Sad Day

Sunday morning I woke up to a few missed calls, texts and facetimes from my parents (which is never a good sign from my family these days). Once we got in contact they told me that my sweet little dog, Dublin, had passed away in her sleep. It was so sad to get this news. Although she was 14 1/2 years old, she still acted like a puppy in many ways. In fact, last weekend when I was home, we wrestled on the ground and I watched her as she stood over her toy bin trying to decide which toy to play with (she ultimately chose two: her lamb and her bone).

Dublin was given to me as a present on my 13th birthday as a bribe to move to Doylestown (from Naperville). I remember the day we picked her up like it was yesterday. She was so tiny and brown and she smelled so good! When we walked into the house to pick her up she was standing on her back paws, face deep in a plant. They called her Miss Piggy when she was born and the name did stick a bit through the years (along with a million other nicknames: Dub, Chub, Dubby, W, Verdelle, Eleanore, Doodle, Gil, to name a few).

Dublin was there with us through many sad and bad times, and through some great times as well. A story that stands out to me was the night in high school that I blew out my knee. Ever the drama queen, I was crying my eyes out while my parents were helping me up the stairs. I couldn't put any weight on my left leg, the bad leg, so I had it up in the air. As I was going up the stairs I heard Dublin coming up after us and when I looked back I saw she had her back left paw up in the air as she followed us up the stairs (hand to God!! My parents can even testify to this statement). We all started laughing hysterically. That's what I'll miss most about Dub, no matter how sad any of us ever were we could look at Dublin's sweet little face and laugh or smile.

Thanks for being the best dog ever, Dublin!!! I love you and miss you! (Because I was obsessed with her my phone and computer are full of pictures of her, so I chose a few recent faves).

Dublin sleeping off the 10 lbs of turkey she ate at Thanksgiving. When my dad carves the turkey he throws one slice to Dub, one for him to nibble on and one for the platter. Needless to say, it's Dublin's favorite day of the year.

Just being Dub

Sleeping on her lamb.

Tuckered out in her Santa Suit.

"Oh, Hey, Kate. I noticed you were eating. I'd love a piece of whatever you have..."

The things we put that dog through.

Downton!!

So I finally jumped on the Downton Abbey bandwagon and I couldn't be happier about it!! Neil and I watched an episode on the way back from London and were immediately hooked! I am working my way through season two now and can't wait to chat about it once I'm done!! Thanks Megan and Mary Kate for encouraging me to get into it!

Oh, Hello!

It's been awhile so I thought I'd do a quick recap of what's been going on lately! Since starting my new job, things have been amazing! I'm loving the quick train ride into the loop and no longer sitting in my car for an hour each morning! My second week on the job we spent a week at a hospital in the south suburbs, which was super fun and interesting!

This past weekend I went home to Philly to celebrate my parents 40th anniversary! We had such a great time and my brother's friend, Tim came as well to celebrate. I'm so lucky to have such amazing parents!! They are such great role models for my sisters and I.

 (Side note: if you're bored, please watch this clip from SNL. Every time I say "amazing", I think of Kristen Wiig saying it: http://www.hulu.com/watch/363334/saturday-night-live-the-californians. On another side note, did anyone see the end of SNL this week? I cried watching it and still do every time I see it! If you're bored, check this out as well: http://wxerfm.com/blogs/post/jfrieders/2012/may/21/video-watch-kristen-wiigs-emotional-final-snl-skit/)

Neil and I picked an apartment and are moving in next Thursday! Big stuff! 

Wedding season is just around the corner and I'm so excited for all my friends getting hitched this summer!! Can't wait to celebrate with you all!

What a Difference a Weekend Makes

I am officially two days into the new job and LOVING it. The main difference so far as been the commute!! Instead of driving an hour to work, in traffic, I am able to hop on the L and get to work in a matter of minutes! Last night after work Neil and I met up for a bite to eat and more apartment hunting. Had I been at my old job, this would not have been an option! So happy about this decision!

Book Club

During our trip (aka flying) I had time to read a bit so I picked up the book "Mrs. Kennedy and Me" by Clint Hill. It was a pretty interesting book. Though I wish it went into more details (how Jackie-O reacted to the presidents affairs, more about her relationship with Aristotle Onassis, etc), it was an interesting book about Mrs. Kennedy and what she went through while in the White House. I recommend this book as a fairly quick and easy read!

I just started "The Lucky One" by Nicholas Sparks. The main reason for starting this is so I can picture Zac Efron throughout the entire book :)

On to the Next...

Today is my last day of work at my current job!! I have been here the last 4 years, but am moving on to a new opportunity (to tie in the theme of "the year of doing"). It has been a great time, but time to move on!

Things I will miss about my current job:
1. Co-workers. I have met some amazing people here!!
2. My job. I love the work I do!

Things I will not miss about my current job:
1. Commuting 30 miles each way to work
2. Low pay.

So excited to start this new chapter of my life!

Last weekend in London

So now we are on the tail end of our trip. After an amazing week in Rome we headed back to London. We arrived pretty late Thursday night and got back to Chris's apartment to find him and his friend up and ready to drink. As much as Neil and I wanted to crash, we hung out listened to some crazy stories from South Africa and had a shot of Limoncello! The next day we walked around London (in the rain, naturally) with Chris for a bit before he headed off to Amsterdam. Because Neil is a cheeseball we took a pic to remember the afternoon by.

That night Neil and I walked around LSE's campus. Neil studied there for his Junior year of college and wanted to show me all the sights and sounds. The buildings are all gorgeous and it was great to see where he spent a year of his life! Later that night we met up with Neil's friend, Aaron and they indulged in some very hot Indian food (I drank wine).

The next day Neil and I went to Notting Hill to check out Portobello Market

Lucky for us, it was cold, slanty rain the entire day so we stopped to have some wine and plan the rest of our night :)

We headed over to Camden town to have dinner and listen to some music. One of the crazy things about London is the pub scene. Everywhere we went, at all times, the pubs were insanely packed with people drinking inside and outside. It's fun, but frustrating when you want a drink!!

Neil had the great idea of going to a place called Belgo that had great Belgium beer and muscles. It was hands down, the best meal in London!!

We ended up going to a bar with music and meeting some lovely locals.

Sunday was our last rainy day in London and we finished off the trip with some traditional Bangers and Mash (for you arrested development fans: "a sausage in the mouth") and fish and Chips.

Our trip was amazing!! I can't believe it's over already. Thank you to Neil for such great planning and everything else! You made this trip so amazing!! I'll never forget it!

Roma

I will try to keep the pictures to a minimum here but I couldn't stop taking them when I was there!! I loved every single thing about Rome! The weather was beautiful, the people were nice and the city was gorgeous!!! We left London at about 6:00 am on Monday and arrived at our hotel by 11:30 on Monday. Our hotel was beautiful and we even have a little balcony overlooking the courtyard! We started off with a quick stop at a pizza place near our hotel.

So amazing.

We then decided to get a feel for Rome and just walk around. I felt like I was walking in a painting. Everything was so beautiful!! The colors, the architecture, everything was so unreal! We stopped in a park where I saw my favorite sign:

I'm assuming this sign translates to "No dancing, listening to music and high five-ing your friends in this park." Obviously, not a fan of this park for all of the above reasons.

As we were walking down the street we stumble upon the Colosseum. It is absolutely unreal in person!

We went on a tour the next day to see the inside and it's just an unbelievable structure

Since I'm already loosing track of what we did each day, I think I'll just give a run down of what we did overall:

Toured the Roman Forum and saw lots and lots of ruins

Ate more pizza

Saw the Pantheon

Had lots of wine at various Piazza's 

Ate amazing pasta, drank cappuccinos and had lots of gellato :)

Hung out with the pope (that's an attempt at a picture of him above)

Saw the Trevi Fountain, which was my favorite site in Rome!!

And did LOTS of Drunk Uncle Impressions

Rome was amazing and I can't wait to go back to explore the rest of Italy!!!

Europe!!

So much to write about that I am going to break this up into three separate posts! The first one will be the first weekend of our trip, which was in London! Neil and I left Chicago on Thursday and flew through the night to land in London at around 9:30 am local time. While we both tried, we did not sleep much on the way over, so we hit the ground running in London!

We were staying at my friend Chris's apartment in Mayfair and when we got there we had a slight issue with getting a key to Chris's so we stopped at the pub across the street from his place for our first London beer (please keep in mind we had been up all night...)

We then began touring London with a stop at Borough Market! Neil thought this would be a good first stop because of their great oyster and because of the markets appearance in Bridget Jones' Diary! So we had lunch there. The man working there was so impressive! He shucked those oysters at an insane rate!

We then did a mini walking tour through London, and stopped to get some beers along the way! Since you can drink on the streets in London, we thought we'd partake on our way to Tower bridge.

Shortly after this picture was taken the clouds rolled in and cut our site seeing short. We ended up meeting Chris after work for a drink, which turned into about 10 drinks! We met up with Neil's friend Aaron and some of Chris's friends at a pub. It was such a great group of people who all live in London, but are from different areas of the world. Everyone was super nice and welcoming to us! It was a great way to start the trip.

Saturday we started off by going to Buckingham Palace (pictures on my other camera) and then walking through London to get to Westminster Abbey. It was beautiful and I was so excited to see where Kate and Wills tied the knot!

We met up with Chris and went to Harrods and a few other stops along the way before heading to Notting Hill for Dinner at Churchill Arms.

We walked around Notting Hill after dinner and ended at another bar where Chris and I were able to get a picture together (the first in years)

On our way home we came across a store called "Z. Punjani's American Food Store." Probably one my favorite signs I saw in London.

Sunday I spent the day with Chris hopping around London! We started off with breakfast and drinks in Mayfair and actually ended up staying there most of the day! Chris's friend, Judy came and met us out as well! After staying at the first place for a bit too long, we walked through London seeing the sights and ended up in Soho. We went to this bar, which cracks me up when I see it. I'd like to know the name of the awards they won...

We also saw Jason Statham filming a movie (obviously an action film)

Great first weekend in London, now off to Rome bright and early Monday morning!!