Farmers Market Fun!

This morning my mom, sister and I took our 1st trip to the Public Market together since Wes and I moved home and it was lovely!  

There were beautiful fresh cut flowers everywhere!

And food trucks!

The hydrangeas were GORgeous.

Picked up some coconut flakes for smoothies here.  If you're not familiar, they're an ingredient warehouse with just about anything you may need to fulfill a recipe!

My favorite stand of all - The Amish make the best banana bread!

We Got Cured

Over the weekend, Wes & I visited Cure, a restaurant and bar located at the Public Market!  If you've ever dined at Good Luck and loved it (who doesn't ?!), then you'll be sure to enjoy Cure, since it's owned by the same crew.   

Every Sunday they feature a specialty Hot Dog (and this ain't no Zweigle).  I honestly don't remember the ingredients that made this past Sunday's dog special, aside from the perfectly cooked hard-boiled egg and the cutest tiny pickles I've ever laid eyes on, but who cares (?!), it was heaven in a bun.
  

Wes had a moment when he bit into their Banh Mi sandwich.  Get a load of these ingredients:  pork sausage, country pate, pickled vegetables & spiced mayo, on a toasted baguette.  I seriously thought I was going to lose out to a sandwich!  

Anyway, 2 thumbs up for Cure.  We'll definitely be going back!

1 Step Closer...

We waited...

We celebrated...

Wes rearranged...

And now we're one step closer to being New Yorkers again!

Kindness

Yesterday while shopping at Wegmans I had an encounter with a woman over cheese and it made my morning.  

One of the biggest differences between the Rochester community and the Northern VA area is the demeanor of the public.  Shortly after moving, Wes and I quickly observed that people were just plain moody, most of the time.  Perhaps it was the maddening traffic, or the...um, traffic.  Either way, we were more likely to encounter random acts of rudeness, than kindness, while living in the NOVA area.  And while were not naive enough to believe that everyday here will be lollipops and butterflies, there does seem to be a CLEAR difference and we've already been reminded that acts of kindness far outweigh those of rudeness in our community. 

Take for example my cheese incident.  I hadn't even been in the store for 10 minutes before random strangers struck up pleasant conversation - the cheese woman was proceeded by a nice elderly man who chatted with me while we shucked our corn.  I typically shopped at the Wegmans in Fairfax every other week, or so.  I never once, I repeat NEVER, had a random conversation with another customer.  We lived there for 2 years!  And boy did I try - I'd make a stupid comment about the aisles needing stop lights, after almost running my cart into someone trying to cross that treacherous gap to the other side, or smile and try to talk about the freakin weather while waiting in the awkward space by the deli.  I would either get ignored entirely (which I preferred), or the miserable person would shoot me a nasty look continuing to go about their important shopping business.  The worst were the times when waiting in line behind a cute little kid in a cart; I'd try to make faces or play with the child and they would reach out and slap me!  Ok, that's a lie, but do you get my point?   

My point is, that life is more pleasant here - for us at least. :) 

Back during graduation season, George Saunders gave the convocation speech at Syracuse University. You may have already encountered this article on the web; it seems to be everywhere, but if not and you have a bit of extra time, it's worth a read.  His advice centers around kindness.  

You can read the full speech here.  

p.s. 

1. Me and the nice cheese lady share a love for Lorraine swiss.
2. Wes and I deemed the rude citizens mentioned above, as "DC Royalty." 

Married Mondays: Home Sweet Home

Well, the day finally came and we are officially Rochesterians again!

We could not have done this move without the help of our dads.  They flew in Friday night, so that they could help us pack the truck on Saturday morning.  They are truly rockstar dads.

Little did they know they'd be running a sprint that morning, as we were forced to load the truck in just 2 hours!  As a goodbye present, our building decided to screw up the appointment book for the loading dock/service elevator and forget to write us down for the 9:30a-12:30p time-slot (even though Wes booked it 3 weeks ago!).  So after some calm and peaceful negotiations, Wes was able to get us the 6 - 8a slot.  Whatever, we took it - anything to get home as fast as possible.  

At a pace just short of a brisk run we raced to pack the truck.  After trying to unsuccessfully jam our oversized couch through the door, waking up grumpy neighbors, realizing that U-Haul under-quoted us on the size of the truck for the amount of our stuff and having words with the local garbage truck man, we jammed pushed the last few items onto the truck as the rain began to fall.  We were pretty darn proud of our work!

    

It was finally time to get on the road!  Here we go!!

Here we are!   

I wish I could have captured a photo of our moms standing at the top of the driveway watching us pull up - it was definitely one of those simple, but meaningful moments.  Both Wes and I agreed that we felt overwhelmed with a mix of positive emotions as we put the cars in park and stepped out and into the next chapter of our life together.  

  

We celebrated appropriately with our wonderful parents!  They've been incredibly supportive throughout this entire adventure; it felt so right to celebrate with the 4 of them. 

Then it was off to work on Sunday morning.  

A big THANK YOU goes out to our helpful family and friends!

I think we may have set a record for how quickly we were able to unload the truck!  

Post-unload smiles. :)

Thank you to everyone that's followed us on our journey over the past 2 years.  We're so overwhelmed with gratitude for our life back here in Rochester and can't wait to resume the special moments with family and friends.  

We'll still be blogging, so don't forget to visit us virtually! :)

A Dose of Family & Friends is Good for the Soul.

Wes and I traveled home this past weekend (and then some) to take care of some job business.  We of course squeezed in as much family and friend time as we could!  It was just what we needed to kick-start our summer of happy transitions!

 The Orient Express was playing down at the beach on Wednesday night!

 We stopped for a drink at Pier 45 afterwards.

Mark and Wes made a delicious clam dinner (salmon for my mom and I :)) on Thursday evening.

On Friday, we ventured over to Steve & Karyn's new house to celebrate Steve's birthday!

It was raining Home Depot gift cards that night and apparently funny cards. :)

And of course we squeezed in fun times with friends!  Happy Birthday Ashely!

Can't wait to do it all over again, soon!

We're Baaaaaack

Did you miss us?  Happy New Year!

We're slowly getting back to reality here in VA after a glorious 9 days at home.  As we ease back into our routines, here are just a few snapshots from our adventures in NY.  Enjoy!

We visited the Eastman House with Mrs. L & Jaime's Uncle Bobby.

We went bowling with some good friends.  It got intense...

 

Speaking of intense...Wes got a new tattoo.  You'll have to stay tuned for pics of the artwork; it's amaaaazing!!

We rang in 2012 by heading back to the 60's - Mad Men Style.

We had such an amazing time at home with our family and friends.  For those of you we didn't get to see, you'll just have to come visit us!  Schedule your visit ASAP - the kick a$$ air mattress is booking up fast!

The 1st Annual Jumoli Wine Tour...

While home for Thanksgiving our families came together for a tour de vino - appropriately named The Jumoli (Juliano/Limoli) Wine Tour.  How lucky are we?  Our families actually enjoy spending time together.  Here's a glimpse into our experience...

Wes kicking the day off with a toast.  Don't worry, Karyn became happier as the day went on.

Our chariot awaits.

Puffy paint is AWESOME!!

Our 2 beautiful mothers.  Cheers from Belhurst - our first stop!

Wine AND beer tasting = perfect day.

Happy Times.

aaaaaand then things got interesting.

"Where did the wine go?" sulked Wes.  "Oh yeah, saggy pants stole it from Brad!"  Who the hell steals wine on a wine tour??

"I think he went this way!"

We eventually got over it...

...and made some new friends.

...like any good story, all good things must come to an end...

Muppet face?

FRANK THE TANK!

I mean the snacks we made were delicious, but this is quite a reaction!

aaaahahahahaha.

Who's in for next year??

Seriously, though, we couldn't be happier to have two AWESOME families.  We can't wait to see everyone again soon!