A time for Food, I mean, Thanks

As much as I miss Thanksgiving with the fam. and my mom's great cookin', we've found a way to make it pretty great here in C'ville on our own. The past two years a bunch of couples from our ward have all gotten together and rented out a room at the law school for a pot-luck Thanksgiving feast, and both years it's been fantastic! Check out this food!



It was the best of two worlds, because we got the great food, and my sister, brother in law, and nephew drove down and spent it with us!



When we found out we were in charge of one of the birds, we were a little nervous, but Ryan rose to the occasion and went all out. I wanted to shove it in the oven and call it good. When that was my plan, Ryan took over and brined it over night in salt/sugar water in a garbage sack on our porch, buttered it up betweeen the skin and the meat, and stuffed it with herbs and spices.....it was delicious. He also made three dynomite pies. Hopefully this will continue in the future and he'll just be in charge of our Thanksgiving meals.




I'm Thankful that I have so many great friends to spend the holidays with when my family is so far away.

PS. In case you were wondering, I haven't been hiding my son for the past two years...sometimes I just like to hold random kids in photos and pretend they are mine. Thanks Sara!

Oh the Beauty of the Earth

Seriously, check out the beauty that is Charlottesville. Ryan and I can't get over it. I feel like I'm living in a wonderland. Doesn't this make you want to come visit me? I think you should.

This is our parking lot. How amazing is that?

Red Hair to match the Red trees

Ryan has wanted me to dye my hair red for as long as I can remember. Well, his wish came true and I feel like a carrot top. After the holidays I think I'll start working my way back to blonde.

I love fall in Virginia. Tomorrow we're going to go for a drive and take some scenic pictures of the breath-taking, multi-colored trees, but in the mean time, here's some of their leaves I used to create my very own home-made Autumn center-piece. I'm kind of proud of it.

Read Me!

Hey Friends of Cheryl!

You see this beautiful girl?

It's her birthday! Go here and tell her why you love her.

Love,
The Blog Gremlin

New York, New York

So Ryan really wanted to go to a game at the Old Yankee Stadium in NYC before they closed it down and open the new one, and I am always up for a trip anywhere anytime, so a couple weekends ago we headed to the city with my friend from work Nadine....
and Ryan's friend from school Andrew.


The game itself was pretty boring. However I was thoroughly entertained, dismayed and disgusted watching this kid throughout the game.




He was eleven years old and seriously ate for two hours straight. Poor Nadine, he chomped and spilled all over her! The first couple innings he had his baseball glove on one hand and would fill it with chips, eat those until they were gone, guzzle his two liter soda and then continue to alternate. Then it was a jumbo pretzel, a hot dog and a bag of cracker jacks! I felt like it was my duty as a exercise physiology major to say something and warn him and his oblivious grandparents that he was headed down a long, tumultuous road of serious health issues and that the long-term ramifications of his hand to mouth habit would most certainly result in clogged arteries, heart-ache, and regret. Instead, I bit my tongue and took a picture.

We also saw an incredible performance of the Tony awarding Broadway hit musical "Jersey Boys" for only $27.00 a ticket. Turns out if you're one of the first ten people to show up at the box office at 1:00 you can get "standing room only tickets" to the 3:00 matinee. At first I was not happy about the idea of standing for three hours while to watch the show, but I was so entertained I barely noticed I was on my feet! Plus I just kept thinking how much more everyone else around me spent on their tickets for the same view.

If I could have only meet this guy,
it may have been a perfect trip to NYC. Someday Matt, someday.

Arachnophobia

I certainly don't consider myself one to freak out over the occasional bug or spider and will usually grit my teeth, grimace, squash the thing and then run like lightening to the toilet. Last night was a serious exception. After a long day of work, yoga, and med-wives meeting, I came home at 9:30 with this greeting me in my bathroom.


I may have had my first panic attack. Is it just me, or is this a baby trianchula? Of course, Ryan is out of town and I'm all by myself. Luckily I have several friends in my complex so I started calling them, hoping one of their husbands could hurry over and remedy the situation. Of course, their husbands were all off studying, but a couple of my girlfriends came rushing over for support.

After they saw the magnitude of this creature and realized I wasn't just being a wimp, they set off for help. Finally, we stopped this poor, random guy who was on his way to a poker game and apparently lives below me, and asked him if he would kill it for us. I think when he saw it he was a little taken aback, but at this point there were three girls watching and waiting for him to save the day, so he rose to the occasion like a champ. The girls didn't watch and gathered at the other side of the apartment, but it sounded like a battle zone in the bathroom as random joe took off his shoe and went to town.

I am still haunted and continue to hallucinate spiders in ever corner of my apartment. How did that thing get in here? We're on the second floor! I love the East coast, but I am not a fan of the colossal, creeping, creatures that live here.

Anniversary Weekend

Our four year anniversary isn't until this Thursday, but Ryan is leaving me for a month to go do a rotation at the hospital in Roanoke tomorrow, so we celebrated last weekend. Our celebration started Thursday night. I treated him to a facial at the school...

He brought me flowers at work....

Friday we went to a rockin' party at club Rapture downtown complete with food, c-villes hottest DJ and live belly dancing performaces. We got it all for free through hook-ups with work.


We went with my new besty at work Nadine. I love her!!! She makes Vasom so much more fun!

Saturday we saw the new Batman movie; fastest two hours and 42 minutes movie I've ever seen! My thoughts are this; definitely entertaining, too violent for kids, stunning performance from the joker, good movie to analyze over dinner...which is exactly what we did afterward at the Italian restaurant we ate at to finish our celebrations. Happy Anniversary Ryan...I love you!
(Don't have any of the professional pics from the wedding on our computer. This was at our luncheon though with my camera.)