2012, oh my goodness!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a good time ringing in 2012. I started off NYE making brunch for myself, Heather, Ben, and Dave. I knew the rest of the day wasn't going to include many healthy eats, so I wanted to get some fruit and veggies in early. We had onion, pepper, and mushroom omlets and some green monsters with spinach, frozen pineapple and strawberries, and some OJ. It was Ben's first green monster and he was pleasantly surprised. Yay for open minded eaters!

After we dropped Ben and Dave off at the train station for their man date, the Flyers alumni game, Heather and I spent the day exploring Phoenixville.  Our first stop was Petal's Consignment Boutique where I found an awesome purple tweed blazer and a long sleeve sweat wicking Mizuno t-shirt with the tags still on it, which apparently retails for $40 and I got it for 8 bucks!

Next we headed downtown!  We stopped in a few shops but we were really excited when we found the Black Walnut Winery storefront.  We stopped in and found out that they were doing free wine tasting!  The tasting included 7 wines and our host recommended sharing each taste so we got to try 14 different wines!  We had a blast trying all the delicious wines they had to offer and neither of us left empty handed, we couldn't help picking up a few bottles.

The rest of our afternoon included some trashy tv, getting gussied up for our New Years celebrations, and chowing down on some Five Guys burgers.  After we picked up the boys, Heather and Ben went home and Dave and I headed out to a party.  We celebrated with funfetti cupcakes, champagne, a cotton candy maker, singing, a bunch of friends, an epic spread of cheeses, some wild puppies, and games.  We had an awesome time!

I'm currently working on my New Years Resolutions, there will be a whole post about them later!

How did you ring in the new year?

Winetober Fest!

On Saturday, I met some friends in Skippack for Winetober Fest!

Various locations were set up along Skippack's cute little Main Street with wine tasting, food, art, and live music.

I also got a free mini massage and I knew someone playing, we saw Pete from Pete Kranz and the Wide Eyed Mother Brothers!

The weather was amazing, a perfect fall day.  It was great to get out and have an afternoon with the ladies and try so many different kinds of wine... including one that tasted like apple cider (and was made with grapes)!  So fall, so tasty.  I'm such a sucker for sweet wines, although I've been trying to find more of an appreciation for wines on the dry side too.

The rest of the weekend included cocktails with friends, getting down to our friend's band Dead Poets at a local spot, quality time with my faves, and Shayna asking me to be one of her bridesmaids!  I'm now in two weddings next October, wowza!  On Sunday I hit up a bridal show in King of Prussia with Shayna and her MOH, Jenn.  Both ladies blog over at Good Food, Good Friends, Good Times, a group blog with some tasty recipes!  The show was free but Shayna won a ton of goodies including a $50 Macy's gift card, a $200 gift certificate to a bridal salon, and the most beautiful earrings for her wedding day!  I should have taken a picture of them, epic fail!  We also ended up on stage doing the cupid shuffle with a dozen people and suddenly the MC dismisses everyone but us.  Next thing we know were belting out some Aretha on stage, this is my ridiculous life.

Thanks for the pic, Jes!

The weekend was awesome but it also was not very recharging.  I've been kinda dragging this week but I did go out for a 2.75 mi run with Joanne on Monday!  Running with her really pushed my pace and the sunset was a beautiful running backdrop.  Yay for running dates!

What's your favorite wine?  Do you like working out with a partner in crime?

Suddenly September

I'm always excited for my birthday to arrive on August 31st, but with it comes the inevitable, the end of summer!  Don't get me wrong, I love fall, it's actually my favorite season.  At the same time, there's definitely a sadness to the end of summer, especially when it starts to get dark earlier and earlier.

Anyway, after surviving Irene, this week was spent celebrating my 25th birthday.  Dave was down the shore for the entire week, so he sent his love with a special delivery.

As you can see, they are amazing!  My birthday celebration continued that evening at the bar with a birthday tiara, some wings, my awesome friends, and wayyyyy too much booze.  I drank everything under the sun, including 3 different types of whiskey.  Needless to say, the next day was spent in extreme struggle mode.  An amazing mani/pedi was the only thing that saved me, oh and some Chipotle!

After I somehow recovered enough to coach my girls, I drove down to Cape May to spend the weekend with Dave and his parents.  Dave's high school friends Karisa and Frank were down for the week too, so we spent their last night out and about, getting silly.

The next day the birthday surprises continued with a trip to the Cape May Winery and Vineyard.  We took a tour which took us into the vineyard, through the tank room, and into the barrel room where we got to taste a bunch of different wines from the winery.

After the tour was over, we bought some bottles of wine and went out on the back deck.  The weather was perfect and they had someone playing accoustic guitar, so we hung around to try out the apple wine we purchased.  Did you know they made wine out of apples?  I had no idea, but it was delicious.  I love sweet fruity wines and this one was no exception, but it wasn't too sweet so Dave liked it too.

And of course we were blessed with some beautiful beach weather.

Our weekend ended with checking out some bars Dave and I had never been to with his aunt and uncle and their friends.

Overall a great weekend, a great birthday, a great summer.  Now onto hoodies, changing leaves, warm cider (and rum), and obviously some football!  And hopefully a new job.  I'm waiting to hear back from an interview and I have another one on Friday.  We'll see.