When My Life Was Actual Gilmore Girls

Most of my days spent in Connecticut are just days spent in Connecticut. Today, though, my day in Connecticut was actually 100% straight from an episode of Gilmore Girls, I SWEAR TO YOU.

So a friend at our church invited us to come this "traditional New England parade". A drum group played drums and then we all followed them and marched to a cemetery where they read off a list of names of veterans who had been buried there. It was really cool and interactive! 

It was a really fun and respectful thing to on Memorial Day. History is a really big thing over here! It's the only part about Gilmore Girls that I think is accurate haha. I kept thinking of all the town celebrations they have in Gilmore Girls. The town we live in doesn't ever have any, so it was neat to go somewhere that did. If you want a very traditional New England/Connecticut/Gilmore Girls experience, go to Stony Creek!

Hope you all had a great Memorial Day!

XOXO

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E

Valentine's Day Adventure

Ugh I need to get back to using this blog as a journal. To be honest, life is pretty boring out here in Connecticut. We just got to work (J) and school (me) and then come home lol. But, there are little details I want to remember every once a while!

So yesterday was Valentine's Day and honestly I didn't make any plans. Sometimes I feel like there are so many holidays to make a big deal over, and while we are on a grad student budget I'm not crazy about spending a ton of money on every single holiday. So, I was just planning on like doing a normal day. But, then J said he had something planned.

So on Tuesdays we leave the house at 6:00am. I take the train into New York while J goes to work. He gets home a little bit earlier than me and then picks me up from the train station at 9:00pm. So I was like WTF are we doing at 9:00pm at night??

But he was so cute and was waiting for me at the train station. He got out of the car as soon as he saw me come down the stairs and gave me some roses. He had some Reese's minis in a heart waiting for me on the car seat (which is the true key to my heart) and a card! QT.

Then we went to Center Street Social in Shelton, Connecticut for dinner! There honestly aren't a lot of food places around us here hahaha.

 So this is one we had found a while ago that we wanted to try, but thought it was expensive?? Ok well pro tip if you are ever in Shelton, Connecticut (which will most likely never happen unless you are doing a Gilmore Girl's tour or something lol) GO ON TUESDAYS. They have taco Tuesday with $2 tacos and nachos.

This was the main thing I wanted - the Bavarian pretzel. It came with honey mustard and jalepeno cheese and I couldn't even finish half of it. IT WAS SOOOO GOOD. Also it was like 12 inches across, so yeah. Huge.

THESE NACHOS WERE $2 LIKE WUT.

These tacos were $2 a piece. Jake couldn't even eat 3. We are now wondering why we don't go there more, because even with paying a waiter our whole meal would still be under $20 if we did nachos and tacos lol. 

Then we went home and immediately went to bed! In other news, I have recently heard our neighbor coughing while we are laying in bed and I'm like "!?!?!?!?!?" Like J and I do a lot of pillow talk at night and I'm just wondering if this guy is over there listening to every. single. word. hahahaha. We haven't met him except for when our building fire alarm went off at 2:00 am on. Sunday morning and we all evacuated and he was leaving his apartment the same time we were. I hope to never meet him because I do not even want to KNOW what he has heard us talk about hahahaha.

I hope you all had a happy Valentine's Day! My mom did the cutest lil' tradition for us when we were kids where she had a Valentine's dinner and wrote us a riddle about where in the house our gift was hidden. The gifts were just little $20 things, but it was so cute and I can't wait to do that for my babies when I have them in 50 years lol.

Anyway, hap V day!

XOXO

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E

Thanksgiving Festivities

Guys! Our first Thanksgiving on our own! We have been married 3 years, but have always spent the holidays at other people's homes (partly because we lived in my mom's basement and partly because we lived super close to both our families). 

It was SO FUN to do our own thing. I love being on my own schedule and being able to have a say in what we eat and do. Call me a control freak, but whatever. I just like being able to do what I want on holidays haha.

Neither Jake or I really like Thanksgiving food, so we went out to dinner. It was the most perfect rainy day and all the street were empty.

The restaurant we ate at was on the river and so pretty!

Ah, my two favorite things in one picture: my cute bb and shake siding lol.

Plz ignore this picture and the obvious bang crisis I am experiencing. 

GUYS I ATE FISH. I have been a vegetarian for 7 years whatttttt. Lately I have been wanting to eat meat again, but my conscious won't let me. Just knowing all the cruelty behind it and knowing that an animal had to die for me to eat my meal makes me feel SO BAD. After much consideration, I decided to eat fish and see how I felt. So, I got this salmon in a sweet pea risotto. The salmon was pretty good, but that risotto tho. TO DIE FOR. 

Anyway, I was doing pretty well with the whole eating salmon thing, but then once we got home I just felt like kind of full and heavy? Like idk. Eating vegetarian you're always eating light foods and don't ever feel "stuffed". So I felt kind of gross after eating the salmon and decided to not eat meat again, unless I feel like it is a once in a lifetime opportunity (like sushi in Tokyo next month).

Jake got a steak which he enjoyed. Lol I never know what to say for Jake, but since this is the journal of our life I feel like I have to say something.

We got pumpkin cheesecake for dessert, which is, arguably the best cheesecake flavor. The pumpkin cheesecake from Trader Joe's is pretty good, fyi!

They had cute twinkle lights, but there wasn't anywhere to set up my camera so this will have to do!

We went home, changed into our Christmas pajamas, and finished our Harry Potter marathon. It was such a nice, chill Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is probably my least favorite holiday, btw, but this one was good and chill!

P.S. I have started a food Instagram for the New England area. So go give it a follow if you wish! @newenglandgrubs 

OUR FIRST REAL CHRISTMAS TREE!!

YOU GUYS!!! THIS IS THE MOST EXCITING THING I HAVE EVER POSTED!!!!!

On Saturday we got our first real Christmas tree!!! I am very obsessed with it and don't know if we'll be going back to an artificial tree anytime soon.

I was torn between waiting for snow to get our Christmas tree, or putting it up at the regular time (the day after Halloween). I waited as long as I could, but then I had to get one! We went to Jone's Family Farm in Shelton, Connecticut. The drive through all the winding streets was #toocute. It's still pretty fall-y here. I think I missed the best week of fall when I was in Utah but hey, what can you do.

I will forever be obsessed with New England style homes. They are so cozy and charming.

This is one of my favorite roads to drive down in Connecticut! Second to the Merritt Parkway, probably.

We were planning on cutting our own Christmas tree (because ultimate control) but I still am not allowed to lift more than 5 pounds from my breast reduction surgery. So we decided to save that adventure for next year!

We picked a pre-cut tree and had the nice employee help us load it up. I thought they were heavier than they really are? Lol.

HOW CUTE IS THIS SANTA CORGI!?!? Jake wants a corgi sooooo badly, but I don't know if I could handle the shedding.

The Christmas tree farm was up on the hill. It had some really pretty views of Connecticut, which of course these pictures do 0 justice for. One of the things I miss about Utah is being able to go to lookout points and chill! We used to always go to the three story park in Cedar Hills and look out at the valley.

I think we are going to go back when it's snowy and do our Christmas photos with a tripod lol.

LOOK AT HOW PRETTY.

Another thing I love about Connecticut is all the little rock walls everywhere <3

I had high hopes for our Christmas pictures. One of them was us in this exact photo below, except I wanted there to be snow. I guess we will just have to wait and buy another Christmas tree! (Not lol.)

Can our first house look exactly like this? Thanks.

We got 5 Guys for dinner. (What else is new.)

Us + bae first real Christmas tree = a good life. (Santa is bringing me a photography light, so I'm hoping our indoor pictures together will improve 100%. Wish me luck!)

Now I just need to remember to water the tree every day and we'll be good! I already forgot yesterday and it was COMPLETELY out of water. Is that bad? Does that mean the little water holes are going to close up and we'll have to recut the bottom of the tree? Because those pinecones were very hard to get to stay and I would not like to deal with them again lol.

XOXO 

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E

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! This is actually my least favorite holiday, but we are working on making it more enjoyable. We are going out to eat tonight (Thanksgiving food isn't our jam) and are then going to hunt down some pumpkin cheesecake. 

We started our Harry Potter marathon while I was recovering from my breast reduction, and now we need to finish it tonight! We are only 2 away. I recently discovered that I am, in fact, Ravenclaw! My whole life I have thought I was a Gryffindor but nooooo. You are not lookin' at a leader lol.

Anyway! I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving with family and friends and yummy (to you) food!

XOXO

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E

Halloween Things

This was our first official Halloween together? Well actually not really because I was in Utah for actual Halloween, but this was our first Halloween party just the two of us.

We started the day at the cutest little cottage Starbuck's. Let me find you a pic. HOW CUTE IS THIS. 

Jake really wanted to go to a corn maze and kind of found one only it was meant for babies. It was fun to walk around though. One thing I'm realizing about the northeast is it is definitely colder than the west coast. Like I didn't wear wool tights with my dress when we went and I was a popsicle pretty much. Also, I kind of wanted a picture of us in a Halloween-ish area, but I didn't want to interrupt the moment to take a photo. Do you ever do that? I feel like I never take photos because I feel like it ruins the moment or is. rude, but then after it's over I regret not having a photo! Gahhh the struggle is real.

We found this park called Indian Well State park and it was so pretty and fall-ish! Perf for the aforementioned Halloween-y photos lol. I had high hopes for my costume this year, but since we were going to be apart on actual Halloween it kind of diminished. Then I found this website through a ad on my Facebook and ended up getting Jake, Trixie, and myself all matching costumes for like $35! #steal #deal 

I'm also pretty sure I already posted those, but I know for a fact I will come back and try to find them and if they weren't in this post I would be so confused.

Jake made these cute mummy dogs! They were SO GOOD. Ugh I love hot dogs lol. When I used to eat meat (one week was all it was, really) J Dawgs in Utah was my fave. But these def get the job done! We had other little treats and watched Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban.

This movie has so many gems. Like Ernie and this dude below. Also the hunchback butler who keeps offering Harry food lol.

I'll have to get the Halloween pictures from my mom and share them here!

XOXO

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E