A Sunshine Filled Weekend

I feel as though I've been the worst blogger in the world lately. I always feel so much more motivated to get out and do things when the weather finally starts to warm up each year. I've been hitting the gym a lot harder this week, and filling in my free time with fun activities! This weekend was definitely no exception.

Saturday, two of my teacher friends, Jaime and Jamie (yes, those are their real names and yes, people often think they're lying when they introduce themselves) and I headed to downtown Annapolis for the day. We were headed to the 1st Annual Saving Second Base Bar Crawl, to benefit (duh) breast cancer awareness. I've talked about how near and dear philanthropy for breast cancer is to my heart (no pun intended) before, and this was a great opportunity that I could not pass up! Not only did we get to give our time, energy and money to a great cause, we also had a splendid time hanging out and enjoying the beautiful Spring sunshine! I often say that "Daytime Drinking" and "Outside Drinking" are two of my favorite warm weather activities and this event combined both with a great cause!

After the bar crawl, we went back home, where Antonio and Jaime's boyfriend grilled us a delicious late night dinner of steak, coleslaw, potato salad and baked beans. Later, I rummaged through some of Jaime's "give aways" and came up with some pretty awesome finds. I love sharing hand me downs, even as an adult. It feels like shopping, but without the buyers' remorse. Even though I came down with a nasty case of hiccups, it was a perfect warm weather ending to what I like to consider a pretty ideal Saturday!

On Sunday, "the Jamies" and I decided to participate in another charitable, and fun! event. We loaded up the coolers and drove over to The Great Catonsville Cow Flop, which benefited a local Boy Scout troop. The basic gist of the event was this: you buy a small square of land, a farmer brings a cow in, the cow moseys around while you enjoy the sunshine, listen to some music, eat some snacks and just relax, if the cow poops on your assigned square, you are the winner of 1500 big ones! As strange as it sounds, this event raised a ton of money for a good cause and was a very relaxing way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

After the flop, we had another quick cookout dinner and everyone parted ways to prepare for the week ahead. I had so much fun this weekend that I didn't want it to end; I slept in almost an hour past my alarm and had to run like crazy to make it to school on time! Oh well... it was definitely worth it for a jam packed weekend like that!

Love Love Love

I know it's cheesy and cliche but... HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! Even though today is the day, I've already had a pretty whirlwind Valentine's celebration this weekend!

Friday night, Antonio and I got all dressed up and headed into Baltimore to have a delicious dinner at Fogo de Chao. Neither one of us had ever been there before and let me tell you, it was certainly an experience! It's an all you can eat Brazilian steakhouse and super yummy. You start out with the massive salad bar, which along with regular salad bar items had fresh asparagus, mozzarella balls, a-maz-ing cheeses, and some different salads. I had been told ahead of time to not waste my belly space on the salad bar though, so I just took a small bit of everything to try. (It was amazing FYI)

Once you've finished your salad bar selections is when the meal truly starts. Each person at the table has a small card with a green side and a red side. Green literally means "yes please, bring me meat!" and red means "ok, let me eat for a minute". (I let Antonio turn his card first because I was a little nervous.) When you turn your card the Gauchos come around with huge forks of delicious, tender, perfectly cooked meats that they cut off right onto your plate for you. There are 15 different kinds and I tried almost every kind. My favorites were the bottom round and bacon wrapped (!!!) filet. They also had their own wine cellar right in the middle of the restaurant. I tried a Riesling that was great. I am definitely a lover of red meat AND wine so this was a perfect meal! I cannot wait to go back very very soon!

Yesterday, we spent the day relaxing at home before going out again that night! We're really becoming party animals these days! I got a text from my Phi Mu little asking if I was interested in going to a show in Baltimore where three of our favorite local bands were playing. Of course we were interested! A bunch of local bands were playing in Power Plant for "Pirate Rob's" birthday bash. (If you know why this Pirate Rob gets such a huge birthday party, please let me know. Either way it was fun, though) I used to work with the lead singer of one of the bands, so I've been sporatically going to Bond and Bentley and Pasadena shows for years, so I knew that they would put on a great show, which they definitely did. They played a lot of new music, all of which was superb! I had only seen Ballyhoo live once before, but they were equally as awesome! I'm definitely going to have to hunt down some more of their music on itunes. It was also awesome to get to spend some quality time with my little while she's home in MD! Her husband is away so I got to play her Valentine for a little while last night!

All in all it was a great Valentine's weekend and I couldn't have asked for better! Today, I plan to relax a little more and possibly go to the gym. (Don't hold me to that though...) How are you all celebrating this day of love with the people you love?