DC Day 1

I'm not sure how many chances I'll have to blog the trip, but here's a recap:

4am- wake up. Drive to Atl
10am- board flight to DC, take-off and land on time (sleep a little)
1pm- meet up with Mika and Katie for first time all together in 2+ years!
2pm- CVS stop and Mika's apt
3pm- delicious Vietnamese lunch
4pm- walk around *lovely* farmer's market in Alexandria (with colorful cauliflower)
5-7pm- take taxi to Kennedy Center and enjoy free opera performances
8pm- delicious dinner at Hank's Oyster Bar
10-12am- walk to Washington monument, walk home
12am- sleeeeeep!

Btw, we walked at LEAST 4 miles. Today there shall be even more...

In the Kitchen

I can't believe there are people who cook like this daily... I made breakfast muffins, zucchini bread, and a steak dinner with sautéed veggies and salad. It's been a kitchen-y day.

Not to mention Bart has fleas so we gave him frontline AND powdered all the carpet (including moving furniture), swept the powder into the carpet, let it sit for several hours, and vacuumed it all up. We'll see if it actually worked.

Anyway, I'm posting the recipe for the breakfast muffins since a friend asked. I got this recipe from a coworker...

Breakfast Muffins
-lightly spray muffin tray with oil
-preheat oven to 325
-cut up ham and/or bacon (I used one slice of each)
-grate cheese (I just grated til my arm got tired. Did not measure.)
-2 eggs
-finely chop chard or spinach (optional, but I'm trying to use my greens)
-tube of regular (not jumbo) biscuits
-seasonings (salt, pepper, whatever you like)

1. I used a mini-muffin tray, but it would also work with regular. I separated the biscuits into thirds and lined each muffin cup. For regular sized muffins just use half a biscuit; for jumbo muffins, use a whole biscuit.
2. Mix everything together in a bowl (egg, meat, cheese, greens, seasoning). The mix was pretty thick. Lots of meat and cheese for us.
3. Pour into biscuit-lined muffin cups. At least 3/4 full.
4. Cook for 10 mins. They come out a little liquidy looking, but they continue to cook out of the oven. I mostly just made sure the muffins were lightly browned.
5. Consume.

Here's the delicious zucchini bread recipe I used: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/moms-zucchini-bread/.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Two Years

We've been married for two years! We've been together over four years!
Woo hoo! It's been quite wonderful. We didn't make any plans for anything fancy, but we still had a lovely evening together. We enjoyed late night appetizers and drinks (thanks to my friend's inspiring tweet). And now we're wrapping up the evening like most nights: gazing adoringly into our iPhones.

Sidebar- No offense to babies, but my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother all had babies by my age/stage. I feel like we Jeong's have broken a cycle of bi-decade reproduction. In college I learned that most marriages are much healthier if they enjoy two childless years together before popping out spawn. Now, obviously textbook research is not actually predictive of all real life relationships, but I still feel better knowing we made it two years and we still lurve each other. Here's looking forward to many more committed years of love and marriage.

What a Sap

So Shin and I have signed up for the free trial month of Netflix. Before it runs out, we're streaming every documentary of anything we have the slightest interest in. When Shin took his Sunday afternoon nap, I settled in with Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey. It's extremely rare for me to watch anything by myself, but I knew he wouldn't want to watch it with me (I was right).

Anyway, I watched Sesame Street and Muppets as a kid, but don't have any huge attachment to Elmo. I don't have any memories of liking Elmo specifically. I was just curious about a behind-the-scenes look at Sesame Street. Nonetheless, the movie made me cry. It was the part when I learned that meeting Elmo is the dying wish of terminally ill children. And Elmo hugs and kisses them and they LOVE it. By the end of the film I had tears AND sniffles.

Sigh. All I can say is that I'm a bigger sap than I realized. And I recommend the film, although it's a little slow at parts.

Movie info: http://beingelmo.com/

Commerce St., 10th Floor

I kind of like Montgomery. I wouldn't say I love it, but this is nice.

Kitty kitty

We really like Bart around here. Maybe you noticed. But just in case you hadn't...

Help Me Grow

The National Help Me Grow conference is going on in Connecticut. We like it. We like it a lot. Special thanks to the Alabama Partnership for Children (www.smartstartalabama.org) for making our lovey, learny adventure possible.