Adventures of Newlyweds in Kansas

So I spent last week in San Antonio for work.  The training was right on the Riverwalk and so was the hotel I stayed at, the Hotel Valencia.  The hotel was really nice the only thing it was missing was a pool.  Here is my room!  It also had a huge balcony and bath robes :)
















With all this training I am starting to get spoiled with all the nice hotels that have Government rates that I can stay in!  I meet some other interns from around the country while there and we hug out every night.  The food in San Antonio was pretty good, especially the Mexican and BBQ.  The margaritas were also great!  The only touristy things I did was walk the Riverwalk, go to the Alamo, and go up the Tower of America for dinner one evening.  Here is a photo of the sunset while we were eating.  We were 500 feet up and the restaurant rotated, it was pretty neat and the food was even good.

















I flew in and out of Manhattan and that was amazing.  I left the house 1 hour before my flight was scheduled to take off.  I can't wait for our flight to Chicago to start.  This weekend Kali came up Saturday to help me paint the outside of our house.  Saturday was incredibly hot so we only painted in the morning and late at night.  Sunday was much nicer and we got a lot done.  One side and half of the back aren't finished but as soon as I hang the shutters up the front will look finished and I'll take a photo!

Tonight was Mexican Monday.  Derek is in love with tacos right now so almost every Monday we have chicken tacos.  I don't plan on cooking the rest of the week :)  I leave Saturday for San Diego for Mindy's wedding and I have lots of other things to get done before then but I am excited for a long vacation and some nice weather.

So I finally, well almost, finished the guest bathroom.  Things we did:  new vent, paint, and storage system.  I still have to add some trim but I'm not sure what I want to do with it so it's not done yet.
Here is a few photos, I still need to move more things onto my storage:











































I also ordered a bookshelf for the living room that arrived and I think looks good for the price.  So for now I think we are done with the interior of our house!  Oh yeah we also bought a baby gate to lock Bristol in the laundry room while we are gone instead of using her kennel.

So Derek and I's goal the last few weeks while grocery shopping is to buy food without high fructose corn syrup which is actually a pretty difficult task.  So far good things that don't always come without it that we have found are:

• Apple sauce:  we like the organic at the store and also Grandma Hoerners
• Cereal bars:  My favorite are Cascadian Farm and Derek likes Kashi Baked Apple Spice
• Chocolate milk:  any type of organic is yummy but the Horizon is best
• Earth Grains 100% whole wheat, Derek even loves it!
• Apple butter, pumpkin butter, and jam all from Grandma Hoerners
• Peanut Butter:  any of the natural kind
• Basil pesto ravioli from a local store, it was amazing
• Pepsi Throwback:  this is nearly impossible to find but good tasting, I am actually trying to get Derek to make me homemade root beer for me instead!
• Yogurt:  you'd be surprised all the junk in normal yogurt, still haven't found a great one without corn syrup too but the Kroger brand doesn't have hfcs
• Lean Cuisine's:  they don't have hfcs and most the the Spa Cuisine is good and includes vegetables

Sunday I head to San Antonio for work while I'm not really looking forward to but that is okay.

So Derek and I have been pretty busy lately.  We went to DC for our first Anniversary over Memorial Day weekend.  We got there at 9:30 on Saturday ontime and hopped on the metro to our hotel.  When we arrived at 10:30 we were surprised our hotel was ready!   Overall the hotel (Beacon Hotel) was decent, not amazing though, so I'm glad we got it for a discount and not full price.  It did however have a good location, about a 10 minute walk from 2 metros and maybe 20 minutes to the White House.  The weather was hot while we were there, 95 and humid.  Several people said it felt like it should in August, but we survived with lots of water and tried to do museums in the afternoon.  I posted photos here
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2351878&id=17000802&l=bc65ec05a9

We went to Filomena Ristorante in Georgetown for our anniversary dinner.  It was pretty awesome!  We got a bottle of wine and had rice balls for an appetizer which were basically identical to the ones we had in Rome.  Then I got the Gnocchi Della Mamma for my main meal.  It was homemade potato dumplings in a red meat sauce, yum!  We then ended the dinner with Triple Chocolate Mousse which was up there on the best dessert ever haha   Here is a photo from outside the place



















There was even the "pasta mamma" in the front window making the pasta.


We then came home from DC on Tuesday.  Our flight was delayed an hour so we didn't leave DC until 9pm and get home until around 1am which made Wednesday a bit exhausting but that's okay.  I had a really good time in DC and glad we went there!


Then I got something else from our Anniversary.....



















A fridge!  It even has an ice dispenser and it much larger than our last one, I love it!  We have now replaced all the appliances in there except the stove.  I promised myself we wouldn't replace it unless it breaks...but I really want a flat top one because the one we have now it impossible to keep clean but oh well, maybe it will break haha


Last weekend we went to Canifesto at a local brewery, Tallgrass, and then went to Wine in the Wild at our local zoo for a fundraiser.  Each were enjoyable, but of course I like the Wine in the Wild better.  Derek did however have a rough morning  the next day...


That's about all that is going on here.  We are pretty busy until after Mindy's wedding in July, which I am getting excited for, about a month away!