Happy Thanksgiving...a day early!

We wish you and your family a wonderful Thanksgiving. We hope it's filled with yummy food, relaxation and time with your loved ones. We are heading up to northern Pennsylvania this afternoon (t-minus 3 hours!) to spend the holiday with Evan's aunt, uncle and cousins. We are so excited to be with family that we don't get to see that often - it will be great. Of course, we hope our families back home enjoy the day - know that we will be missing you! Good news: 4 weeks from RIGHT NOW, Evan and I will be in Nebraska - you're excited, right? We are too!

Our weekend with Chad and Tanya was great. We headed down to D.C. for the Husker game on Saturday, and spent the night watching the game with other Husker fans at The Union Pub - a Husker bar! It was great - I felt at home there! We are so happy that they came to visit us. I'll make a selfish plug again: we welcome any and all visitors! :)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

California & Nebraska

Hello, all! I can't believe my last post was on Halloween - my goodness, that was a long time ago. We've been enjoying life since then. Evan flew to San Francisco last week for a North American Spine Society conference - he went with his fellow team members in his program. Highlights include a bike ride across the Golden Gate Bridge and Napa Valley wine tasting. Needless to say, I was quite jealous. Not to be outdone, I had to plan a little trip for myself - I just couldn't stay in Baltimore for a week without Evan. So I blessed Nebraska with my presence, and it was amazing! I got to see my grandpa and Barb on Thursday, had coffee with Sarah and Liz Friday morning, stopped by Chi Omega to bring back old memories, met my nephew, had K-State ice cream with Ashley and Nathan, saw my grandparents in Milford and my in-laws in Omaha before I left on Sunday. Of course, I spent just about every moment with my parents! Jam-packed, but oh so fun!

We're back to grind here in Baltimore. We have friends, Chad & Tanya, coming to visit us this weekend. We're excited for their arrival (and hope they don't mind sleeping on couches!). :)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, everyone! We hope you've all been enjoying your day - we sure have! We slept in, had waffles for breakfast, went out for ice cream, and had some trick-or-treaters stop by. The management for our apartment building sent a memo out this week, and it said to tape a piece of candy to your door if you wanted children in the building to knock and trick-or-treat at your apartment. Of course, we wanted to give out candy! We saw infant twins dressed as two peas in a pod, a little baby dressed as a lion, a one-year-old dressed as a flower and a toddler dressed as Snow White - everyone looked so cute, and their parents seemed to be having fun!

Although Evan and I don't have costumes for tonight, we're still going to head down to Harbor East. We have reservations at Talara (the place I have that gift card to) for 8:30, and we're excited for a free meal and drinks courtesy of Urbanite.

Have a fun and safe Halloween night!

PumpkinFest '09

Today was magnificent! Evan and I went to Butler's Orchard - about an hour west of Baltimore. The drive there was beautiful with all the leaves changing colors. It was PumpkinFest at the orchard, and there was so many people! A lot of the festival was catered to children, but we still had a blast - young at heart, right?! The weather was beautiful - we couldn't have picked a better autumn day - mid 60s, sunny and no wind! We went on a hay-rack ride and picked out a pumpkin for our apartment - our first pumpkin together! We had caramel apples, pumpkin pie, found our way through a cornfield maze and just enjoyed experiencing the fall season to the fullest.

We went grocery shopping afterward, as we always do on Sundays. I bought an apple spice bread mix from Trader Joe's, and it is baking as I type this. The aroma is wonderful - can't wait to finish off this fall day with freshly-baked bread! I'll be sure to post a picture when it's done.

Hope you have enjoyed your weekend!

Chicken Enchilada Soup - It's a Winner!

Ok, so the Urbanite staff is quite small - 16 or 17 employees. Our publisher feels strongly about building relationships with one another through quality bonding time. This is why we have Friday Happy Hours and birthday celebrations each month. Also, we have a program called "Random Acts of Fun." Through this, a staff member can plan and execute a fun event for our office and then be rewarded with a prize. Well, last week our production coordinator and marketing assistant planned a Soup-Off competition. Of course, I entered...and WON! :) I made a Chicken Enchilada Soup, and it was divine! I took it in a pretty hip, stainless-steel crock pot that we received as a wedding gift. Everyone was amazed at my crock pot - everyone else brought their soup in tupperware. Maybe crock pots aren't popular out here in the East. So either it was the crock pot or my soup that won it for me - either way, I won a $25 gift card to a bar/lounge in downtown Baltimore. Yay!

This past weekend, Evan and I house/dog-sat for a couple who lives in Elkridge (about 15 minutes from Baltimore). Sarah and David were heading down to Florida for the Gators' game, and asked us to house/dog-sit. It was so much fun to "play house" for the weekend! Their dog, Albert, is so cute. We really enjoyed seeing a glimpse of what the future may hold for us, once we can get past apartment living! I took some pictures of Albert, that I'll be sure to post soon!

Welcome to the world, Garrison Dale Mueller!

This post will be, by far, the most important post on this blog. WE HAVE A NEPHEW!!

Ok, not just a nephew - we have a healthy, adorable nephew, and his name is Garrison Dale Mueller. He was born on October 4 at 8:16 p.m., weighing 8 lbs. even and reaching 20 1/2 inches long!

We are so happy for Ashley and Nathan! They are going to make the absolute best parents! My parents are SO excited to be grandparents - they're already talking up a storm about the little guy. Our family is so blessed.

Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, whose books include Blink, The Tipping Point and Outliers, was a speaker for a symposium series presented by Johns Hopkins University on Tuesday night. Evan is a huge fan and has read all of his books, and I have read part of Blink (for a class-haha), so we were both very excited to hear him. He is such an interesting person and has quite the quirky personality. He spoke about the financial crisis and how he believes it was a situation where too much information/knowledge/expertise back-fired on the people in charge. He explained that sometimes a person can know too much, and they become over-confident and aren't able to really look at a situation or a change. It is this over-confidence that can get people into trouble. He had a good line about incompetent people and over-confident people - imcompetent people are never in the position to royally screw up. It's the smart people that have that power. "Incompetent people irritate me; over-confident people scare me," was the line he used.

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of John Edwards, will be the next speaker of the series on October 21. Also, Michael Steele, who is chairman of the Republican National Committee, will be speaking in November alongside Aaron Schock (a Congressman from Illinois, who is the youngest member of Congress. As most of you know, these two people having different political views than we do. That being said, we're open to hearing other people's opinions. Sometimes doing that just reinforces what you believe in. :)

Woohoo...it's the weekend! I'll be leaving the office soon (shh!-I took a quick break!) and am looking forward to a relaxing weekend. Evan has a test next week that he'll be studying for, so please keep him in your thoughts as he prepares to take his first test in grad school!

Book Worms

What a book-filled weekend! This weekend marked the 14th Annual Baltimore Book Festival. They blocked off the streets around the Washington Monument in Mt. Vernon (only 3 blocks from our apartment!). Buzz Aldrin, Ralph Nader, Gwen Ifill, and Maureen McCormick from The Brady Bunch were there promoting their recent books. There were a ton of other vendors ranging from local vineyards to my very own employer, Urbanite. I had to work at Urbanite's booth on Saturday from 11-2, and it was a blast! The magazine is very well-received in Baltimore, so it was wonderful to have people come to our booth just to tell us that they love it! Evan came to the festival around 2:00, so when my shift was over, we had a chance to enjoy the city festival.

Saturday night was spent at a fundraiser for the Baltimore County Public Library, which was held on the Goucher College campus. Urbanite was a media sponsor of this event, so our office received complimentary tickets. I took advantage of this opportunity, as the tickets were normally $50! So Evan and I enjoyed a night of catered food - amazing appetizers, a delicious main course and dessert, which was my favorite! An ice cream sundae bar and cupcakes - it does not get any better than that! We also enjoyed an open bar and played a variety of carnival games! By playing the carnival games, you could win raffle tickets for two great prizes. Unfortunately, we didn't win, but the people sitting next to us THOUGHT they did. They were a younger couple, probably in their early thirties. The announcer called the winning number a few times, and we the woman next to us start saying "We won!" She then proceeded to start screaming and saying "O...M...G...aaahhhhh!" as she ran to the stage (her husband stayed where he was, acting a little unsure). Turns out she didn't have the right number, and the announcer said she was a winner, just not of the basket. I about died. She came back to our area, and told her husband this: "Not only was I loud...I was wrong." Evan and I could not stop laughing. So all in all, the night was so worth it.

I should mention that we were able to spend time with Evan's high school counselor on Saturday morning. He was in town for a conference, and his wife joined him. We picked them up from their hotel and had breakfast at Chocoloatea, and then gave them a tour of Hopkins' campus. It was so nice to visit with people from Nebraska! They were wonderful!

Happy Birthday!

Today is a special day for Evan's grandpa, Kenny! It's his 80th birthday, and we wish him all the best and many more!

Unfortunately, the Huskers couldn't deliver a nice present to him, but we hope he still enjoyed his day!

Football is Here!

Although Evan was swamped with a paper that was due last Monday, we were still able to enjoy last weekend. My work had an office happy hour from 4-5 last Friday (at the office!). Beer, wine, cheese and truffles were served - my kind of work place! Our magazine's publisher was so happy with our September issue, "The Learning Issue," and just wanted to thank everyone for their hard work. Each employee got to pick a prize from a bag that she passed around. My prize: a gift certificate to a new restaurant that opened in April down in Harbor East - a hip neighborhood by the harbor. Check out the restaurant: Talara. I can hear the Peppermint Pattie Mojito calling my name...

On Saturday we went to Sarah and David's (she's a Chi Omega alum) for the USC/Ohio State game. They cooked dinner for us: grilled pork tenderloin, baked potatoes, orzo salad and rolls. We brought the dessert, Blackberry Jam Cake. Everything was delicious! We really enjoy hanging out with Sarah and David and are excited to have met them!

This past week has been so busy for the both of us. Evan had that huge paper that I mentioned due on Monday and then a presentation on Wednesday. He was up until 4:30 on one night working on everything! I had a work party on Tuesday night - we have a "roll out" party every month to celebrate the new issue. September's party was held at Teavolve, a bar that has all the drinks infused with tea - pretty cool! On Thursday night, I went to a Chi Omega alum meeting, trying to get the alum group more organized. Then on Friday I had to work at an event that Urbanite sponsors - Friday Night Concerts at Belvedere Square. Evan came to it, so it didn't seem like I was working, so that was nice. A crazy week, but we can't complain! Everything is going so well, PLUS the Huskers play VA Tech today, and it is on ABC! Woohoo - we get to watch this game!! Go HUSKERS!