Looking Forward

We have had lots of fun traveling around these past 4 1/2 months (and our travels aren't quite over yet...) but I can't help but get super excited about settling down for a little while back in Burlington. There's so much to do there--from the mountains to Church Street, we really love Vermont. Most of all, though, I am SOOOOOOOOO excited to set up house!!! We have all kinds of wonderful gifts that we have yet to use. My head is spinning with thoughts of how to decorate our apartment (once we find one).

Here's my wishlist of things I'd like to see/do in our apartment:

Bedroom: We have some beautiful white bedding from Pottery Barn (and of course I got the shams monogrammed because I love monogrammed everything!)

Pearl Embroidered Duvet from Pottery Barn

Since the bedding is very light, we're going to have to add color in other ways. Above our bed I'm planning to put two big prints that we have---one is a picture of the Empire State Building that Duke gave me for Christmas last year. We got engaged on top of the Empire State Building so it is a colorful memento from a very happy day in our lives. The other print I'll put up is the "guest book" print from our wedding. These two prints are both bright and framed in similar black frames. I think they'll liven up the bedroom a little bit.

Guest Book Alternative from Modern Keepsake on Etsy

Modern Keepsake has lots of creative prints.

I have a feeling that whatever apartment we find will most likely have a shortage of counter space. If there's enough room in our kitchen, I would love to have a little kitchen cart where we could put apps and drinks when we entertain! (Can't wait to entertain in our own home!)

We also got some great stainless steel pans as a gift, and if we're lacking storage space for those, and there's a proper place to hang a thing like this, I may look into a pot rack...but I'm still very much on the fence about whether or not these look super cluttery or cute, so we'll see if this happens.

Cluttered or Cute? Thoughts?

I have lots more ideas but will share just one more thing that I'm excited about for now....I really can't wait to find a special place for the custom sign that my friend Eva gave me. Her sister Danielle has a little etsy shop called Choice Products and makes custom signs and other things. Check them out on facebook or etsy!

Can't wait to hang our beautiful sign from Choice Products!

That's all for now, folks.

MIA: Why I haven't blogged in a month

Wow, the past month FLEW BY! Let's just say it has been filled with:

3,000 + miles of:

but this time it had a roof top carrier on, and was not quite as sparkly....

...this picture is from the day I bought the dear old Baruga!

The last month also included:

A stop at home before our roadtrip, where I revealed my new harido:

It was well received!

A roadtrip to FL with Virginia and a stop to see Olivia and Baby Mia in Charleston:

Mia is a BEAUTIFUL baby!!

Once we got to West Palm Beach, Virginia and I enjoyed some:

Reading/Sun Bathing/Napping

Then there was a trip to Miami where we visited Dave in the studio:

Then we had the Duncan family visit for a week over Thanksgiving and we did lots of:

Barbequing...yum!

Enjoying the Ocean

Tube Time!

Sunsets that we saw every night while eating on the dock!

Inbetween visitors we managed to create a makeshift Christmas Tree:

Then two days after the Duncans left, my mom came for a week!

We got out of a movie just in time to see a Christmas Boat Parade!

Duke isn't as excited to have his picture taken as I am!

So I hope you will excuse my lack of blogging, because we have been busy!

We are going to lighten our schedule for the next two weeks....oh wait, a trip to the Keys and a trip to Orlando are in the next 10 days. I guess we aren't slowing down, but we are having tons of fun!

All's Well That Ends Well

Relief. This week has been wild, but most of all it has been good. I have been so encouraged about God's grace and goodness to us......

First of all, when I was in the depths of studying and feeling a little overwhelmed, two things happened.

1) My aunt offered to let us stay in her un-occupied house this winter. A nice option if we can't find a decent apartment when we first get back to Burlington. Praise!

2) I got a phone call from this sweet accounting firm in Burlington. I sent them my resume a few weeks ago and now they want to interview me! Best of all, the timing is perfect since we'll be in Burlington next week! So I have an interview at 9 am on Monday. Prayers are appreciated!

I would be thrilled if I got this job. But most of all, it was just encouraging to see God working in our lives.....I feel like the road is being paved for life after traveling.

On Wednesday we celebrated my wonderful husband's birthday! It wasn't quite like the celebration below, but it certainly was fun. We had salmon, red potatoes, and aspargus, with his favorite strawberry shortcake for dessert!

Celebrate Good Times Come On!

Thursday finally came and I actually felt pretty prepared. It was weird because I never feel prepared for tests...the perfectionist in me always knows I don't know it all. However, I was oddly calm for this test. I don't know if I passed, and won't find out for a few weeks, but I was at least encouraged that it wasn't overwhelming and that I feel like the CPA is totally accomplishable. Yes, I made up that word because it fit what I was trying to say. I'm going to be a CPA, not a writer/editor.

When I got home from the exam, I was greeted by an exuberant husband (always fun) and a bottle of bubbly!!! So we lounged around drinking this nectar of the gods and delighting in our freedom, since he just finished his super rough OB-GYN rotation. Hurray! We made it through!

Thank you, Shane for this wonderful present!

As if this great week wasn't enough, we are going to LBI for the weekend to celebrate Duke & LD's birthdays!

Good Looking family

Blurry, but I hope our future children are this adorable!

 
Our weekend is going to be full of eating good food, drinking good drinks, hot-tubbing, relaxing, and celebrating life...and counting our blessings because there are many. 

Happy Friday!

Getting Wired

Duke is convinced that productivity is directly related to the amount of caffeine you consume. So, since I am in crunch mode, I am living by his advice and drinking as much coffee as possible. I love coffee and drink a cup every morning, but this process is making me a little sick of it. So I've been mixing it up. Instead of getting regular coffee, I've indulged in a few specialty drinks. But I can't drink those non-stop so I've been at a little bit of a loss. Today I started crossed over to become an official caffeine abuser and, after drinking a small cup of coffee at home, followed by a grande mocha light, I bought myself a double shot of espresso. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW I immediately had to chug a bottle of water because this espresso was unbelievably strong. Wow. That is an entirely different world of coffee and I felt a little bit like a drug addict, chugging the shot in the car before I went into the library. Yikes, I didn't realize it would get to this point!

But I have to say, the caffeine really does help keep me motivated. And I have just two weeks until my exam so I will continue this bad habit until then. The day after my test I will probably have the world's worst caffeine headache!

The Date is Set

I have bitten the bullet and set a date for my first section of the CPA Exam....I will be taking it on Thursday, October 27! So from now until then I will be cracking down to study (aside from the NYC trip I have planned this weekend and the other weekends off I give myself to spend time with Duke). Anyways, prayers are needed and appreciated! I am also starting to look for job possibilities for January, when we're back in Burlington. I'm praying that God would lead me to a good job where I can be a bright light and use my talents!!

Two Things

First, why does New Canaan, Connecticut, the town with tons of important CEOs and company execs, have terrible cell phone reception? It makes no sense because these people need their blackberries to work! (And I need to be able to call my family!)

Second, last night at the wine class, Duke was going to be late so Mr. G said "Amy's husband is an OB-GYN and is going to be a few minutes late because he just delivered a baby." haha! Sounds like he's a real doctor and is undeniably wonderful! :)

Happy Wednesday!

Tons of Fun Till The CPA's Done

...Maybe that's why I'm behind schedule on my test date. The course teachers love to tell us students that we should be having NO fun until we take our exams. No wonder I'm behind. Duke and I have been having TONS of fun!!! But I like to think that it's ok since we're newlyweds. I don't see much of him during the week, so the weekends and some weeknights are dedicated to all-fun-cpa-is-not-my-husband time.

Here's the list of our super-fun recent activities:

My sister came to visit us and her mother in law, Mrs. Garman, in CT last week. She brought the cuties Lily and Lucy, and we had lots of fun hanging out, talking with the now super conversational Lily and laughing at Lucy's faces and antics. At 20 months old, Lucy is already a comedian!

Old picture, but a good example of the cuteness we were surrounded by!

This past weekend we were on LBI celebrating a Duncan family friend's wedding all weekend long. These people know how to have a good time. It was three whole days of delicious food and open bar. (Think fish tacos, panko flounder, lobster tails, which Duke had 3 of, etc) Yum! Jaimee and Mike had the same band and photographer that we had for our wedding, so that was fun. There was a photo booth with hilarious props too, but the highlight of the reception was probably the fireworks show! Ten minutes of "all finale" as Duke said. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so maybe when Duke is home I will be able to upload some pictures from the wedding.

Tonight we're going to a wine class at The New Canaan Wine Merchants with Mr. Garman. Since being here in CT, Mr. G has shared some of his delicious wines with us and is teaching me about the wine world! I'm glad Duke is coming to the class tonight because I don't want to be the only novice in a room full of wine-tasting pros!

Mr. Garman's favorite Pinot Grigio, San Margherita

And last but not least on our list of fun things, this weekend we're celebrating LBI's Chowder Fest!!!! I am so excited because I've heard of this for years and finally get to experience it. We're also celebrating Duke's dad's BDAY!

So, although my studying may be coming along a little slower than I'd like, Duke and I are truly enjoying life. And I say, TONS of Fun Till the CPA's Done!

What a Weekend

Our weekend started off not so great. We had a nice Friday night hanging out with friends, but when we got back to our apartment we were greeted by a very grumpy landlord who changed his mind yet again about what date we had to leave our apartment.....he told us at 1:45 am on Saturday that we had to be out on Saturday. Excuse me?? This was the last in a sequence of events that made us both eager and annoyed to leave the love dungeon (our basement apartment.) So needless to say, Saturday was full of packing all of our belongings and trying to do one last load of laundry before we left our first home on awkward and angry terms. Thankfully we were able to stay with some friends near by, no problem. If we didn't have that option, we'd be out $$$ staying at a hotel until Wednesday.

THANKFULLY Sunday was a completely different story from Friday/Saturday. Sunday we went WHITE WATER RAFTING!!! It was so so fun. I was really scared because it was a "big release day" which means the dam that feeds the river was pumping 11,000 gallons per second instead of the normal 5,400. AAHH!! It freaked me out a little bit when all of the guides were talking about how big it was going to be, how hard we were going to have to paddle, etc. If the guides were freaked out, I thought I should be too. Once we got on the river, that fear turned into fun!! The first rapids we went through were pretty big but we made it through ok. Then we came up to another series of class IV rapids, and these were going to be a little more intense. Different parts of the river are named by people who have had bad accidents/near death experiences there. The guide told us that "IF we make it through "Maytag" in tact (washing machine analogy...yikes) then we'll go through "Bone Crusher". Maytag is a "hole" i believe, which is a big drop with a huge wave after it. The guide told us we would all have to lean forward and paddle for our lives to get through it. I was scared. We got towards it and everyone paddled like crazy, but our boat hit it a little off center so it went flying onto one side and back to the other so the boat was basically on its side. I remember my last thought being "The boat's going to flip and we're all falling out!" Next thing I know I'm going through wash cycle in the world's largest washing machine. Thankfully I didn't fly very far from the boat so I swam like crazy--while still holding my paddle. Yay!--and got pulled into the boat by my husband who was one of the lone survivors. We had to get the other four people who fell out before moving on. Needless to say, we didn't make it to Bone Crusher. After about an hour of white water, we made it to more calm waters where we took a break and had a snack. Then we floated down the river for about an hour and a half and got out to a delicious dinner of haddock and steak at our camp. IT WAS SO FUN!

Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures while there. :( My camera died and the pictures from the company were $20 each so we passed. The picture above is from the company's website so you can get the idea.

Bah Habah

Oh, it must be the Maine accent wearing off on me. I meant, "Bar Harbor". It's too funny. This accent up here gets crazy at times.

Duke and I have been really enjoying our three day weekend and having fun traveling "Down East" aka Maine's beautiful coast. Yesterday we went to a big old military fort, called Fort Knox. It was fun to walk around. There were tons of humongous cannons. Then we stopped at the grocery store and got some delicious fresh baguette to enjoy with our pesto pasta and chicken!

Today we went to Bar Harbor. I didn't realize it, but Bar Harbor is surrounded by Acadia National Park. Acadia is the only park in the nation that was created solely by land donations from private donors. The government didn't have to put a penny on this project! Acadia is really beautiful. It has beautiful fjords surrounding tons of little bays. Rocky mountains covered in pine trees surrounded by beautiful water. Then just down the road is cute Bar Harbor, full of shops and restaurants.

Entering Acadia

Some hilarious tourist took our picture and obviously didn't get it right!



This is a little better, except for the person in the corner!



Acadia



Bar Harbor



On our way to Sandy Beach in Acadia



Sandy Beach



Newlyweds on Sandy Beach!



Sandy Beach



Sandy Beach



Shopping in Bar Harbor. Do you like my new hat?


A big sail boat in the harbor

On our way home from Bar Harbor we stopped at a pretty little beach and enjoyed some delicious champagne, bread and cheese. It was wonderful! (Special thanks to Brittany Hughes who gave us the best champagne!)

It's been a month and the love is still alive!

We had a great weekend and now it's back to studying and working 12 hours a day. Working hard makes relaxation very satisfying!

Tick Tock

Whew! Time is flying by!! I can't believe that our time in Bangor (crazy Bangor) is more than halfway over. Just two more weeks here! It's exciting because Maine isn't our favorite place, but bittersweet because it means that the first six weeks of our marriage have almost passed, and a little scary because I am closer to taking the first CPA exam, and a little sad because my wonderful husband and I will be spending most of our time apart while we're in CT. It's also a little exciting because we're six weeks closer to living in West Palm Beach, FL! (Vacation, anyone??)

Oh, you want me to go back to the second-to-last sentence? Yes, Duke and I are going to be living mostly apart in CT. Affordable, furnished, short-term, secure housing proved to be impossible to come by in Danbury. Although this is not ideal, it actually is going to work out just fine because my sister's in-laws live about 45 minutes away from the hospital that Duke's going to be working at. So I'm going to stay there while my student-physician husband stays at the hospital housing during his extremely long OB-GYN days. He needs to be as close to the hospital as possible because he'll be working 12-16 hour days and has to be in between 5 and 6 am. So wasting an hour and a half driving every day would be a recipe for disaster in his shoes. (I think it may actually be a blessing to our marriage, too, because neither Duke nor I function well on little sleep---can you say "monster"?---so we will be able to spare ourselves from ourselves.) God has really blessed us with this chance to save money and Duke's mental health. Hopefully we will have great weekend breaks together that are re-energizing and full of quality time.

Speaking of Duke, I am so proud of how hard he works for us, building a good future for us to share together. I really appreciate the time and effort he has put in to his training. I am so thankful for his good attitude, efficiency, and ability to separate work and home life. He always makes me laugh and is my best friend. I love my husband!

Buffalo Chicken Wraps

I made these for dinner yesterday and they were so easy and delicious that I have to share the recipe! (Adapted from a recipe by my culinary-genious sister, Virginia)

Buffalo Chicken Wraps

1 lb chicken, cut into bite-size pieces
1 cup (or so) of your favorite hot sauce/buffalo sauce
1 Tbl butter
Tortillas
1 Roma Tomato
5 leaves iceberg lettuce
Shredded cheese of your choice (we always use Cabot Extremely Sharp Cheddar)
Ranch or Blue Cheese Dressing
Hot sauce or red pepper flakes to taste

1. Preheat oven to "High Broil" and make sure baking rack is at least 1/2 way to the top of the oven, or a little higher.
2. In a bowl or ziploc bag, toss chicken with 1/2 buffalo sauce.
3. Place in baking pan and bake for 4-5 min
4. Take chicken out of the oven and mix 1Tbl melted butter and the rest of the buffalo sauce to the chicken. Place back in oven and bake for another 4-5 min
5. When chicken is done, place in tortillas with lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and dressing. You may want to add some more buffalo/hot sauce, or red pepper flakes if you don't have hot sauce.)

This meal is unbelievably easy and very delicious!

BLACKOUT!

Hurricane Irene, not-so-serene. Yesterday was weird. We were supposed to get hit really hard by the hurricane, but it was so NOT bad that Duke and I went grocery shopping in the middle of the "storm"! Thankfully we were back home when, a few hours later (about 8 pm) the wind really started to pick up and the power went out. It was weird though, because it was very windy but hardly rained.

The worst damage I saw today were a few large branches on the side of the road. Vermont, however, got hit really hard with lots of rain and flooding. I hope our friends and family in VT are ok!

Friends, you need to check out my bridesmaid and dear friend, Eva Marx's new blog!! So excited to be bloggers together, Eva! :)
http://www.steelandskirts.blogspot.com/

Happy Monday!

Music to Our Ears

Have you ever seen anything like this?




I have, in musical form. Come to the Duncan household on a random weeknight, and you'll encounter what I'm talking about....techno. Duke got super into techno while studying for the Step 1 last year. I used to think it was a little weird (I mean, we're not in Europe, and we're not trying to get wild at 7:30 on a Tuesday) but he is convinced that it is the best study music--no words, no distractions, just straight energy-inducing beats. I have to say that I now like it. There's a lot of studying going on at this house, so we listen to a lot of techno these days.


But if you're not into getting your heart rate up while studying, I have an alternative -- the original sounds of Christopher Taylor Duncan, my own private musician.




He is such a good guitar player, and his songs are always hilarious!!! He has a great stage presence, too. :) He always brings a smile to my face!!!

Out in the blogosphere

Hello Friends!!

I have been a blog stalker for a while now, and I decided that it's time for me to join the ranks of people who document their lives to share with others and keep a record for themselves.

Our life has been a little crazy recently....Duke and I got married a month ago (YAY!!) and since then we have traveled from New Jersey --> Boston --> Bangor --> Boston and New Hampshire --> Bangor --> The Coast --> Bangor --> New Hampshire --> Vermont --> New Hampshire --> Bangor. All in the past three weeks (because we did take a break from traveling right after our wedding and relaxed at the beach.) I guess that explains why my (I mean our) car desperately needed new brakes, and why we exceeded our monthly gas budget in the first ten days of August. Ha! We may have to re-evaluate that one. Aside from constant travels, I have just started studying for the CPA exam...during our most recent trip to VT I couldn't help but think of the proctor's mantra, "NO FUN UNTIL THE CPA'S DONE".......maybe I should get back to studying now.

I'm SO excited to be blogging. Soon I will post about the wedding----our DREAM wedding, which was so fun----as well as more about our current hometown of Bangor, Maine. Bangor has been a little different than we thought, to say the least. Let's just say that hearing about the man who walked around downtown waving two loaded guns in the air, the man who escaped from the insane asylum and swam across the river, the person who was killed behind the casino, the new rage of doing bath salts and going crazy for up to thirty days, and the wild car chase that led to some criminal's death less than a quarter mile from our home has made us a little uneasy about living in this "quaint little Maine town". Just three more weeks to go! Maine really does have some beautiful parts, though. I'll tell you about our visits to the coast later.

All danger in Bangor aside, we are truly so happy to be married. It's so nice to be living together, starting our new life. We couldn't be happier, even if we had more gas money or less crime in Bangor. Life is great and God has blessed us!!!!! It's study time now!