Actually, this might qualify me for Worst Bestie Ever

I still haven't put up pictures from Christine and Rommie's (dubbed Chrommie by many) beautiful wedding on Saturday, May 2! I swear, I didn't make this up, but my dog ate my camera cord. So I am running around trying to find a new one so I can put my pictures up!

In the meantime, please enjoy a few snapshots Laura took that day and expect a long detailed run-down of the days events ASAP! Christine looked so beautiful and Rommie looked so happy on what was a picture perfect day, despite repeated calls for rain!

What a pretty lady!!!!

Besties in the limo celebrating post nuptials!

The Happy Couple!

ConGRADulations* Caryn!

Congrats to our good friend Caryn who graduated today with her MBA from the University of Maryland!

*This was stolen from Laura, who is oh so clever!

Worst Bestie Ever

I neglected to celebrate the 30th birthday of my bestie, Laura, on Wednesday, May 20th! I love you Larry!!

We are going to The Wine Kitchen in Leesburg next week to celebrate, where they informed us that Tuesdays are Flight Night. Flights of wine of $9. I smell trouble.

Getting ready for Christine's wedding

Blame it on the a-a-a-a-alcohol...

We mourn the passing of a good friend

The Essamas are mourning the loss of a good friend, Hans Huber, loving husband to our dear friend Christine (Kohlmeyer) Huber. Our hearts are heavy with his tragic and untimely passing last Thursday evening. He was a great man who will truly be missed and he loved his wife so much--their love and happiness was so evident to everyone around them.

The family has asked people to consider making a donation to the House of Ruth, (Hans first asked Christine out at a benefit they were attending for this organization). The House of Ruth serves women, children and families who are striving to overcome domestic violence, homelessness, mental health disorders and substance abuse by building safe, stable lives and helping them to achieve their highest potential.

Please visit http://www.houseofruth.org/ and click on Contribute on the left.

Please keep Christine, her family, Hans' family and their plethora of friends in your thoughts and prayers.

You left us too soon Hans, but we are better people for having known you.

Robb (Hans' best friend), Hans and Belinga at Shelly's in March

Who reads this thing anyway?

Much like the rest of you bloggers out there (I think?), I feel like no one reads my blog. Granted, not like I give you much to read considering I've been REALLY bad at blogging lately, but ignore that for a second.

I just added the Follower gadget to the right side of the page and I noticed my Knot friend Christina is following my blog (thanks!!), so if you please, will you go list yourself as a follower too, so I can be one of the cool kids? I will in return become a follower of you and will put your blog link up on my faves.

Come on, pretty please? With sugar on top?

I am going to be better at blogging, I promise!!!

1 year (already?!)

This post will be short because I have pictures and will do a full run down when I have time, but I needed to acknowledge our 1 year anniversary somehow!!



We headed to New York for a really quick weekend--saw a show, went to a yummy dinner, had a great bottle of wine (courtesy of my Dad!), hung out with good friends and ate lots of meat.



We also toasted our 1 year with our toasting flutes, ate the top tier of our wedding cake (really not that bad for 1 year frozen cake!) with our cake serving set. The only thing I managed not to force my dear husband of 1 year to do was watch our wedding highlights. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to and had to majorly coax him to even agree to the 7 minute highlight reel, but we were very tired from our whirlwind weekend and I of course needed to watch last week's Hell's Kitchen and the new episode of the Tudors. Maybe I'll "surprise" him one of these days and pop it in. I'm sure he'll love that, ha!



I will post tonight and give you a more detailed recap along with pictures!! I can't even post up a picture from last year because my internet is acting screwy, so stay tuned!

CAK and HJH unite!

This past weekend, the husband and I attended the beautiful wedding of our good friends Christine and Hans at the Willard Intercontinental. The Willard is a gorgeous historic hotel in downtown DC. Christine is the first of our 2009 Knotties to tie the knot and the wedding certainly didn't disappoint!

Since it was the first day of the Cherry Blossom Festival, one of Christine's major themes was obviously cherry blossoms--you could find them on her programs, monograms, altar flowers, etc. We walked into the Willard and wouldn't you know, they had plastered the entrance and the hallways with cherry trees--it was beautiful! (Of course I didn't take a picture, I was too busy admiring).


The ceremony took place in the Crystal Room and was performed by none other than Ken Knapp, the same person who married Belinga and I and Jacqueline and Todd (and Jacqueline's sister Kristen and her husband Ben). We all heart Ken!

The Hubers are married by Ken!

The Essamas almost one year later with Ken!

Everything was great, the food was yummy (beef tenderloin and sea bass) and dessert was a huge hit! We had a trio of sorbet with fresh berries, wedding cake and as if that wasn't enough, there was a crepe station. Oh man those crepes were good. Sorry people, I'm not Mrs. Broad, so I didn't take a picture. Her flowers were to die for, the cake was pretty and they personalized each table with a restaurant that meant something to them and to their guests. We sat at PS7, which is a restaurant that we celebrated their engagement at, along with Maggie and Mitch's. A great time was had by all!

I'm not sure the pictures do the flowers or the cake justice. The flowers were all vibrant shades of pink and the cake looked amazing and smelled (and tasted!) really good!

The gang minus Henrik!

After the wedding, we hit up Shelly's Back Room, one of Hans's favorite places (and Belinga's new favorite) for cigars and bourbon/scotch. Christine also had personalized cigars and matchboxes on hand. No detail was spared here people--she's an uber planner! :-)

Favorite, though blurry, picture of Hans in his element

Congratulations to the Hubers!!

For more of the 9 billion pictures I took, click here.

Happy 30th Blair!

This past weekend, I traveled up to Boston to help my good friend Blair celebrate her 30th birthday in style! We had a blast! Her mom and brother and another good friend, Allison, came up from Miami and there were a lot of Boston friends to her celebrate on Saturday night at Sonsie on Newbury Street.

The festivities started on Thursday evening with a yummy dinner at the Top of the Hub, the restaurant at the top of the Prudential building. The 360 degree views of Boston were awesome and the food was really good!

Friday, we went to see the Shephard Fairey exhibit at the ICA--he's a well-known Boston street artist who did the iconic Obama poster that you saw everywhere during his campaign. Then, during lunch at the Barking Crab, where I had steamers for the first time, we stumbled upon a stroke of genius! We decided to go see Dirty Dancing on stage. Anyone who knows me know I freaking love that movie and have been dying to see it! It was very similar to the movie, but not quite as awesome, but still a good time.

One of Fairey's numerous stickers around Boston

Saturday we had a late lunch, then grabbed balloons and cake and headed over to Sonsie to decorate and setup. Lots of Blair's friends showed up and a good time was had by all!

Yummy cake with awesome candles I got for Blair (please note the awesome "30" confetti on the tables. I LOVE confetti.)

Sunday was major recovery day, we ordered some yummy Thai food, then it was off to bed for my majorly early flight on Monday morning!

Jonathan and Blair

From left, Blair, me, Allison, Cheri, David (Blair's brother)

Happy 2nd Birthday Frank!

Today is Bella's good friend Frank's 2nd birthday! A few months ago, we had the pleasure of pupsitting for Frank while his parents were off playing. Here's a picture of the good friends behind our puppy gate!

Happy 1st Birthday Bella!

Sunday was Bella's 1st birthday! We unfortunately didn't have a puppy party for her, a) because she really only knows 2-3 dogs, and b) because we have no backyard. So we decided to celebrate alone and make hamburgers and cupcakes in honor of our favorite pooch. I also bought her a cute furry pink hat that says "I'm one" which did not please her. But it made for a cute picture!

Happy Birthday Pretty Girl!

Happy Birthday Chin Strap!!

Happy "Big One" to my favorite wearer of Chin Straps and deserter of Northern VA, Caryn! We miss you and wish we were celebrating with you! Hope you have a wonderful start to your 30s!

Congratulations to the Nilsens!

A few big events have taken place that require I resurface from the Land of Non-Bloggery. The Essamas good friends Rachel and Henrik tied the knot on January 23rd in New York, to be followed by a larger celebration on Long Island in October. We are so happy for them and welcome them to the wonderful world of marriage!

Grattis Nilsens!

Big Day!!

Today is a day of firsts in the Essama household! I signed up for my first 10 mile race, the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler, which is taking place in DC on Sunday, April 5th, 2009! I am really excited about it but also pretty nervous because I really haven't run since the wedding. But I'm excited to start up again and hopefully I'll be in tip top shape for all the weddings this spring! :-)

Today is also Bella's first day of doggie day care!! Thanks to her friend Frank for the referral, hopefully she will be a tired, happy puppy at the end of the day!

Happy Birthday Mommy-o!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!! Thank you for everything you do for me (which I know I don't always thank you for!) You're the best!

We're going to chow on some sushi later and maybe get crazy and go see a movie. :-)

PS: Bella also thanks you for all the times you take care of her when her mom and dad aren't around!

Big Fat Liar!

Husbands. You gotta love 'em. Lately we've been stuck in this rut of one of us doing the same chores over and over, so we've been making a concerted effort to help the other one out a lot more. So my gracious hubby said he would go run some errands that I would normally do to alleviate some of the constant errand-running pressure off of me. So 5 days ago I ask him to go pick up my prescription from the Target pharmacy. I still had some left, so no biggie right? Well, day after day goes by, in sometimes typical husband fashion of constantly forgetting to do things he'd say he'd do. Fine, no biggie. But yesterday, I'm out all day and text him, reminding him to pick it up. I come home, don't see anything, ask him where the prescription is. He proceeds to tell me that the Target pharmacy is closed on Sundays. Hmmm, odd, I don't recall this being true and sort of doubted him, but then I felt slighly bad and realized I'm not always right (even though I am 99.999999% of the time), so give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't even compulsively go check online to see if he's full of crap, I trust him.

About an hour ago I get an e-mail entitled "I lied." I was wondering what it was in regards to and it says "Target Pharmacy is open Sundays oooppppsss!!!" My response: I KNEW IT, YOU BIG FAT LIAR! YOU DIDN'T EVEN TRY TO GO PICK IT UP! YOU OWE ME BIG TIME!

Just when I was becoming less neurotic, he pulls a fast one on me. Alas, I'm not mad, I'm actually quite amused that I know him so well and totally knew he made up that story about Target being closed. Hopefully my arteries won't harden and close up before he picks up the prescription tonight!

Oh and then, he has to go and do something so super nice, that I can't stay slightly annoyed at him, like putting away all the laundry I was supposed to put away that has been in the dryer/on top of the dryer/on the bed in the guest bedroom, saving me hours of having to fight off the dog while she tries to run away with our underwear and socks.

Ah husbands...gotta love 'em! :-)

Turkey for Me, Turkey for You...

Can't wait for Thanksgiving this week! Not only is it a short week, but I get to break out the fine china and have the hubby's family over on Thursday for Thanksgiving. And I can't wait for a 5 day weekend, woohoo!

What are your plans for Thanksgiving?

Salut 16!

Today marks an amazing milestone for me and Larry. Today is the 16th anniversary of SALUT! What is Salut you ask? Salut is a way of saying hello and goodbye in French, which we learned way back in 1992 in Mme. Guida's French class. For some reason, this greeting has stuck with us for years and we STILL say Salut almost every time we speak. Back in 2002, we went to France to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of Salut, which was SO fun. Of course, it was also pre-digital camera age (at least for us anyway), so please stay tuned for some scanned highlights of our French getaway.

I threw the gauntlet down today and said we have to go back for Salut 20 in 2012. Anyone else want to experience SALUT with us??????

Happy 30th Birthday Jacks!

Happy Birthday to Jack D who enters her 30s today! Can't wait to celebrate with drinks later tonight!

Oh look, there I am in the background! Jack D and awesome "Broad" Caryn!

Happy Birthday Rommie!!

Happy 28th Birthday to the Essamas good friend Rommie! Can't wait to celebrate with a Skins victory on Sunday night!

Wedding Video!

I am rather proud of my technological prowess in figuring out how to upload the highlight montage of our wedding to YouTube. So sit back and enjoy!