Jeep, Jeep!

Rob had scheduled to test drive a Jeep Wrangler last Saturday after I returned from my work trip.  Little did either of us know, the little scheduled test drive would end with us bringing home a new 4-wheel drive toy!  When Rob had asked me if I would be interested in a getting a Jeep, he anticipated that I would say, “Not really” or “I’d rather have a couch”.  Unfortunately (or fortunately?!), I said, “Jeeps are fun!  But I would only want one if it was a manual transmission.”  So, after spending last Saturday working over numbers, calling the insurance company to determine what our new costs would be, finding a lender who had a rate we liked, and finally bargaining for a price we were willing to pay, we walked out with a 2009 Jeep Wrangler – 6-speed manual, of course!

This weekend, we decided to have a little fun with the Jeep and try out some minor off roading.  We had just received quite a bit of rain and everything was still nice and muddy!!  I snapped this picture of Rob with the Jeep using his camera phone right before we hosed it off at the car wash.  Don’t know how well you can see the plant sticking out of the front license plate, but it was there!!

We are on the lookout for public off roading trails to get out and have some more fun!  Of course, we also can’t wait for summer when we can take off the doors and cruise around topless – the JEEP, not us!!!! 

 

Wonderful Wedding Weekend

Our wedding weekend turned out to be absolutely fantastic!  Friday evening, we had the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.  Rob’s parents threw a wonderful rehearsal dinner at The Tides and invited all of the out-of-town guests.  This enabled everyone to have another night (in addition to the wedding) to meet new people and catch up with friends and relatives we haven’t seen in quite some time… not to mention an additional opportunity for delicious food!

Saturday 9/13 brought some heat, but absolutely no rain!  The wedding took place at 4:30pm overlooking the St. Mary’s River behind The Brome-Howard Inn with Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church presiding over the ceremony.

Ethan & Dad taking a stroll before the wedding.

Erin, Mom & I before the wedding.

Jeff, Jason, Rob & Reverend Shearon

Dad presenting me to Rob.

Rob’s mother, Anne, read a passage from the Bible…

… and my Lady of Honor, Jen, read a passage from The Velveteen Rabbit.

Upon completion of the ceremony, we were pronounced husband and wife, introduced for the first time, and proceeded to walk back up the aisle to Harry Belafonte’s “Jump In The Line”.

Mr. & Mrs. Robert Fowler

Our reception was relatively laid back.  We enjoyed a fantastic buffet dinner of carved beef with a shiraz mushroom sauce, chicken breast stuffed with Monterey Jack cheese & ham with a tomato cream sauce, and salmon with a balsamic Dijon sauce.  We performed our first dance, a combo father/daughter & mother/son dance, and cut the cake.  The cake was created by Sally “Mommacita” Amber and was absolutely delicious with each combo flavored layer!  The bottom layer was yellow/chocolate, the middle layer was butter pecan/carrot, and the top was banana/chocolate.

 

Jen & I sporting our wedding cracker paper crowns.

Wedding Cake by Mommacita

The entire day was absolutely fantastic!  Not only did we get married, but we did so in the company of those who play a special part in our lives!

And so married life begins...

The last photo was taken by Donna Buffin.  All other photography by Merlavage Images.

 

Something to Make Me Smile :)

When I came back to my desk from lunch today, I had a lovely surprise waiting for me – flowers!  For me!  On MY desk! 

I’ve never had flowers at work before, unless of course I brought them myself.  I asked Calvin if he knew who had left them there  since he sits in the cubicle right next to me.  He said, “No, but everyone else has been coming by and asking me the same thing!”  I had to laugh knowing that I was suddenly the talk of the Quadigon.  (The Quadigon is what we call our little cube farm.  It’s a square addition to the main building and we all joke that we aren’t good enough to work in the Pentagon so they stuck us in a Quadigon.)  Anyway, I opened up the little envelope to read the note and found that the flowers were from my co-worker Steve.   Along with the flowers, he had included a very sweet note. 

Needless to say, this is part of the reason why I enjoy my job.  I have the BEST co-workers ever!! 

 

Godiva Virgin

Yesterday Rob & I received a wedding gift from Nancy & Sue.  Tucked in the mailing box alongside our fantastic wedding gift was another very pleasant surprise – a box of Godiva chocolates!  It was beautifully wrapped with white flowers tied to the top and just the site of it made one want to start drooling.  I became incredibly excited because I knew this was going to be a whole new experience for me.  You see, I was a Godiva Virgin.  (*NOTE: Important word here is “was” because you know we just HAD to eat some of the chocolate that night!!*)  Rob could not believe that I had never had Godiva before and was very excited for me to try it.  We shared 3 pieces and not one of them was anything less than wonderful.  So thank you to Nancy & Sue, for providing me with my first Godiva experience.  And for anyone who has not yet tried Godiva, I highly recommend it.

 

Old, New, Borrowed, Blue…

While we were on the Labor Day raft-up with LCYC, Cheryl and I were talking about the wedding and discussing last minute details that needed to be finished up.  During the discussion, she asked if I had my “Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue”.  I told her my “new” was my dress, veil, shoes, etc., my old was my grandmother’s ring, my blue was also my grandmother’s ring because it has two blue trillion cut sapphires in it, and my something borrowed was… Hmm… It was at that point that I realized that I didn’t have ANYTHING borrowed.  And aside from that, I didn’t even know what I could borrow to use in the wedding.  I still have not come up with any ideas and am going to have to start asking people what they have that I could possibly borrow!  Hopefully I can find something better than Sean’s Redskins hat!!

 

Muddlin’ in Style!

Let me just start this post by giving a little background information.  I love Sangria.  One afternoon, Rob decided that he would follow a Sangria recipe in a bar book that Nicole had lent us to make me a pitcher of yummy Sangria.  He got all the ingredients together and began slicing, mixing, etc.  Eventually, he came to a line that instructed him to “to muddle the fruit with the sugar mixture”.  I was on the phone with my Mom at the time and we all got a kick out of the word muddle.  Since we didn’t have a muddler and hadn’t even heard of one until that moment, Rob muddled the fruit using a wooden spoon.  It wasn’t technically muddling since there was no muddler but it got the job done. 

So anyway, one evening, Rob & I came home from work to find a package on our doorstep.  It was white with “Crate & Barrel” written around the outside edge in bold black lettering.  Of course, I had a complete girl moment and got all excited because Crate & Barrel is one of my favorite stores!  We were surprised at how light the box was and brought it inside to open it up.  Inside was a beautifully wrapped gift box with a little card.  The card read, “Now you can muddle in style!  Love, Mom & Dad”.  We opened the box and found LOTS of paper.  Eventually, we came upon a muddler.  We both had to laugh because we weren’t quite sure what to expect a muddler to look like… and the size of the box made us suspect it was going to be rather large!!  Not so!  See for yourself!

 

Thank goodness the muddler was not large enough to fill up the box!  And thank goodness we now have a muddler so we can make more Sangria and muddle in style!!  Now all we need is some more wine…

 

Myrtle Beach Trip 2008

Summer is flying by and so has our trip to Surfside Beach (just south of Myrtle) for the annual Hilgeman Family Summer Beach Trip.  Here is a picture of the house – “Surfside 6″. 

  

 

 

We left Saturday morning around 8:45am and rolled into town around 5pm.  We stopped off at the grocery store to pick up some food for dinner.  The trip seemed to fly by and now here it is Friday, and we are wondering what all we did this week.   On the way to the beach last year, we passed a fireworks stand just across the North Carolina/South Carolina border on Rt. 701.  We just had to snap a picture of Rob standing in front of the sign.  This year, when we passed by, we were sure to honk our hellos! 

 

 

 

On Sunday, we all got together and had dinner to celebrate Mom & Dad’s birthdays.  Mom turned 60 the week before the beach and Dad turns 60 the week we get back.  Rob & I had ordered Portillo’s hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches and brought them with us down to the beach for a celebration dinner.  (Dad loves Portillo’s hotdogs and Mom loves the Italian beef sandwiches.)  Portillo’s even shipped the sandwich/hotdog making hats which we bestowed upon the birthday boy and girl right before dinner.  

 

 

 

We enjoyed sleeping in until about 9am – a short-lived luxury especially since I will be commuting to Dahlgren on Monday morning (5am is going to come mighty early).  We saw a lot of the sights last year since it was Rob’s first trip to the Myrtle Beach area so we decided that this year we would focus on relaxing and doing only what we felt like at the moment.  We hung out by the pool a lot and also did a lot of walking on the beach.  We swam around in the ocean one afternoon and watched a lot of wakeboarders and skimboarders.  We went to Barefoot Landing to poke around through the shops  and had lunch at Greg Norman’s Grille.  We got some very YUMMY burgers and snapped a picture of us lounging on the couch in the bar area as well as outside on a bridge in the shopping area.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way back to the beach house we stopped to see Journey to the Center of the Earth – 3D.  Very cool family movie and the 3D action made it lots of fun!  A few days later, we took Dad to see The Grand Canyon Adventure in 3D at IMAX.  This was also very good and left us all wanting to take a trip to see the Grand Canyon in person. 

 

 

 

We also played 2 rounds of mini golf while dodging the rainstorms.  We arrived at Runaway Bay Mini Golf course just as a thunderstorm was rolling in, but we weren’t scared… even with our metal lightning attracting putters!  We waited for the lightning to pass out of the immediate area and then headed onto the course with our putters.  There are two courses at Runaway Bay – Cockpit Country and Dunns River Falls.  We got through the first 6 holes on the first course (Cockpit Country) before the sky opened up.  We ran back through the course to the rocking chairs under the ledge and waited for the rain to pass.  We got through the rest of the first course and then started on the second (Dunns River Falls).  While we were playing the first hole, the sky opened up again.  Conveniently, the first hole was located in a cave so we just stayed put and watched the rain pass by through the window-like openings.  We got through 2 more holes before having to retreat back to the cave to dodge the rain again.  The final downpour occured when we were on the 8th hole.  Luckily there was a waterfall ledge that we were able to duck back under.  We got to hole number 9 and both of our balls got stuck in the tube so Rob had to run back to the counter to grab two more.  This seemed to be the end of our mini-golf drama as we were able to finish the rest of course without anymore rain or ball delays and the sun was actually shining by the time we were tallying up our final scores.  Rob won the Cockpit Country course 53-55 and he also beat me on the Dunns River Falls course 43-44 which was not a big shocker considering this was the course where he had his two holes-in-one!

One night we went to decided we wanted to have some Mexican food and margaritas.  We went to Abuelo’s for dinner - VERY DELICIOUS!!!  We got our first round of margaritas from the bar while we were waiting on a table to open up.  We were suprised to see that, being as they were “on the rocks”, they came out of the tap – sans rocks of course!!!  We were more surprised to find out that we had shown up at Happy Hour and they were only $2 a piece.  However, the best surprise was how good these “from the tap” $2 margaritas actually were!!  We left the restaurant very stuffed and Rob was gracious enough to drive home since my two “from the tap” margaritas were quite margaritafying!  Lucky for me that I found a man who can drive a stick-shift car!!

Friday night, our last night at the beach *sniff sniff*, we went out to dinner at Drunken Jack’s down in Murrell’s Inlet.  We got our picture taken with Drunken Jack himself (or at least the statue version of him) as well as a picture of us sporting our pirate hats! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also had our annual Hilgeman-Williams Golf Tournament (Par 3 of course!) on Friday night.  Last year, the Williams family (my sister Kelly, brother-in-law Rick, and nephew Ricky) took home the trophy.  This year, we challenged them and lost – AGAIN!  Maybe next time we’ll have better luck… We also decided that next time it would have to be the Fowler-Williams Golf Tourney as Rob & I will be Fowlers and my Dad will be the only Hilgeman on the team and therefore outnumbered 2-1.  Although, I suppose we could be nice on him and keep it “Team Hilgeman”.    Below is a picture of Rob putting for par.  He made it!

 

 

 

Saturday made for a long drive back to Maryland.  We were sad to leave and even more sad that we won’t be returning next year.  The plan, as of now, is to forego our annual beach trip for a Thanksgiving trip to Disney World in 2009!    Lookout Mickey, here we come!!

 

Blind Dinghy Race

The LCYC (Lord Calvert Yacht Club) First Annual Blind Dinghy Race was held on Saturday July 19.  Only three teams were brave enough to take on the challenge.  Each team consisted of two people – one blindfolded person who was responsible for rowing and one person (not blindfolded!) who was responsible for instructing the rower which way to go.  Rob & I took on Team Larry & Craig and Team Revel (Johnny & Vicky).  Rob was the blind rower and I was the navigator.  At first we were off to a rocky start as I was rather inconsistent with how I wanted to direct him.  I would yell which paddle to use (“Right paddle! Left paddle!”) and then I’d switch to yelling which way to paddle (“Paddle right! Paddle left!”) and then I’d revert back to the initial instruction method.  Needless to say, this all left poor Rob very confused.  Right about the time I realized what I was doing, he told me to pick a method and I did.  After getting our communication skills worked out (very important for a couple just about to be married!), we ended up passing by Team Larry & Craig at the end and won the race!  Go Team Fowler & Soon-To-Be Fowler! 

 

 

 

Red + Green = Gray

…Or at least that’s how it is in the world of watercolor! On Sunday, July 13th, Jen and I took a watercolor class. We purchased watercolor supplies almost 2 years ago and decided we would teach ourselves how to paint. We quickly found out how overly ambitious we were and decided that we should really get some formal instruction. It took over a year for the schedules to work out, but we finally were able to attend a class. We spent about 3 hours in a class with a wonderful woman named Mary Pat and received a lot of good information. The class was held at The Bay Arts Center in Chesapeake Beach, MD. A still life display was set up that we could paint off if we so desired. I wasn’t inspired by the still life so I chose from a variety of pictures Mary Pat had printed out. The first picture I tackled was of a set of footprints along a shoreline. Mary Pat showed me some really cool tricks with this picture. Some of them scared me at first (you want me to take yucky water and just splatter it on the picture then smear it all together?!?!) but then afterwards, it turned out to be a pleasant surprise – or one of what Mary Pat calls, “Happy Little Accidents”. Below is a picture of my very first watercolor picture.

 

 

 

The second picture I tackled was of a white flower set amidst a bunch of green leaves. I figured this would enable me to play with various shades of the same color and work with how to differentiate among them. I started the picture in class but did not have time to finish it there. I hope to finish it once things have settled down from the wedding and have more time. Below is what I have completed so far.

 

Tea Time

Saturday July 12^th was an absolutely delightful afternoon!  Jen, being my lady of honor, had asked me what my thoughts were with regards to a bridal shower.  I told her that Rob & I did not need a lot of the smaller household items that are traditionally given as gifts at a shower, so I wasn’t sure if I should even have one.  Because she is as wonderful as she is, she offered to host the Bridal Tea that I had wanted to hold prior to the wedding, but knew I would never be able to arrange.  I had thought it would be nice to get all the women in the family together for a tea party the afternoon before the wedding.  However, the practical side of me knew that it would be too much to request that people come down early enough to attend something like that.  So, Jen hosted the family tea in lieu of a shower!  It was held at The Royal Tea Room in LaPlata, MD and we dined on tea, scones, finger sandwiches and a variety of pastries – very yummy!  Jen and Mommacita (Sally, Jen’s Mom and my 2^nd Mom) were even kind enough to escort me to the event!  Also in attendance were my Mom (Carolyn), my sisters (Kelly & Erin), my future mother-in-law (Anne), and two of my future sister-in-laws (Nancy & Sue).

 

*PICTURES COMING SOON*