Recently, we finally got to celebrate my sister and brother-in-law's March nuptials this past August! They were officially married in the early spring back in Michigan when we couldn't travel as Jack was due a few short weeks at the time, so they hosted a grand party this summer to celebrate with extended family and friends - it was truly an event where 'la vie' was 'en rose'!

But it wasn't just any cocktail party, in fact, festivities began the night before with a taco party on the rooftop of the Park Shelton; this was a casual affair in which all out-of-towners got together to meet, eat, drink and get a grand view of the city Ilse and Jon call home catered by their fave taco chef!

A few weeks ago, we were lucky enough to find a recipe book from one of our favorite DC restaurants, Rasika - an Indian restaurant - at a local book shop.  Since then, weekends have been filled with travel, so we decided to bring it down with us on our trip to visit Nana in Williamsburg and give a couple of the recipes a go.  

The conclusion is that everything turned out delicious; so much so, we forgot to take photos of the finished products!  The plot is a little more interesting.  Turns out some of the spices are hard to come by!  We went World Market where we bought about one fourth of the items including a mortar and pestle, then to a Harris Teeter grocery store to get another fourth of the ingredients, and then finally we found an Indian market down in Newport News, where we got all of the rest - 3 stops and we were all set for an appetizer and an entree of spicy cauliflower and a shrimp curry.

What to pack when you're going to Michigan in the dead of winter for your baby shower? Well, first and foremost, a fun party dress to show off the bump.  Secondarily, warmest sweaters, snow boots, maternity jeans and comfortable clothing for the airport - god forbid I get a middle seat on the plane at 7 months pregnant, need to make it to the bathroom and be sitting with restrictive clothing. I flew out of Baltimore late Friday night, only to return Sunday night (aka Super Bowl night).

All in all, everything went off without a hitch despite the snow massive snow fall that started Saturday afternoon and did not stop even after I left. There was about 4 inches of snow when I left and they were getting even more this weekend! Baby shower? More like Baby Snow Storm.

Last week, Pete and I were able to leave frigid Washington D.C. for the entirety of the week and visit my dad in Hermosillo, Sonora - the land of clear blue skies and sun, the land of Taco Fish, the land of Sonoran Style Steaks, the land of Palo Fierro (the most beautiful hardwood)! We all had a great time celebrating Christmas! Pete cooked a feast of cinnamon spiced salmon, green beans, mashed potatoes, cooked carrots and green apple with spiced cranberries salad.  There was tres leches cake and flan for dessert but we didn't get to it until the following day.  And you can certainly bet there was lots of cheering (Dilly Dilly!) as we all toasted to the coming year. 

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You guuuuys, this place is legit!

If you want to see what it was like to live in one of the colonies just as the revolution was about to begin, come to Yorktown's newest American Revolution Museum.  They have a portion set up so you can walk through a soldiers camp, including the camp's "kitchen", the soldiers' tents, captain's quarters, and medical facilities (let me just say "yikes"), a traditional colonial house and farm with crops, live chickens, ducks, dried tobacco leaves, and slaves homes.  Beyond this, is a brand new musuem housing some of the true artifacts of the war, several extensive and easy to follow exhibits that display each battle, each person's life style, facts about both sides views on the war and two very large theaters with excellent films - one is a surround screen (almost half circle) amphitheater that had us wondering why aren't all movie theaters like this?