1 year: celebrating with food

Brunch: Aquitaine Chestnut Hill (not pictured)

We shared - House-made cinnamon roll with icing.
I ordered - Le Sandwiche Chicken Salade (with toasted almonds, red grapes, sweet basil on brioche with tarragon aioli).

He ordered - Vanilla French Toast (with maple bacon).

Notes - We love (LOVE) Aquitaine Boston in the South End. This experience at the Chestnut Hill location was terrible. Service was slow after lunch rush (it was 1pm!)even with a small number of guest. We tried to overlook this since the food is delicious. Well, it did not get better; they left out all the fun stuff that was supposed to be in my sandwich. I was served, chopped chicken mixed with mayo on bread. There was no almonds, no grapes, and definite no basil. It was a disappointing meal. I doubt that we will return to that location.

Dinner: B& G Oysters

We shared - 1 dozen oysters of the day (Fire Lake - Richibucto, N.B., Chef Creek - Baynes Sound, B.C., Royal Miyagai - Sunshine coast, B.C.) .

I ordered - Steamed Littleneck Clams (grilled sweet corn, chorizo, smoked clam jus).

He ordered - Maine Lobster Roll (french fries, bread and butter pickles).

Notes - If it was proper to lick my plate at the table, I would have done it. This is one of our favorite places and have always had a fantastic experience. The staff was friendly and very knowledgeable. If you can snag a table on the patio, do it! If not, it's also fun to watch the chef's work when dining inside.

Dessert: Max Brenner

I ordered - Chocolate Surprise Tiramisu (espresso soaked lady fingers, mascarpone cream, red berries, and a layer of chocolate truffle.

He ordered - Mexican Spicy Hot Chocolate (red chili, nutmeg, cinnamon and pepper).

Notes - This was our first time at Max Brenner's. Unfortunately, Jake was stuffed from dinner. I was equally stuffed, but I was hell bent on eating some chocolaty heaven that night. I do not think that my lady fingers were soaked in espresso, but that I did not mind one bit. Oh the ambiance! The presentation! And the dessert! Just go there!! 

Yes, that is a grid paper printed plate. Tiramisu served in a jam jar, yes please.
And oh yes, that is a mini beaker of chocolate sauce.
(Please excuse the cell phone pics. I really wished I would have taken my camera with me to dinner.)

Instagram @hungc
(I'm still working on the art form of self portraits.)

 - What I Wore - 

Dress - Pippa Dress, Tart via Ideeli (no longer available, similar here).

Belt - JCrew Factory (no longer available)

Boots - Pinup Boot, Madden Girl

Watch - Georgia Leather Watch, Fossil

1 year: anniversary shoot

Whoohoo! We made it a year without killing each other! (I'm such a romantic.) 

It's a little crazy to think that a whole year has passed since our big shindig. Makes me sad to think that it's been a year since I've seen my family and my friends from back home. 

Anyways, in case you are wondering: our first year of marriage was not any different than our engagement  or dating eras. But even after 5 years together (holy Batman, 5!), we continue to learn from one another, learn about one another, grow as individuals, and grow as a family.

I have always wanted the two of us to do a photo session in Boston. Something to document that this is the city we met in, the city we fell in love in (cheesy), and the city we lived in. Well, opportunity came knock on our door. Our friends C and A hired Jason to shoot their wedding. Jason, as in our amazing wedding photographer! So while he was in the area, we snagged him for a little photo session. 

Hop on over to Jason's (and his amaze-balls wife, Lucia) blog to check out the goods:  

Boston portrait session: Celia and Jakes first anniversary

Jason Angelini Photography
We we removed all the safety cones and stood on a sinkhole to get this shot!

My outfit:

Dress - Bike Lane Dress, Anthropologie (no longer available). I thought this dress was totally discontinued. Found one in a store but it was the wrong size. I had Anthro call around to ALL their stores trying to find one in my size. It was nerve wracking to wait a week before hearing back, but they found it!

Cardigan - Crew neck cardigan, Ann Taylor (color no longer available, similar here)

Belt - Remi Belt, Club Monaco. Flash your student ID for 20% off.

Shoes - Potent, Steve Madden (no longer available - circa 2006)

Life sends reminders

Last week was pretty rough at work. At one point I escaped to the mall down the street to cool off. Well, let's be real, I was planning on taking my frustrations out on my wallet. Somehow, I kept it together and spared my bank account. I did come across a book that caught my eye. Be happy. Remember to live, love, laugh, and learn. It's a simple coffee table book filled with random quotes. It was a nice reminder that there's more to life than my job.

My apologies for the crappy phone pic.

Today, a friend pinned this image on Pinterest:

via Bee of Design

It could not have come at a better time. I have always done things at my own pace. As has Jake. We are over the moon excited for all our friends (practically every soul we know) who are either buying or just purchsed a house, pregnant, or just had a kid. Truth be told, the child in me was beginning to feel left out. But we are not ready to join any of those wagons anytime soon. We are content doing our own thing. 

Jake may not believe in signs, but the girlie-human-unscientific side of me does. It's nice to be reminded to stay grounded and to be ourselves.

July 2012

Photos 1-15 taken/edited with Instagram. Photo 16 taken with dSLR. 

This month, I finally joined the masses in the Photo a day challenge. So the update for July will have random photos peppered into it.

1.      Photo a day July 2: Busy. My printer was working hard on our thank you cards. Speaking of which, I should really finish up the last of them!

2.      Photo a day July 3: Best part of your day. Lunch, at least it was that day.

3.      Craft project for our first anniversary photo shoot.

4.      Festive by accident. I was making a quinoa fruit salad and the fruit I picked up just happened to be red and pink (it's close enough to white) currants and blueberries..

5.      Photo a day July 5: Floor. Sunset over Waltham from our 3rd floor apartment.

6.      Cute center pieces at C and A's Vermont barn wedding.

7.      First dance. Congrats to the newlyweds!

8.      Road tripping home after the epic wedding weekend in VT.

9.      Photo a day July 10: Favorite color. If caffeine had a color, it would be my favorite. In other news, my Starbucks habit has returned.

10.  Photo a day July 11: Letter. A handwritten note, aka our thank you cards.

11.  Photo a day July 12: Texture. Gears in my steampunk camera pendant. A present from C and A! (I must be the worst bride ever, I gifted my girls their hair and make-up; what kind of a present is that?)

12.  A photo session with one year old H. I can't believe she's one already!

13.  Photo a day July 23: Mirror. I was trying my hand at an artsy reflection shot. It also happened to be the one day I've had to wear my glasses in months.

14.  Photo a day July 24: Stranger. This 20mm/f2.8 lens "magically" appeared on my desk. I had been talking to my camera resource about a wide angle lens for traveling .

15.  Husband to the rescue! Once again, one of the "automated" scripts that I managed at work broke. Jake helped find the source of the failure and put a fix in place for me. Coding is so not my thing.

16.  My first quilt! Finally finished the sucker after hours and hours of sewing. It's been shipped back to Quilts for Kids headquarters where it will be dispatched to a child in need.

June 2012

I probably say this every time, but seriously, how on earth is it mid July already?!?!?!?!

June was another whirlwind of a month. I kick started it with a little International travel/partying. OK, so Canada isn't the most exotic place to visit, but I had a blast during a joint bachelor/bachelorette weekend extravaganza in Montreal. It was fun hanging out and getting to know the wedding party, trying poutine, searching for the bars, and exploring the train museum. Oh yea, there's a pretty epic train museum just outside of the city.

Counter-clockwise from top left: Group deciding on what to do next, Smoked meat on a salad (I managed to stick to my dairy free and gluten free diet the entire weekend), Train ride in the train museum, 950 ml of beer.

I'm still not sure why they received straws in their beers.

September couldn't come around soon enough. I was planning to bring my mom's old sewing machine back with me, but I'm not sure if I could do it logistically. I got ansy and bought my own. Thank you Craigslist and a sweet quilter on the North Shore for fueling my need for instant gratification. Within 48 hours of obtaining Bessy (that's right, I named my machine),  I started my first quilt. I should probably finish that.

I will call her Bessy.

We hosted a joint Bday party for Jake and our good friend A. A was a few weeks out from his wedding, and I figured it would be one less thing for C, the fiance, to stress out about, I put something together quickly. It was meant to just be friends, games, and food. By the time I pulled all the random party stuff out of the closet and had collected mylar balloons from work, we had a fully decorated party.

There were two different games going.

I went home with 18 balloons! Free!

I FINALLY got my lazy ass to sit down and design post wedding thank you cards. I'll show them to you in another post, some day.



Done and ready to be mailed.

Last but not least, I rounded the month out with a jack-and-jill baby shower for our friends E and G. They are expecting a baby boy! The parents-to-be surprised everyone with gender reveal cupcakes made by me. I've said it time and time again, I am truly blessed to have such amazing people trust and share these milestones with me. I have to tell you about the onsie painting party that took place during the shower. I can't even begin to tell you how much fun it was. People are crazy creative when given the opportunity. I wish I had taken pictures of the other onsies. 

Cupcake onsie designed and painted by moi!

**All photos taken by me via Instagram or dSLR.

New header!

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Note to self: Save the original files from which you created the headers. You want to spend hours recreating it when it's time to update it.

Hi!

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