Halloween

I guess I better post a few pictures from Halloween, although I am reluctant to share pictures of me in costume. I’m just not good with costumes.

My friend Britney threw a little “Ghouls Only” (girls only) Halloween Party. A costume was required. Thank goodness my neighbor Becca said I could come over and use her zombie make up with her.

I love the pop can stuck in Becca’s head! We had so much fun making zombies out of ourselves.

And Britney went all out with the party. There were awesome decorations, fun games, and lots of cute treats. Check out this spread:

We also carved Jack-o-Lanterns for the first time in our nearly 5 years of marriage. I am really regretting not getting a picture of them. Benjamin’s was so funny and cool!

We also had a good time at our church party. I made these sugar cookies for the party:

We threw together last minute costumes and I am really embarrassed to share this picture with you. Can you guess what movie we are from? Despicable Me. Benjamin is Gru and I am his Minion. By the time we took this picture my little pipe cleaner hair spikes had fallen off.

Circleville Pumpkin Show

Back in October, Benj and I traveled about an hour away to Central Ohio’s famous Circleville Pumpkin Show. Now, I learned the hard way that it is not the “pumpkin festival”, but the “pumpkin show”. I was reprimanded by a native of Circleville after saying it wrong. I will never make that mistake again. The Circleville Pumpkin Show has been held in the streets of Circleville since 1903. It is a 4 day event with tons of food stands, rides, fair games, pumpkin displays, contests, and 2 parades every day. We carpooled with our friends the Picketts. Unfortunately, we didn’t pick a very good time to go. It was a little cold when we got there, but by the time we left, if was pouring and we were soaked through and freezing. I’m sure we would have stayed longer if we weren’t so freezing.

In this picture we are standing in front of a huge mural. What you see is only a very small portion of the huge painting.

There were lots of giant pumpkins.

And lots of interesting gourds and pumpkins of all sizes and varieties that you could buy.

We splurged on some Bloomin Potatoes

And of course we splurged on some pumpkin food. We got pumpkin fudge and pumpkin doughnuts.

They had pretty much every kind of pumpkin food there. They had pumpkin: pizza, hot dogs, burgers, cheesecake, ice cream, bread, pie, cookies, cup cakes, taffy, pancakes, waffles, scones, and any thing else you could think of. We would have tried more pumpkin food, but our trip was cut short. It didn’t take long for us to be soaked to the bone from the rain, so we left faster than we normally would have. We did, however, sit through about 15 minutes of the parade in the pouring rain, hoping that it would stop raining. Maybe we will try again next year with better luck.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Most everyone already knows this, but I guess I better still put up a post about it. Our baby is a little……………GIRL! We are so excited! She is healthy and everything is measuring perfectly. Can’t wait to meet her!

Profile shot

Two little feet

Thumbs up for Rock N’ Roll!

Road Trip

Benj and I both had the day off at the same time, which is rare, so we decided to take advantage of it. We hopped in our new car. Yup, we got a new car. A 2000 Subaru Outback. We are pretty excited to finally have a car that we can rely on when driving more than 20 minutes.

We set out on the road towards Cincinnati, about an hour and a half away. Our first stop: Ikea. We spent the better part of the day walking around Ikea. We bought a crib, changing table, a coffee table, and a computer desk. We weren’t planning on getting that much, but we found some good deals in the clearance section.  We were able to fit it all in our car. It has so much room!

Next we visited my Uncle Jared and Aunt Wendy and their four kids. They were so nice and had dinner for us. It was so much fun visiting family. They also sent us home with a bunch of hand me down baby clothes! Thanks Jared and Wendy. I totally forgot to get a picture with them. We’ll just have to visit again.

Next, we visited and awesome international grocery store called Jungle Jims. That place is huge! And there are crazy displays all over. Out side the store is a pond and fountain with fake giraffes and elephants. Inside, there is a grocery section devoted to just about every country in the world.

This store had the biggest cheese section I have ever seen. You could find cheese from every country!

Not to mention a crazy exotic meat selection.

 

And a sweet candy section!

And vats of different flavored pickles!

You can see it is a pretty silly store. The actual restrooms are behind those outhouse doors and they are actually nice, big, multi stalled public bathrooms.

Seafood section. You could get many different kinds of live fish or lobsters.

Robin Hood guarded the entry way to the British foods section. He was a robot that moved and talked.

We collected a bunch of treats from around the world. Milka chocolates from Germany, and assortment of candy from England, Benj’s favorite potato chips from England (Prawn Cocktail and Roast Chicken flavored), Magosteen Juice (amazing!!!) and Soursop juice from somewhere exotic (can’t remember where), some pure Mexican vanilla, and some finger bananas from Columbia. We got a frozen pizza, some ice cream, and settled into our hotel and stayed up way to late watching movies on the tv,through our lap top. We get a sweet deal on hotels because Benj’s brother works for Marriott and there is a family discount. Thanks Anthony!!! We have both been working really hard and it was such a nice, much needed get away. And we didn’t even have to go that far!

Back to School

Benj has started his second year of medical school and things are going well. His friend and classmate  decided to have a small barbeque at the park and invited a few other second year med students who live near us.

Look at all those future doctors. Such good friends.

O-H-I-O

Archie Griffin

I went to Kroger to do some grocery shopping and I guess there was some sort of celebration going on at the store because there were tons of samples and Archie Griffin was there signing autographs.

Who is Archie Griffin? He is a former member of The Ohio State Buckeyes football team. He is the only person to win the Heisman Trophy twice. He won four Big Ten Conference titles and was the first player ever to start in four Rose Bowls. He also played 7 seasons in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals. He is a little older now and is settled in Columbus with his family.

I actually didn’t know who he was, but I recognized that he was someone important and a football player. So I quickly bought a cute little Buckeye baby onesie in the OSU section of the grocery store and got in line. I had him sign the back of the baby outfit and two pictures of himself for my dad and brother. I also got a picture with him with my phone. He was a very kind person. As soon as I left the store I called my dad and asked him if he knows who Archie Griffin is. He spouted off all the stats about him, like I knew he would.

Just thought I’d share that random, fun experience. Go Bucks!!!

Taco Truck Tour

Benj and I went on a tour with a group called Columbus Food Adventures. They specialize in guided van tours where each pit stop is to taste and learn about food. They have dessert tours, meat tours, ethnic food tours, and tours of specific places like The Short North and German Village. We were able to get cheap tickets for their taco truck tour.

First off, we piled into this van:

And we drove off the the West Side (West Broad area) to where the highest concentration of taco trucks are located. We got to stop at 5 trucks that were hand picked to be the best of the best. At each truck, we got to sample some food and learn about the truck, the cuisine served, what part of Mexico it is based from, and just the general how-to’s of taco truck logistics (which salsa is hottest, what certain things on the menu are, what things are usually really hot, which things are most authentic…).

At the first place we got to sample a delicious chorizo taco. I loved the avacado salsa at this truck!

At the second truck, we got to try a Baracoa Gordita and some Horchata

 

At the third place we got to sample the delicious rotisserie pork called al pastor. This was Benjamin’s favorite stop.

At the fourth truck we got to taste a Oaxacan (pronounced Wa-ha-kan) dish called Tlayudas. It came out looking kind of like a pizza. The base was a huge toasted tortilla, with a bean sauce, cheese, avocado, lettuce, tomatoes, and two different kinds of meat. It was huge and we each got a fourth of the pie.

We also got a guava aqua fresca. It was delicious. The annoyed look on my face was because the wind had just blown the last bit of my food onto the pavement.

I totally forgot to get a picture of the last truck. We stopped and got these delicious Mexican icy slushy things that I can’t remember the name. They were so good that we both ate ours before snapping a pic. I got coconut and Benj got prickly pear (tuna, as it is called in Mexico). Our last stop was to walk around a Mexican grocery store. We bought some corn tortillas and I bought a popsicle that turned out to have chilies and chili powder in it. One bite and I was done. Haha. I thought it was pineapple flavored. I was wrong.

It was such a fun trip and we have been dying to go back to one of the truck since the tour. Everything was amazingly delicious and I highly recommend this tour to anyone and everyone!