The Trouble With Blogging... and Winter Storm Jonas!

Well its been almost a month since I've been here and as that was not the plan that's how it played out. Honestly I don't know why, but I pretty much told myself that I would just blog when I felt like it, and I guess I didn't feel like it. I have a bunch of stuff I want to write about, a bunch of products that I have tried that I want to tell y'all about and I don't know why I just haven't been able to get here and get motivated to write.

I have gotten back into reading which has been great, I suppose I could do some book reviews as well. As you may know I got a new Nook for my birthday and I was struggling to get books on there so in the meantime I just read books that I had laying around. Finally last week I sat down and watched a bunch of youtube videos at Jason's recommendation and they didn't help at all. So I started reading forums and people were having the same issues I was, so I did a bunch of things they recommended and TA DA, it worked like a charm! My Nook hasn't left my hands since!

I fixed my Nook just in time for Winter Storm Jonas to hit us! We knew it was coming but truth be told I really didn't expect it to be as bad as it was. Wednesday night we got about an inch and I swear the city stopped, they didn't seem prepared for it at all, we had been out at Target and on the drive home the roads were terrible and there were no plows or salt trucks in sight. When it started to snow on Friday at literally exactly the time they said it would, I wondered were we really going to get all they were calling for and how they would handle it here.

Friday morning Tanya and I went for a walk and then came home to hunker down for all they had called for. It started to snow around 1pm just as they had said and it did not stop until sometime very early Sunday morning!

Friday the snow was steady and heavy but the wind wasn't nearly as horrific as we saw on Saturday. We had the weather channel on almost all day Saturday and they basically begged people to say in and off the roads, which you wouldn't have thought that would have been an issue on account you could barely see a thing outside with the blizzard conditions but people were actually out. They started fining people and arresting them in New York city for driving. They were concerned with people getting stuck everywhere and basically inhibiting clean up and emergency vehicles.. Honestly I just couldn't understand what would be so important to venture out in that.

We were not only worried about possibly losing power here but also at our house! Raleigh was also effected by the storm and as usual they got more ice than snow! We made sure to turn the heat up a lot just in case we lost power and fortunately things at the house were fine.

However on Saturday morning we woke up to no heat in our apartment. I'm not exactly sure why it wasn't working but we ended up calling maintenance and they had apparently contracted our maintenance out to people who had never been here before and basically said they would do their best to find someone with a four wheel drive vehicle to get out to us! I couldn't believe it! Thankfully the heat just started working again or I have a feeling we would have been without for awhile.

I'll share some pictures of Friday and Saturday with you before I move on to Sunday and what we got up to!

Friday late afternoon

Friday night. 

Saturday morning! Keep in mind the wind was CRAZY, there were snow drifts EVERYWHERE!

I was pretty bored, so I baked some peanut butter cookies.. then I ate a bunch. Note to self, don't bake when you cant get rid of the cookies ASAP. 

Saturday afternoon, you couldn't see a thing! 

Saturday night. Don't think these people are going anywhere. In fact a bunch of them are still out there looking not much different. 

Saturday night. What a mess. 

I believe it was suppose to snow until Sunday morning some time, we went to bed late Saturday night and it was still snowing, I was up at 7am on Sunday and it has stopped. It was such a huge mess. Jason had borrowed a shovel from Dave thankfully and went out a few times on Saturday to shovel out the truck so it wouldn't be a huge job Sunday.. it was really good thinking on his part. 

Sunday morning Jason helped Josh move some stuff from their storage unit to their apartment and when he got back he saw an older gentlemen who lives here trying to dig out his cars, honestly he was far too old to be doing it and god love Jason and his big heart he spent a really long time out there making sure his cars were dug out. 

I went out to see if Jason needed some gloves or anything and that gentlemen told me he and his wife were moving to the Philippines where his wife is from, they were over winter! I hear ya my friend, I hear ya!

Having said that it was an absolutely beautiful day and the snow looked so pretty! I was up and ready anyways so Jason and I decided to head over to Target because we had something to return, get Starbucks and see if we could make it over to Dave and Lindsey's to play with the girls in the snow! Believe it or not the people who were suppose to plow the Target parking lot didn't show so that was a bit of a mess but we managed to get everything done we needed to and headed to Dave and Lindsey's.

Lindsey had told me that their roads hadn't been plowed but on our way over every other one was until it was time to turn onto their street. I really thought Jason would just say forget it when he saw the 20 inches on untouched snow covering the road to get to their house. The truck is brand new therefore it just has all season tires on it and its the snow ultra lightweight Ford so there wasn't much for traction either. Well I assumed wrong, instead of just driving back home Jason laid on the gas and fish tailed down the road to Dave and Lindsey's house! I think the neighbors thought he was totally whacked! Then when we arrived he slid the truck into the cul de sac and was flying around! Literally snow was flying absolutely everywhere, the truck was spinning around and while the neighbors were all standing at the end of their driveways staring, Jason was glowing.. loving every single second of it! There was SO MUCH SNOW!

Finally he was stuck and he and Dave had to shovel out the truck, while they got to work on that I went in to see if the girls were ready to come out and play. Lily was already half dressed and ready to go but Ava took a little more coercing! Lindsey asked her did she want to get dressed and go out and play.. she said "NO!" haha I couldn't blame her, she doesn't like to be cold. Lindsey then told her that Jason came to play with her, was she sure she didn't want to go out.. she replied.. "ummm.. NO!". Not long after though she saw Dave and Jason working on a snow fort outside and she got dressed! 

I don't know if this fort was for them or the girls. 

Lily and I were trying to make a castle out of snow with her bucket but sadly it wasn't really good packing snow. 

That mess in the middle of the cul de sac was courtesy of Jason. 

I'm telling you if I had snow pants I would have been right down there with Lily making snow angels! 

Snow fort. 

Ava enjoying the snow fort! 

Jason enjoying the snow fort just as much as the girls! 

Lily was a big help in the shoveling department. 

Sadly there were no sleds around to buy, they all sold out much earlier in the week! So Jason fashioned this sled for Lily and her friend Elizabeth out of cardboard and a bungy cord! It worked for awhile!! 

We had a lot of fun playing in the snow, but sadly needed to come home to get dinner on and get ready for football. It was a good thing that we left early because as we left Jason realized we were passing the apartment of another guy he works with who is a little older and we wanted to make sure he didn't need any help getting out.. he was good but when we got back to our apartment there was a few other coworkers of Jason that needed help and then just other neighbors! 

They did some clearing of our parking lot last night but I wont lie it was pretty pathetic! They didn't touch anything until after it had stopped snowing and I really think that was a mistake. This morning the parking lot and sidewalks outside looked like a skating rink. I don't think they use salt here. People are still snowed in, I don't think a lot of people had shovels or expected this much. I believe more things have reopened today. 

I have heard a nasty rumor that we may get another storm this weekend but I am really hoping that is not true! We are heading to Baltimore on Saturday for the Garth Brooks concert and I really don't want anything to get in the way of that!! 

So there you have it, my account of winter storm Jonas. It definitely could have been a lot worse, if you have been watching the news at all you may have seen that coast of New Jersey had absolutely TERRIBLE flooding, I am keeping those people in my thoughts. At this point there are still people without power and dealing with way bigger issues than just shoveling out their car. It pays to be prepared in these cases as much as you absolutely can and listen to the weather station, take their advice and listen to their recommendations!! 

I am planning to be back here again this week, I'm setting a goal for myself to blog more than once this week! Thank you all for stopping by, I hope the new year is treating you well! 

Stay Warm!

National Harbor at Christmas Time

Good Morning,

Three days in a row.. please don't get use to it. Its not that I don't plan to ever be back but I don't want to commit to a schedule here right now because I still plan to only come and write when the desire strikes or I feel like I have something to say. But as long as I have something to say I will be around.

This past weekend Jason and I planned to tour around the outlets at National Harbor just to see if there was anything that caught our eye for some Christmas gifts and see what they had for deals. Truthfully I didn't find much for Christmas gifts, I could have bought a ton of things for myself though.. those outlets are the devil!! We spent just over an hour there and then headed into National Harbor for dinner and Christmas festivities.

As I mentioned it has been unseasonably warm here as in it was 75 here on Saturday so we decided to go back to the Redstone American Grill because we loved it there so much and they have outdoor seating with a huge fireplace. I have to say there are TONS of options in regards to restaurants in National Harbor but the food at the Redstone American Grill is one of the best places I have ever eaten.

When we arrived at the restaurant there was no outdoor seating but a lovely couple offered to share their table with us. We had a beautiful view of National Harbor, the Navy vs Army game that was on the big TV and the beautiful Christmas tree light show! The food was epic as always and Jason and I decided before leaving that without a doubt we would go back and this time sit inside and enjoy that beautiful atmosphere as well as the amazing food.

View of the tree from the Redstone American Grill

After dinner we toured the waterfront on the way to the Gaylord National Resort hotel, not only was it absolutely beautiful with the Sky Wheel lit up but many of the boats were decorated for Christmas. 

Once we arrived that the Gaylord hotel I was blown away by the beauty, the picture directly below was taken from the waterfront outside. 

They had a huge Christmas tree setup that was absolutely amazing, they made it snow in the atrium with foam and the whole light display was done to music. I have a few pictures but I will try and add a video as well. 

No video, sorry. 

When the show was over, or at least the Christmas portion as it went techno Jason and I decided to get a white hot chocolate and head out to tour around some more. It was such a beautiful night which all things Christmas and white hot chocolate.. we couldn't have asked for a better day! 

Sunday we we over to Dave & Lindsey's to watch football and decorate gingerbread houses with the kids. It was a really good day, and again unseasonably warm! 

The little monkey has learned to roll over, Dave put him on a blanket to show us how he could roll over and he curled up on his side and watched TV, apparently he wasn't into putting on his own show. 

The girls had a fantastic time decorating the gingerbread houses. Ava was very serious about the whole thing and every time she added a new piece of candy she would proudly say "ta da!". She eventually had to be removed from the candy and icing because her sugar levels were I'm sure off the charts! 

I believe that wraps up what we have been up to lately, there are still a few things I would like to write about so who knows when you will see that. Hopefully sooner than later! 

Thank you all for catching up with me this week, I really appreciate you sticking around! Have a great day! 

Catch Up & The National Tree Lighting

Well well well.. is there anyone still out there? I cant believe its been a month since I've blogged.. I don't think that has ever happened around here. If it has than its been a really long time since.

I cant really explain why I haven't been around, I just didn't feel like writing. I felt like I didn't have anything to say and forcing myself to come and write about things that I didn't care about didn't make sense. I knew that I wasn't giving up on the blog forever but I just needed some time to regroup and get to a place where I wanted to write. Truth be told I cant say that I'm there yet, wanting to be here and write all the time but I did want to catch up on a few things here because this isn't a place just to fill you in, its a place for me to document my life and have somewhere to come back and remember things.

We went home over Thanksgiving which was amazing and much needed, its hard to describe how great it is to be home to someone who gets to be home all the time. I look so forward to our time there, I feel so at peace, I sleep better.. everything just feels so much better. We decorated the house for Christmas as we are going home this year and I cant begin to tell you how excited I am for that! We actually decorated the outside of the house for the first time as well and it was so much fun. We didn't do anything too extravagant but we put up lights, garland and bows! It was so strange to be decorating the house for Christmas in shorts though. As I'm sure most of you know everywhere has been seeing unusually warm weather for quite sometime.

I love our Christmas tree at home, its big and beautiful and PERFECT!

We put up the a Christmas sign as well, and there is a wreath on the door you just cant really see it. 

We were there for 5 days which was absolutely amazing, I don't take one second of it for granted but in the end its still really hard to leave. We have been really lucky traffic wise driving to and from home which is also a huge bonus. 

Once we got back from Thanksgiving we had lots of Christmas things to look forward to around Maryland and I had high hopes that being busy would make the time fly. I cant say that has been the case but we have definitely been up to some fun stuff. I plan to share all of that with you guys in a few posts but I didn't want to start this one off with being 10 pages. 

Back in November Jason and I entered a lottery in hopes of getting tickets to the National Tree Lighting in Presidents Park DC. You cant just purchase tickets, there are so many people who want them that you had to enter the lottery and just hope. We found out that we got tickets on the 5th of December I believe and we were super excited to attend. 

After doing a little reading on the website they honestly didn't make it sound too great, so we went in with very low expectations. Jason got off work early and we headed into DC, we got a Starbucks and toured around on our way to get in line. I will have to say that their setup was actually extremely efficient and we managed to get through the line and security very quickly. Because of the recent events in California as you can imagine security was over the top, I believe there was just as many cops, military and secret service as their was civilians. The buildings surrounding Presidents Park where the lighting ceremony was held were all lined with snipers, I wont lie it was a little intense. 

While we waited for the show to start they have choirs all over singing to the crowd, it was great! It didn't seem like such a long wait when you were being entertained. It was also an absolutely beautiful day! Sadly not many of my pictures turned out because it was dark, I have a video though of Miss Piggy and Michelle Obama reading Twas the Night Before Christmas that I will try and insert! 

The ceremony was hosted by Reese Witherspoon which was really neat and there were lots of wonderful performers such as Fallout Boy, Aloe Blacc, Andra Day, Bellamy Young and my personal favorite Trombone Shorty! There were many more as well, including the Obama's which was pretty exciting. 

After the show was over we were absolutely FROZEN so we decided to walk around a bit and check out a few of the monuments in the dark before getting a late dinner. If you've never been to DC as I have said before it is absolutely amazing, and the monuments lit up at night do not disappoint. The Lincoln Memorial is still my favorite but check out the World War II Memorial lit up at night. 

The Washington Monument

I believe this hotel is called the Willard Hotel, this place is absolutely AMAZING and I want to stay there. 

We grabbed brick oven pizza before heading home and toured around DC a little. It was a really nice to just take it all in on such a beautiful night and really get into the Christmas spirit. 

So that was one of the few outings we have had recently, I plan to share a few of them with you this week. 

I hope you have all been well, and are all ready for the holiday season.. I know we sure are! 

Thank you as always for stopping in! 

Colonial Williamsburg, VA

Good Afternoon!

I thought I would stop in today and talk about our trip last weekend to Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia! For years we have been driving by the sign to head there and I have heard so many people talk about it and I have always wanted to go but the timing just never seemed to be right. Finally last weekend we decided to get up early on Sunday morning and drive the almost two hours to spend the day!

When I was a kid I visited Black Creek Pioneer Village for a school trip and I loved it, I pictured Colonial Williamsburg being exactly like that, and essentially it was. Obviously the history surrounding Colonial Williamsburg is different and relates directly to the Revolutionary War. I highly recommend visiting here, if not for the history than its beauty! I will take you through our day in this post but if you are looking to plan a visit you can do so HERE and if you are interested in reading about the history related you can do so HERE.

So as I mentioned we got up super early and headed down to Virginia, the drive was really nice as we are coming to the end of fall, the further south we drove the more leaves were still on the trees which was really nice. We arrived and headed into the massive visitors center to purchase tickets for our day. Colonial Williamsburg is open for you to walk around at any time, for free but in order to access the inside of any of the buildings or see any of the tours it is necessary to purchase tickets and I feel like it was totally worth it. I definitely think we will go back, we may not purchase the tickets a second time as we have seen everything but it really is a beautiful place to walk around and have lunch.

When you leave the visitors center you can walk the quarter of a mile (I believe) to the actual town or you can take a shuttle, if you take the shuttle you will miss this windmill which was brought here to be restored.  

Pretty neat right?

The AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL stables at the Governor's home.  

We did an actual tour of this home, it was about a half an hour long but totally worth it. 

The amount of weaponry in this home was quite substantial. 

Beautiful old wood stove. 

The gardens behind the Governor's home. They really keep things alive here, its not just old homes sitting with a plaque stating its significance. What we learned on our day touring around is that all the projects that are taking place in the buildings when you go in are actually projects for around town. The making of window shutters, food being grown to feed employees and so it, it was pretty amazing to know that we weren't just seeing a demonstration but a contribution. 

An orange tree!!!! You could actually buy this, and I wanted to! 

We did not take a carriage tour around this time but we talked a lot about it and decided that we definitely will the next time! 

The court house. 

The magazine and gun house. 

Inside the court house, there was quite a heated discussion going on in there about law practices and what worked/works and didn't so we didn't stay long. 

The blacksmith was one of our favorite stops. Everyone there is so knowledgeable about what they are working on and so willing to answer any questions that people may have. I really enjoyed the fact that all the information you received didn't just come from brochures but from people who told us in the more creative ways. 

The wig shop. Jason was really into this place for some odd reason. 

This was inside the "Joiners" house. A joiner is someone who does the finer details of carpentry. The gentlemen in there was super informative, he told us about projects that were happening around town and what he was working on. He showed us contracts that were signed by apprentices and explained that when a master carpenter took on an apprentice he was responsible for them, he fed them and put a roof over their head and so on. These apprentices were often 13 year old children. This was one of my favorite places we visited, I loved that many of the tools were hand crafted and he explained how they were used and taken care of and so on.  

The public gaol (jail)

We did a tour of this building as well which was incredibly interesting. 

An actual jail cell. People were not held here long term, it was a temporary holding until they were sentenced, often to death. 

The Capitol. 

This sign was for the Raleigh Tavern! The gentlemen on the sign is Sir Walter Raleigh. 

The brick maker. 

Entering the town. 

Returning! 

While there we had lunch at Chowning's Tavern, we had done some research before and decided to eat there prior to even arriving. It was about a 20 minute wait but totally worth it! The place is so quaint, they even have a little back yard bar area which we weren't aware of until after we ate there. The food was great, they had a little performance while we were eating which was fine (truth be told I don't care for that crap while I am eating as cranky as that sounds but it wasn't too annoying, HA!). If you are ever in town I would recommend this place as somewhere to eat. 

I also recommend the cookies at the bakery in town, I recommend the hot apple cider at Chowning's Tavern. When you purchase you tickets they will let you know about all the performances and reenactments happening in town that day. Unfortunately as much as we wanted to stay for the reenactment it was quite late in the day and already having a two hour drive back we didn't want to wait around with nothing to do and than drive all that way. Its fine though as we plan to go back and as I said its free to walk around town and see those things without buying a ticket. 

Sunday was such an amazing day, we thoroughly enjoyed the drive and the day around town was absolutely INCREDIBLE! I am definitely looking forward to going back in the spring and exploring all over again. I really love history so this place was totally up my alley and Jason really loved it too. 

I hope you have all had a great week and enjoy this weekend! We are looking to get some pretty chilly weather and don't have much planned. Jason is going to work tomorrow and help Dave with Christmas lights at their house and I don't have a whole lot planned! 

Tomorrow we are making our own pizzas for dinner which is one of my favorite dinner nights!! If you are stuck for a dinner idea grab the pre-made crusts at BJ's or your local grocery store and all the toppings, easy and fun for all ages!! 

Thank you as always for stopping by!! Have a great weekend!!