St. Pattys Day Extravaganza

With a last name like "Grady," you have to go ALL out for St. Patrick's Day! Every year we host a "traditional" St. Patty's Day dinner and it seems that with each year the group gets larger and larger and we love it! With 30+ people in our apartment, it felt more like an Irish pub than our living room!

Before the chaos!

Kevin made both the cupcakes and the shamrock sugar cookies - How I love having a husband that can not only cook but bake (better than I can actually)!

Stirring the potatoes (do I look domestic or what!)

Checking the meat - in my family, we make our corned beef a little differently. After the meat cooks all day in the crock pot, I take it out and put a yummy brown sugar honey mustard glaze on it and then cook it until the glaze caramelizes on the meat...trust met, it is AMAZING!

After cooking and cleaning all day, Kevin is wiped out - and the party hasn't even started!

The guests arrive and start to chow down!

Little Miss Emiline Bean - all dressed in green! I am such the poet!

Elizabeth and baby Gweneth Moon

Katy Wall, Hayley Bean, and Nora Harrison
Samuel Crawford

Brian Wall and Eric Bergeron

Kendra and baby Carter Thornock and Michelle Jacobs

Thanks for coming everyone! We had a great time:)

FINALLY!!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, THE WILLIAMSBURG FIVE GUYS IS NOW OPEN!!! And yes, we went on opening day!

Kevin may look calm and collected,

but he is anxiously awaiting his burger!

My life is complete!

PS - The place may look empty, but that's probably because we went at like 9:30PM...

In DC with Miss Karen

We were fortunate enough to get a visitor to the east coast a few weekends ago when Kevin's sister Karen flew out to DC for a work conference (Karen works for the University of Nevada Las Vegas and does the PR for the business school there). We had a great time touring the city and eating at some fun restaurants!

Karen and I at the Capital Grill - I LOVE my sister (in-law)!

(I had to cut Kevin out of this picture because he was making the weirdest face!)

We headed to the American History Museum for some fun pop culture history!

Karen has her eye on Dorothy's ruby slippers!

Every Seinfeld fan needs a picture next to the puffy shirt!

("But I don't want to be a pirate!)

Kevin LOVES trains - whenever we go to the Crawford's, he always plays with Sam's and vows that we will have a train set for our 'kids' (ie for Kevin).

I always had a thing for Rafael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - I realize that I am pictured next to Michelangelo, but I thought I should mention my childhood crush on a turtle with major attitude!

Thanks for making this a great weekend, Karen!

80's Night at The Melting Pot

I have always wanted to eat at the Melting Pot, and I finally got the chance! Thanks to 80's Night at our local Melting Pot, I was able to convince Kevin to take me! Essentially, they played 80's music and slashed their prices to where they were 2 decades ago (well, almost).

The food was EXCELLENT! I can't wait to go again! Kevin and I really enjoyed all of the courses, but there is nothing better than warm chocolate drizzled over fruit and other delectables!

We loved the cheese course!

All gone :(

Leslie Goes Gothic?

Since the beginning of the year, Kevin and I have been really trying to save money by clipping coupons and working the double and triple coupon sales at the local grocery stores. In an effort to save money, I used a coupon for a different brand of hair dye than I normally use and the effect is astonishing (shield your eyes!):

No, I am not gothic, I promise! The other brand turned my hair BLACK! It was supposed to be dark brown...BROWN!! What happened to my brown hair? I took this picture after I dried my tears and realized that hair dye eventually will fade, especially with the help of clarifying shampoo, and thought that I could just laugh it off. Well, it is now a month later and my hair is still pretty black (I tell myself it is brown, but I am definitely lying to myself!). If I had wanted black hair, I would be pretty excited about finding such a fade resistant dye, but right now, I am missing my less dramatic hair color!

PS - If you ARE looking for some pretty strong dye, I used Clairol Nice 'N Easy.

Competition in the City

Kevin competed in his last moot court competition a few weeks ago in New York City. I couldn't resist the opportunity to watch him compete and of course do a little shopping and site seeing in the big apple. Kevin and his partner, Genevieve, did a great job, but mostly we had a good time eating yummy Chinese food in Chinatown, delicious pizza in Little Italy, and roasted nuts at every opportunity!

The Courtroom

Last minute prep!

Kevin and Genevieve after a job well done :)

After we arrived, we wandered over to the Gershwin Theatre to check and see if there might be any ticket cancellations for Wicked and luck was shining down on us because we landed tickets in center orchestra only a few rows back from the stage. We saved a TON of money on the seats and I was so excited to see it again that I cried on and off through the first act!

It was Kevin's first time seeing Wicked, and as you can tell, he is really excited!

I HEART Wicked!