Celebrating a month of marriage :-) and another great week

It seems like time is flying by!  Last Monday we celebrated our first month of marriage.  In some ways it feels like we've been together forever because it is so normal and so wonderful, but in other ways it feels like my wedding was just a few days ago. 

I babysat over 30 kids on Monday in Manhattan with a big group of other babysitters, but I got home in enough time to take a little nap (30 kids are exhausting!) and get ready to go back into Manhattan with my date.  We had a groupon that we bought months ago but had never used, so we decided to go there before our groupon expired.  So for $20, we enjoyed salad, bread, 2 entrees, tea and cappuccino, and 2 desserts!  It was a great little place, and made a perfect *one month* anniversary for us.  :-)

  Tuesday I babysat again, so that was pretty uneventful as far as writing details about it, although it was certainly not uneventful while I was there!

 
  Wednesday I caught up on all my work at home- cleaning, laundry, organizing, and marketing for my photography business. Then mid-afternoon we left for the (dreaded) DMV where I stood in line for 3 hours, but Praise the Lord was successful in getting my driver's license.  My license got stolen when I was in Texas so it was little tricky to get my name changed without my old license, but I knew I needed to work on it because I need it to fly back home for a wedding next month.  Anyway, we were SO hungry when we got home, so I skipped my good meal plan and we got some Chinese that lives dangerously close to us.  And its really really good. 

My laundry system :-) It will be really fun in the Winter time!

On Thursday my friend, Laura, came and visited.  She had been visiting her family on Long Island so it was kind of on her way back to Chicago for her to come see me.  It was a great time- on Thursday I was babysitting so we just stayed in Astoria and made a really good dinner- Grilled Cheeseburger Wraps (which I forgot to grill :P) and BLT salad which was SO yummy and I got "stuck" with eating the leftovers for days.  Yum!

   Friday we went to Manhattan together, and braved navigated the subways all by ourselves.  It was fun.  She is headed to the Philippines next month, so she picked up some souvenirs and I got my first fast food since I have been married- and sadly it is even better than I remembered!  I also got a cute little brown hat, but we were down to our last pennies, so we asked and re-asked the guy to take 7.25 instead of 10.  He finally said yes just to get rid of us.  I think as we stood there counting pennies he realized that really was all we had.  We headed home, but then I realized Laura had never seen the statue of liberty, so we headed back to where we had just come from and farther to the Staten Island Ferry.  It is such a nice ride, and it's one of the only things you'll find in the city that is free.  We got home to Astoria just in time to meet her brothers to head back to Rochester.  Laura drove my car, "Hoda" back to Rochester where my family will be keeping and loving her now.  It's a relief to not have to worry about parking here, but it was sad to see her go.  Friday night brought an apple-themed family fun night at church. Hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and apple crisp.  I gorged.  To bury the sadness of seeing Hoda leave...or maybe that was just an excuse, but the food was SO good.  It was the perfect junk-food day!

Saturday was the first day of Fall, so after visitation I was in the baking mood.  I cooked all day while I watched a photography seminar on lighting. I made chicken terryaki, rice,corn, and green smoothies for Saturday's dinner, apple craisin muffins with cheese cream filling and crumb topping for Peter for snack, 2 loaves of complicated honey oatmeal wheat bread, (It was the neediest bread I have ever made, and it was still pretty dense to me, so I am not convinced it was worth the 4+ hours it took,) peanut butter pie and cut up veggies for our company on Sunday, and made a huge batch of refried beans. :-) I was pretty tired by the end of the day.  I did get a chance to go play the piano for a little while at night, and then Peter took me for a little snack at this frozen yogurt place we found right around the corner.  Anyone that comes to visit me will certainly go to this place.  It is SO yummy!!!

Sunday was such a great day. We had church in the morning, a birthday party with SUCH GOOD Greek food for lunch, a quick nap, making dinner, evening church service where my husband preached to the teens a great message on how easily God could replace us, and also introduced a new system and booklet of journal-ing their devotions each day to make sure they are getting meaningful applications every day. I am looking forward to implementing it in my own life.  Then we had friends from church over and a few neighbors who we are praying to receive salvation over for mexican night.  I always forget to take pictures of the spread and our guests, but we had a great time.  Carolina and Dave brought decorations to help it feel more authentic, so we had a pinata burro and pretty flowers and confetti.   It is so good to get to know my new church family and make friends.  I am really enjoying it.  :-)