Happy Easter

Happy Easter Everyone!

Alicia and I didn't do too much this year for Easter; I think it sort of snuck up on us. I guess that happens :). However, we did decide to practice some of the family traditions: dying easter eggs ... (Alicia's note: Hmmm ... wonder why the red dye cup is empty ...).






I think they turned out pretty well:






However, neither Alicia or myself eats too much of the boiled eggs .. so they didn't last very long ...






Our end result was something yummy though!






We hope you all have had a great Easter! .. Sorry you missed out on the develed eggs! (not really; more for us :) ). We do wish that we were able to spend our holiday with you! Take care, and we hope to see you very soon!

Jeff and Alicia

Hello everybody,

This is my first time to write on here, Jeff usually does it. Things are going ok out here in DC. We're having a St.Patty's party this weekend which should be a lot of fun. I'm keeping busy traveling with work. I'll be in Nevada all of next week and it looks like I'll be in North Carolina the last week of March. I don't mind traveling, I just wish it didn't happen so often. Jeff and I hit 6 months last week as a married couple. We didn't do anything special, but I guess it's the year anniversaries that count more anyway. I think Jeff and I are going to join our racquetball leagues again this spring. I joined an indoor volleyball league too. It's on the same nights as my class, so that's going to make for some long Wednesdays for me. oh well

My niece is due with her first baby in June. I decided to make something for her, but I don't know if I will get it finished in time. We'll see. Well, my lunch break is about over. I hope you have a good day.

Love, Alicia

Weekend Review

Hello All,

WE'RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD, TOO!!! Seeing that Jason and Kelly were on their way to have fun in Disney World all by themselves; we thought they might enjoy some company. So we're joining them :). It will be our first vacation between siblings and in-laws; and it should be great fun. Alicia and I are very excited! We have already booked hotel and bought our tickets ... May can't get here soon enough!

Other than that fun news; nothing else too crazy has been going on .. just the normal routine. We went to see Mel Gibson Passion of the Christ on Saturday. It is one of those very graphically realistic and powerful movies that you really want to see once; but I'm not in a hurry to see it again. In that sense it was a lot like Saving Private Ryan. I can see why a lot of people have been so moved by this movie ... it would be hard to get through it without feeling something. I suggest if you have any interest in this movie; go and see it!

Last night we went to one of the local Mexican restaurants that is more of family-style venue than a chain restaurant. It was pretty good. Lucky for us, the waiter spilled half a frozen margarita on me, and the four of us that were there got our drinks for free :). I was wearing a sweatshirt that I removed; so it wasn't really that bad of an incident at all. Of course, I guess he could have dropped it on my head .. he wasn't that far off.

The weather has been great today .. we have had the windows open and got a chance to wash our car. It needed to be washed; badly. I can feel spring coming .. but when the temperature drops again I'm going to be hurting after the spoiling this weekend.

A new grocery store opened today, Wegman's, which is further than or usual store .. but not very far away. It was very highly publicized; and although we would have preferred not to go on opening day we went anyways. It was extremely busy .. hard to move your cart anywhere but was one of the nicest stores I have ever been in. It has an unbelievable amount of everything! It is going to be nice once the rush of people slows down!

Which reminds me; if you haven't tried the new Diet Coke with Lime .. you should! This is my new favorite soda of the diet variety. Alicia and I weren't that big on the one with lemon; however the cherry isn't bad either. It definitely has a different taste than Diet Coke .. but it seems fresher and cuts the aftertaste. Win-win situation.

Alright; I guess I've rambled for long enough. We hope you all are doing well and hope to see you all soon!
Jeff & Alicia

Another Good Weekend

Alicia and I had a pretty good weekend. On Friday, Alicia and I went looking at new TVs to replace the Sony Wega which should have lasted for a lifetime but died for no reason (I'm not bitter :) ). So pretty much I won't be advertising the Sony product line for awhile.

Like any situation, you can't just replace what you had; but you have at least take a tiny-step forward. So we got the same size television, a 27", but we got one that is HDTV ready. We bought Samsung, instead of Sony this time. It has been great so far. We ended up buying it at Circuit City, instead of Best Buy because of the difference in prices of their service plans. Best Buy 4 year (which is additional to the 1 year manufacturer's) costs $250, Circuit City's is only $150. Doesn't take much to do the math on that one.

The sales guy at Best Buy really made a point that we needed a progressive-scan DVD player; which ours is not. However, we watched a couple of movies on it this weekend, and I'd have to admit that it looked pretty good. I don't know how much of a leap it would be to upgrade to a progressive-scan player (which you can actually get starting around $40 :)).

We got around to four movies this weekend (is that some sort of record? :)). We watched: Under the Tuscan Sun, League of Extrordinary Gentlemen, Lost in Translation, and in the theater -- 50 First Dates. Lost in Translation was a little bit slow .. never really seemed to get anywhere; although there were a few humorous spots. "League ..." was alright .. nothing too special here .. typical action film. "Under ..." was okay; Alicia liked it.

Fifty First Dates was pretty dang funny ... good date movie. I like Adam Sandler movies .. which are usually funny as you would expect :).

Well .. I guess that is all the excitement. Hope to see you all soon.

Jeff & Alicia

Hello All,

Just as you would expect it, I was surfing around the cable satellite networks last night on the internet to see about converting over from my local cable provider, and my TV died. Pop pop pop .. blank. Yea. Isn't that fun. So I am now trying to decide whether I should buy a new television or pay to have it fixed. I liked my TV .. but am not that impressed with the fact that it has only lasted for about two years. That really sucks. Seriously. If nothing else, I guess the cable provided benefits because I am in less of a hurry to switch my provider.

On a lighter note; I finally figured out what was wrong with my internet connection, and now I can upload files! How exciting :). Now I can finally post some of the pictures I have been meaning to for the last couple of weeks:

Alicia and I bought a table at Home Depot for our empty entry way. It looks pretty nice, also in the picture you can see the new color, "Summer Field Green", that we painted a few months back.

A weekend project Alicia and I finished just a few weeks ago was hanging the dartboard down in the basement. We mounted some hardwood to the wall so that we wouldn't damage the drywall. It turned out looking pretty nice. We plan on decorating it with wine corks when ever we get up the drive to work on it again.

Our latest project was to add some color to our living room. Being one of the rooms we spent most of our time in, it was pretty bland. We painted a pretty dark color, "Southern Beauty Red", shocking for us. We worked pretty hard on it: one coat of tinted primer, and three coats of paint. It turned out pretty well, but we removed the tape after the paint was dry, a mistake we won't make again. After a little touching up, it also is looking pretty nice.

I threw this one in it just for the heck of it. The on-off-on-off snow ice and rain that we had about two weeks ago made a nice little icicle on our wreath. We thought it looked pretty cool.

Alright, I guess that's enough for now. Hope you liked the pictures!

Lots of Love,
Jeff and Alicia

Hello All,

I have been kind of a slacker, and neglected by blog lately; so I figured it was about time. We have been having the same kind of cruddy weather that everyone else has been. It has been snowing and sleeting on and off for the last couple of weeks it seems. However, we finally got an improvement of weather today .. and it is actually quite warm.

We plan on bar-b-queing some burgers tonight with a spicy tequila bbq sauce we got for Christmas. It sounds good. I had to clear all of the snow off of our deck so that we could actually get to the grill :). It has been adding up with all the weather we have been getting. Kelly sent me the family recipe for hashbrown casserole, which we are also going to make (jelous yet?).

A week ago we decided to try out NetFlix which allows you to get unlimited movie rentals for $20/month (only 3 movies out at any time). It seems to be a pretty cool service because the movies are sent to you in the mail, and all you have to do is send them back when you are done ... no late fees or other hassels involved. Since it is monthly-pay service you can watch some of the movies you may not have been able to convince yourself to rent at blockbuster for $4 a piece.

Everything seems to be going pretty well .. we are rounding up all our forms and stuff to get our taxes done. It will be interesting this year; since I have to fill out 3 state tax forms for working in three different states. Ugh :). Hopefully we get money back though! .. I can't see how we wouldn't since both Alicia and I have been fairly liberal on the tax-deductions from our pay-checks.

I have a couple of pictures to showcase, but I guess I'll get to them next time. Take care All!

Jeff & Alicia

Hey Everyone,

Alicia and I had a pretty good weekend. On Friday, we visited one of our neighbors and played some Scrabble ( our butts got kicked ), and some Cranium ( we won that! :) ) with one of neighbors. It was fun, and good to bond with some other people in the neighborhood.

On Saturday, Alicia and I went out to the movies and got a chance to see Big Fish. I would put this one in a category with Forest Gump. It was a very well screen-played movie, that was a good family flick. It was a tear-jerker for nearly the entire audience. Alicia and I both enjoyed it, and I would suggest you see it.

Also, this weekend we bought the game Scene It with some of our Christmas money. We looked at 4 stores before finally finding that we could buy it in the board-games section of Walmart. We were guessing it would be at Best Buy or one of the other technology stores since it is on a DVD. Nope .. Walmart is where you get it. It is pretty cool, there are plenty of movie scenes that take part in the gameplay, which is great for any movie buffs.

Alicia has to go on travel with work this week, and will be gone all week :(. I will be all alone :(! However, the following week we only have three days of work due to the holiday :)!

We hope you all have a great week ..
Alicia & Jeff

Hello All,
Well .. Our cable modem didn't work at all while we were on Christmas break, which I guess wasn't a big deal since we weren't here. However, we came back and it still wasn't working. Not cool. I called up Adelphia and they told me they wouldn't be able to get any assistance with the problem for about 10 days. This made me decide to race: Who would win, the cable repair guy or the DSL equipment.

Verdict: DSL wins!

So that's cool. I needed to switch anyhow, if we decide to go to Satellite Television (pretty likely). So, I guess my cable modem sucking turns out to be a motivating factor.

In hindsight, removing the Y splitter in the loop allowed me to reconnect the cable modem to the network. But why shouldn't it work with the Y splitter?.. It had for three months. My guess is my neighbor decided to get cable modem and it degraded my signal enough so that I couldn't connect with the adapter.

DSL also wins, because it eliminates the 40 foot cable that was running from the cable jack to the office where all of the computer equipment was. So that also is a good thing :).

Oh well .. enough ranting. Take care.

Jeff and Alicia

Hello all,

Following the lead set out by Kelly and Jason, I decided to create a blog also. I suppose this is less invasive than those huge group emails, since you have the choice whether to look at it or not :).

Alicia and I have been doing well. We are both pretty busy at work. Alicia has been travelling a little more than she would have liked; but I guess it is still a lot less often then some people have to.

We had a great holiday together at Alicia's parents house in Indianapolis. Her parents are always great hosts. It was good to see Kathy and Nancy, and we caught Wes for a couple hours before he took off on his vacation which was good. I think everyone was very kind to us this year and we had trouble transferring all of the presents we got back to Ashburn :). Our families are too great.

Well .. I guess this is enough for my first blog, but since I just started I'm sure I'll probably have more to write very soon :).

Love to all our families and friends!
Alicia and Jeff