Cooking craziness...

Paul enjoying Salmon!

I have been going a little overboard with my new cooking creations!  We took a trip to Whole Foods which always get's my domestic side fired up to get into the kitchen and whip out delicious treats!  Most of the recipes that I've made over the past few days are posted on our shared Food Blog which you should all check out if you haven't already!  (http://ahhnomnom.wordpress.com/)


I wanted to share a few pictures here just in case you haven't visited our food blog!  There was only one casualty in the kitchen this weekend - my wooden spoon.  Other than that, I made Tiggy Salad, shrimp Alfredo, shrimp tomato basil vodlka sauce, Parmesan basil orzo, tex-mex spicy chicken and rice, and lastly spicy basil chicken!  Whew!  We knew that we were going to have way too much food for dinner so I called Anna and Josiah over for dinner to kick back and relax over bellies full of pasta! Delicious!  We ate and caught up over some lemonade and wine, a good Saturday night in my book!

The shrimp were perfect, but my spoon met it's match - the gas stove!

Orzo, with Parmesan and basil!

Josh's Birthday Grill Out!

Anderson Park Pavillion

With a dozen people in the program, there are always Birthday parties and gatherings right around the corner!  Josh's birthday was over spring break, so after a week of neuro lectures, which I still don't comprehend, we met up with the gang in Schenley Park!  We spotted Zim sitting on a picnic bench alone in Anderson Playground, so after driving in circles for 15 minutes, we finally knew we were in the right spot!

Josh & Camilla's Pie!

Zimm started up the grill and made dogs, sausages, and pork chops!  The lunch came together quickly, complete with fruit salad, Pringles, pie, Wisconsin cheddar and a lot of good treats!

Grilled meats - thanks Zim's!

Paul and Zims by the grill!

We hung around, played on the playground until the spinning almost made me vomit.  The park was really nice and a place that we definitely need to come back to when the weather is a little warmer!  Fortunately the rain held off, and we were able to cut the cake and light the candle.

Action shots of Steph on the playground, haha!

Duerr about to make Steph puke...

Bari, Anna, Nancy, Annie, and me!

Annie and Josh!

It was nice to get to see everyone during the afternoon!  This next week - it's back to the books and playing neuroanatomy catch up studying!  It's crazy how fast these weeks have been going by!  This week I also start a new rotation and move from pediatrics to OB/GYN!   Yikes!  Haha, I've never shadowed or been in an OB/GYN clinic, so it will probably be a good experience - I don't know why I'm scared, I like GI for cripes sake!  Until next time...

Josiah questioning Zel... "What??" Hahah!

Spring Break Part 1 - San Francisco!

Paul and I on the San Francisco Street Cars

San Francisco, CA was our first stop on our week long vacation!  Paul was able to align his vacation with my scheduled break so we decided to heat to California - a land unexplored!  We left Saturday morning EARLY, and by early, I mean a 3AM wake up call.  Woof.

Paul's fried critters...

We were delayed a little bit in our departure flights but we arrived in San Fran and began navigating about the city, finding the BART like big city professionals.  We arrived at our "mystery hotel" - which is when you book, they don't show you the name or location so you can get a cheaper price!  Classic Alyce and Paul move.  That evening we walked around and bought our trolly passes.  We went down to Fisherman's Warf and Paul indulged in some fried sea creatures!  I had a fried tentacle or two, but mostly watched.

The next day we were picked up at our hotel to do a day long Muir Woods and Wine Tour!  We were dropped off at Muir woods - and yep, it started to pour!  We were slightly soaked and walking it what may have been classified as sponges rather than boots - yuck.  The Redwoods were massive and beautiful, I'm so happy they were able to preserve the woods so close to the city!

In front of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, CA!

Paul's long arms trying to give the Redwood a hug!

Hiding in a Redwood to escape the rain!

I skipped the samples and went straight for a glass of Zin!

After the wet and rainy, but beautiful, woods - we grabbed lunch and boarded the next bus for our wine tour!  It was so fun to go to the different wineries!   We went to three different wineries in the Napa and Sonoma Wine Valley.  There were all wonderful, but we particularly enjoyed the first winery!

On Monday we had a free Anchor Brewery Tour scheduled!   What a steal!  We walked through the brewery and learned about the art of "steam beer".  We finished the tour tasting many fine brewed treats and left feeling pretty happy!  I love going on brewery tours - it always brings back such vivid memories of the bottling machine and seeing Joel and Erik literally inside the mash tun cleaning out the grain!  Ohh, I miss Slab City Brewing, LLC!

Monday night we splurged and went to a nice restaurant close to our hotel!  It was very good Italian food, with a nice wine happy hour!  What a treat!  Paul drank the $3 PBRs that were on special...hah!

Tasting our Steam Beer at Anchor Brewery!

Don't mind if I have a slug or two!

Alcatraz Island

On Tuesday, our final day in San Francisco, we booked our tour of Alcatraz!  What an interesting landmark and tour.  I cannot imagine how isolated a prisoner would feel living in the middle of the water.  They are doing a lot of restorations, because a building out in the middle of the water takes a lot of beating from the wind, water, and salt!  It was a great tour and I highly recommend it!  Luckily that day, it was also down pouring - yikes!  Additionally, we miscalculated the days we had on our bus pass, so we ended up walking the 1.5 miles to the tour in the rain, can you say soaked and freezing??

The kitchen area with the outline of the knifes painted on the wall, so one didn't go missing.

Paul a little chilled walking down from our tour of the island...

Next stop... warmer San Diego...?  Nope, still cold.

Spring Break Part 2 - San Diego!

Mission Beach Pier - San Diego

After a few days exploring San Francisco - we jumped on a plane to San Diego!   We again navigated the public transit to get to our  VERY reasonably priced hotel and settle in.  This one came with a microwave and mini-fridge, cha-ching!  We quickly ran over to Target next door to stock up on microwave dinners and sandwich supplies to save a few bucks while on our day trips!  Nothing like a cheap picnic!

Paul on the Boardwalk - Mission Beach

That evening we took the bus down to Mission Beach to walk along the boardwalk.  Beaches are so deceiving, before we knew it, we were 2 miles away  from our starting point and out on a pier somewhere!  It was a nice relaxing walk and beautiful sunset.  There are town homes and condos lining the boardwalk with a mix of families and spring breakers - I can't imagine how fun it would be to spend a week in a condo right on the beach like that... hmm, future vacation??


Thursday, we decided to take a long public transit adventure to the Torrey Pines State Park.  We were both surprised that this was accessible by bus - so we capitalized on our $5 ticket and went out for the day.  It was a beautiful day, not to hot, not too cold, but still sunny!  We did some hiking and took a lot of scenic pictures!  What a beautiful place!  Curious Paul also went up to the sand stone to give it a feel and was scolded by the park volunteer - which earned him the nickname of Mr. Sandstone after that...

Paul and I at Razor Point in Torrey Pines State Park!

Torrey Pines

After a long morning of hiking and a quick lunch by the roadside, we took a bus to Little Italy to see the area and grab a bite to eat.  The food was amazing, and it felt nice to get off our feet for a little bit!

Paul and I enjoying our Little Italy Dinner!

Friday was the famous Match Day for fourth year medical students!  I cannot believe it's been a year already!  Paul downloaded some program so he could watch the MS4's at Madison go up to receive their envelopes - it's too bad the audio wasn't working that well, but it was fun to take a trip down memory lane!  Only 6 more years (if I'm lucky) until I match, whew!

One of the many beautiful elephants at the zoo!

Weird animal peeing...

The famous San Diego Zoo Pandas!

After the match ceremonies finished, we took the bus to the San Diego Zoo!  We were so impressed by the size and design of the zoo!  What a fun place!  We took the long walk around the exhibits and also too the chair lift from one side of the zoo to the other to get a bird's eye view.  It was a really fun afternoon, and afterwards we smelt like camel poop.

We took a quick detour across the road to Balboa Park where there are really neat plants and gardens, but by this point we were exhausted so we started making our way back to the hotel to relax for the evening with a book and March Madness basketball for Paul.

 Saturday was our last day in San Diego and we decided to go to the USS Midway, a large air craft carrier that was recently made into a tourist attraction.  Unfortunately it was raining like CRAZY and we were almost blown off the top deck of the carrier!  After getting soaked from head to toe, we continued the tour inside the boat.  It was such an impressive place and a really interesting tour, they did an excellent job restoring the boat.

Soaked and defeated, we picked up our luggage at the hotel and went to the airport to change into dry close and wait for our red eye flight back to Pittsburgh.  We had a wonderful vacation and were sad to hear that while we were away it was 75 and sunny every day back home in the Midwest!  Apparently California had something else in mind for us...  The warmest weather we had was walking back to our car in the Pittsburgh Airport Parking Lot, classic.

In a helicopter on top of the USS Midway!

We had a blast on Spring break, and sadly next year about this time I will be cramming for boards, so I'm glad we were able to fully enjoy this year's vacation!

New camera (i.e. slowly turning into my father...)

I have been wanting to make the leap to a fancy pants camera for a long time now but either didn't have the dough or couldn't justify the splurge...  However, after all that my family went through in the past few months, I realized just how thankful I am for photography and all of the wonderful pictures my dad has taken throughout the years...

My last crummy picture (on my phone) before I bust out the big guns!

So, I found myself doing the research and making the jump to buy a new Cannon DSLR!  I thought it was perfect timing as Paul and I were getting ready for our trip to California!  There were a lot of sites that I wanted to capture with the crisp clarity that an SLR can offer!  So, the first night my camera arrived (of course bogged down in the craziness of microbiology) I came and snapped a few shots around the house... mainly of Paul and my fishy fish (named Squirt) who is my Baby Betta, once too little to capture with a camera!

Squirt - my baby Betta fish! He's really tiny, and growing!

Paul, my tan man.

Trying to mess with the focusing, my present from Paul for Valentines Day!

I was so excited to bring my camera to California... and of course, I forgot the massive 32G SD memory chip in my computer... classic.

In conclusion, what you're about to witness over the coming years is me slowing morphing into Curty's role as master picture taker - BOOYAH!

Happy Birthday Joel!

I was out in Pittsburgh when Joel's Birthday came around.  I was having mixed feelings as you can imagine... should I take the day off?  Let myself be sad and lazy?  Or, should I pull a Uncle Buck and work really hard during the day and have fun at night?  You can imagine, that's exactly what I did - I celebrated Uncle Buck's birthday just as Joel would have.

Joel's collage that we sent out for his birthday! February 27, 2012!

Monday, I woke up and went to school and met up with some of the pre-medical students that I mentor in Pittsburgh bright and early at Starbucks.  We grabbed some coffee and then went down to lecture.  They attended a microbiology lecture with me, which was fun - and confused a lot of classmates ("who are they??" "why did you bring second years to class?").

After getting through my morning classes, I went to the library to put in some good study time and do some emailing for Joel's birthday.  It was overall productive - and which is why I chose that route as my way to celebrate Joel.  Joel was the king of productivity and ambition.

Later that evening, Paul picked me up from school after he was done with work and we went to a restaurant in Pittsburgh called Meat and Potatoes, a restaurant that summarizes Joel's diet.  When asking Joel what he eats, he would always say "ahhhh, meat and potatoes" - yet was by far the thinnest of us which always made us jealous! 

Enjoying an "Uncle Buck" in my apartment - Cheers Joel!

Anyway, the restaurant was absolutely amazing!  Paul got the Duck and I got the only vegetarian option on the menu - both were phenomenal!  After I got home, I took out a red solo cup and said had a cheers with my brother.  The evening couldn't replace the Monday night steak at the Petticoat with the rest of the gang, but it sure came close.  It was a great day to Celebrate Joel, and it felt as if he was closer than ever as we celebrated in his name.