Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Gobble, gobble, laugh, laugh

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with their families and friends and had many things to be thankful for. I know we did! Thursday, Thanksgiving, we got up early and I started cooking Corn Casserole and this Apple Tarte to take with us to Adam's aunt's house where his cousin Dana and boyfriend Ryan, from California, were going to be in town. We hadn't seen them since the wedding so we were really excited to get to spend the day, eating, drinking and not working for a change. We rented a car for the weekend so we were excited to get to actually drive somewhere. We drove to Aunt Linda's house in Des Plaines. We got there and were greeted with tons of hugs, tears and laughs. Dana is a comedian and actress in Hollywood and Ryan is also a comedian so the day was needless to say, not lacking in laughs. My face hurt when we left. The funniest being when Aunt Linda was showing us old framed pictures in the closet. She pulls out this one of a little blonde girl who was probably 3 or 4, Dana and Adam noticed it was their other cousin and then Dana looked closer and realized that the girl in the photo was not wearing underwear! The most disturbing part was that after 20 something years, this had been framed, hung on their grandmother's wall for years and noone noticed until now that this poor girl wasn't wearing any pants. So for the rest of the day, Dana kept hiding the photo all over the house. It would appear in front of the T.V. , on the table, or hanging in a different place on the wall. Aunt Linda would inadvertently move the picture back to the closet and it would turn up again somewhere else. Priceless.




Aunt Linda made the BEST appetizer -- baked brie with maple syrup and nuts. It sounds weird but it was heavenly. It was baked in pastry dough so it was flaky, buttery and sweet. I could have eaten the whole thing myself. Then we had the best thanksgiving dinner with all the usual trimmings. We broke out the wedding video to show the relatives that weren't able to make it to the wedding and then Aunt Linda brought out old home movies from when Adam and Dana were little. Since it was from the 70's, there was no sound. It was priceless. It was so neat to be able to see Adam and the family waving, smiling, crawling around. It made you feel like you were really there.. minus the 70's clothes and hair :)

We had the best day with them!!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Oouuuuuucch!!!

So I walk into spinning class for the first time on Monday, all proud of myself thinking "this will be simple... I can ride a bike!" Boy was I wrong. I walk in and our trainer was already on the bike, peddling, peddling, sweating, sweating. A bunch of girls are already in the room on the bikes starting. I walk nervously over to an open bike. The girl next to me quickly says "that is reserved for the assistant" in a strong European accent. Alrighty then I will go over to the next one. No one stopped me so I assumed it was fine. I look around the room trying to get a jist of what i am supposed to be doing. Trainer is still going very fast on his bike, having not stopped cycling or sweating since I walked in. I get on the bike and start spinning and my legs are flying around the wheel like they are going to fly off. I can hardly stay on the bike. The girls next to me are sitting on the bike without holding on. Great I thought.... so we start in ... finally I realize that I am able to turn the tension in my wheels. Ok I made it sound like immediately I noticed it.. probably more like 20 minutes into my 1 hour long class. It actually got easier the longer I cycled. I thought the class was going to be 40 minutes, so I am spinning, spinning, sweating, thinking my legs may fall of the bike soon, and I look up and it is 40 minutes. Crap.. super cycle guy is no where close to stopping. "Come on everyone all the way, a few more songs!" A few more songs!!! Then the class was finally ending and the instructor said to all of us that we needed to get off the bike and stretch. I bring one foot off of the bike and my knee almost gives out. Oh my god.. my legs are totally spaghetti right now.. don't act like you aren't in control. So I bend down, still wobbly, trying hard to not to fall over onto the empty bike next to me. Yup, the assistant never showed up so so much for crabby girl making everyone move! :) Luckily after more and more stretching my muscles got a bit more used to it and I ended up wobbly walking home. I couldn't believe how wobbly my legs were. So at first I thought "Ok why did I think spinning was a good idea?!?" But actually it was a great idea, my muscles are just totally confused and they don't understand why I used them in such strange unusual ways. As hard as it was, I am totally pumped about spinning next week!!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Spinning Class here we come!

Since before the wedding Adam and I have been saying that we were going to join a gym and get in shape for the wedding... well we didn't.. I worked out occasionally in my gym at my old office but we wanted to be able to do it together. So here we are almost 6 months after the wedding and back to the same question. Do we pay the money to join a gym or run outside like we keep telling ourselves. I did some research and decided to check out Fitness Formula, the Old Town location. It is only 3 blocks from our house and the rates are 1/2 of what the other location a few blocks the other direction. Adam was very reluctant and not thrilled about the idea of joining a gym. Friday night I made an appointment for us to stop by and check it out. It was great! Not pretentious like other locations in our neighborhood and has enough amenities to keep us happy. They have free classes like spinning, yoga, kickboxing, etc. We are especially excited about trying out the spinning class. Adam loves to bike and as much as I am worried about my back side being bruised, I think it will be a good workout. So we are really excited about this new chapter and hopefully the Bergers' goal of getting into shape for 2009 will come to fruition.

The rest of the weekend was really great and relaxing. Our friends, Kevin and Niki, came over Saturday and brought their new little baby Simone. She is almost 2 months. She is sooo precious. We are all in love. She is so alert and sweet and seeing the way she coos when she looks at her parents makes everyone have baby fever :) Well I wanted to post a picture but I can't seem to get it to upload correctly. I will have it make another post. Urggg.. Anywho, we had a great time, despite the macaroni and cheese debacle ( I made homemade mac and cheese which I have done many times before but sometimes I get stage fright and I ended up spilling hot water and milk on the stove and my roux did not turn out. C'est la vie. It turned out pretty well and everyone seemed to still enjoy it.

Saturday night we just stayed in and I got caught up on my girl shows while Adam read and today, Sunday, we spent the day cooking, watching football and planning for our next two big trips -- Isla Mujeres, Mexico for our anniversary in May and Paris and Zurich in September. All the while trying to put our place on the market and move by September. Of course things can change but it is something to look forward to. We have been telling Adam's sister Melissa that we would come over after their Baby #2 is born and he is to be born at the end of February. Summertime is so expensive to go to Europe and August is when all of the Europeans travel. So we are thinking Labor Day is best. We were just going to go to Zurich but I can't be that close to France, where I studied and not go to Paris with Adam and show him Clermont-Ferrand. I am really excited about starting to plan!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

World Wide Video

Not sure if you all know but we just got a new computer a few weeks back. It is awesome! It is a desktop. We even got a new desk and chair so now we have a great setup. This morning we decided to surprise Melissa and Antonio (Adam's sister and brother-in-law) who live in Zurich, Switzerland, and do our first video chat over the Internet. We had a few stumbles where I accidentally hung up on them as they were showing us their house in Zurich but it was so exciting! It was so awesome to be able to see their faces right there interacting with us. Our niece Chiara was sooo adorable. She kept looking right into the camera at us saying "hi..hi!"Melissa is pregnant again so we got to see her "bump." It really made our day and I think theirs too.

Technology really is amazing that we can talk to people all over the world through the computer. I remember my first computer -- DOS programming where you had no real graphics and everything was pretty much black and white. I would play games like Oregon Trail and Solitaire. How far we have come to where now we are so accustomed to our computers and Internet where you can find any information you need, talk to anyone you want by email or chatting and even video.

So if any of you have Windows Live Messenger or Yahoo Messenger and want to chat over video, let us know. I think now we have it figured out :)

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Halloween Weekend






BOOOOO. Hope everyone ate too much candy and had too much this weekend. We sure did. Our good friend Jesse turned 35 on Halloween so we went to dinner on Friday at Tango Sur, an Argentinian steak place and then went to a few bars. We had a great time. As you will tell from the photos, Adam brought back the infamous Cat in the Hat costume. I went for 70's chick and Jesse, his brother Ira and friend Lance were... well we aren't really sure.. three guys wearing black and orange hats ?!!? Jesse's girlfriend Kim was a serial killer. We had a great time!

Ian and Eryns Wedding in Elkhart Lake, WI






Katy and Franks Wedding








Sunday, October 26, 2008

WE'RE BACK!!!

Boy, I am so sorry it has been so long since I have written. We have been so busy and lots of changes have been going on. Biggest being that I got a new job!! I LOVE it! It is yet more proof that things happen for a reason. Most of you already know the story, but I am now working for a large firm that is based in Detroit. I found out that one of the attorneys I worked with at my old firm was going to start up the Chicago branch of this firm and I begged her to let me go with her. She was very hesitant because she was such great friends with my old boss. After much provoking, she gave me Detroit's information and I got a phone interview and I got the job! I am so happy to working with her, we are such a great team!! So Detroit is trusting us to run and operate their Chicago office! SO EXCITING!! The work is here, they just need people to do the work. So we have been working harder than ever getting everything up and running. We just moved into a new permanent office which is so nice! I feel so much more settled than I did my first couple weeks when we were working out of briefcases in a temporary space. It is such an amazing opportunity for me and as sad as I was to leave my friends and colleagues at my old firm, this was an opportunity I would have been stupid to pass up. So my life has been consumed by my work lately but I have to say I love it! I feel so much more pride in myself and what I am doing. So I will keep everyone updated as to what is going on with that.

Let's see... what else have we been up to.... We had two weddings two weekends in a row at the beginning of August. My friend Kate from work and our friends Ian and Eryn. They both were beautiful and we had a great time.

Ian and Eryn's wedding was in Elkhart, WI so we had a great time taking the day off and having a little vacation. We drove up on Friday, stopped at Mars Cheese Castle on the way! I have to say, the name of the establishment was a lot cooler than it actually ended up being. But there was a TON of cheese curds, cheese blocks, soft cheese, hard cheese, and tons of sausages for that matter. We got grilled sandwiches for breakfast and headed up to Elkhart Lake. Once we got there we looked around the town, Adam got a haircut, and we found this awesome bar/restaurant where we had an amazing lunch, good Wisconsin beers and played pool. We were staying at the Osthoff Resort which was HUGE and beautiful! We had a two bedroom suite because that was the last room they had available. Friday night we had the rehearsal dinner at the famous Siebkens Restaurant and then went to this popular racing bar. It was great to see a lot of friends we hadn't seen in a while. Then Saturday we watched OU lose to Texas in our room, rested and then got ready for the 5 p.m. pre-wedding cocktail hour and 6 p.m. wedding outside. It was GORGEOUS. It was looking at over the lake. Eryn was beautiful! I cried during the whole ceremony. They had two of their friends marry them, it was really beautiful. Then we partied the night away! So much fun! Then Sunday we drove back to Chicago stopping at a pizza place in the suburbs. It was a great weekend! We love road trips! I will post pictures from the weddings!

Monday, July 28, 2008

What has happened to my beloved Food Channel??

I remember the weekends of waking up early in the morning just so we could watch Barefoot Contessa and Giada DeLaurentis on the Food Channel. We would schedule our weekends around what was on. I find that the new shows they have are becoming so annoying and typical. Too many Rachel Ray look alikes who scream at the television to get your attention. If I have to see Sandra Lee one more time I think I may scream. Her creepy backgrounds that match what she is wearing is way too much and honestly really freaks me out. So it brings me to this seasons Next Food Network Star. We weren't really thrilled with any of the finalists but Adam was our favorite. He was perky, fun and had a good show idea. Lisa squinted too much but was kind of likeable. I still would have watched her show maybe a couple times even just to laugh. As nice of a guy Aaron was, I just couldn't see him with a show. Every show, he was nervous and completely bombed the last competition. His food was boring and made a complete fool out of himself in his intro. Who won you ask? Aaron! We were completely shocked. Not that he wasn't a nice guy and wouldn't have done a good job. I just thought the other two were much better cooks and much better on camera. Aaron, poor thing, mumbles when he talks and you can barely understand him. So I just don't understand. Are they looking for a different demographic? I feel like they have every demographic covered. I am just really disappointed. I feel like they are taking away from finding a really good chef who will put on a really good show to someone that cooks mediocre. For a foodie like me it makes me not want to watch anymore. It seems as though the new chefs on there aren't really professional. They are just there for t.v. and what they think will make a good show. How many shows can we have about What is a Peanut? Or the science behind foam. Cool for a second, bored after two. I liked watching it to learn new recipes and watch their technique. The classic Food Network is dying and I don't like what it is reincarnating into.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Honeymoon -- Belize

Boy. What can I say. We had a BLAST in Belize. 8 days of sun, sand, fishing, snorkeling, eating and drinking. We stayed at an incredible resort, Victoria House, located on the island of Ambergris Caye off the coast of Belize between the mainland and the barrier reef. It was amazing. You could see the line of waves in the middle of the ocean from the line of the barrier reef. The food and service was impeccable! We had our own private casita with a four post bed with mosquito netting! It was beautiful. There were two swimming pools, one infinity and one regular. We had wonderful weather almost the entire trip until a day or two before we left. We experienced our first tropical storm, Arthur, which was a definite experience. Arthur didn't take our fun away though, we still snorkeled with nurse sharks and sting rays in the storm. Crazy I know. One of my favorite parts of the trip was going into town and eating the street food. We found a Guatemalan women who had a tiny little post with a fluorescent poster board with a handwritten menu. "Papusas" I saw scribbled across the bright pink sign. We thought -- we have to try those! She was making them right now, carefully making the dough, filling it with cheese, pork and beans and frying it on the huge flat grill she had at her post. They were amazing! Went twice while we were there. The second time we got conch ceviche and papusas. Best on the island! It was different than the ceviche here, she put cucumber, peppers, and other vegetables in with it. I have since tried to duplicate those papusas and they were nothing compared to hers. We will definitely be back to Belize and we recommend all of you go too. You won't regret it -- especially if you go visit the Papusa lady. Be sure to tell the woman hello for us! :)




Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Wedding


Ever since I was a little girl I have dreamed about what it would be like to walk down the aisle with my Dad to marry the man of my dreams. My dream became a reality on May 24, 2008 at the Waterford Marriott in OKC. It is like no other experience. You are so happy yet it all feels so surreal. I think I was more nervous the day before the wedding than the actual day. Arriving at the rehearsal and seeing all of my family and friends from around the country was overwhelming but wonderful. We had our rehearsal dinner at the Harn Homestead and had a good ole Oklahoma BBQ! It was awesome. Then the day of the wedding my girls and I just hung out and slowly got ready for that evening. Adam spent the day laying in the pool with his buddies.
Then the time came. I put my beloved dress on, turned around and there were my very best friends all there to experience this with me. I lost it. All the emotions hit me at that moment. Then my dad came to get me, tears in our eyes, we started downstairs. The doors are opened by two of my great friends, Jason and Cory, and we walk down the aisle. Everything was perfect. It was more beautiful than I even imagined. There at the end of the aisle was Adam, so handsome and happy, surrounded by our closest family and friends. Thirty minutes later, Adam broke the glass, everyone yelled Mazel Tov and the party began! We drank, ate, laughed and danced until we couldn't dance anymore. I surprised Adam with a Cubs baseball hat groomscake and at 10:30 p.m. we all sang Harry Carey's version of Take Me Out to the Ballgame and the hotel brought out mini Chicago hot dogs and pretzels and beer in Chicago Cubs cups. It was perfect! He was completely shocked! We didn't want the night to end so we went with a bunch of the guests to the hotel bar. Everyone seemed to have so much fun! I was thrilled with how many people were still with us at the end of the night! The next morning we got up super early and started our trek to Belize!

Newbie

Gosh, what has the world come to. Now I have a blog. I never thought this day would come. I used to think they were annoying. Why would people need to write about their day to day lives and expect people to read it. But then my friends started doing it and I was reading theirs all the time so I started thinking it would be a good idea for us too. Since we have family all over, I thought it would be a good way to share with our friends and family what is going on in our world. Berger World as I am calling it :) Plus, it is much easier to make than the website I tried to create for us. I will be posting some of my favorite pics from the wedding and honeymoon and there will be more and more to come!! Let me know what you think!