This meant no Christmas tree, no Chirstmas presents, and an unsual but wonderful Christmas dinner in Playa del Carmen.  It was one of my favorite Christmas', it was exactly what I needed last year.  But I think the break was exactly what I needed to renew my Christmas spirit!  Because this year it is running our my ears!

The day after Thanksgiving we put up our Christmas tree, our first real Christmas tree, and started our month long Christmas moovie marathon.  Since then I've finished all my Christmas shopping, listened to lots of Christmas music, and planned and executed a delicious Christmas cookie party, which brings me to the point of my post...

Saturday, December 11th- Girl's Day and Night In

I had some of my girlfriends over for lots and lots of cookies!  I made two different batches of gingerbread, a batch of sugar cookies, two different types of icing, plus dinner.  Needless to say we had more than enough cookies for everyone to take home with them.  I really enjoyed my company, especially getting to introduce lauren to cookie cutting.

Ugly Christmas Sweaters!

Saturday, December 4th

We were invited to an Ugly Christmas sweater pub crawl, and really who can pass up a chance to dawn a heinous Christmas sweater in public?  Not me!  So Richard and I went to Goodwill to look for something to wear, naturally we didn't bring any Christmas sweaters to DC with us...  Much to our shock when we arrived they did not have a single Christmas sweater.  So, per my friend Lauren's suggestion I decided to make my own, and we headed to Ross to find the canvas.  Richard found a Christmas tree tie and I bought a cheap red sweater, and headed to the craft store to find the decorations, next thing you know this is what we came up with...

We spent an excited evening hoping around Dupont Circle with some good friends!

One year from Today

One year from today I will be finished with my clinicals and will be about 1.5-2 months away from being a real CRNA and about two weeks shy of graduation.  I know that's not long at all but I'm afraid it's going to be one long year with a lot of 10 and 12 hour shifts between now and then.  I think I'm going to be exhausted by then.

Today also has another landmark it is the first day I've officially been off 1:1 at work.  Which means now I'm practicing with more responsibility because I'm only working with anesthesiologist's and they are assigned to more than one OR simultaneously. This is basically the same set up as I anticipate once I'm done with school.

1 down 364 more to go...