Behold...The Bennett Wave

Four Years

Tomorrow marks the end of my fourth year as the counselor at BES. It's been an exciting one. Well I think elementary school always has something exciting going on. It's like no other job I've heard about. There's almost always a tale to tell at the day's end. Hopefully I will have the legendary Bennett Wave to share with you tomorrow.

Truth be told, I have been seriously sedating my wedding excitement in order for me to manage life at work. If I let myself get wedding excited...pretty much nothing would have been accomplished in the months of November, December, or any of the months since like April. I'm very excited to allow myself to get wedding excited this weekend. I'm not the most excited I signed up to babysit starting Monday, but wedding excited costs money.

Something I am not excited about...today was my last legendary day with my Honey Boo Boo. It has been such a fun year with my two co-counselors. I was worried at first, but everything has gone so well. I am sad to say goodbye to both of my fabulous teammates. So this post is a little random, but I guess I'm just a little excited about SUMMER!!!

City Garden

My city garden (season 2) has grown into a jungle. You may remember it's humble beginnings from this post. Since then it's gone wild. Look at the lemon tree for example...it's actually happy looking and not throwing fits at me! That's rare. And I swear last summer it look me forever to get tomatoes. This year, there's already about 10 that are growing. My cilantro, however, is once again not doing well. Every year my cilantro decides to die and/or grow weird appendages. I guess Northern Virginia is no Mexico. Any tips for cilantro growing?

Recipe of the Week!

Spanish Chicken Pot Roast

I LOVED this recipe. The chicken in it was so amazing. Typically I would eat all the vegetables and starches in a recipe like this and a few pieces of the chicken, but I loved all of this, especially the chicken. Obviously, I highly suggest this recipe. I would make it every week, for real. Make it...you'll understand.

And just FYI...I altered the original recipe from my Food Network magazine. They wanted chicken thighs instead of breasts, but I don't eat those. I also threw in some broccoli cause I had some that needed to be eaten.


Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds large Yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
4 cloves garlic, smashed and coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
Salt and Pepper
4 tablespoons roughly chopped fresh parsley
2 lemons (1 juiced, 1 cut into wedges)
2 large or 3 medium red onions, halved and thinly sliced

Directions:
Position a rack in the upper third of the oven. Place a large cast-iron baking dish or a rimmed baking sheet on the rack and preheat to 500 degrees F. Put the potatoes, garlic, olive oil, 1 tablespoon water and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a large microwave-safe baking dish and toss to coat. Cover with plastic wrap, pierce the plastic in a few places with a knife and microwave 8 minutes to partially cook.

Meanwhile, cut chicken into chunks and place into a bowl. Sprinkle with the paprika, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Add 2 tablespoons parsley and the lemon juice; toss to coat. Set aside.

Remove the hot baking dish from the oven; carefully add the potatoes and spread in an even layer. Scatter the onions on top. Lay the chicken pieces on top, adding any accumulated juices from the bowl; return to the oven and roast until the potatoes are tender and the chicken is cooked through, about 12 more minutes. Remove from the oven and top with the remaining 2 tablespoons parsley. Serve with the lemon wedges.

GOTR Wrap Up

Spring 2012 GOTR Team

I feel like I'm very behind on blogging. I have so many updates on things, including Girls on the Run. We wrapped up the season last week and ran our 5K two weekends ago at George Mason. Yes, even I ran. Let me tell you...George Mason is like running on a roller coaster. So hilly, but I made it. So did all of my little friends. As always we had our ups and downs this season. Thirty six girls is a lot of girl, but we made it. I think we are even coming back in the fall for round four!

NYC!

Manhattan Skyline from the Staten Island Ferry

My whole entire life I have wanted to go to New York City. Twenty-eight years later I finally did it. Matt and I had a very action packed three days in the city. We came home very tired, very sore, and most importantly having made the absolute most of our time there. Here are some highlights and some pictures of the weekend!

We left Friday after work and took the Megabus from Union Station in DC to Penn Station in NYC. I, being anxious and always early, was first in line to claim my coveted front row, top deck, seat in order to not throw up on the way there. I was successful. The ride was fine and we quickly navigated the subway to stay at Columbia with Matt's good friend Nick on Friday night.

Times Square

We started early Saturday morning with a quick tour of the Columbia campus and a trip to Grant's Tomb just a few blocks from Nick's apartment. Something I had obviously been wanting to see my whole life...or it might have been Matt's NYC goal...you be the judge. After all that we took the subway back downtown to the Times Square neighborhood where we were staying for the night. We promptly walked over to Times Square after dropping our bags at the hotel. After some quick exploration and full out tourist picture taking we picked up our bus tour tickets. Matt had taken the hop on, hop off bus tour previously and thought we should do it again. I would say this was sort of the biggest regret I have about the trip. We didn't have a

Central Park

good guide and I thought it was a little bit of a waste of time. We did the downtown loop which took about 2.5 hours. The one good thing was that we decided not to get off at all and just go around once. This worked out well because we saw a little bit of everything and then we could talk later about places we wanted to go back to. We got off at Rockefeller Center so I could see where they do my fave the Today show. Then walked back to our hotel and got some NY pizza on the way. It was delicious. For dinner we walked a little bit back uptown for dinner at Bar Americain, Bobby Flay's restaurant. I had the grouper and Matt had the lamb. We both loved our meals. I would highly recommend this spot. Most of this day was brought to you my my sister and my brother-in-law. They gave us hotel points and a Bar Americain gift card for Christmas! After dinner Matt got a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery and we walked around Times Square again because I wanted to see it at night.

We had another early morning on Sunday...taking the subway uptown to the middle of Central Park. We walked from the middle all the way down through the park to the Upper East Side. It was great to find myself among the rich. I danced on the big piano in FAO Schwartz and found out Matt has never seen Big. Horribly unfortunate. I loved walking past all the stores and we even got stopped on the sidewalk while they filmed a movie. We decided to walk all the way back to our hotel instead of taking the subway. Once we got back we picked up our bags and went down to the Financial District to where we were staying Sunday night. We took a quick walk down Wall Street and we also made reservations for the 9/11 Memorial that afternoon. The 9/11 Memorial was another favorite part. We talked to a volunteer for a long time about what the site will eventually look like and what just the history in general of New York City. Matt was loving it! We decided to go to a restaurant called Bianca for dinner in Greenwich Village. It was very authentic Italian and a tiny little place.

Survivor Tree

Bull on Wall Street

Monday morning we walked from our hotel down to Battery Park where you could see the Statue of Liberty. We also decided to take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. Another great choice of activities. Its a completely free ride and you get great views of the statue, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. I would highly suggest everyone do this. After this it was time to start our trek back home. And really we both were ready.

 So this is already the longest post ever, but here is my summation. New York is not for me. Would I go back? Yes. I would like to see a play, go to Ellis Island, and go to the 9/11 museum once it's open. Am I dying to go back? No. I think New York smells bad and there's too much of it. I was pleasantly surprised about how nice people were and the reliability of the subway (which was much more easy to navigate than expected). All that said...in my book DC > NYC. Walking from Union Station through Capitol Hill to get back to Matt's car was just so beautiful and peaceful in comparison.

Wordless Wednesday!

Do you think they will come?