BELLS, BOWS, and BOOZE!

Kara and I found enough friends to host an ugly Christmas sweater party on Friday, which was a success!  We had roughly 30 peeps all cozied in our festive condo. We had quite the crew: ranging from dodgeball friends, Five Points neighbors, gym friends, co-workers (and boss), and randoms. We figured out if our PT careers take a turn for the worst we have party planning to fall back on.  The night was relatively a blur, as we started drinking wine, jello shots, and chocolate vodka a tad too early and not wanting to stop until 3am.  Drinking games were played, romance was in the air (thanks to our mistletoe), and the photos are priceless, some of which had to be deleted. Not to mention, I rocked a onesie...thats right, they make them for adults, although I had a permanent wedgie. Friday night was a blast, but Saturday not so much! We were pretty much wasted space on Saturday! Blame it on the alcohol! I popped multiple Ibuprofens throughout the day and had almost 13 hrs of sleep Saturday night…needless to say I can’t hang like I used to.  Cathy Hester if you are reading this, we are sorry.  If something is broken please bill it to our company, CompHealth. Thanks again for letting us stay in your condo and we promise we won’t throw any parties until next yearJ  Today was once again uneventful.  We were productive this morning and went to Church with our friend Steph.  We figured we better pray hard for everything that took place on Friday night.  One more work week and then time to head back to Ohio! We are both excited to spend the holidays with family and friends.  Merry Christmas and talk to you all next year!

Mama Poling is in the house!

Sarah's mama came to visit us the weekend of December 17-19!  She is a Delaware first timer, well was, and she loved it.  The Poling ladies did alot of shopping, froze their feet off in order to step in the ocean, and ate some delicious seafood.  Sarah took her mom to Ocean City, Maryland to see a bunch of Christmas lights and get in the holiday spirit.  Mrs. Poling might just be Mrs. Claus though because she is all about Christmas!  She brought us a frosty that senses motion and sings loud tunes, don't worry we put it in the bathroom above the toilet to freak everyone out.  She also packed a variety of Christmas decorations including antlers and a christmas tree headband.  She is a wonderful lady and hopefully the Poling's and Gintert's will be visiting each state we move too!

I also began my duty as dog/house sitter for my coworker.  I know what you are all thinking, someone trusts you with their house and animal?  The answer is yes and I didn't burn the place down.  Dakota is an 11 year old black lab and we bonded.  Dogs are awesome but I'm not responsible enough to have one.  It's below freezing outside and Dakota wanted to run around the town.  Then she realized I had a weak spot for her puppy dog eyes and she pretty much got a treat for breathing. Sarah and I are starting our second round of housesitting the day after Christmas for another coworker.  If this whole PT thing falls through, looks like we have a second career!

New York, New York!

Ohhh where to begin??? Well Sarah and I have been slacking on the blog, but stop crying because today is the day you have all been waiting for.  Below are the juicy details from the last 3 weeks of the lives of Kara & Sarah.

December 10-12:  THE BIG APPLE

Sarah and I made a road trip up to NYC for some fun in the big city.  We stayed with my friend Sean, who is a baller and lives right in the heart of Manhattan.  It took us about 3 hours to drive to Jersey, with a stop on the way to get booze for Sean and his roomies (obvious thank you gift for dudes).  It dawned on me on the car ride up that we would have to carry the 30 pack of bud light and the bottle of Jameson along with 2 duffle bags and a bookbag.  Yes, we overpacked, but remember NYC is the fashion capital of the United States so we had to bring some cool gear.  After parking our car somewhere in Jersey, the journey to find our way to NYC on foot began.  People were pretty friendly (probably because they wanted our liquor stash) and we made it to the PATH train to go across to NYC.  We arrived in NYC and found our tour guide for the weekend.  I forgot to mention that Sean is currently a gimp due to a foot surgery (injury sustained in a hockey game, ha well that’s the story he told his work but the real story is slightly different and involves alcohol), anyway, so being on crutches in NYC is a big bummer.  We met Sean’s awesome roomies and we hit up a couple of bars near his apartment.  Men in the big apple dress really well with scarves and sweaters and well it took me a little while to get used to it because I felt like they were all gay, but hey whatever floats your boat.  Drinks were expensive and I’m glad I’m not an alcoholic, but the bars were really swanky, decorated for Christmas and large & in charge.  Saturday morning, Sarah and I awoke and were ready to explore the greatest city on earth.  We left Sean’s place at 9 am and did not return until 5 pm.  Sean may have been overserved the night before and due to his gimp status, did not make the excursion.  We made our way to Times Square, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, Macy’s, picked up a few items at Prada, Guicci, and Harry Winston’s, and stopped in at MSG to chat with Spike Lee.  Things we loved about NYC:  shopping (you can find affordable stuff), street performers, people watching, every type of food you can imagine, street meat on every corner, starbucks (Sarah is an addict and she was in heaven), and the beautiful Christmas decorations.  Saturday night we went to a birthday party for one of Sean’s friends and we showed NYC how the Midwest rolls.  People kept saying “you girls aren’t from the east coast are you?”  I was in a dance off with a man in camo and Sarah almost got in a fight with some girl with reindeer antlers (she was a whackjob and Sarah would have jacked her up).  Anyway, no one got arrested and sometime around 3 am we made it back to the apartment.  Sunday brunch is the big ‘to-do’ in NYC so we followed along and did that, which was delicious.  We found our car and made our way back to the big Del later that day.  Things that we didn’t like about NYC: pigeons, taxes (Taxfree Delaware looks better everyday), high prices on everything, the wind/cold, traffic, and crazy cab drivers that made me fear for my life.  Overall, NYC is a blast to visit, neither of us plan to live there anytime soon, but everyone needs to visit.  Thank you to Sean and his roomies for letting us crash for the weekend J

Visitors & Victories!

     It's official, we had our first visitors!  The state of Delaware and all it's glory welcomed Mark and Lana Gintert on this Thanksgiving weekend.  My wonderful parents arrived Friday evening and stayed until Sunday afternoon.  Sarah and I spent Thanksgiving day at our coworker Holly's house with her family.  It was so nice of Holly to adopt us and we couldn't have asked for a better group of people to enjoy the holidays with.  I believe I ate my body weight in desserts (there was pecan pie, cranberry pie, dutch apple pie made by yours truly, and pumpkin cake).  Holly's dog, Dakota, also enjoyed the pumpkin cake since she ate about half of the cake when it was left outside due to lack of frig storage room.  She was a trooper though and kept the cake down, while also cleaning up any scraps that fell on the floor.  We topped the evening off by going to bed before 9 o'clock, yep we are crazy.  Instead of spending cash we don't have on black friday, Dr. Poling and I saved lives all day at the hospital.  I'm starting to realize that being an adult means you can't just go on vacation whenever you want and for some reason you don't get multiple week breaks between quarters.... on the positive side though, we did receive our second paycheck, which later got spent outlet shopping with my parents.  It's tax free shopping here in the big del so certain items just scream "buy me." Friday night we ate with my parents at FINS and I lost my crab cake virginity!  I feel cheated because I have went 25 years without these delicious morsels.  Sidenote-a few other random things I've noticed about Delaware:  1.  It's always windy, Chicago has nothing on this place.  2.  There are no targets here and I love target.   3. Ohio should have more crab cakes.  4. Everyone here says hello, good morning, or some other greeting, more people should embrace that.  5. Windsurfing sounds fun.  6. One day I wanna be able to say "I live in.... and I have a beach house in..." 
     Guess what?  For the 6th or 7th year in a row, OHIO STATE BEAT MICHIGAN (I lost track, but who cares because we just keep dominating).  Nice work bucks! We went to the Green Turtle Saturday to watch the game and luckily we had our own booth and tv so my dad's swearing didn't disturb others at the bar.  On Saturday night I made another big step in my life and paid for dinner!  Now, I don't think I would like to make this a frequent occurence, but after all the money I have cost them over the years, I think it's the least I could do.  Oh and in other news, someone egged my car in the parking lot.  Yeah apparently people still throw cars at eggs and think it's funny.  I haven't even lived here long enough to piss someone off and not to mention that I have yet to see another person under the age of 25 around.  It was probably someone from Michigan....

      We are NYC bound on Friday!  Two country girls hitting the big city.... should be a blast :)

FALL FUN: Football, Gay Bars, & Punkin Ale!

I am slacking on the blog so we will combine the last 2 weekends into 1. This weekend’s blog may be a little short due to me not recalling details of last night.  I will blame it on my good friend, Mr.  Jagermeister! A special shout out to you and the pounding headache you left me with this morning.

Back tracking to Friday, November 12, 2010… a day to mark down in the record book.  Kara and I finally received our first ever real paychecks.  I think our parents are just as excited as we are.   We felt rich for about 2 seconds and then realized we have school loans and taxes, which are a bitch…Mr. Obama if you follow our blog and happen to be reading this, would you be so kind to lower them? Thank you!  Friday night we met with friends ( yes, we found a few) for dinner at the Summer House. The evening ended with a trip to the Purple Parrot; a classy, romantic bar in Delaware ideal for people watching.   A big crowd was in attendance for karaoke night complete with a few drag queens and a lot of flaming homosexuals singing Celine Dion and Cher.  Picture standing up, waving your hands in the air, shouting out Cher’s lyrics to Believe. Nothing to brag about, but that was us and we stole the show. We looked a bit out of place as we were the only straight people there, but we made a few gay friends that night.  We were told Sunday nights are the best to attend with entertainment consisting of a full out drag show.  It is on our “to do list” while in Delaware.  Saturday was complete with a big win from our Buckeyes. O-H!  I wish we could say the same about our Browns on Sunday, but we won’t even go there!

This past Friday we were dorks and were in bed by 10:00. Kara and I watched a chick flick and went through an entire box of tissues.  I guess when you get a real job you turn lame on Friday nights. Saturday was once again complete with a victory from the Buckeyes.  It was not pretty, but a win is a win.  Our neighbors probably think I was beating Kara from all of our screaming at the TV. Last night we went to Dogfish Brewery and sampled a few beers.  It’s putting Delaware on the map as the Discovery channel is filming a series about it called Brew Master, which is airing tonight.  We then went down the street to Summer House. You know it’s a successful night when I had to ice my knee this morning from all my stellar dance moves.  Welp it’s now almost noon, it took me a lot longer to write this entry due to killing too many brain cells last night. Time to hit up the outlets and do some Christmas shopping…my favorite time of the year! Kara is starting to see the true side of me and my obsession with Christmas. I have been rocking out to Christmas music the past 3 weeks.  Side note, I would dominate all of you at Christmas music trivia, so if anyone is up for the challenge please let me know! “There is no singing in the north pole”  For any of you wanting to make a trip to the big Del, we are hosting a Christmas party on December 17^th. We bought 20 invitations, so we are hoping to find enough friends to make this party rockin! Christmas attire is a must for entry!

It's Punkin Chunkin time!

For as long as I can remember I have loved chocolate, basketball, men with good teeth, sarcasm, traveling, and redneck events.  There is nothing better than people getting together, sipping on some brewdogs, and just enjoying life: hence why I jumped at the chance to attend the 25th annual Pumpkin Chunkin event in Bridgeville, Delaware.  The big cheese of the hospital that I work out told me I needed to experience it and warned me that I should get a DD, so naturally I have been planning to attend for the past 2 weeks.  The discovery channel brings a camera crew and captures this wonderful event that is held every year the weekend after halloween, where people come from all over the country and build machines to launch pumpkins.  Categories include: catapult, cannons, slingshots, and of course man power.  There is also a miss punkin chunkin pageant, and we got their too late, but I would have loved a shot at that crown.  Words can't describe this beautiful festival and please just check out the pictures.  I felt connected to my portage county Ohio roots and for a brief second, missed the smell of the pigs across from Southeast High School.  You enter the festival by driving through a cornfield, there are no rules to how much booze you can bring in, and their is fair food everywhere.  More than 100,000 people attend and 75% of them are wearing camo.  Nasa engineers help design the cannons (yeah I thought they would have something better to do but I guess not) and they shoot these pumpkins over 4400 feet!  Someone yells out "fire in the hole" and when the pumpkin is launched you loose it in the sky like its a golf ball.  Definitely a site to see and it's not too early to make your hotel reservations for next year.  Sarah was back in Ohio this weekend for a wedding and she was not happy that she missed Punkin Chunkin.  In case you also didn't know....THE BROWNS BEAT THE PATRIOTS TODAY!  Not just beat, but dominated.  I was at a bar by our condo and I was getting some weird looks as I kept chanting 'here we go brownies' and continued to bark!  Another great weekend in the Big Del, oh and we made a couple of new friends, expanding our friend circle to about 10 haha, watch out!  Goal is to have enough friends to throw a Bon Voyage party in January when we peace out :) 

Welcome to the Big Delawhere???

Our first weekend in the Dirty Del, was interesting to say the least.  It’s always hard to adjust no matter where you move, so we are trying to be social butterflies and meet new people every chance we come by. Unfortunately we came to Delaware at a bad time, all the hot surfers and their brothers are gone for the winter. However, thankfully it was Halloween weekend, an awesome opportunity for conversation starters. We decided to venture out on the town on Friday night and stop by a random Halloween party. Kara and I went as the “walk of shame”.  Only 1 of 5 people in Delaware knew what that meant…I guess it’s a college thing which is hard to come by in this state.  There were some sweet costumes….anything from legos, to Tiger Woods and Elin, pot leaf, to jailbirds (no costume needed).  Entertainment was provided by a black ninja and an Asian Luigi, which gave us quite a few laughs.  Cigarettes were a requirement to enter the party. We asked each other, are we being punked right now?  Saturday was very productive: joined a gym, went to wal-mart, grocery shopping, and accidentally entered a Halloween parade…no big deal, I just told Kara to smile and wave. It didn’t even compare to our post Hyatt sleepover, dodging 40,000 + runners at the Race for the Cure in our stilettos.  Saturday night we went down the road to the Rusty Rudder, a fine drinking establishment right on the bay. I have never seen so much cleavage ( ladies, gents, and everyone else in between)! There needs to be a regulation on Halloween costumes…more than just a piece of cloth or a tassle! We met a Mexican (Me gusta his stylo) and his donkey who introduced us to Mr. Chester Baxter.  For any of you who don’t know Chester...watch out! Mike Ditka won the costume contest, but we should have got a prize for most creative. Our night ended early due to the ridiculousness of a 1:00 last call! Seriously, who does that…take me back to Ohio! Tomorrow is Monday, so I guess it’s time to do big girl stuff and start an official job for the first time in 26 years.

Hello Real World- Kara & Sarah reporting for duty

Finding a photographer, booking a reception hall, bridal gown shopping, choosing a cake topper, all of which are difficult decisions that many 25 year old women face; however, not in our case.  We are too busy buying onesies, pacifiers, and pampers for our little bundles of joys. Ok that's a lie too because Sarah and I are still on our parent's cell phone plans, call our parents before making any big decisions like paper or plastic, and have just recently ditched ramon noodles for big girl food; no babies for us.  After 4 years of undergraduate work and 3 years of grad school at Ohio State to earn our doctorate degree in physical therapy, Sarah and I decided that it was time for us to contribute to the work force. When we were trying to determine our post graduate plans, we decided that we don't know where we wanna settle down, what particular patient population we wanna work in, and where our future husbands live. Therefore, the idea of being a traveling physical therapist sounded like pure bliss.  We signed up for this sweet gig and are now hitting the road, ready to conquer the world.  We will work in a particular city for 13 weeks and then move on to the next, all while living in apartments/condos that our company pays for. This blog is going to serve not only a memoir for us along the way, but we wanted to keep our family and friends updated on our whereabouts.  Sarah and I have a tendency to end up in very interesting situations, so feel free to laugh at us or with us throughout this expedition.  Don't worry, we will try to keep things PG, but we are not making any promises.  We are both firm believers in living life to the fullest and checking off every item on our bucket list, so what better time then now to get this party started.  First stop: Lewes, Delaware!