It has been a busy couple of weeks with lots of fun times to remember. The most recent was turning the big 28. My actual birthday was pretty busy with work, RS enrichment and song practices, but my husband was very sweet and came home early from his overnight shift to surprise me with a french toast breakfast. We celebrated a birthday dinner with Brian and Clare on Friday night and ended up at the Mellow Mushroom. Our waiter made us the special birthday treat displayed in the photo above--cinnamon sugar pretzels drizzled with honey spelled out in Happy Birthday. Just look how bad Clark wants to eat it!
It was extremely cold outside, but we had to take a picture in front of the festive lights down in the Tabacco District. Below Clare and I huddle under the gigantic mushrooms.
And may I introduce you to our first real Christmas tree! We weren't around long enough last year to justify buying a Christmas tree, but this year we are putting up all the decorations. I was really excited to be able to use all the Christmas ornaments I have been collecting over the years. Below you can see us decorating the top two-thirds of the tree--we ran out of lights...until I realized the next day that there were still two boxes in one of my Christmas bins!
Clare brought over this box filled with chocolate mice ornaments (see below) telling us how in England it is a tradition to put chocolate on the tree. Our favorite moment of the night was when we found Clark trying to find a branch strong enough to balance the box full of chocolate! He found everything hung much nicer when it was taken out of the box :)
A couple of Sundays ago, our ward friends invited us to a Messiah sing-a-long at the Duke Chapel. It was a fun night and quite challenging trying to sight read most of the music! I was pretty lucky just to be able to follow along where everyone was singing, let alone hit the ten measure long runs! Needless to say, we were relieved when the Hallelujah chorus came up and we could rely on our A Cappella background to sing our hearts out! They had some really amazing soloists and the atmosphere of the chapel was very neat.
Well, my Thanksgiving pictures didn't load in the correct order--turkey was supposed to come before pie! Anyway, we had a lovely Thanksgiving here in Durham with our friends Brian and Clare. We had lots of delicious food and still have lots of leftover turkey! Our vegetarian friends didn't help us eat very much our 20 lb turkey, so I am on the hunt for tasty turkey recipes. Also, for dessert I made a pumpkin pie (traditional) and a sour cream lemon pie (my favorite); however, it turns out that pie was not a huge hit. Clark liked the pumpkin and I liked the sour cream lemon, so we pretty much each got an entire pie to ourselves. It's okay to eat an whole pie by yourself as long as you do it over the course of 3 days, right?
Candy turkeys. A childhood tradition I decided I couldn't pass up. Clark was skeptical at first saying they looked like Star Wars turkeys, but they won him over in the end.
Good company with Clare and Brian before our Thanksgiving feast.
Clark carving our big bird. Delicious!
Over Thanksgiving weekend we also made it to Dukes last football game of the season against arch rivals UNC. It was cold football weather, but we had a good time watching Duke try to pull off a win. We went with our friends, Jared and Janae Weekes, and their cute kids.
We were THRILLED when we found out that Richard and Betsy were going to be in town for the holiday. We met up on Saturday morning for breakfast at Elmo's Diner and a driving tour of Duke campus. It was so fun to catch up and meet their little Nora. Here we are in front of the Duke Chapel.
It has been a busy couple of weeks with lots of fun times to remember. The most recent was turning the big 28. My actual birthday was pretty busy with work, RS enrichment and song practices, but my husband was very sweet and came home early from his overnight shift to surprise me with a french toast breakfast. We celebrated a birthday dinner with Brian and Clare on Friday night and ended up at the Mellow Mushroom. Our waiter made us the special birthday treat displayed in the photo above--cinnamon sugar pretzels drizzled with honey spelled out in Happy Birthday. Just look how bad Clark wants to eat it!
It was extremely cold outside, but we had to take a picture in front of the festive lights down in the Tabacco District. Below Clare and I huddle under the gigantic mushrooms.
And may I introduce you to our first real Christmas tree! We weren't around long enough last year to justify buying a Christmas tree, but this year we are putting up all the decorations. I was really excited to be able to use all the Christmas ornaments I have been collecting over the years. Below you can see us decorating the top two-thirds of the tree--we ran out of lights...until I realized the next day that there were still two boxes in one of my Christmas bins!
Clare brought over this box filled with chocolate mice ornaments (see below) telling us how in England it is a tradition to put chocolate on the tree. Our favorite moment of the night was when we found Clark trying to find a branch strong enough to balance the box full of chocolate! He found everything hung much nicer when it was taken out of the box :)
A couple of Sundays ago, our ward friends invited us to a Messiah sing-a-long at the Duke Chapel. It was a fun night and quite challenging trying to sight read most of the music! I was pretty lucky just to be able to follow along where everyone was singing, let alone hit the ten measure long runs! Needless to say, we were relieved when the Hallelujah chorus came up and we could rely on our A Cappella background to sing our hearts out! They had some really amazing soloists and the atmosphere of the chapel was very neat.
Well, my Thanksgiving pictures didn't load in the correct order--turkey was supposed to come before pie! Anyway, we had a lovely Thanksgiving here in Durham with our friends Brian and Clare. We had lots of delicious food and still have lots of leftover turkey! Our vegetarian friends didn't help us eat very much our 20 lb turkey, so I am on the hunt for tasty turkey recipes. Also, for dessert I made a pumpkin pie (traditional) and a sour cream lemon pie (my favorite); however, it turns out that pie was not a huge hit. Clark liked the pumpkin and I liked the sour cream lemon, so we pretty much each got an entire pie to ourselves. It's okay to eat an whole pie by yourself as long as you do it over the course of 3 days, right?
Candy turkeys. A childhood tradition I decided I couldn't pass up. Clark was skeptical at first saying they looked like Star Wars turkeys, but they won him over in the end.
Good company with Clare and Brian before our Thanksgiving feast.
Clark carving our big bird. Delicious!
Over Thanksgiving weekend we also made it to Dukes last football game of the season against arch rivals UNC. It was cold football weather, but we had a good time watching Duke try to pull off a win. We went with our friends, Jared and Janae Weekes, and their cute kids.
We were THRILLED when we found out that Richard and Betsy were going to be in town for the holiday. We met up on Saturday morning for breakfast at Elmo's Diner and a driving tour of Duke campus. It was so fun to catch up and meet their little Nora. Here we are in front of the Duke Chapel.
8 comments:
Amy--was it your birthday Thursday night & you didn't even tell us? Shame on you! And what self control. I would never be able to do that! Wait--that would mean our birthdays are in the same week--how funny! Well happy birthday, and I recommend turkey instead of chicken in enchiladas--very yummy.
So wonderfully festive! Can't wait to see you!
It all looks like so much fun!! Te extrano mamita!
yeah for your birthday...hope you got my text.... anyways, looks like fun...can't wait for you to visit us up here!!!`
Wowsers it looks like you have been having a great time, your dining room and tree look so cute, so you! I am glad you had a great birthday, sorry I am a jerk and didn't even call!
Happy Happy Birthday Amy. That Birthday pretzel looks yummy I can't blame Clark for looking at it longingly. I am glad you had a good one.
Happy birthday Amy!! Looks like you are keeping busy but having lots of fun! Thanks for the photos!
You guys always do such cute things. Happy late birthday back on the 4th - it sounds like it was a good one. I love all of the pics!!
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