Valentine's Day is coming...

With the long, cold gray days of summer, it's always nice to have something to look forward too.  I think that's why Valentine's Day even exists as a national holiday anyway...because there's really not much going on in the winter time after Christmas and the New Year.  We all seem to need a little pick-me up during the dreary time before Spring.  I have to admit...I like the pink hearts and candy and an excuse to send cards to the people I care about.

Adoption

I know that I don't have many readers of my blog, but hopefully this post can be passed along in a way that could count.  We have some good friends here in Buffalo that have been on one crazy up and down roller coaster attempting to adopt a baby to add to their family.  If anyone deserves to be parents, they do!  They are loving, service-oriented, hard-working, smart and many other things. I don't fully understand the adoption process, but if anyone reading this knows of anyone looking to find adoptive parents please pass the link to their profile along. I know they would appreciate it!

Oh How Christmas Comes and Goes

With the hustle of Jake finishing up school for fall semester and trying to get on top of work so that I could have an actual break over the holidays it seems like Christmas was upon us pretty suddenly.  It's always so sad to me how quickly Christmas is over, the tree and lights taken down and real life resumes, but our breaks and chances to visit family wouldn't be as sweet if we were blessed with them all the time right?

I wanted to put some pics up of our Christmas decorations in our apartment because it's Jake's and my first real Christmas together and because I am proud of them... 

So...for our anniversary and before heading to Utah we made a stop in Chicago.  Umm...it was freezing although the city was beautiful.  

 Some of the famous Chicago style pizza.  So cheeeesy.

 At the top of the Sear's tower at the Skydeck.  If visiting Chicago I recommend getting here at sunset like we did.  :-)

In Utah at the Temple Square lights.  I was so happy that little Lucy didn't seem too scared of me.

 We like to make funny faces in my fam.

Singing Christmas carols...

Getting gifts...

Lucy putting a lid on her head...

And...it wouldn't be the holidays without good food.  Our families definitely went above and beyond in that department!

 And....when we thought our trip was nearing an end we were luck enough to have a cancelled flight to be in town even longer.  Jake and I have never seen so much luggage on the luggage corral in our lives.

So...with some of our extra time we spent some more time with the families which included a bowling trip.  Good times!  I hope all of you guys were able to have as good a Christmas as were able to.

Thanksgiving Weekend...New York Style

So, for Thanksgiving weekend Jake's parents treated us to a family trip to New York City.  It was great to show them around Buffalo and to visit Jake's sister and brother-in-law in New York City.  It was my first visit to NYC and I was astounded by the sheer magnitude of the city!  We had a great time visiting the Natural History Museum, having dinner at the Marriot Marquis in Time Square, touring the Statue of Liberty and seeing Phantom of the Opera.  Thank you Wildings for such a wonderful trip!  I hope that Jake and I can make it back to NYC soon while we are out here.

 When Jake's family flew into town we had an ultimate wing-off and taste tested wings from Duff's and Anchor.  Still no consensus on which one is better.

 Some of the fam at Niagara falls.  I think it was a little rainy...too bad I had to work that day.

 Our niece Makena at the visitor center at Palmyra.  (Jake took the picture.)

The perfect Time's Square shot of me and Mandi ;-).  (Jake took the picture.)

The Wildings table

 Thanksgiving dinner

 Malia and Shane got a leash for Makena so we could keep track of her in the crowds.  I think she actually liked it so that she could walk around freely.  She was so cute running from exhibit to exhibit in the museum.

 Walking around staten island.  It was freezing!! (Jake didn't take this picture)

 There she is...I took the picture.

So, this is all of us girls trying on hats at this cute shop somewhere in NYC and yes...I bought one.

THE "Lafamilia."  I would assume this place is THE place for New York style pizza.  I have to say...it was pretty dang good.

...And lastly...a public service announcement from Jake to all of you.

I guess I am a book nerd...

                                                      BBC Top 100

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses...

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (all)

5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6 The Bible JSB

7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller MJB

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens 

24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34 Emma – Jane Austen

35 Persuasion – Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere JSB

39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50 Atonement – Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52 Dune – Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

 
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov MJB

63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72 Dracula – Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses – James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal – Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession – AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94 Watership Down – Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Or maybe I am not really that much of a book nerd...I haven't really read that many of them, but I would like to.

Fall Semi-Formal and Ben Folds

The post title has a nice ring to it doesn't it?  Jake and I have been up to some fun things lately.  Last week we got all prettied up and danced it up at the dental school fall formal and last night we went to see Ben Folds at the Town Ballroom.  I am so glad we discovered this venue in Buffalo...just another reason why Buffalo ain't bad and Ben Folds wasn't bad either.  In fact, I thought he was pretty amazing.

 There he is!  Playing the piano!

We do have a picture without a crazy stranger behind my head, but this was too good to resist.

The Best Husband...

I have the best husband. We had company over on Sunday and before our friends came over Jake said to me something like...maybe I should give you part of your birthday present early.  I was just like...uh...ok.  Then he said, "Yes, I think that's the right thing to do."  When he pulled out an Anthropologie bag I knew it was gonna be good.  I love my husband.