We are in Charleston, SC, with friends for the weekend – today we roamed around downtown checking out the architecture and gardens, and tried some of the local beer. Tomorrow we are thinking about some of the plantations and possibly the beach. Should be fun…

I have a lot of exciting things coming up this fall in terms of meetings and conferences, so to go along with this enthusiasm, I decided to rebuild the LeGa Design Group site in Drupal. Extra added benefit of learning Drupal and more about css code in the process.

Check it out and let me know what you think! :)

On Monday we finally got that new roof that the home inspector told us we needed three years ago when we bought our home. We didn’t have any leaks or major problems, but we were living with an original roof that was 23 years old and needed to be replaced.

The quote for the roof was reasonable, so we decided to have them replace the garage roof as well. Lots of banging and a few grand later, we have a lovely “weathered wood” roof.

Pup was reasonably well-behaved but didn’t like all the roofing debris that was flying past the windows. We stayed downstairs during the whole ordeal because you could barely hear yourself think with all the noise in the office… not to mention people walking by the windows!

We’re suckers for silly signs, and a recent post on the travel blog Gadline had a great roundup of 10 hilarious bathroom signs.

On Saturday, Eric and I attended a fundraiser for NC Children’s Hospitals that was not only a great cause but a very fun evening of wine tasting, meeting new people and catching up with others.

We wrote an extensive review of all the wines we enjoyed over on triangleVINO.com, so I won’t repeat it here, but there were plenty of amazing wines being poured even if not all of them were my taste.

I also came home with two silver wine bottle tag souvenirs after I got into a playful argument with one of the distributors about how I thought one of his wines was tarty. It was a fun evening!

There were approximately three times the number of reds to whites, so (as you might expect) Eric drove us home. :)

Last night we met some friends for a lovely dinner at 18 Seaboard in downtown Raleigh. We discovered this restaurant when we ate next door at J. Betski’s for my birthday dinner, and when Eric noticed they had a flat-iron steak on the menu, we were sold.

I’m glad I made reservations online because this place was bustling at 7pm. I started with the peach sangria which I liked but Eric thought it was a little watery. For wine Eric had a glass of the Dr. Loosen Riesling and I had a glass of the Four Vines Zinfindel with my meal.

We split a field green salad that was really fresh and had just the right amount of dressing- and how can you go wrong with pine nuts? Eric had the flat-iron steak with the reduced-balsamic and blue cheese sauce and I had the bourbon-glazed ribeye with a brandy peppercorn sauce. Both were quite tasty. We finished with hot chocolate cake in a mug, which was rich without being too sweet.

Thankfully, even thought the restaurant was busy and nearly full, it was easy to converse at a normal level. The service was great, efficient and quick. They always seemed to be around at the right moment without being overbearing. Overall, we really liked our experience, and we’ll definitely be back.

Eric and I headed over to Wine Authorities last night to celebrate their first birthday with a glass of cava/champagne and grab dinner at Only Burger, Durham Catering‘s newest addition.

(I like that a guy from Q-Shack across the street is standing in line for his burger!)

We arrived around 5:30pm and there was already a huge line, so we put our order in then headed inside to grab a glass of champagne. The wine shop was absolutely mobbed and I saw Seth hurry by with his arms full of champagne, so I’m sure the night went well for them.

The highlight was definitely the burgers! We were very sad when Starlu closed last year and these burgers are reminiscent of Sam Poley’s numbered specialty burgers that we enjoyed at Starlu. It’s a great concept, you get either a single or a double with all the fixings (including cheese) for $4 or $6.50, crispy seasoned fries are $2, and add a coke or sprite for $1.25.

The burger was perfectly cooked and the fries were delicious. They missed the mayo on mine and Eric’s had mustard and tomato even though he asked for none, but they were pretty swamped and probably overwhelmed by the turnout. At least it wasn’t pouring like it had been all day!

We’ll definitely be keeping our eyes to the internets to see where the truck pops up next, what a great addition to Durham!

Over the last seven years, we have grown from best friends who hiked a lot into world travel companions, daily cheerleaders for each others life challenges, and parents to a rescued canine.

We have visited 20 different states and 8 different countries together.

Every day I wake up he is absolutely the first person I want to see.

Happy anniversary Eric!

Unicoi State Park in April, 2001

We are celebrating tonight with a swiss cheese fondue and a sparkling wine from the Finger Lakes, just a sampling of the trips we’ve taken together over the past year.

I hope I won’t need this because of the Chicago Bears performance, but with Madden commentating, I would highly recommend it.

Sangria for One

1 Tbsp brandy
1/4 cup orange juice
6.5 oz red wine (I used a tempranillo)
1 tsp sugar
1Tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 slices of lemon
2 slices of lime
a few chunks of peach
1/4 cup club soda

Combine first 5 ingredients in a sauce pan and heat under low heat until sugar dissolves, swirling the pan. Remove from heat, add lemon and lime and chill. Add club soda just before serving. Pour over ice and enjoy the game!

(Please God, let us not be blown out.)

As has been in the news, Tropical Storm Hanna passed over the Carolinas today. We started getting rain yesterday afternoon, and overnight, the main portion of the storm passed over the Triangle. The wind wasn’t too bad, but we did get a bunch of rain, and eventually woke up to this:

Most of the front yard was under water, especially the drainage area along the road:

Now, this doesn’t look like much, but it’s at least 4+ feet deep in the middle! In fact, I was standing in about 6″ of water while standing on our driveway taking this shot.

The backyard has a small “dry”creek that flows during heavy rain conditions, and this is the most water flow I’ve ever seen.

All of our gutters are connected to a drainage network that carries water away from the house – at the low part in the front corner of the house there was too much water pressure from all the other gutters, sending the water shooting up the drainage. In this shot I pulled it away from the house to let the water flow away from the house a bit.

We didn’t get any pictures of Riesling in this, but needless to say, she was a wet mess after going out in the morning and was not amused.