Fall is Here!

Well it is officially Fall here in Northern Virginia. The leaves on the trees around our house are changing, and the high today is 44! In the spirit of the new season, I thought would update the Blog design -- hope you enjoy it!

In other news, sorry for the delinquency in blogging; things have been busy! Here is a little summary of what we have been up to over the last month:

Reggie's Birthday

Reggie celebrated his 3rd birthday on September 21st. (Disclaimer - please remember that we do not have children and may, as a result, be somewhat obsessed with our dog.) I looked up a bunch of recipes for dog birthday cakes...or "pupcakes" as they are apparently called. I finally settled on the perfect one - a mix of flour, oil, eggs, beef flavored baby food and crumbled bits of beef jerky. Yep, that's right, I said beef flavored baby food. I put all the ingredients in a small loaf pan and baked it for 45 minutes. I finished it off by "icing" it with some low-fat cottage cheese; sounds delicious, right? Well, Reggie sure thought so. We gave him his first piece and I'm pretty sure he finished it in approximately 2.5 seconds. Success!





Derek also treated Reggie to an old-time favorite toy. If you have seen the PetSmart commercials, you may have noticed a stuffed animal squeaky toy that the dogs are always playing with. When Reggie was a puppy, we got him a small version, and he loved it. The first toy lasted about 2 weeks before it was completely destroyed. The next one, however, lasted 3 hours. We had to stop buying them for him as a result. Derek surprised him with an adult-size version for his birthday, and Reggie went nuts. He loved it -- and this one lasted about 3 days, so all in all it was a great birthday.

Reggie also got in some Frisbee time for his birthday.


Running

After a brief hiatus (depending on your definition of brief), I've finally started running again. I experienced some overuse injuries in my ankles and shins the first couple of weeks, but a new pair of shoes and some ice did the trick. A friend of mine at work and I ran in the Navy 5-Miler over at the Pentagon, and then I ran in the inaugural Clarendon Day 10K the next weekend. They were great runs, and the weather was perfect. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed running, and feel pretty fortunate that I get to run past the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and Capital three times a week.

Here are a couple of pictures of what I see when I run after work:



Dallas

I went to visit my family and friends last weekend and had a ton of fun. Suprisingly, it was colder in Dallas than it was when I left D.C. On Friday, my mom, dad, Robert, and I went to eat some authentic Tex Mex (you will soon notice a theme centered around eating) at Avila's near Love Field. After a Margarita and some Chicken Fajitas, I was in heaven.

On Saturday, I went running with my dad and his running club on the Katy Trail. The weather was great, and we celebrated the run with some breakfast tacos from The Taco Joint. Wow is all I can say about those. I had two tacos - a black bean, egg, cheese, and potato, and an egg, cheese and bacon. My dad went with the Migas, which were equally tasty. After getting my hair cut (I still can't find anyone I like up here), we headed off to some family birthday bowling with Robert, Stacey, Kate, Preston, Stacey's mom, and their nephew. After barely beating Preston (if only I could have used the bumpers), we sat down for some birthday presents. Kate got some fun clothes and the Beezus and Ramona books (a personal favorite), and Preston got a Transformers toy. Everyone seemed very happy!




We headed back home and decided to make the Dallas burger from Bobby Flay's book. It had coleslaw, barbecue sauce, and pickles on a pretty spicy burger -- definitely making this again. And, as if I hadn't had enought to eat, we finished off the meal with 3 different kinds of Blue Bell. I need to figure out how to ship ice cream to Virginia!

Sunday was Tex Mex lunch at Mattitos with the Frisco clan and then I headed over to see my good friend Laura and meet her 5-month old daughter Sadie. She is adorable and so happy! After Sadie time, I met up with my old roommates from A&M at Houston's. It was a perfect dinner - we were definitely the loudest table in the restaurant.

All in all, it was a great trip -- I headed back to D.C. on Monday (10 pounds heavier :)

Burger Update

So I tried the Dallas burger with my parents, but a few weeks before that we made the Napa Valley burger. This was the first burger that was just ok. It had homemade honey mustard and we replaced the goat cheese with feta. It wasn't bad; it just didn't live up to all of the other burgers we've tried. Oh well, there's always next week.



The Birds

Oh, and finally, we have some new pets on our back porch. Derek bought a bird feeder and some food the other week in hopes of attracting the blue jay and cardinal we occasionally see. It definitely worked because we now have 3 cardinals, the blue jay, a morning dove, and a couple of other birds that I can't remember their names all hanging out on our deck. Here are some pictures of our new friends:


Cardinals


Blue Jay & Morning Dove