Buckley Takes To the Sea

Saturday evening, after recovering from Latin Teacher's World Cup draft (which was 5 hours long and via Skype) we had some dinner and thought it would be a great idea to head out to the beach, since most of the crowd would be gone. This was Buckley's big surprise, sand and sea. At first he was REALLY excited and was testing Latin Teacher's leash strength.


Once he started getting used to things he calmed down (somewhat) and started enjoying the scenery.


Doesn't he look regal? He's so cute

I'm sure it's going to take some time, but he is still getting used to the ocean. He's not found of foam (like every good lush puppy), he would get over there, the next surge of water would come up and he would try to run away or hop over the foam and run behind Latin Teacher. At the end of the whole thing he was slightly wet/salty, sandy nosed, and quite tired. Our plan had worked :)

This is the beginning of a big puppy body shake. It happened every 10 minutes of so.

I hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day weekend, we've been spending it here at the beach place with all of the window's open and a great breeze coming through.

Beach Bound!

We're taking Buckley to the Crystal Coast for the first time this weekend. I know all of you frequent beach goers are taking a break off because of all of the tourist crowd, but Latin Teacher is almost done with school and I have an extra long - long weekend, so we're going to bite the bullet and fight the crowd. The trip down wasn't too bad despite the 1:30pm launch from Raleigh. We killed our time listening to podcasts from Stuff You Should Know and playing the "ABC" memory game. If you're not up on this game, you have to remember all of the items before and then add one more. Starting with A for Apple, B for Boysenberry... and so on. Our topic was none other than downtown Raleigh restaurants/ Bars; are you surprised? I didn't think so.

Here was how our list ran:
Applebee's (SAD I know, but it's more of a joke than anything)
Busy Bee Cafe
Coquette
Dos Toquitos (Started as Denny's but we wised up half way through)
El Rodeo
Flaming Amy's Burrito Barn ( Not in Raleigh, but a significant place in Wilmington)
George's Garage (Former Durham Staple)
Havana Deluxe
Issac Hunter's Oak City Tavern
Jersey Mike's (a chain, I know, UGH)
Kanki
Landmark Tavern
Marbles Kids Museum :)
Neomonde or Nofo (It changed every other round)
The Oxford
The Point or The Players Retreat
Quizno's
The Remedy Diner
Sono
Tir na Nog
Ugly Monkey
Vic's
Waraji
X, Z (we got tried and were struggling, so we just stopped.)

I'll be keeping you guys up to date on what we're doing over this long weekend.

Were headed to appetizers with my work friend and her husband and then to a booze cruize on his parent's boat. Should be a good (read: possibly sloppy mess) time.

Stay tuned :)

Oh yea, Buckley was an angel in the car. We're so blessed with an amazing pup.

A Swell Season all around

The Swell Season

Latin teacher and I have been together for 14 months as of last night! On that fateful night we went on our first date (to Sono downtown Raleigh) and then to the Foundation where we could sit close and talk about serious stuff, it's just what we do there.

To celebrate this accomplishment in our relationship (and just another excuse to have a fun date night) we went to dinner at Sushi Blues. We ate very well with some seaweed salad, and edemame to start. We also had three rolls to split, the Clapton roll (which was a California roll with some spicy tuna and cucumber salad on top) a Spicy Sammy (a tempura shrimp roll with lots of veggies inside) and a Wolfpack Roll (they do some local names to keep things interesting, this was a roll with tempura pieces, crab, and some veggies with roe on top) It was all VERY good.

A while ago I had also gotten us Pre-Sale tickets to The Swell Season concert. The artists worked together in the movie Once, which is a movie that really bonded Latin teacher and I when we were first "talking". I had seen and fallen in love with it; the fact that LT knew and liked it as much really meant something about him. They now have their own group called The Swell Season and a new album called "Strict Joy".

It was at the newly renovated NC Art Museum, which was new to me regardless of the renovation. Once we got our tickets and got to our seats, I realized how nice pre-sale tickets can really be. We had a great view of everything! The show started with the "MC" giving an into about the museum and the night... blah blah, but the best thing he said was that people were not going to be allowed to sit in front of the "expensive seats". After the band came on the first thing Glen said was (in his Irish accent) "are you all sitting on the grass? Come up here to the front... Now it's a real rock concert" making the "MC" seem like chopped liver. It set a great mood for an awesome concert.

Throughout the concert they switched from Once soundtrack works, to The Swell Season tracks, and then even some covers (they did an incredible version of Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic" that admittedly brought my to tears) and a fun Springsteen cover where a crowd member came onstage, sang a bit and introduced the members of the band. I thought it was a crew member or something but at the end Glen asked the guy his name and gave him some "snaps" for the brave act.

The concert lasted much longer than I had thought it would, they keep going away and coming back. Glen did a great "monologue" of a song called "Say it to me now" from his first group The Frames. It's hard not to get lost in their music because they, especially Glen has so much passion and emotion in his music, is awesome.

For those coming to our wedding...Don't be surprised to find a little something from them splashed in here and there. By the way! To continue the countdown. We're down to 91 days!! or less than 3 months! I'm going to fly by, I know it is!

Latin Teacher at The Swell Season! Don't you just love the beard/ short hair combo? I always miss the curls right after he cuts them off, but I think he looks great like this too! Besides, the curls aren't going to be gone forever...

The countdown begins

Latin teacher and I hit a milestone yesterday,
we have less than 100 days until our wedding!

I figured it was a reason to celebrate, so Latin Teacher and I, along with Latin Teacher's Best Friend (LTBF), who we love to have tag along (he was invited to our first date too), took the R-Line to J. Betski's, where there is easily the most interesting and fun bartender in Raleigh.

The meal started with some bratwurst and pierogies which were good
*(side note: I didn't know what LTBF would eat because he is a notoriously picky eater at a German/Polish restaurant, and will sometimes choose crackers and cheese for "dinner". But I was impressed with his open mindedness on the whole.)*
The next course was the pub plate Latin Teacher and I shared which was smoked salmon with an endive salad, and some rye toast. Honestly we have had better, but there were some really good bites from that dish.

Latin Teacher's Pilgrim Pal (LTPP) also met us at the restaurant (luckily we were sitting at the bar) and he got what looked like a "Real Meal" of Chicken with asparagus, spaetzle and mushrooms which made Latin Teachers' and my mouth water.

Lucky for us that LTBF is a desert eater, because he ordered an awesome strawberry chesse strudel (which we all got a few licks on).

LTBF was driving his wife and unborn child :) to the beach at 10:30pm and Latin Teacher wanted to catch up with LTPP so I went home with the puppy, watched some cheezy wedding dress shows and The Soup and went to bed.

It was a nice night (the weather could not have been better) and we got to catch up a little with those we don't see too often!

House Hunting- Update

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we were going to look at our first house as a couple... of home buyers :)

Well the house we amazing, the previous homeowners had put a ton of work into the details of the house. If we could take that house... and move it... then it would be perfect. The only real problem with the place is that
1) at least a 40 minutes drive for Latin Teacher and maybe 20 minutes for me, daily.
2) The home is in an subdivision, personally I have never lived, nor wanted to live, in a subdivision. I will admit that if the house and the area is nice enough, I could give a little.
3) This house was not in a nice subdivision. The subdivision was non-HOA run, meaning there were no rules about things, and no dues (which you think would be nice, but if I'm going to settle in a subdivision, I want the whole package... those rules are there for a reason).

No needless to say, we're still looking. At the party last night, there was a house right across the street that looked really nice, recently updated, HUGE backyard. Only 1 bathroom, we wanted 2... but we'll have to get inside and look at it.

So no big news yet... We are working with a Realtor (I keep calling her a realator... adding the extra "a" in there, am I the only one?) so we are kinda being serious about this and hopefully working on a future home for the Latin Teacher Family

Marina's Birthday

I'm almost a week behind with this post, but better late than never!

Marina Offner's birthday was Monday, so to celebrate we all got together last Sunday for some good food (lots of dips to be specific) drinks, and girl talk (most importantly). I know she didn't make it into any pictures, but that just happens sometimes as the host.

It was great to catch up, I felt like between school, and work, and wedding, and puppy... there hasn't been much time to talk to people.

Matt (Marina's husband) put some hamburgers, brats, and huge pieces of chicken on the grill and all was right with the world :) We should have went and gotten Lord Buckley, but the 40 minute round trip drive wasn't too appealing. But we all (including Buck) had a good night regardless.

Mothers Day Weekend

Happy Mother's Day all you mother, soon to be mothers, or hope to be mothers! So far it has been an awesome weekend for your day. Latin Teacher and I have had another weekend full of events (it feels like we never get a free moment, but I know we really do). On Friday night we went to a birthday party for a Latin Teacher's teacher friend; it was great because his parents had rented a taco truck, had it at their house, and let all of the guests dig in! What an awesome idea, plus they didn't have to clean since they didn't cook (per say) and they didn't use their dishes... Brilliant!

Saturday was really nice as well, we woke up to the Lord Buckley around 5 something, and my wonder soon-to-be husband (still sounds fun to say!!) let me sleep for a little bit longer. Eventually I made it to the gym and back before we went for lunch at Edwards Mill bar and grill. It was a new place for me, but we had a coupon so we went with it. Latin Teacher, the sweet son that he is, had sent Latin Teacher's Mother some flowers and mistakenly forgot she would be at the beach for the weekend. No sweat, after lunch we went by their house and put the flowers in water and opened a bottle of wine while chatting it up with the neighbors. We also went to see Babies, the movie. We had been really excited to see this movie since the fall when we first saw previews. It was so freaking cute, and I must say the Mongolian baby was my favorite. If you see it you'll know what I'm talking about.

We also went to an "Ocho de Mayo" party (it's a play on Cinco De Mayo, but it's usually the Saturday after) thrown by one of Latin Teacher's other teacher friends. It was a great time, lots of Dos Equis, Mexican cuisine, and a host wearing a mustache and sombrero; along with old throw backs to beer pong and a some really heated games of ping pong.

It's about 8am now, the puppy has finally chilled out, Latin Teacher is still sleeping (two too many Dos Equis), and the crazy vampire-ish neighbors have settled in for their day of rest. We don't have too many big plans today, but mine is my very first wedding dress fitting! I'll let you know how it goes, shouldn't be too crazy, but it will be my first time in MY dress, not just the one in the store.

Have a great mother's day!