Gluten Free Vendor Fair

On February 28, I went to the celiac event of the season - the Gluten Free Vendor Fair at Whole Foods. Along with a few of my celiac friends, I sampled the likes of gluten free bread, cookies, pies, brownies, pasta, soup, and crab cakes. The crab cakes were to die for!! And are now sold at Whole Foods on a regular basis...if you are willing to splurge on the $10 per crabcake price! For a special occasion, I certainly will be. The other highlights of the day were the clam chowder (hadn't had that in about 6 years or so), the granola (and I didn't even think I liked granola), the lemon poppy muffins, and the chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. Yum. Here are a few pictures from the event.

Date #2

When you live 3 hours and 15 min apart (with no traffic), dates tend to be few and far between but last an entire weekend. There are pros and cons to this. You get to spend a lot of time with the other person when you see them and get to know them well pretty quick, but it can be a bit of an emotional roller coaster. You spend 1-2 weeks getting excited, wishing time would pass faster, then the weekend comes and all you want to do is slow time down and make the weekend last longer, and then you spend a day or two depressed that you live 3 hours and 15 min apart and then you start building up to the next visit all over again. If Einstein were here, I'd give him a piece of my mind.

Tom came to visit me this weekend. It was a totally fun time. We went to dinner at Rustico for gluten free pizza and I forced Tom to drink a beer. Yep. Round one of the battle of wills contest, won by Joanne. :-) Rustico has an extensive beer selection, and I didn't want Tom to miss out on a beer just because I couldn't drink one. He finally caved and asked the waitress to pick out a beer for him and also picked out a bottle of wine for us to share. He then said something to the effect of "If I drink a beer will you believe me the next time I say I'd rather have wine?" I said "Yes" and now we have an understanding on the subject. He orders a beer when he wants one and I don't bug him about it. :-) After dinner, we met up with Theresa, Diego, John (Theresa's brother), Lori, and Steve at the State Theatre in Falls Church to see a Louisana band.


The rest of the weekend was spent biking, strolling around Old Town Alexandria including the Torpedo Factory, and making pancakes and waffles!

Jessica's Baby Shower

(Carol & Jessica)

Today was my cousin Jessica's baby shower. It was fun to celebrate with her and make sure she is equipped with all the necessary gear! My Aunt Carol was in town for the event (and the coming birth) and it was fun catching up with her. I also got to meet (or reacquaint myself with) Jessica's other Aunts (on her father's side) who I've not seen since I was the flower girl at my Aunt & Uncle's wedding (age 8). I can't wait to meet my new second cousin.

(Carol & Mom)

(Jessica during one of the games.)

(Mom & Mrs. Krause)

(TJ - Jessica's husband holding his pet rat.)

(Sweet Dixie)

Tom & Joanne Fest

So what was originally going to be Vince-Fest (defined as a gathering of Vince's closest friends at Vince's friend Tom's house in PA to celebrate all that is Vince by biking, eating lobster, and generally poking fun at Vince) turned into Tom and Joanne Fest when Vince-Fest had to be rescheduled because not all of the Fest participants were able to make it.

After weeks of corresponding (and flirting) back and forth over email, we both decided we were really bummed that Vince-Fest was postponed a month. Then came the magic invitation I was hoping for:

"I've got a great Plan B that you might be interested in. I have tickets to an acoustic show with Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia on Feb. 6th. I thought you might want to join me?...If you'd still like to come for the weekend I have plenty of room. Bring your bike and if it's nice, we can ride."

Yes! (I should preface this with the fact that I had met Tom a couple of times before and new he wasn't a serial killer...although he does still joke about his prison record from time to time...)

I loaded the bike in the car and drove north to Springtown, PA and what an awesome weekend it was! We had dinner in Philadelphia at a phenomenal restaurant that bent over backwards to make sure everything was gluten free for me. Tom decided he was ordering gluten free too...or rather that I was ordering his gluten free meal for him since he was a newbie at the whole gluten free thing. No pressure there! I'd spent all of 2 hours with him so far and I was supposed to pick out his dinner. Geez. Fortunately he'll eat pretty much anything. The Kimmel Center was a spectacular venue with absolutely perfect acoustics and the performers were awesome. I don't think I've been to a better show.

Saturday we scored some great weather (high 50s and sunny) so we went biking for a few hours over in New Jersey. It was a great ride!

Tom had originally ordered lobsters to be shipped in from Portland, ME for dinner but FedEx had mechanical difficulties somewhere along the way so we had to settle for lobsters from Wegman's instead. They were still delicious and I discovered that Tom is an excellent cook!

On Sunday, after a stellar gluten free pancake and egg breakfast, at my suggestion (what was I thinking...), I had my first fly fishing lesson. Tom likened my suggestion to the Lyle Lovett song "Her First Mistake." Apparently I had just made mine. :-) Tom is quite the fly fishing fanatic and I wanted to see what this fishing thing was all about. Fortunately, he is also a very patient instructor. We headed to the creek down the street from his house so I could put on some waders, learn how to cross a stream (on my feet), and practice my backcasting. It was a fun time but I don't think I'll be trading in my cap and goggles anytime soon. :-)

All in all, it was an awesome weekend, definitely the best "first date" I've ever been on, and I really hated to leave. About 15 min it to the drive home, I reached into my bag for my directions and tucked in with the directions was a note saying what a good time he had that weekend and a picture that he'd taken of us on Friday night. What a guy! He thought of absolutely everything all weekend, down to the smallest detail, and has to be the most thoughtful guy I have ever met!

Two weeks until our next visit. Ugh. Nobody ever said long-distance relationships were easy.