home goods finally had le creuset on super sale again and i could. not. resist.  we got this green 5.5 quart and obviously had to cook something amazing immediately.

so we hopped on our bikes (we finally both have bikes!) and went to trader joe's for some ingredients.

we threw some veggies in the pot with some salmon, spices, and two-buck-chuck sauvignon blanc.

 we put couscous on the side and finished the wine.  i'd say that's a pretty good meal for a tuesday night, and the pot is so amazing. will we ever use any of our others again? we really have to stop buying things on our registry.

it's concert week which means lots of listening to baroque instruments and dealing with baroque musicians. this concert is going to be a good one!  and my anthropologie sale stuff came in the mail! and our dogs are adorable, as usual, as is the fiance ;) ...not much to complain about!

we celebrated our two year anniversary today with brunch at medium rare followed by some firehook lattes and a trip to the dogpark.  perfect sundays are the best.  2 years of perfect sundays make us one lucky couple.  here's to a lifetime of more :)

rebecca and i did a second installment of uncork'd art last night.  we got a bottle of wine this time and i really don't think it helped us become masterful painters. one guy did say mine looked like a renoir. whoa! he needs to go to museums more often.  overall we had a blast and made a new friend or two by the end of the evening (the wine did help with that).

me and nadine.  she also blogs.  www.thedailydosebar.com

saturday was the adam's morgan day festival.  there is music, art, food, and there are a ton of people!

check out the girls playing at the water park!

belle loved flying through the tubes and bella loved running around chasing the other dogs. hilariousness.  if you think bella is funny looking, you must check this out.

somehow twenty-nine feels like the number that crosses you over to the antipodal point of life that you were just in.  you're no longer a youth, youngster, twenty something, or even young adult.  because let's face it, thirty is thirty, but who sees twenty-nine coming?  it's then that you begin your thirtieth year of life.  and it's kind of a weird one.

so maybe thirty is the new nineteen or whatever, but at this point you are fully expected to have a job, support yourself entirely, and probably be at least married if not already having kids.  you are now just an "adult", grouped together with every other adult out there who has not yet reached "senior" status.  you'd better know how to take out a loan, pay your mortgage, and the difference between a roth ira and a 403b (does anyone really know this?).

while a year ago, on my twenty eighth birthday, i was at the literal antipodes of DC, swimming with crocodiles and pretending as if i was on another planet, and while, since then, we have been living a very domestic lifestyle, somehow the twenty ninth birthday just didn't feel like an arrival at some opposite metaphysical place in life.

i often ask older people what it's like to age.  the answer is always somewhere along the lines of "i feel exactly the same as i did when i was twenty-five...except [insert physical ailment]".

sneaky sneaky passing of time.  you really can't think about it for too long or it will blow your mind like the spacetime continuum or how neuroscientists use their brains to study their brains.

well i'm going to look at the bright side.  obviously every year has something new to offer, some wisdom or insight that can only be gained with its passage.  as long as there is always somewhere new to go, someone new to meet, some new experience to be had, then i'm cool with whatever number represents my years of life on earth.  apparently it's always going to feel like twenty-five anyway.

bring on year thirty. i have many plans for you.  hopefully God will laugh at them and provide me with some great entertainment, per usual.

we celebrated my birthday tuesday night at wolftrap.  ben harper performed a solo acoustic show with nature as his accompaniment.  he said it's the first solo performance he's done since he was starting out.   we watched the sky change, listened to the crickets and cicadas singing along, ate and drank, and caught the occasional scent of people burning one down.  it was kind of like the early days of college, except we weren't surrounded by 20 year olds and full of youthful angst. 29. ugh. it'd sound so bad if it weren't so good.

"we'll never be younger than today"

-ben harper

the nats bat the cardinals 4 to 3 sunday.  the game was complete with nachos, friends, and a guest appearance (as usual) by honest abe himself.  it was rainy, and we may have snuggled the girls and napped for the rest of the day.  thank goodness for 3 day weekends.

just like we're all going to in the next year or so.  let's hope we all have as fun a 30th as maggie :)

jazz in the sculpture garden of the national gallery of art happens every friday of the summer.  last night was the last one of the year, and we enjoyed the evening with our friends janey and phil and our other friends wine and sangria :)

one of the most fun things about jazz in the garden is sitting around the fountain and people watching.  as the night goes on, people start to dance, drink, mingle, and sometimes get into the fountain.  it's always a good time whether you're with friends, family, or trying to find a date.  so many memories in this garden!