Saturday, July 31, 2010

Oklahoma City!

As long as our trip has gone as planned so far, we're in Oklahoma City today!!! I am so excited visit here! I have heard amazing things about this city and I can't wait to check it out.

Also, we're staying with a friend from college, John who is probably one of the funniest people who doesn't know how funny he is I have ever met. I could laugh at with him for days on end. And he loves weather. That's why he's in Oklahoma - its apparently the weather epicenter of the United States.

Also, he posts facebook statuses like this:



I mean, what's not to love about that level of weather excitement.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Memphis




Today we're in Memphis! Memphis is supposed to be home of great bbq! I read all about this in Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives one day when I had a huge food craving and decided it was absolutely neccesary that I download this book onto my Kindle. Memphis is also the 19th largest city in the United States, the largest city in Tennessee, and also the youngest city in Tennesee.

Should be a blast!

Thursday, July 29, 2010

On The Road Again


I'm heading down to Nashville to meet Caton for our roadtrip this afternoon! I am so excited. Between me, Caton, her cute little puppy, Elly, and our luck - we'll be sure to come back with some amazing stories.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A Great Success.

Some of you might remember this post when I unsuccessfully tried to get Martin to broaden his horizons and try Thai food. 

I thought I was doomed forever.

But then...


Judy wanted to go to Taste of Thai Express for her birthday. And since both Matt and Adam (two equally closed-minded individuals as my darling husband) were attending without complaint. Martin also came along without complaint.

And he ordered (cashew chicken) without complaint.

And he ate without complaint.

And then he admitted that the food was actually very good.

I think the direct quote was, "Jenna usually has to force me to try new things and then I like them"

I love it when things go my way.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

I Love A Good Celebration


On Saturday night, we went out to dinner and then back to Judy, Kristin, and Jen's apartment to celebrate Judy's birthday and also Kristin's since she will be gone on August 6th when hers finally rolls around.

It was a lot of fun. I had so much fun laughing.


And sipping on my virgin strawberry daiquiri which is almost as good as the real thing.

Of course, my favorite part of the night were all the stories. All the stories that Matt deemed, not cross-gender appropriate. Basically, we talked about sex the whole time. Which really, if you've learned anything about me on this here blog, you should know it's one of my favorite  topics of conversation. Martin passed out snoring in the middle of the floor so he missed all the good stories. I think he was really dissapointed.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Is That What Happens When You're Married?

When we went to Tully's for Caton's birthday dinner we were playing with some fun cards that Katie had given Caton for her birthday. They were truth or dare cards, but due to the nature of the cards it wasn't really possible for us to complete the dares with anyone other than a romantic partner and definitely not in a restaurant. So we were doing truths around the table.

One truth was something along the lines of name your fantasy place, time, duration, scene, with whom, etc.

When it was my turn to answer I started off by saying morning. At this point, an old friend from high school, Dan, interrupted me to say - Wait. Morning? What do you do about morning breath??

Me: Morning breath. Umm....nothing I guess.
Dan: So that's it. That's what happens when you get married. You just forget about morning breath. ....interesting.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

English Accents


So.....I left off at Niagara Landing. After Niagara Landing we decided we wanted to go back to Viscera. This time for a beer tasting. But it was after six and most of he wineries close at 6. Caton decided to call and see if her cousin was still working. Unfortunately, she didn't know his name. So, in as professional a voice as she can muster - she calls the winery to inquire about his whereabouts.

Caton: Yes, I was wondering is the wine server with a Corona visor and curly hair still there?

Oh, he went home for the day. Ok. Thank You! Do you know his name.

Ashton. Ok, thank you very much.

As you can probably imagine, there's really no way you can make wine server in a corona visor sound professional

Then we decided to call again and see if they were stil open. For some reason Caton partakes an English Accent on this particular call.

Caton (in english accent the entire time) Yes, we were calling to inquire if your facility is still open for beer tasting.

Oh. it is. wonderful. Are you going to be open long? You see my friends and I are traveling from England so you can imagine that we wanted to try all the wine first but now we would like to do a beer tasting.

Oh! Perfect! You'll make sure that you stay open at least until we get there. Splendid! We'll be there in about 10 minutes.

Immediately after getting off the phone with the woman it dawns on us that they are now expecting a group of English Girls for a tasting. Caton, Kerri and I immediately start talking to each other in English accents. Kylie gets instantly entralled in the idea and begins to carry on a conversation about farmers with herself in an English accent. Katie refuses to participate and sits in the back seat randomly shouting I am American.

When we arrived for the beer tasting, fortunately we decided to disband the idea which was probably a good thing as it would have come off terribly. We sat and chatted with the beer server who proceeded to tell me how I should drink a beer every day once I get close to the end of my pregnancy because it helps with lactation. She then continues to tell us all about the really good beers she would by herself for the end of her pregnancy and how she would make her husband drink cheap beers and whenever he would try to take one of hers she would scold him saying, Don't touch that - It's for the baby!

I don't think I'm going to follow that advice.

Then we headed to Batavia to meet some friends for dinner at Tully's. Caton refused to eat saying that she couldn't afford the food calories because she needed to drink more. Then moments later when Andrew questioned her saying You're not eating because you don't want the calories??? She angrily accused him of calling her fat. Let's just say she had consumed a lot of alcohol that day.

Then the waitress didn't put the meal on seperate checks so Mike became everyone's hero by figuring out what each should pay.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Judy!

Happy Birthday Judy!!
Today is Judy's birthday. I knew Judy really well in college, but it wasn't really until this year when we've been living in Ithaca that I've really started to love her.

She's absolutely amazing!
I can't wait to go out for her birthday tonight.

Friday, July 23, 2010


Last weekend I drove on a wine tour with these lovely ladies for Caton's birthday. It was amazing. I honestly didn't think it was possible to have so much fun on a wine tour without drinking, but I had an absolutely marvelous time!

Our first stop was Lynoaken Farms. I love this place because the people are extremely nice and it is so close to Lyndonville. We ended up driving behind Martin and Gabe on the way there so we made them pull into the parking lot and get us pumped up with a lot of laughter. Inside, we were a huge hit with servers.

Wine Server: (to me) So, did you draw the short straw and get stuck driving?
Me: No. I just got knocked up.

This comment was a big hit and apparently called for high fives all around with the wine servers. We were having so much fun there the servers asked if they could just come with us for the rest of the day..

I can't believe this is your first stop! We're going with these girls.

Then some random guy who was there with his wife asked if he could be our driver. I think he missed some crucial bits of the conversation though because......I am the driver.
Sidenote: Don't you love the pattern on Caton's dress. I want to put it on my wall.

Next we went to Viscera. We have never been here before because it always seems really full. It is also kind of a huge market thing where they host weddings, have wine and beer, a farmstand, a castle to play in; there's a lot going on here. This ended up being the winery that really put everyone over the edge.

Caton: It's my birthday today.
Wine Server: I'm going to get you fucked up.

He then proceeded to do just that. About halfway through the tasting Kerri realized that he actually just married their cousin so Caton and Kerri are related to this guy. Crazy huh? This revelation just egged him on for getting them "fucked up" because after that, Caton's glass was never empty. Actually it was rarely less full than three quarters. If I had to take a guess, I would say she consumed somewhere between one and a half and two bottles of wine here.


We left Viscera with all the girls feeling very tipsy and headed to Freedom Run. Last time we went here, the owner was trying to convince Katie that she should get together with his son who is a student getting his MBA at a college.....somewhere...in Rochester or Buffalo.....we couldn't quite remember. Anyway, when we walked in and saw a guy about our age we immediately thought this was the long lost son that we had been looking for. Upon baraging him with questions, however, we found out that he is just a boy, named Lucas, working at a winery pouring wine for the summer. He didn't quite know how to deal with our lively ridiculousness.

Kylie took as many opportunities as possible at this winery to rub my belly, whenever an appropriate opening became available. After the first time she did it she whispered, Yes! I've been waiting to do that all day!

After Freedom Run we went to a winery with really pretty wildflowers and a long driveway and a wine called Beauvine with a cow on it. I can never remember the name of this winery, but I also can't really remember anything notable happening here.
Then we went to the winery that has really awesome bathrooms and amazing stained glass on the bars. I can't remember the name of this one, I do remember that the bartender was a complete drag and basically hated her job, and life and pouring wine in general. She was just angry at the world. I asked her how long she had been working there and she said three years. I guess its been a long three years. I don't know if its really sinking in what a buzzkill this lady was, but I was trying desperately to get us another wine server. There was a really fun guy with the group next to us wearing a hawaiian shirt who looked like he was possible gay. He was the guy I wanted. So I asked him if he could do us and he was like no problem and then told our buzzkill lady that he would finish up our tasting for her but she was so worried about having to serve the bus that she refused to give us up. Luckily, hanging out in the bathroom made up for her poor service!

Next, we went to Niagara Landing. We met some people we knew in the parking lot and then snuck in just in time for a wine tasting. They were about to start packing up for the day, but instead we had a lot of fun listening to the server's sarcastic, witty, sort of hateful comments about life.

This isn't the end of our day, but I think this post is getting a little long so I'll leave you with that for now.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Just A Taste


I'll have more about Caton's Birthday Wine Tour to come, but for today just a little taste of what ensued.


These pictures show Caton trying to have an intelligent conversation with a parrot while Kylie plays Lady Gaga on the piano in the background.



I'm just going to let the ridiculous of that statement sink in for a second.



I'll also say, in her defense, this was our last stop and also the second time we had stopped at this particular winery that day.



So, I'm sure it comes as no surprise that Caton was completely frustrated with this bilingual parrot that just could not follow her train of thought.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

No Pun Intended

conversation between Martin and I upon returning home from a night filled with friends, wings, sweet potato fries, beer and diet pepsi at Castaways.

Martin: That was a nice time.
Me: Yeah, it was fun. I'm glad you don't mind hanging out with the girls
Martin: It was really great until the conversation turned to tampons. But....in you defense, you guys did wait quite a while to pull that string.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

I'm Pretty Sure These Were Sent From God

So, I recently discovered Belly Bands! I mean, I didn't even really discover them so much as a colleague of mine gave me a bag of maternity clothes and there were two of these bands in the bag. I was previously still squeezing into my old pants, but it was getting to be uncomfortable.

All my problems have been solved.

The belly band is amazing. It basically just stretchy fabric that you put on your belly and then fold over your pants. This allows you to leave your pants unbuttoned without anyone knowing! And its not a big deal if someone sees the belly band because it just looks like a tank top coming out of the bottom of your shirt. I really hope whoever invented these is rich. Seriously. My new goal is to wear my original pants throughout the entire pregnancy! We'll see how long that lasts.

Monday, July 19, 2010

21 Weeks



So, I'm actually 22 weeks along now, but these pictures were taken at the end of last week when I was 21 weeks. For some reason it hasn't felt like I've been gaining weight throughout my body which has made me fairly happy, but as I look at these pictures I'm pretty positive my arms have recently turned into tree trunks and I have completely lost my ankles. Sigh.... I'm going to go with the camera puts on ten pounds!


I'm really starting to pop out there!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Dressed To Impress

Of the multitude of things my brother-in-law, Gabe, is good at, one of those is dressing to catch everyone's attention.

This year's canoe trip was no exception. Let's just take a minute to really take this outfit in.
a cutoff button up shirt tucked into much too short lifeguard shorts against extremely white legs with even whiter socks slipped into velcro sneakers. oh, and don't forget the sunscreen coating the nose. All in all, I think perfection really sums up this outfit.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

What Else Would I Be Celebrating?



Caton and I have been best friends for a long time.



Basically as long as I can remember....



The point is... I cannot imagine what else I would be doing with my day today.


Other than celebrating Miss Caton's birthday


Happy 23rd Caton!!!

Friday, July 16, 2010

What Everyone Is Thinking

So at the end of our canoe trip on July 4th, Martin walks up to me and says,

How does it feel to be the most wanted person here?
Me: huh???
Martin: Everyone wants to have sex with a pregnant woman. Every person here wants to have sex with you

And that is something that I never would have guessed and still don't really believe.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Food!


But the best part about the Ithaca Farmer's Market is the food. You can do wine tasting...even though I no longer participate in events like this, its pretty amazing you can do it at the market.
But the sheer number of lunch choices in staggering. It's so difficult to decide what to eat. You can have cambodian food...

Or enjoy a pastry..
Mmmm. Or crepes.

Cuban...(this guy told me he wanted half the proceeds for whatever I make by taking a picture of his food. I told him I have absolutely no problem handing over half of nothing.)
Fresh baked breads and flatbread pizza can be found at this one.

Or try some authentic asian cuisine.
Deciding what to eat while meandering through the farmer's market is definitely one of the toughest choices.
I finally settled on a gyro which was absolutely decedant!
And I washed it down with some fresh squeezed lemonade.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Ithaca Farmer's Market

I've been meaning to write a post about the Ithaca Farmer's Market for a long, loooong time. I've wanted to write one since Memorial Day Weekend when I went to the Farmer's Market with my dear friend Michelle.
But I forgot to bring my camera that time, and there is really no use in writing a post about the farmer's market without taking pictures because so much of the farmer's market is just an amazing visual experience!

Martin would never set foot in the Ithaca Farmer's Market because he thinks its some sort of meeting ground for all that is evil and all that he hates about Ithaca. But I love the farmer's market. It is just soo........so....Ithaca.

And you can get so much stuff there!

Besides being full of fresh produce..

You can also get flowers.
And fresh bouquets

Pottery

Jewelry

Wouldn't my baby look so cute in this carrot-top!

And isn't this artwork impressive! This is carved....from a block of wood!
You can even get a massage at the Ithaca Farmer's Market!