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...

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving Richard and I enjoyed a very special treat, we got the company of both of my parents.  They arrived on Tuesday after my written final exam and stayed through Sunday.  The day they arrived we took a very expensive trip to the Natural History Museum...  Why, you ask? Isn't it a Smithsonian, which means free entry?  Yes it is, but we decided to drive, and parked on Constitution where we recieved a $100 parking ticket.  On the upside, my father did at least see one of the Smithsonian museums on his visit to DC.

In our cool 3D glasses for the Grand Canyon IMAX

In front of the Easter Island Head

On Wednesday, I had to work while Mom and Richard started on the feast preparations...

Thursday, Feast Day, Thanksgiving... We got up and per tradition watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, while preparing lunch.  For four little people we had a 8lb ham and a 14lb turkey (which we actually put on the scale to confirm), plus all the fixins (dressing, cranberry sauce, green beans, gravy, rolls, sweet potatoe balls, pea salad, devilled eggs, chocolate pie, carrot cake, and a chocolate pecan pie).

On Friday...Christmas BEGINS!!!!  We headed out and purchased our first real Christmas tree, and got my Dad out of the house long enough to take a trip to whole foods and to the Marine Corps Memorial.

We even have a real star for the top!!! (Also, a first)

The rest of the weekend was spent mostly eating Thanksgiving leftovers, watching Christmas movies (and Pawn stars), and my dad not leaving the house.  Me, Richard and Mom headed out on a few hikes/nature walks to Great Falls and to the Teddy Roosevelt Island.

At Great Falls

The Island.

Christmas followed just two days after Thanksgiving...the big news...we got an iPad!!!  Thanks mom!!! 

Also, I want to give Lauren a special shoutout for the wine and Cheesecake she delivered!

Great Falls, the name says it all!

Saturday, November 13th

Richard and I met some friends for a hike at Great Falls National Park.  This is a park about 15 miles out of the city, on the Potomac River, overlooking yup, you guessed it, the falls.  It was a beautiful place, and the weather was amazing, it was sunny and 60 on Saturday, and all the leaves are bright orange, yellow and read, with some green and purple interspersed.  The fall is really beautiful here.  I never knew what a great season I was missing in Texas, this is one of the few aspects in which DC has something on Texas. 

It's also pretty amazing that something this beautiful and this rustic is 15 miles from the heart of our nation.  It is amazing here how so areas feel so serene despite the location.  I feel like one of the major reasons is that the governments around here are very big on preservation, it takes an act of congress to cut down a tree, so everything is wooded and beautiful.