Weekend at the (East Coast) Beach!

Lane and I decided to take off Thursday morning and head to the beach. It's about a 5 hour drive from our house and it was well worth it. We stayed in Ocean City, MD a cute town with a huge boardwalk. We went with some friends of ours and had such a great time just relaxing! I'll put the other pictures that they took up when I get them.

The Boardwalk!

Enjoying the beach!

Happy Mother's Day

Here are a few more pictures of when my mom was out here visiting a few weeks back. Happy Mother's Day Mom! I love you! And I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the Mother's Day gift I got you this year! I even had it overnighted to make sure you got it in time!

Spring is finally here!!

Oh how I love spring! I wondered if it would ever come out here in PA-I'm sure our dog was thinking the same thing! Now that it's nice though we have really been enjoying the outdoors. Trips to the lake, hikes, BBQ's, Lane's favorite activity of sitting in the camping chair and making Cole chase his ball, and I'm especially excited about my tulips that are coming in. I know I should wait till they all open up to take a photo, but it's been weeks now of just waiting for them to open up and I can't take it anymore! On either side of the tulips are a ton of daffodils so it will look really nice once it's all in bloom.

Lane's Softball Adventures

Lane is on a softball team that plays on Tuesday nights. This team is far more serious than his last team in Logan where they just showed up and played. They have practices, you have to be there an hour before the game and there are like 30 something people on the roster. Oh and they have 2 coaches who are a total riot. They are these older guys who try and be all tough, but I don't think anyone really listens to them. This is a shot of Lane up to bat (his team is in Blue) and the other one is Lane's battle wound- 1 week later, from sliding into 2nd base with shorts on. You should have seen what it looked liked last week!!! Ouch!

More Visitors!

About 2 days after my parents and sisters left, my Grandma and Grandpa Raiser drove all the way out from Utah to visit us. They stopped to see my Great-Grandma in Chicago who is 99 now!!! They felt it was just "on the way" so they kept on driving! My Grandma did a lot of Family History work while they were out here, and I even went with them for a day looking for a County Courthouse, certain documents and a few cemeteries. We even found a monument of one of my Grandpa's Great-Great-Grandfathers, who was an early settler out here in PA!! Who knew I was so close to home out here!

What A Week!!!!

Wow, talk about a marathon sightseeing trip! My parents and two sisters came out to visit and we went to see all the local spots. We started with Hersey, PA then did Washington D.C., Philly, Gettysburg and Shanksville on Easter Sunday, New York City we did Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday we did Baltimore! Did I mention that this was all 1 week? We had such a good time and I loved being tour guide! I can't wait for more people to come visit- in fact my Grandma and Grandpa Raiser will be here next week. Someone must have spread the word that we have a nice big guest bed or something... It sure would be nice if anyone else wanted to come out. Lane's really been wanting to take someone out ocean fishing and I don't think it's going to be me. See below for a sample of the pictures we took!!!

New York City

We spent 2 days in NYC and saw: The Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, Times Square, Rockerfeller Plaza, NBC studios, Letterman Show, Central Park, The Manhattan Temple, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, NYSE, Wall Street, Ground Zero, Chinatown, Little Italy, SoHo and i'll just stop there!!!!

Philly

In Philly we saw, Independence Hall (took a tour), the Liberty Bell, Betsy Ross' house, Ben Franklin's final resting place, had a Geno's Philly Cheese Steak, and got pastries from Isgro's. We also stopped by Valley Forge on the way there!!

Washington D.C.

The Cherry Blossoms!

Lincoln Memorial

We also saw: The White House, WWII Memorial, The Constitution/Declaration of Independence, Washington Monument, and Arlington. *no time for any Smithsonian museums!

Cherry Blossom Festival in D.C.

The Cherry Blossom Festival started in DC on Saturday and the cherry blossoms came just in time! They are in full bloom, though for now they are mostly white blossoms and I think they are supposed to turn a pinkish/red color. The festival lasts two weeks, so there should be plenty of time for the blossoms to do their thing. If any of you consider a trip to Washington, D.C. in the future, I would highly recommend that it be around this time of year!

Tarragon Chicken Recipe

I have made this 3 or 4 times now and I really love it so I thought I'd pass it along. I had never used tarragon before, but was pleasantly surprised how wonderful and unique it tastes, yet it's so easy to use! This was the closest picture I could find! I'll take one next time I make it. (Eventually I'll get a recipe blog going with all sorts of good recipes I've tried and other people can put theirs up too!)

Time: About 30 mins.
Ingredients:
3 or 4 chicken breast halves (and I usually cut them in half one more time-too cook faster)
3 T butter
Salt Pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic
1 T tarragon (it's with all the spices at the store)
1/3 lb. mushrooms
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups water
4 carrots (cut lengthwise)
1 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions:
Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Heat 3 T of butter in a skillet, cooking chicken on all sides. *Make sure the chicken is still white, not browned-it doesn't need to be cooked all the way here. Add onion, garlic, tarragon, mushroom and sprinkle with the 1/4 cup flour and stir. Add 1 1/2 cups water and the carrots. Cover and cook (simmer-low) for 15-20 minutes. Remove carrots & chicken. Add the cream and stir for about 5 min. * You can add more salt, pepper or tarragon at this point also.
Now you can serve this a couple different ways. You can put the chicken and carrots on the plate and then let each person add their own sauce on top. I usually just put the chicken and carrots back in the pan. But you can also serve this with rice which I usually do.

Enjoy! And let me know if you try it and like it!

NEW YORK! NEW YORK!

So for Lane's birthday I surprised him and took him to a New York Knicks' game(NBA basketball for those of you who don't know) and to check out the city for the weekend. I had been once before but it was Lane's first time. I had been wanting to go really bad ever since we moved here becuase it only takes a little over 3 hours to get to the city from where we live!!! Of course- I forgot to put the memory card in our camera, so we had to buy a disposable one which explains why the picture quality isn't all that great. Here's a run down of the pictures (and what we saw) from our weekend trip: Madison Square Garden (Knicks game), Time Square (like being in Vegas), Chinatown, Little Italy- (awesome Canoli desserts), Brooklyn Bridge, NY Stock Exchange, Wall Street, Ground Zero, Central Park, The Late Show with David Letterman, Empire State Building, SoHo (I only managed to get Lane into a Pottery Barn store but that was it for shopping :( , and so much more. Basicly we saw all of Manhattan! There is so much to see and do, so luckily my family is coming out over Easter- in 4 weeks so we'll get to see more then!

Happy Birthday Lane!

For Lane's birthday (on Saturday), we had gone to New York City for the weekend, so we had his birthday cake and dinner when we returned home with some friends. I have never seen so much chocolate in one piece of cake in my entire life!! I got the recipe out of a book called "Death by Chocolate Cake" - go figure. Luckily Lane brought the leftover cake to work to share.

Handy-man Lane

Since I showed my painting project, I felt it was only fair to show off Lane's skills too. He put chair rail in our guest bathroom, and I did the paint job. It's almost done, it just needs to be painted over in the same white to match the trim. I have to say Lane's getting pretty good at this whole molding thing. He's also working on crown molding too!

Welcome to Pennsylvania!

If you’ve ever wondered what it would take to get church cancelled in Pennsylvania, this is what it would look like (looking out our front door). Right after the bishopric called Lane I just had to take a photo. This is all it takes! And I just realized this is the first time in my life I’ve ever had church cancelled. Lane’s happy though- he just got chocolate chip waffles for breakfast. *you have to look very closely to see the snowflakes.