Chi-CA-go

I've had a blast in Chicago this weekend! Scott and I woke up for a late breakfast Saturday morning and took the metra into the city. We got off at union station and walked to the ESPN zone taking in all the sights. Ashley and Ryan met us to watch the game (if you can call it a game, sorry U) and we decided a deep dish pizza was a must. After putting our name on a 90 minutes waiting list at Giordano's, we went up in the Hancock tower in time to see the sun set and then get some great night shots of the city. We got back to the restaurant in time to sneak into our reservation slot which was lucky for us because the pizza was amazingly good and the company even better :-)
After taking the metra back to Glenview where we were staying with Scott's Uncle Dan and Aunt Robin, we crashed from another funfilled day.
On Sunday, we woke up to meet Ryan and Ashley for Church at Harvest Bible, a Chicago mega church with Pastor James MacDonald. After church, we went to Ashley and Ryan's house for a wonderful lunch, a nailbiting Bears game, and some play time with their pet hedgehog, Coco. Scott's friend Tunie lives close by Ryan, so when we left after the Bears game, we picked up Tunie and grabbed dinner in Wheaton, Il. It was another wonderful day with the perfect fall football weather and spending more time getting to know Scott's friends from college.
Today Scott started his rotation, so I have been catching up with emails, updating my blog, obviously ;-) an spending time with his Aunt Robin. I leave tomorrow afternoon to head back to Richmond and will fly back out at the end of the month to keep Scott entertained on the drive back, a job I take very serious ;-)

Finally an up-to-date post!!!!

Scott is spending the month of October doing an away rotation in the windy city and what better bonding experience than a 16 hour road trip!!!
We left Thursday evening from Norfolk, VA- stopped in Richmond to have dinner with my parents- then arrived at his parents house in Staunton at 10:00pm Thursday evening- cutting 3 hours out of the trip. Scott woke up at 4:30am to pack the car, recline the passenger seat, and perfectly position my pillow all in the midst of a downpour (Somehow a "terradactile sized bug" entered the car and it took us two highway pull overs to get the creature out of the car). He woke me up at 5:00 and we were on our way. I slept for 2 more hours then we found a Cracker Barrel in WV to eat breakfast. We sidetracked through Upland, Indiana to visit his alma mater Taylor University. After visiting the athletic department, prayer deck, cafeteria, bookstore, tennis courts, driving by his house, walking part of the loop, eating at Toppit Pizza, and getting ice cream at Ivanhoes, we were back on the road heading towards Chicago. We pulled into his Aunt and Uncles driveway at 10:30pm and had a wonderful nights sleep after the rain filled day long drive and LOTS of laughs and memories.

Competition for the cutest :-)

It's a tie!!!!

VT versus Nebraska

If you ask me what my favorite season is- with no thought or hesitation, my response will be fall!!!!! The food, decorations, weather, and weekends full of football is something that I am always ready for by late August. This year, I'm only able to make it back to three VT football games which, considering the drive, has become plenty for me. I was lucky enough to go to the VT vs Nebraska catastrophe where we stole a W from Nebraska in the last 2 minutes. It was Callie's first VT event and Scott drove in for the day to attend as well. Our tailgate was phenominal with a low county seafood boil, crablegs, and all the standards. That Sunday we had a family reunion with my grandfather on my mom's side of the family. It was the perfect "gear up for fall" weekend!

Go Rapids!!!!!

My 10 year high school reunion was September 12th and above all I was amazed to see how little people had changed!
Friday night was spent at the HS football game and then a bunch of people met up at a sports bar down the road afterwards. Saturday, Scott and I went to one of my favorite places in the whole world, Maymont Park, in Richmond. This is where my mom would take my brother and I on nice days when we were out of school, or my dad and I would go walk around and spend time together. I've been looking forward to taking Scott and it was a beautiful day to walk around. We toured the mansion which I have never done, walked through the Italian Gardens, and got the Tech game update as we passed fellow Hokies that were checking the score on their phones. Saturday night was the big reunion event at a bar downtown. It was wonderful to see all of my best friends from elementary and high school and to hear everyone's accomplishments and successes.

August 22nd

Scott and I celebrated our one year anniversary of dating on August 22nd with a weekend full of relaxation. Friday night, Scott brought me beautiful flowers, we cooked dinner together, and watched the sunset on the bay. Saturday we spent the day at the bay until it started raining, went wine tasting, rented a movie, and went out to dinner at One Fish Two Fish.
A year ago I couldn't have imagined the wonderful 12 months we would spend together and I am looking forward to all of the changes and growing we will encounter over the next year!!!!!
Even more important, I am so very thankful for God's wonderful and perfect timing in bringing Scott and I together :-)

Myrtle Beach 2009

I haven't had a chance to update the blog from our Spiers family trip to Myrtle Beach that was almost two months ago. This trip was two weeks after Scott and my trip to Charleston. I don't have pictures with me right now since I am updating this from Scotts computer in Chicago and the pictures have already been transferred off our camera to my computer in Virginia, so those will have to go up later. The trip was one big photoshoot documenting the cute things Callie would do and I would send daily emails at night to Scott with pics from the day.
The trip was spent with Grampy and Callie time every morning, Callie trying to drink coffee out of Grammy's mug, and then naptime. When she would wake up we would head down to the beach and she would stick her toes in the ocean, leak her diaper all over my belly, sleep in her stroller, and try to drink the pool water. On the rainy days we all enjoyed the mall and outlet shops. Two nights were spent having dinner in and the rest were meals out and about. It was a wonderfully relaxing trip with my family and I can't wait to get home and post the great pictures for everyone to see.

Miracles

I know I haven't even begun to catch up with the events of the past month and I am leaving out blogs from the Spiers Family trip to Myrtle Beach, Scott and my one year anniversary, and a weekend visit from Kyle and Janelle. However, in the spirit of trying to keep my blog current, I feel it's important to make a recent update.
Matt and Amanda's precious "little" Oliver is home from an 8 day stay at the vets office. It was pretty scary and I can only imagine how Matt and Amanda felt. He went in almost two weeks ago for surgery to take out little tumors in both of his ears. When he came out of being sedated and was sent home, he couldn't hear, walk, or eat :-( Matt and Amanda force fed him for 2 days which was a huge struggle and had to take him back twice to get fluid boluses and have the medications adjusted. In a nutshell, what happened was they think he had vertigo from the surgery which caused him to not want to eat or move. Because he didn't eat for 2 days, and is slightly overweight to begin with, he got fatty liver and that prevented him from getting any medications for the vertigo. Basically a vicious cycle with no positive endpoint so they took him into the vet, placed a feeding tube, and monitored his liver enzyme levels for 8 days. I went over to watch SYTYCD and Glee last night and Ollie had come home yesterday afternoon. He was opening his eyes, purring, eating, and walking. It was such a blessing to see him up and about and happy. He still has the feeding tube, but has an appointment tomorrow to hopefully get that removed if he's eating well. It was so wonderful to see him home and doing better!!!!
Our other little miracle, Callie, is continuing to grow and develop both physically and mentally and is so much fun to play with and watch!

Girls Weekend in Raleigh

On our way up from Charleston, Scott dropped me off in Raleigh for our annual HT weekend and he headed to Wilmington for a few days to see a high school friend and Staunton for the rest of the weekend for a wedding.

Krista always does a fabulous write up of our girly trips that we hope to one day make into a book. Here is the first paragraph from her writeup:

"This year we decided to take our annual HT trip down to Raleigh, NC, the home of our very own Nadja Young. Most of us had never been down to see Nadja, and since she and Tones just had their baby girl, Gabrielle, three months prior…we decided this was the perfect place to go.
To summarize this trip quickly I’d say that we ate a lot of great food for not a lot of money, laughed constantly, got little sleep (especially Nadja), and left feeling even more blessed for the amazing friendships that we have."

The detials:

We all arrived at different times on Thursday and since I was the first, Scott and I got to fully take in Nadja and Tony's guest room called "The Young Hall of Fame" and spend some quality time catching up with the Young family. I could see Scotts eyes light up and the wheels start turning when he walked into the hall of fame (see picture below). By Thursday evening, everyone had arrived, we caught up briefly then headed off to bed.

Friday morning started with a yoga class where Amanda rocked our instructor to the point that the instructor was asking her what some of the moves were called. After going home and changing, we went to lunch at a famous BBQ spot called "The Pit" which has been featured on food network. In true HighTech style, we stuffed our faces and ordered pretty much everything on the menu, down to the grilled tofu. We then headed to the most wonderful farmers market I have ever seen. There were stands upon stands of fresh produce and they even had a pork shop with any part of the pig fixed any ways you could ever need it to be sold.

We all went home and slept for about 2 hours. When we woke up we headed to the Red Room for a wonderful Tapas dinner with sangria and then went to a bar down the street to do some dancing. The style in Raleigh is different than anything I have ever seen and I felt like I was at an 80's prom (but trashier). After Krista and Nadja made their radio debut with an MC that was broadcasting from the bar, we decided to call it a night.

Saturday started with a wonderful family breakfast where we all chipped in and Tony bossed us around in true polygamist style. Diva continued to sleep since she was his "trophy wife".

After breakfast we got ready for our hilariously yummy food tour of Raleigh where we saw houses of distant relatives of famous people and heard the history of the three presidents that North Carolina MIGHT be able to claim ;-)

The best part of the culinary tour was when a single male approached our table of -in his words-"attractive women" hoping that one of us would "be able to accompany him to The Sound of Music that evening". Being that the sound of music was amanda's favorite growing up, we nominated her to go and she happily accepted. When he arrived at the house we had a formal interview where we found out his last name, age, profession, family history, dating history, license plate, and even facebook friended him before he left to make sure our friend was safe. Long story short, the night went great, they still talk often, she has met his parents, and he is flying out to Texas to see her next weekend- seriously!

That night, while Amanda was on her date, we had a bonfire, smores, pizza, and played games at the house. We had a blast and stayed up until 2:30 or 3 catching up, watching old dance videos, and being silly.

Sunday morning was a magnificent brunch and baby shower for Krista who is expecting a little boy the beginning of January. After tearful goodbyes, we all headed separate ways to be followed by many emails, pictures, stories and plans of our next trip.

It was a wonderful weekend and we all missed Lauren, who wasn't able to make it to this trip, tremendously. It was not the same without her and we all look forward to spending our next trip together all healthy and happy.

Charles Town

Sorry for the delay in updating. I know the reason for a blog is to let everyone far away know what you have been up to, but it's hard when there is sooooo much going on that you can't even find time to update the blog. I will try and post things in the order in which they occurred.

Scott and I went to Charleston at the end of July. He finished his step 2 of the boards (which he passed with flying colors) and we decided to get away for a mini vacay.

We stopped in Richmond Saturday evening for Drew and Lindsey's Engagement Party. Drew is one of Scott's medical school friends as well as a Hokie HNFE alumni (same major I did at Tech).

We left on Sunday to make the drive down to Charleston and arrived just in time for the daily wine and cheese reception. After taking in the beautiful surroundings and unpacking, we went to a late dinner at Vendue Inn's Rooftop bar with a view of the Cooper River.

Monday was our tour day. We started out with a harbour tour, followed by a carriage ride, and then concluded the day with a walking ghost tour. We went to dinner at Slightly North of Broad which is a must for anyone traveling to Charleston that enjoys food!

Tuesday was on the hot side so after a little shopping, sightseeing, and lunch at an Irish Bar called Tommy Condons, we headed to see a movies and visit the outlet malls. We went back to the hotel for our wine and cheese reception and then out to dinner at Southend Brewery for pizza and beer. We decided to do a walking tour called "The Darker Side of Charleston" which ended up being the highlight of the trip. Our tour guide had been doing tours since he was 16, had keys to all of the churches and graveyards in the historic area, and just told story after story after story from 10:30-Midnight. The tour ended slightly before midnight in the graveyard of The Circular Church and I made Scott book it out because I don't particularly get the warm fuzzies being in a graveyard at the stroke of midnight.

The next day was filled with shopping at the market place, lunch at Charleston Cooks (a mini williams-sonoma where they do cooking demonstrations and we racked up some fun new kitchen items for both Scott and I), then happy hour at High Cotton. After getting stuck in a downpour because I HAD to stop and get ice cream, we went back to the hotel to drop off our purchases and then headed out to a cute wine and cigar shop we had passed a million time. Scott taught me how to play chess while waiting for our dinner reservation time at Fleet Landing.

The trip was absolutely perfect, relaxing, and filled with wonderful memories. I would go back in a heartbeat and am secretly hoping it will be on the list of potential locations for Scotts residency :-)