a spot on weekend

After an incredibly draining and stressful week, Jonathan and I couldn’t have been more relieved to know that we had a long weekend to recover. Not to mention that this coming weekend I head down to Athens for a dear friend’s bachelorette party, the following weekend Jonathan heads to the beach for another dear friend’s bachelor party (after a last minute, incredibly sweet gesture by said friend who’s getting Jonathan a plane ticket to come down—we love you Jared!), and then we have our loves, Josh & Maggie’s wedding weekend in Charleston! Needless to say, it’s going to be crazy, however, crazy amazing I’ll take any day :) I’m so excited to spend time with all of the friends we’ve missed so much since we’ve moved, but at the same time we knew that this weekend, we really needed to soak up the time together as it will be our last weekend together until June 25th. So in short, here are some highlights:

On Friday we decided to go to Ping Pong Dim Sum in Chinatown. Ever since the Toki Underground opened up on H Street, we’ve been really craving some good dumplings. The thing is though, Toki Underground has like 2 seats in the whole restaurant and we never want to wait the 2.5 hours for said dumplings. So on Friday, we decided to give Ping Pong Dim Sum a try and it hit the spot. Shrimp dumplings, pork dumplings, duck dumplings, chive dumplings and dumplings we still aren’t really sure of, left us full and happy.

                    

We obviously did a lot of cuddling with the Weimaraner (don’t worry, he wasn’t left out of family time).

                                

We did a lot of park time, we did some shopping (yay new dress and new hat for wedding and summer festivities), we did a ridiculous amount of cleaning (try 4.5 hours on Sunday…you don’t want to know how gross our apartment was), we spent some really great time with Ashley and Tammy and their friends visiting from Texas (so great to meet you Reeves & Hughes, come back to DC soon!), and today we sat on our butts a lot except for a random trip out to Georgetown where we happened upon the “soft opening” of Serendipity 3.


  

I haven’t had a frozen hot chocolate from Serendipity since my senior year of high school when my parents decided they would take me and my dear friend Holly to New York City for my graduation gift. It was one of the last trips I took with my Dad and I’ll never forget that initially, he had just wanted to take me on a Father-Daughter trip, but decided that I’d probably enjoy it even more if I had my Mom and Holly there with me (probably to shop with) :). I’d say that’s a Dad who truly knew his daughter.

                      

Those are some of my most cherished memories. Holly, we went to see Beauty and the Beast on Broadway in Atlanta and ate at the Sundial restaurant for my 11th birthday, we did New York City for our high school graduation, I’d say it’s about time for our next milestone trip. Let’s get to planning dear friend :)

Lastly, but most importantly, I want to take a second and say thank you to all the families who have sacrificed so much for all of us. Today for many is just a great day to enjoy time in the sun, grill out, and spend time together, but for others I know it must be a very difficult day as well. Thank you for your sacrifice and for the freedoms we are all able to enjoy today because of it. You are in our prayers today.

A Dog Blog Hijacking

Can’t we just fast forward to the weekend already? I have had SUCH a long week. Every day I wake up from my “puppy dreams” (Mom likes to call them that) and think “maybe today will be the day that Mom and Dad stay home and hang out with me ALL day.” But then, when I go wake up mamma with my “sweet boy puppy kisses” (she calls them that too) and she doesn’t let me come up and cuddle… I know it’s not that day yet. Sigh…

So instead of cuddling (I really don’t understand why we CAN’T do this every morning, I mean, what could be more important?), we all sleepily make our way to the park. Well, ok, I’m only sleepy for about 3.75 seconds, and then I’m just excited. The park, well, “the P-A-R-K” like mom and dad call it (I totally know what they’re saying, I just play dumb because it makes them feel smart) is my favorite part of our mornings (when we have to get up that is). I get to chase the squirrels, I get to chase my ball, I get to see my puppy friends, and I get to roll in the grass…who wouldn’t love it? We never get to stay long enough either. Before I know it, we’re back home and I’m paws up on the door window, nose to the glass, watching mom and dad leave. I don’t mean to break mom’s heart every time by doing this but, well… ok, maybe I do, but just a little! The rest of my day is spent sleeping, chewing my toys, waiting for Amber to come take me on my long walk (I love Amber), and just doing whatever I can to stay busy until mom and dad come home.

All in all, it’s not so bad really. But still, tomorrow, I would much rather wake up from my puppy dreams, give mamma her sweet boy puppy kisses, get all cuddled up with mom and dad in bed, and the rest of the day wouldn’t matter. Except for my breakfasts and my dinners with my salmon oils (it helps my skin and hair or something, but more importantly it’s oh so good)…I do want those too. Well, and some peanut butter, and to go to the park still, and….

Well, everybody’s gots needs.

in short

It’s been a while since my last post. Apparently when you get your husband back, you’re less inclined to sit on your computer and write. It’s been a big two weeks for us. First off, last weekend Jonathan got on an airplane and headed back to Athens for our dear Josh’s bachelor party, while at about the same time my Mom got on a airplane headed up to DC to spend the weekend with me! I know bits and pieces of Jonathan’s weekend, but we’ll just stick to Mom and I’s for the blog posting :) In short, Friday night we went to a new restaurant in Capitol Hill, Senart’s Oyster House, which exceeded EVERY expectation.

  
We ordered a dozen oysters, a bottle of wine, split the new york strip with cheese grits, had a shot on the house from our waiter, and headed off to see Bridesmaids (long story short: we got there and it was sold out, so we of course bought tickets for another movie, snuck into Bridesmaids, sat in the second to front row, and laughed our asses off). If you have not seen this movie, stop reading right now, and GO.

The rest of our weekend was spent hanging out with Jude, shopping, eating, and just enjoying time together.

  
This past week went by like a whirlwind. It’s too much to write for now, but basically, Jonathan started his internship, we got together with lots of friends, we ate a lot, and we cleaned a lot. Crazy, but good. Here’s a good illustration.

  
Happy Sunday everyone!

Tiresome Tuesdays

I’m EXTRA sleepy tonight b/c Daddy took me on a really long run around the big old white building, and THEN Stoney & Smalls (pictured below)

came over for a surprise visit, and it’s all just so out of my routine I don’t know what to do with myself. And whenever I don’t know what to do, that means, it’s time for sleeps. Stoney and Smalls, thanks for coming over, and more importantly, thanks for not stealing my toys or anything… that made me really happy. Good night!

a much needed beach break

It’s been exactly 7 days since Jonathan finished his last exam (finishing up his first year of law school) and T-minus 9 days until Jonathan’s two week break ends and he starts his internship with the Migrant Legal Action program. What does that mean? That means two days off for Emily to enjoy a long weekend with her husband (it’s not much, but we’ll take what we can!). We decided to take one of these days, pack up our weimaraner and drive 2.5 hours out to a beach in Delaware that allows dogs off-leash. This was Jude’s first beach experience and knowing his track record with water, we were very excited to see how he’d handle it. See here and here for how he’s handled “water situations” in the past. Here are some pictures from our little day trip. Apologies in advance for the absurd amount of pictures 1. that I took from the day and 2. that ended up in this post. We’re like those creepy intense parents…except with our dog. Probably MUCH creepier.





It was a an absolutely beautiful day, a little too chilly for just our suits when the wind was blowing, but perfect otherwise. Jude LOVED every second of it. He pretty much told us that he’s actually a beach dog and we need to move. However, he did make it pretty clear that he could take or leave the whole “ocean” part. We tried to tell him it was a package deal, but he seemed to think we could figure it out.

Here’s a fun progression of photos to give you an idea of what I mean.









He pretty much decided to stick with the sand after that…the sand made ALL the difference.

 
 
His favorite game was to dig, drop his ball in the hole, then dig like crazy until he “accidentally” kicked the ball out of his hole so he’d have to go chase it. This was probably one of the most adorable things I’ve ever seen him do. So fun.


 


 
 



It really was an incredibly beautiful day.



 Every now and then we had to take breaks. The beach is VERY tiring :)

 
We got lots of sweet thank-you-kisses




This is one happy puppy



And this is one sad puppy. He did NOT want to leave his beaches. We promised him more trips in the future, but he just pouted and then slept like a baby when we got home. All in all, I think it was a pretty amazing way to spend a Thursday. We promise to do again judebear!

Goooooo DC United!!!

Tammy, why didn’t you tell me this was a “we’re really excited about soccer” picture?  I really failed on this one! :)

That’s one happy husband! Actually, make that three happy husbands.

Tiresome Tuesdays

Is it time for sleeps yet?


Yes, yes Judebear it is

Somebody pinch me

Guess what?!

Only a weekend this momentous could bring about a photo like the one taken above [gosh that photo makes me so happy]. That’s right people, we survived the first year of law school. Could you hear the sigh of relief from where you were sitting? We’ve been pinching ourselves all weekend trying to figure out how it’s possible we get to spend THIS much time together. So proud of that husband of mine!

To celebrate, on Friday we went to our favorite bar on H street [Smith Commons]. I had a James Brown Derby and Jonathan had an Oskar Blues Dales Pale Ale at 6.5% and we settled in while we waited for the Shugarts and our dinner reservations at Sticky Rice for celebratory sushi.


Soon the Shugarts arrived and somehow or another we ended up getting a round of free shots from the manager. Did I mention we love this place? I mean look at it:


Eventually we made it to Sticky Rice and feasted on an assortment of sushi and a combo of regular and sweet potato tater tots (don’t ask, it’s a weird combination but somehow it works). It was a perfect night of celebrating.



[I also love this picture]

On Saturday we slept in, took the sweet boy to the dog park, then went to Georgetown to run errands (can I emphasize how excited I am that we got to run errands TOGETHER?!…oh it’s the little things). After a slight run in with horrible Georgetown tourists (let’s just say that our car was stuck parallel-parked between two cars that decided to park 1.5” from our car on both sides for about an hour…I’ve become a tourist hater…it took less than a year) we made it back to Capitol Hill for a housewarming/end of law school dinner at the Shugarts new home.


They cooked us an amazing meal of spinach artichoke dip, deviled eggs, homemade mashed potatoes, asparagus, and a killer beautiful rack of lamb. We’ve got some amazing friends here in DC and we couldn’t be more thankful for them! Seriously, that rack of lamb was good. :)

Speaking of amazing friends, we received this in the mail on Saturday:



Inside was money for celebratory drinks on Josh and Maggie since they couldn’t be here to celebrate with us in person. Gosh we love those two so much! Seriously, thank you to everyone who’s prayed for us, encouraged us, and put up with our griping this year! We really couldn’t have survived it without all of our dear friend’s and family’s support near and far. Here’s to you!