Spring Pictures!

So life has been pretty busy these past few months which hasn't left me much time to keep up with the blog. I wanted to share a few pictures from the Spring and will hopefully blog about our amazing trip to Italy this week! Thanks for reading!

In April James and I traveled back to Long Island for my cousin Ashley's Confirmation. I had the great honor of being her Sponsor. Below is a picture of James and I at his parent's house with his nephew Danny and niece Bella!

Ashley, Jessica and me outside of St Francis after Confirmation

While James and I were home a bunch of my sorority sisters from Stony Brook came out to Huntington for the night. It was so wonderful to see and catch up with everyone!

My cousin and one of my closest friends, Farrell, is expecting her first child. It is such an exciting time in our family and we were all able to travel to Virginia Beach in May to celebrate with her at her baby shower!

A Lot Of New York Sports!

These past few weeks James and I have been spending a lot of our time at New York sporting events! In 8 days we went to 2 Yankee games and a Knick game down here in Florida. It has made us feel like we aren't so far away from home!

The Yankees spend their springtime in Tampa at George Steinbrenner field for spring training. We live about 5 minutes west of the stadium and a bunch of the players actually live in our apartment complex. As Yankee fans it has been exciting running into some of our neighbors on a daily basis. Brett Gardner lives in the building next to us so we would see him almost everyday walking his dog. We ran into Joe Girardi at the grocery store and Eric Chavez one night while we were out to dinner. Jamie even got to hang out with Curtis Granderson one night at a Tampa Bay Lightning game and then again at one of the bars by where we live. A bunch of the girls I work with saw Jeter on his daily Starbucks run but I was never lucky enough to run into him-maybe next year! We tried to take advantage of seeing the Yankees while they were here in Tampa, we went and saw one of their last spring training games against the Phillies. It was a lot of fun and unique in the fact that it was a home game for the Yankees so a lot of Yankee traditions were the same, the groundsmen even danced to the YMCA during the 7th inning stretch. Here is a picture of James and I before the game! The Yankees pulled out a win and since we were sitting in the middle of a bunch of Phillies fans it made it even more exciting!

Less than a week after we went to the Yankees spring training game we headed up to Orlando for the New York Knicks vs. Orlando Magic game. I got James the tickets for Christmas, so us and two friends drove up to the game after work and stayed in Orlando for two nights. We were at the game the day that it was released that Dwight Howard had asked that Stan Van Gundy be fired. You could see the tension and awkwardness on the court from our seats. It was also great to see the Knicks have a stress free win! After the game we went out in downtown Orlando for a few drinks. In the morning we got up and went to Sea World, I had never been so I was really excited. We did all of the fun Sea World touristy things there is to do like ride the roller coasters and attend the Shamu show. Here is a picture I took of tip-off at the Knicks game.

Saturday morning we returned to Tampa for another fun filled day of New York sports. This time we headed south to St Pete and went and saw the Yankees play at Tropicana field against the Tampa Bay Rays. A group of our friends all got tickets together so we all went to Fergs before the game, Fergs is a large sports bar across from the Trop-it has a large outdoor area and they had a live band playing all afternoon. The game was a bit rough for us Yankee fans but we know that there are many games left in the season! Below is a picture of James and I back at Fergs grabbing a post game drink. 

We ended our busy weekend with a relaxing Easter Sunday. Our original plan included brunch across the street from us at this beautiful restaurant that sits over the water called the Rusty Pelican but instead we decided to stay home and order in and watch some movies. It wasn't exactly a traditional Easter but it worked for us. Of course we couldn't have Easter without some cute treats, I made these little peeps in chocolate covered pretzel nests for our friends and co-workers. I had made them last year too and they are just too cute to pass up!

James and I are gearing up for another busy week ahead. We are flying back to New York after work this Wednesday night until Sunday afternoon. My cousin Ashley is making her Confirmation and I have the honor of being her sponsor! I taught Ashley's religious education class last year so all of my students will be making their Confirmation as well, I am very excited to see them all! We are really looking forward to spending time with our families and friends and catching up with everyone. I am sure that I will have lots of pictures and stories to share the next time that I post. 

Thanks for reading:)

A busy few months!

So I have been totally slacking and haven't written in a while! James and I have had a busy few months here in Tampa.

I finally got to celebrate my first Gasparilla at the end of January. Anyone who is familiar with Tampa knows about Gasparilla or 'pirate fest'. In the late 1700s a pirate by the name of Jose Gaspar invaded the now city of Tampa. Tampa 'celebrates' that invasion with a parade called Gasparilla. Thousands of people dress up as pirates and line Bayshore (a road along the water here in Tampa), and floats sponsored by community businesses and local sports teams drive by and throw beads to the parade attendees. Here is a picture of James and I at the parade with all of the beads James caught for me!

The weekend after Gasparilla James and I headed down to Naples for the Super Bowl. James' parents rent a home in the Naples area for a month during the winter and host an annual Super Bowl party. James is a huge Giants fan so this was obviously a very exciting weekend for him! James' cousins Chris and Brendan came to Naples too so it was nice to spend time with lots of family. We spent the weekend at the pool and relaxing until it was game time. The game was a nail biter so everyone was on the edge of their seat watching but we were all very excited when the Giants pulled out the win. James and I have been pretty fortunate with our teams these last two years, each of our teams have had a Super Bowl win!

Mid February brought a new job for me! I was promoted from my customer service position at Kforce into a recruiting role. I survived an intense three week training and was even named Valedictorian of my training class. I am now apart of our West team or one of the 'Gateway Girls' at Kforce, which means that I recruit for positions, mostly in the IT field, in our Denver, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Kansas City and St. Louis markets. So far I am loving my new job, it has brought longer hours and a lot more work but I am up for the challenge.

James' cousin Brendan came down to Tampa to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with us! James took Friday off from work and him and Brendan got to spend some time at the pool enjoying the gorgeous weather we have been having. On Saturday a few friends came over for a BBQ and we spent the afternoon at the pool. Later that day we headed into South Tampa to one of our favorite bars called Yard of Ale. They are famous for their yards of craft beer but of course on St. Patrick's Day our beer of choice was green. Here are a few pictures from our night out-not holding green beers

 Eric, James, Dan & Brendan

James, Brendan & me

The next few months will also be pretty busy, but exciting for us. We recently resigned our lease so we will be staying in our apartment for another year. We will also be traveling a lot from now until June including trips to New York and Italy!!! We (I) will try to keep this updated a bit more especially with pictures from our upcoming trips. 

Here are a few more pictures from the past few months here in Tampa. Thanks for reading!!! xoxo

A February sunset at the beach across the street from our apartment

Watching the sunset right outside the apartment

Birthday Celebrations!

Last weekend we celebrated my birthday here in Tampa. I had started to plan a little get together but Jamie told me to stop because he had a surprised planned. This of course got me excited, because I LOVE surprises but since I am such a planner (and pretty nosy) it is hard to surprise me. I spent the entire week trying to get clues out of Jamie and our friends as to what as going on. I was only able to figure out minimal details since Jamie's friends 'accidentally' gave me clues that turned out to be wrong to try and throw me off.

Friday night arrived and all I knew was that I had to pack an overnight bag and the fact that I was running late was making Jamie really nervous! We drove for about 40 minutes and soon arrived at our friend Eric's house. Inside I found about 12 of my friends, we stayed at Eric's for a bit when Jamie directed us all outside to get into the cabs. I walked out to the front yard and Jamie told me they were to the right of the house, so I started walking that way and saw a black limo waiting for us! A few more friends joined us and we all piled in and headed to dinner in downtown St. Pete at Bella Brava. I was really very surprised and touched by how thoughtful James had been to plan this as well as excited that all my friends were there to share in the fun night!

Gwen, Kim & Me

 (Mona, Megan & Stephanie are behind that weird flash of light!)

Gwen, Kim & Me

 James & Pat

We had dinner at Bella Brava (the ex Governor Charlie Crist was there too!) and then headed over to First Friday. First Friday is a festival that St. Pete hosts the first Friday of every month. They close down the streets and have live music and all the bars have parties. We hung out in St. Pete the rest of the night and went to a bunch of the bars. I had a lot of fun celebrating my birthday with my friends here in Tampa! We all then headed back to Eric's and stayed there for the night. In the morning we took the long trip to the beach (and by long trip I mean walked one block!). The weather was a little cool but it was still a nice beach day.

On Saturday night Jamie planned for a bunch of us to go to dinner at Irish 31 a new restaurant that had just opened in Tampa that I really wanted to try. We had dinner there and watched the Bengals Texans game and then met up with some more friends in South Tampa. Sunday we spent the morning relaxing until the Giants game. Although admittedly I cheered for the Giants until about the 3rd quarter, the fact that they won will make for an interesting day in the Irving/Early household this Sunday.  I had such a wonderful birthday weekend that Jamie decided to extend it to this weekend! We are continuing the celebrations this weekend up in Orlando as my Christmas and Birthday presents. Hopefully I will have lots of fun things to blog about next week!

Thanks for reading and GoPackGo!!!

New Years in Fort Lauderdale

After we returned from our Christmas vacation in New York we went back to work, me for 4 days and James for 2 (we have a use it or loose it policy at Kforce). Jamie had Thursday and Friday off so he headed up to Orlando Thursday to meet his cousins Chris and Brendan for the Notre Dame bowl game. Chris and Brendan are both Notre Dame Alumni, Chris lives in Fort Lauderdale and Brendan in New York-he was visiting Chris for Christmas and New Years. The boys visited some local bars with other Notre Dame Alumni before the big game. Unfortunately the outcome of the game was not what they had hoped, but they enjoyed catching up and hanging out with each other!

Chris, Brendan, Marty & James

Friday after I finished work James and I made the trip over to Fort Lauderdale to spend New Years with Chris and Brendan. I had never been to Ft Lauderdale so I was pretty excited. The weather was absolutely perfect for our trip. Friday night we went to a few local places like Elbo Room and  Lulu's. We then spent Saturday afternoon on the beach relaxing and getting some much needed sun! Chris and Brendan's friends Michelle and Tony met us and Chris' apartment and we started off Saturday night by walking over to YOLO (you only live once), this great bar right by Chris's apartment. We then headed to Himmarshee, a part of Ft Lauderdale with lots of bars and restaurants. They closed down the streets there and sort of had a block party. There was live music and they had bars set up in the street. They also had a mini ball that dropped at midnight. We all had a lot of fun and since it was about 70 degrees it was nice to be able to spend our New Years Eve outside.

James, Brendan, Chris & Tony

James & Me in front of the ball! 

We spent New Years day at Chris' pool and then went over to the the Hard Rock Casino in Ft Lauderdale for dinner and to watch the Giants game. Luckily everyone left a winner, including the Giants, except me-I just left a year older:) All in all we had a fantastic time; we could not have asked for a better New Years or a better way to start 2012!

Christmas in New York

James and I returned to New York for the Christmas holiday on December 17th and spent ten days visiting with friends and family. We hadn't been home since May so we were pretty anxious to return and see everyone! Our first night home we ventured out to Huntington with my best friend Lisa, my brother and Jamie's cousins. We visited some of our favorite places including Honu and Little Vincent's. In the morning we went to a local bar and painfully watched the Packers suffer their only regular season loss. The pain was numbed however, by the company of good friends.

We spent the remainder of the pre Christmas week spending as much time with friends and family as possible. On Monday night we took my cousins Ashley and Jessi to look at Christmas lights, we ran into a small glitch (the place where we went was closed) but still had a great time.  On Tuesday our good friends planned a dinner for us so we could all catch up and celebrate the engagement of Jen and Robbie (which we are super excited about!!!!). Another afternoon we spent with Jamie's brother Dan, sister in law Tara, niece Bella and nephew Danny at Bella's class Christmas party. The kids were really excited to show us where they went to school and meet some of their friends.

The Christmas weekend approached quickly and brought many traditions for the Earlys and Irvings. On Friday the 23rd the Earlys celebrated Christmas together. Jamie has two older brothers who are married and have some pretty cute kiddies so we all got together. Here are a few pictures from the night

Brothers and their Blondes:)

Jason, Olivia, Bella, CJ and Danny

I had to sneak out of the Christmas festivities a little early to meet my family for dinner. We have started a pre Christmas family tradition and all meet for dinner at Samurai Hibachi in Huntington. The night was filled with volcano bowls, sake bombs and lots of laughs with our family.  Saturday is when the real fun began though. Since before I was born my Mom's side of the family has gathered on Christmas Eve for a party, the most memorable staple is the Champagne Punch. It was first hosted by my Grammy at her house and has since been passed down to my Mom (and me) and is now a night full of appetizers, champagne punch and Christmas carols!  We try and get creative with the appetizers we serve, some favorites include fried macaroni and cheese, the mashed potato bar, Christmas tree little hot dogs and of course bagel bites. The morning of Christmas Eve I came down with a cold which slowed me down a bit but I still think that everyone had a wonderful time! Here are some pictures below of a few of the appetizers we served. 

The Infamous Champagne Punch

Snowman Cheese Ball

Christmas Tree Little Hot Dogs

Mashed Potato and Toppings Bar

Bandit in his Christmas outfit, he was not happy 

( if you couldn't tell by the look he is giving me)

On Christmas morning I went with Jamie and his parents to his brother Dave and sister in law Jenn's house to have breakfast and watch Livi, Jason and CJ open presents. It was fun to see how excited they were to open their gifts! In the afternoon Jamie and I went to my Aunt Helen's house for Christmas Day dinner. We had a great time and dinner was excellent, as always! Afterwards we went back to Jamie's to celebrate with his parents and to watch the Packer game. Monday morning brought one last family tradition-the Pancake Cottage. Every year for as long as any of us can remember we spend the morning after Christmas at the Pancake Cottage in Greenlawn. We almost always sit at the same two tables and we rarely change what we order. After breakfast a few last family members stopped by our house to spend my last  few hours in New York with me and celebrate Christmas once again! Around 7pm that night Jamie and I headed to the airport to return to Tampa. We had such an amazing trip and it was nice to see so many of our friends and family. Although we didn't get to see everyone, my cold really slowed us down at the end, we will be back at the end of April for 5 days so hopefully we will get to see everyone then:)

Turkey Day Crafts & Recipes

This year Jamie's family joined us here in Tampa for Thanksgiving and he and I hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner. It took a lot of planning and preparation but it seemed to come together pretty seamlessly.  We worked very hard to ensure that it would be a day filled with fabulous food and creative crafts in hopes that our guests would have a terrific time! Below are many pictures from dinner as well as some instructions on how to recreate some of the recipes and crafts in case you are already planning for next year!

We had eight adults and two children join us for Thanksgiving so we set our dining room table along with a spare folding table that we had. I bought a fall themed table cloth and napkins from Bed Bath and Beyond. I used the candles we already had from Halloween but replaced the candy corn with cranberries and walnuts and the centerpiece was a cornucopia filled with fresh flowers that Jamie's mom brought us. The table settings were something that I worked really hard on to make unique. I purchased clear glass plates and decoupaged fall leaves on the back in order to make beautiful fall dinner plates. Since the tablecloth and plates had the fall leaves theme in common I really wanted to tie the table setting together with some turkeys! I found a template for these place cards (please disregard the fact that I found them on a website entitled amazingmoms.com, I swear it is not a site that I frequent!) and made a couple of changes which resulted in some very cute place cards! Jamie was in charge of folding the napkins and with all things put together the table looked gorgeous!

For a while I had known that I wanted to have a turkey shaped bread bowl as an appetizer. It took a little research but finally I ended up with a pretty easy and cute one! I took a pre made bread bowl and sliced off the top. I took that top piece and sliced it in half to use as the wings on the side of the bowl and attached them with toothpicks. I then took the end of a french bread loaf and sliced off a small piece to use as the turkey's head. I created the turkey's face by using raisins for eyes, a carrot for a beak and a roasted red pepper for the wattle. I bought craft feathers from Michaels and filled the bowl with my own hot spinach dip to complete the turkey! The turkey bread bowl was a favorite of our guests on Thanksgiving.

As for dinner I kept it pretty traditional. We had turkey cooked in a bag which is still a crazy concept to me but it really keeps the turkey extremely juicy! Mashed potatoes were the side everyone was most looking forward to so I made almost 10 pounds! We also had Mac N Cheese, which is a very popular Thanksgiving side in the south so it didn't take much convincing for me to include it. My favorite side of the night was this Green Bean Casserole, it is seriously awesome-no condensed soup here! The slight changes I made were I omitted the mushrooms, we are not big mushroom people, I used good ol' french fried onions instead of the shallots (I just couldn't part with them) and I cooked it for about 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven. I would seriously recommend trying this as a side for a non Thanksgiving dinner, it is that good! We also had two types of stuffing; one was regular that I stuffed Tom Turkey with and the other had craisins and granny smith apples in it. I also made my own cranberry sauce-the thought of the one in the can really freaks me out-plus it is super easy to make.  We had creamed corn, corn bread and semi homemade biscuits as well. I think it was safe to say no one finished dinner hungry! We had some great desserts that were brought by Jamie's mom and Jamie's cousin's girlfriend, Elisha. Dinner was followed by the usual Early Holiday Hunt and a great time was had by all!

Thanks for reading & we hope you had a nice holiday!

Love,

Jamie, Crystal & Bandit