Feel the Ocean Breeze

That's what Markus' mom always says when we're in Ocean City, and that's where we were last weekend! And yes, there was a nice ocean breeze. Now that our bathroom is more or less finished, we've finally been able to enjoy our summer weekends (to some extent, though Markus still has homework every weekend.).

Luke and Amanda and Markus and I spent the weekend in the OC, as I like to call it, and Markus and I finally have some color on our skins. We no longer look like scary pale white people! The weather was lovely, and of course the company was wonderful. One funny coincidence was that on Friday night, we headed to the boardwalk and while we were waiting outside a store, we heard someone say "Hey!". I looked over and there were my parents, my uncle and his wife, and grandparents! Seems like everyone was in the OC this weekend. While the weather was nice, the water was COLD!! We were brave enough to go in and enjoy the waves, though.

To catch up on what else has been happening, well, not much. My parents came down last weekend so we could go out to dinner for their anniversary. We tried an Italian place in the heart of the Italian market. The food was good, but we had to wait about an hour for a table. Luckily, we had lots of catching up to do so the time went by pretty quickly (though I was starving by the time we were seated!). I ordered shrimp scampi, and it was the butteriest scampi I've ever had. I was glad I ordered a side of pasta to go under the scampi so the butter could drip off. Now, that's not to say that the scampi was bad, but my belly sure isn't used to so much butter.

Markus and I have been trying to eat a healthier diet lately. Since I finally have a week at home, I've been cooking lots of good meals that are good for us. Something I love in the summertime is chilled soup, so I've been making one or two new recipes for some kind of cold soup each week I'm home. This week is Beet-Fennel-Ginger soup and Yellow Pepper (though I had to buy orange because they were out of yellow at Iovine's at Reading Terminal...) something or other. One of my recent favorites is a cold Zucchini-Avocado soup - it's kinda wild in that it's green, but it tastes much better than it sounds. You cook the zucchini and some onions in broth and then puree it with the avocado - delicious! If you haven't ever tried cold soup, give it a whirl in this hot weather. Others on my list to try: carrot-sage soup and a chilled blueberry soup. The cold fruit soups can be served as an appetizer or dessert - how can you go wrong??

Related to our health kick, I've tried to be more consistent with exercise. I think I mentioned that I enlisted the help of a personal trainer. One of the things she's had me working on is jumping rope. I forgot about it, but boy is it a good cardio workout! It's low impact, and you burn as many calories as you do during a run. Oh, and even better, I can pack it in my suitcase when I travel (now I really have no excuse for not exercising, even if the hotel gym isn't great). I pack my handy dandy heart rate monitor, which keeps me honest and tells me how many calories I really did burn, and my jump rope and I'm all set. I'm not great yet, but I'm getting better (275 revolutions without stumbling is my best so far), and it makes me SWEAT! So, if you're looking for a new kind of exercise that you can do anywhere, don't forget about the jump rope. My trainer went so far as to say I could whip it out in the airport when I have a delay...I think I'll spare the other passengers that sight!

This weekend we get to stay in the area, which will be a nice break. After a few more weekends, we'll post some summer fun pictures since there's not much in the way of house projects going on (which is nice!). I did, however, stop at an appliance store today to get pricing on a new wall oven and microwave, cooktop, and range hood. Decisions, decisions - new appliances or master bath remodel? Our counter microwave appears to be dying, so I'm thinking we may get the appliances first. We have a wall microwave, which doesn't work, so we have to use a regular microwave on our counter. If that dies, though, we might as well move forward with the kitchen first. Stay tuned for that. Right now, we're thinking about Bosch appliances; the previous owners had installed a Bosch dishwasher, which we've been pleased with (and love the German engineering!), and their other appliances have gotten good reviews from what I read. I don't think we'll do anything just yet, but if we decide to do an appliance upgrade, you better believe you'll read all about it here!