Sunset at National Harbor

Friday night we went to the National Harbor. This is one of my favorite things to do at night. It is so relaxing and enjoyable to be able to sit near the harbor and watch the sun set. Adam and I have found the shops to be charming and the boardwalk to be romantic.

In the middle there is a giant sand area where kids can play in. There is a Greek status that is buried in the sand, which makes a great climbing toy for kids of all ages.


Across from the sand pit is a Peeps Store. We had to go in and buy some fresh peeps.


As we walked down the boardwalk we decided to stop in the Convention Center where we found these amazing sand sculptures.




National Harbor is one of my top 10 to do in DC for a date night out. Best sunset in town.

Drum Cake into a Cupcake

My sister in law makes the best cakes. I have always been a box cake maker until I met Ildiko. She take such pride in all her cake creations. Whenever we are together my request is to be able to make a cake with her. One of my favorite cakes she makes is a "Drum Cake". It is a moist vanilla sponge like cake that is baked in very thin layers. We usually make 6 layers, then it is filled with a chocolate fluffy center and the top is a caramel crunch. It is an amazing cake.



We had come friends over for dessert one night and I decided that I wanted to try and turn this drum cake into cupcakes. So I baked the cake batter up as cupcakes. Then filled the cupcakes with the chocolate cream frosting. Then drizzled the caramel crunch over the top.

They tasted pretty good. But I think the cake is the better way to eat it. There is something about all the thine layers that really makes the flavors flow.

Fly to me to fix her Heart

The title to this post is misleading. I didn't fix my sister's heart. Some great surgeons at Walter Reed did. Thank goodness for fantastic doctors and technology that we have today. Through procedures that can cure the broken heart. I had my heart fixed by a great doctor at Rose Medical Center back in 2007. I was born with WPW (Wolf Parkinson White Syndrome) which is a defect in my heart that I was born with. Lucky for me and the great doctors at Rose I was able to get them to fix it with a procedure called an ablation. Hours of working on me and I was cured. My little sister Chris was born as well with a heart defect. Her heart defect is much different than mine and took her doctors who specialize many hours and two procedures to correct her heart.


Last November 2009 my sister and her hubby had to leave their four boys and fly to DC to get my sister's heart fixed. She was able to have a few days to recover from jet lag as they flew here from Germany. In the meantime we had a day to get some site seeing in and she chose to go see Mt. Vernon.

Here we are at the slave cooking quarters.



This is a view on the grounds. Isn't it lovely?



A view from the slave house.





Oh wait, she really didn't want a picture just out of surgery. But I got a good shot of her hand.



BTW you really should not make a heart patient laugh after they wake up and are loaded on pain killers. But you have got to love her sense of humor. She is the funniest person I know. Especially when she see's live animals while on Prozac. Oh that is another story.


Mom and Chris. It was so nice to have my mom fly out to be with us during this time.

Pumpkin Pie from Scratch

Last year I was so impressed with my friend Emily. She made pumpkin pie filling from scratch and then brought me over a jar. I was determined to follow in her footstep of becoming the same domestic goddess that she has become. Here I am making the same pumpkin puree for my pumpkin pies for 2009.

First I went to my local Trader Joe's were I found these darling little cooking pumpkins. I cut them and cleaned them out and put them on a cookie sheet and roasted them for an hour at 400 degrees.


Then I scooped out the guts and puree then in a bowl



Then follow whatever your favorite pumpkin pie recipe. And voila there are the most amazing pies ever. Seriously it was worth the work. They are the best pies ever.

Just ask the man who eats them.

Our New Place

So many have asked us what our new place looks like. I have to say it was hard to leave our home and downsize into a town home. So far so good. We found this great place to rent on Craigslist as we were driving across country. We were able to rent it the very next day of our arrival. Lucky for us it is in the perfect location. We love the community and the area.

Here is my tiny kitchen. It has some getting used to as I have no counter space and so I have found that I have to clean up as I am cooking.

Lucky for us we have a eat in kitchen which is rare for the town homes in the area. We also were lucky to get a walkout sliding glass door for our dogs.

This is the hallway leading from the front door to the kitchen. I fell in love with the hardwood floors.

As you can see Roxie has settled in just nicely with her food and bed.



We decided to split up the living room and entertainment room. So here was our old loft it fits nicely into the half of the room.

Our living room we downsized to fit nicely in the other half of the room.

Our upstairs has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. Our basement has turned into our rec room and garage/storage.

Thanks for visiting our home.

Our First Day Here

So today I was looking at pictures and decided that it was time to really update our lives. We have been settled now for almost 9 months. So far so good. We love it here and feel like we have found home. I found these pictures that we took our very first day here. We checked into our hotel and then the next afternoon decided to head downtown DC and drive by the sites. So here you are. Our first views of our new town.

We are crossing one of the many bridges.

I love this shot of the white house.

Kent Island

Adam and I decided that we wanted to take a day trip and find a sandy beach and eat crabs. So with a little research on the internet at midnight the night before we planned our day. We got in the car and drove about 1.5 hours away where we found this charming little place in Maryland called Kent Island. We stopped at this great little crab shack and ate crab. With a full belly we went around out back and found a few hammocks and took a nap in the hot sun with a nice cool breeze blowing on us. What a nice day to find this little gem of a place. Here are some pictures from a little adventure. I have truly fallen in love with the East Coast and all this it offers us.

As we drove to the crab shack we saw a landing strip that was right behind these houses. Then we noticed that each house had their own plane and they housed them in their garages. I think we just found a perfect place for Adam to be able to live. He can house his plane right on the property. This will be a thought for a future home on the island.

It was a perfect Summer day.