We're back, but changing things up a bit!

Hello all. Gosh, I can't believe it has been so busy I haven't had time to post anything on our blog. In the past four months I have attempted two posts that I haven't had time to finish... I just got back from my good friend Shelbi's birthday party in Vegas over the weekend and boy am I exhausted. I think I got 8 hours total of sleep all weekend. But we had a great time! I bought a book for the trip, "A Homemade Life" by Molly Wizenberg. She is the creater of Orangette, a food blog. When I read the inside cover of what it was about, I knew I had to buy it. It is about a girl who loves to cook, who is from Oklahoma, fell in love with a fellow foodie and loves Paris. Ummm ... yeah, that is me to a T. I think I finished this book quicker than any other book. It was over 300 pages and I finished it in two sittings. I couldn't put it down! She tells the story of her relationship with food, her father, here adventures in France all while incorporating recipes that fit into her stories. The book is a very easy read but I couldn't believe how much it resonated with me. I cried in parts, laughed in parts and couldn't tear myself away. Everyone that knows me knows that my life revolves around food. If I had my way and no worries, I would open a restaurant. Cooking a great meal is a like finding a hidden gem. So my rambling brings me all to this. Molly, in her book, talks about how she started writing her blog about food, recipes and telling the stories that incorporate those recipes. So I have a new idea that I think I am going to make our blog more like that. Our lives revolve around food. Adam and I are always coming up with new recipes, discovering new ingredients, etc. I am horrible at writing down my recipes so I thought this could be a good way. So keep checking in, I will be posting the food happenings of the Bergers very soon! In my book there were tons of recipes I am so excited to try. So fittingly, I may have start with a recipe from Molly. Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

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!!

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!!

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!

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 :)

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