Happy Birthday Dad!

For my Dad's birthday I decided to make him his favorite cake: carrot cake. I figured this would be a simple enough task, having baked many a cake in my lifetime. I got all the ingredients and began the process of mixing them together. When it came time to finely chop the carrots, I decided I would use the food processor because that's what I had always seen my mom do when she made carrot cake. I had never used the food processor before, but how hard could it be right? Wrong. It took both me and Megan struggling to get it put together for about half an hour before we realized that we were trying to force it on backwards. Once we figured that out, the carrots were chopped in like a second.

Then it was time to add the crushed pineapple, except it turned out that I had actually purchased sliced pineapple, so it was actually just cut into rings. So I figured I'd just pop that in the food processor and it would do the job. This led to me of course having to strain the pineapple, but eventually it all seemed to work out.


The cake turned out quite beautiful if I do say so myself.

It tasted pretty good too.

Beach

Recently we took our mostly annual dewy beach trip. The day began with the drive up to the beach, which obviously included watching mary-kate and ashley movies and Rocketman. We arrived at the beach and walked a ways away from all of the people fishing and surfing. We found a lovely little spot and the fun began.

Here's the fam (minus greg who was working):

Some intense wave jumping:

The awesome dragon kite that Emily was flying:

We found a large shovel, so I decided to dig a hole.

Now you see her...

now you don't. Well most of ther anyways.

Feeding Emily to the sharks:

An attempted jumping shot, though I look like I am climbing and invisible wall:

Me and my father, who has since mentioned several times that this day was the most fun he has ever had jumping waves.

We've all wondered what Matthew would look like if he were obese. Now we know.

After a day at the beach we always eat crab at this same restaurant, which is really much more of a shack than anything else.


It was a lovely day.

Hit by the Lovebug Again

July 13, 2009, one of the greatest nights of my life to date. Obviously this means that the Jonas Brothers were back in town. This year they were at the Verizon Center because it fit their awesome spinning stage perfectly for an arena style show. Though our tickets were once again not the best, they were much better than last years as we could actually see them the whole show. And whose complaining about a birds eye view when we're talking about the Jonas Brothers? I'm certainly not.

Well the evening began with a mad dash of me getting back from work about 5 and needing to be at the concert at 7. We (Megan and I) made it there about 7:30, just in time to get our t-shirts and catch Jordin Sparks singing "No Air." Here she is:

After she finished, we sat anxiously waiting as the stage was set up for the Jonas Brothers. Finally at 8:45 the lights went dark and Megan and I jumped to the feet as the Jo Bros made their dramatic entrance. It was so exciting.

Here we are in out matching t-shirts from last year:

The Jonas Brothers obviously have the best lighting designers ever because the lighting was phenomenal! Naturally everything turned to green during Poison Ivy.

The stage also spun, which was cool. The inner circle went one way with the outer circle the other. Here are my boys singing Fly With Me from their new CD.

When they played my favorite new song, Much Better, it could not have been more exciting. I'm pretty sure that song is written about me, but I haven't gotten confirmation yet.




So amazing. I was near tears from excitement at this point. Then they go and whip out a trampoline. Awesome? Yes.



Then Kevin surprised us all by playing the piano in Turn Right. Which was also amazing.

Then things got even better as Joe decided to show off his muscular arms in a tank top. I was pretty sure we had reached the high point.

Oh wait, Joe jumped on the piano.

So hot.

They did a cover of Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline, which was most enjoyable and had the crowd screaming along. Not that Me and Megan hadn't been screaming the entire time.



While Nick was off singing the next song in the center stage, Kevster and Joe snuck off to the side and then all of a sudden were flying over the audience shooting foam at everyone. It was crazy awesome.




Basically, me and Megan were feeling the lovebug. Then of course, Lovebug started playing, but the boys were nowhere to be seen.

And then out of nowhere Kevin came up through this trap door wearing a white rain coat. Then it started raining, and Kevin danced around in it.

Joe and Nick met up with Kevin in the middle and started singing Lovebug. When the guitar solo started, so did the rain. This time with all three of them dancing and singing in it. Not to mention the water somehow formed hearts and the Jonas Brothers sign. It was beyond awesome.



I guess what I am trying to say is that somehow the Jonas Brothers managed to come through even bigger and better than they did before. The concert could not have been better, unless I had been on stage dancing in the rain WITH Joe. But I gues they had to leave something for next year.

After the concert Megan and I headed down to the synagogue on 6th and I, where there was an aftershow hosted by Honor Society, the band that was touring with the Jo Bros. It was a crazy cool show in a much more intimate setting. Of course Megan and I were hoping the Jonas Brothers would show up so we could get a closer look.


We heard girls randomly screaming on the balcony, so I went up to see what it was about. Who should be hanging out across the balcony, but KEVIN, NICK, and JOE JONAS! I almost died right there on the spot. Instead I just sat there and stared at them. Nick glanced up and made eye contact with me briefly, no joke. I ran down and told Megan to go up and see them and bask in their hotness, so she did.

In the end, we didn't get to meet them. But the important thing is now, not only have we seen them, but they've seen us. They probably wrote about it in their journal or something. It was probably the best night of their lives too.

Say Cheese!

So on Thursday I was driving and happened to hear on the radio that there would be a statue of Abe Lincoln carved from cheddar cheese on display for three hours the next day on Constitution avenue in D.C. Obviously I took a mental note to go see it.

On Friday my mom, Emily, me, and my friend Colleen headed out to D.C. for the sole purpose of seeing the cheese statue of Abraham Lincoln. As we exited 66 onto Constitution there was the bright orange life size rendition of Abe himself. We parked and walked over to see it and were greeted by enthusiastic employees of Cheez-it who gave us each several bags of cheez-its to take with us. I happen to love cheez-its, so this was wonderful.

We each took a turn getting our picture taken with Abe. As I stood next to him, I definitely noticed a distinct cheesy smell. We were glad it wasn't super hot that day.


Emily and Abe:

Mom and Abe:

Colleen and Abe:

Afterward we of course hit up Tangy Sweet for some delicious frozen yogurt.


Not everyday do you get to see a life size cheese statue AND eat pomegranate frozen yogurt. It was a very good day.

A Merry Time

Last week we had the wonderful privilege of having my Aunt Merry come to visit us. This of course led to many exciting events, such as a late night jaunt into D.C. and a sing along and dance along viewing of Mamma Mia (in costumes). I will of course not be posting any pictures of that event as they would obviously be used as blackmail.

The trip into D.C. was a highlight. It started with dinner at Crepes A Go Go, a delightful restaurant that serves...CREPES! We all had the avocado, tomato, and cheese crepe and they were delicious.


Then we stopped by my favorite frozen yogurt place, Tangy Sweet, where I had the pomegranate yogurt with mangoes.


So good.

Then we went and saw the monuments, which was fantastic as always. We ate delicious chocolate on the steps of the Lincoln.

And took awesome jumping shots at Jefferson.


As you can see, my mom really committed to that picture.

Jonas, Fray, and Jack's Mannequin

Tuesday June 16, was a day that I had been anticipating for several months. It arrived and as planned Megan and I ran to Target to purchase the new Jonas Brother's album. Unfortunately I do not have a cd player in my car, so we had to settle for last years album for the trip back. We made it home and ran inside and immediately started listening to the cd.


Turns out the Jonas Brothers have done it again, they've passed me and Megan's spontaneous dance party test. The cd was great, but after listening to it through once we had to put it aside and get ready to head out to the Fray and Jack's Mannequin concert that evening.

After driving/sitting for over 2 hours in traffic we made it to the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland only 20 minutes late to the concert. We were worried that we would miss the beginning of Jack's Mannequin's performance, but luckily they had some random band opening before them and the Fray. Here's me and Anna just looking super excited:


Jack's Mannequin opened with Dark Blue, and let me just say that Andrew McMahon is full of energy and somehow manages to dance whilst playing the piano. If he had a spare moment where he wasn't playing, he would jump around the stage and into the crowd and onto the piano. He was fantastic, and quite beautiful I might add.

Here he is performing Bruised:



After he finished his performance we waited a bit and then the Fray came onstage. They were also fantastic, starting off the concert with Cable Car, which of course had everyone singing. They had pretty sweet lighting set up for their show, though this picture hardly displays it:


An hour and a half later they left the stage, only to come back again and surprise everyone by performing Heartless. It was of course excellent.



They sang several more songs and then the wonderful experience was over and we were left to trek back to our car and drive home. Luckily it only took one hour to get back because there was no traffic on the beltway.

Basically it was an awesome day.

I Might be Paranoid

After almost a year, the Jonas Brothers are finally about to release their next album. Megan and I have been anxiously awaiting this day since last August when their album came out the same day that we went to their concert. Now here we are, all one year older and ready to repeat history. We've got our tickets and now anxiously await the album so that we can be properly prepared for the concert in July.

As a little teaser the Jo Bros lovingly released their single Paranoid, along with its music video, and let me just say: I have fallen in love with Joe Jonas all over again. His new haircut and smashing gold jacket are just to die for.



Ummm awesome? Yes.

Memorial Day

After seeing Night at the Museum 2, me and the parents headed out to see Washington D.C. for real. We met up with Greg and some of his friends and toured the monuments at night. My mom was thrilled to have some fresh meat who hadn't heard her tours before and was sure to get each of them a brochure from each site.

It was a lovely experience.

Spanish Tortilla

After over a month of being home from Spain I figured it was time for my family to try some Spanish cuisine. Naturally this meant that they needed to have a spanish tortilla, which is much more of a potato omelet than the mexican tortilla you may be thinking of.

The recipe is actually quite simple: 6-7 medium potatoes, 1 onion, 5-6 large eggs, 2-3 cups of olive oil, and salt. We cut the potatoes and onions and cooked them in the olive oil. Then we mixed them in with the beaten eggs and put them in a frying pan. Up to this point it was rather easy, when it came time to flip it we struggled a bit. You are supposed to put a plate upside down over the pan and then flip the tortilla onto the plate and then slide it back onto the pan. This sounded easy enough except that our plates are really quite heavy and the pan wasn't light either. Between me and my mom we managed to do it though, and it turned out looking just like the ones I had eaten in Spain.

It tasted like the ones from Spain too. Everyone loved it, with the exception of Emily, who said that she doesn't like food from other countries. I'm hoping this attitude will change soon.

Painting

Recently my mother spent the weekend at an art retreat learning lots of cool artistic things. She came home rather inspired, so we set out to create our own masterpieces with the techniques she had learned.

First we did a bunch of rubbings using her cool oil pastels on little deli sheets. Then we drew a number of faces on pages ripped from a phone book using our non dominant hand. Then we started in on the canvas and fingerpainted a background.

This was probably the funnest part, because who doesn't love to fingerpaint? Especially on a whole canvas. Here's my almost finished background:


Emily joined us when she came home from school and did some intense crayon/watercoloring.


After finishing the background, we pasted one of the faces we had drawn on the phone book page to the canvas. Then we added the textured deli sheets and painted in the face.

Several hours later (notice the sun has gone down) we finished our masterpieces. I was quite proud of my finished work because I never thought that I could paint a face that would in any way resemble a human, but what can I say, my mom taught me well.