I had to work from 12 to 8 on V. Day so Benj and I went out for an early lunch. We went to a nice Italian restaurant close to my work called Nicola. That was plenty for me, but after work Benj had a little surprise planned. He picked me up from work and we walked over to The Fresh Market next door and picked up take n’ bake pizza and huge slice of chocolate cake from the bakery. We went home and for some reason he was standing in front of the door fiddling with his ipod instead of unlocking the door. I was freezing and I had a lot of stuff in my hands so I was getting frustrated that he wasn’t opening up the door. I shouldn’t have gotten mad, because he ran in the house and hooked his ipod up to some speakers he had set up and started playing romantic Brazilian music. Then I looked at the table and was SHOCKED to see the table all decorated with rose petals, candles, vases of flowers, sparkling cider, and plates set up for dinner. It was so thoughtful of him. We had fun just eating our pizza and talking in the candle light.
This weekend Benj and I made a last minute quick trip down to North Carolina to see my little brother. He is in the Army and is leaving for Afghanistan in a couple weeks. We rented a car and drove down for a day. We went to lunch and walked around the mall for a couple hours. It was nice just spending time with him before he leaves.
We stopped by Benj’s cousins for a little bit, as well. I had never met them and Benj hadn’t seen them for nearly 10 years. Ray and Darlann and their children were so nice and inviting. They had cookies waiting for us and they sent us home with a bag full of travel munchies and dinner to eat once we got to our hotel that night. It was so fun to get to know them better.
We wished we had more time to visit our friend Mintu and his family while we were in the state, but we only had about 7 hours to spend visiting people and we really went there to see my brother. Mintu, if you are reading this, we are sorry we didn’t come say hi. We just knew we didn’t have enough time. But we will be back to visit!
Not much has been going on here in Columbus. Benj goes to school and I go to work. But we do manage to have some fun! Here are a few pics taken on Benj’s phone camera of moments we just had to capture, be we were without a camera. The quality isn’t good, but we were having fun!
Christmas Morning:
We had a great Christmas! We both got some really cool gifts. Benj’s top presents were some monitors for his recordings, a stand for his upright bass, and a cool chess set, not to mention 3 pairs of badly needed shoes. I got a culinary blow torch, two pairs of extremely comfortable shoes, a cute purple jacket, a neat appetizer cook book, and bunch of other neat things. We went to our friends for Christmas dinner and games later that night.
Here is Benj’s chess set that he insists on displaying in our front room. I don’t mind though. Its not like I am a skilled decorator. I don’t know what else I’d put there. Oh, and incase you didn’t know, Benj is obsessed with chess.
Benj is so excited opening his monitors!
Pet Store:
There is this fun pet store called Pet Land not far from our house. You can hold all the animals. There are lots of puppies that you can play with. You can walk over the parrots and they will just climb right up onto your hands. And there is a giant tortoise that lives in the store, but isn’t for sale. He just walks around the store and sometime he is in his wooden house. We aren’t getting a pet anytime soon (not for many many years), but it is fun to just walk around in a pet store.
New Years:
We went to this really fun place for lunch called Thurmans that is famous for their huge, yummy burgers. We went with our friends Kristin and John. It’s in a fun, historic part of town called German Village. There was an hour long wait, so we put our name on the list and went exploring the brick streets of German Village. We stopped by a fun little candy shop and got Buckeyes and some candies that Benj loves from his mission called Kinder Beunos.
The burgers at Thurman’s were amazing and huge! We avoided the Thurmanator which is like two pounds or something. If you eat the Thurmanator you get to sign a dollar bill and hang it up on the wall.
After lunch we went to The Book Loft, which is this amazing old book store that is made up of 32 different little rooms. It winds all over the place and it is very easy to get lost or claustrophobic in there. We were there for almost an hour and didn’t even come close to exploring the whole place. There is Benj, reading the Chess strategy books.
That night we went over to a neighbors house and played games until midnight, while sipping on sparkling cider. We had some good flavors of sparkling soda there: pear, peach, strawberry, cherry, and acai pomegranate.
Trader Joes:
We love the store Trader Joe’s. I don’t even know how to describe what kind of store it is. I guess you could say it’s a health food store, but it is just so unique and fun. We went there the other night just to walk around and left with more lots of goodies like pumpkin butter, baby zucchini, sushi, chipotle hummus, tropical carrot juice, and this beautiful orchid.
STOMP:
A few days ago Benj and I went to STOMP. Our neighbors got a bunch of free tickets and were giving them to people in the ward. It was amazing! I only got one miserable picture of me waiting for the show to start.
You know what Stomp is right? Its that show where the performers use garbage cans and brooms and all sorts of random things, including their bodies as instruments. There is dancing, music, and comedy. I didn’t think it was going to be funny, but I was laughing the whole time.
The performers were amazing. They were so buff and energetic.
Here is a little video montage of the show we saw. Our performers were different from the movie and it was so much cooler live.
Winter:
Does this look like winter to you? True, the trees are bare, but the grass is still green! It has been such a mild winter. Today is sunny and is 50 degrees. It has snowed three times this winter,I think, but has melted within a day or two.
