We're back!

Remember when I started this blog and kept saying things like "I'll post again later," and then never did?

Well, that was two years ago. Let's try this again!

Many things have happened, and many of those things would have made awesome blog posts. Unfortunately I was a major slacker so I'll just do a quick re-cap. Here is what has happened in the last two years:

-I cooked some food, we both ate a LOT of food. I learned to like beer AND olives, but not mushrooms yet.

-We traveled to many places near and far, including:

Connecticut

Provincetown

New York City

Fishers Island, NY

Washington, DC

Baltimore

Camden, ME

Kennebunkport, ME

Charlottesville, VA

Franconia Notch, NH

Las Vegas

Athens, Crete, and Santorini Greece!

(They were varying degrees of far, but all 100% fun.)

-We re-did our kitchen. By "we" I mean, "the people we hired to install all the stuff we picked out."

-We got pregnant! Well, one of us was pregnant, and one of us helped.

-We had a baby! Clara was born March, 10, 2010. She just turned one and our life rocks even harder than it did before.

We continue to be lucky, lucky, lucky.

I'd say "more to come later," but we both know how that turned out last time. For now, some pics:

(Clara, Clara, Greece, Nellie)

April Garden

I have turned into the giant nerd I never thought I would become. A giant gardening nerd. And, to be honest, I totally love it. 

We moved into our house a little over a year ago at the very end of winter when there was nothing in the yard. We always talk about how lucky we are that we were able to get the house when we did because we surely would have had to paid more for it had we seen it in spring or summer. It turns out that that a beautiful garden was hiding with flowering trees and perennials so carefully planned out so that no matter what time of the season it is there is always some thing blooming. The first spring in the house was super exciting, seeing what came up. This year I am no less excited knowing what's to come.

So I have decided to take  a picture of the back garden once a week so that I can have a record of how it grows. See? Nerdy. 

Anyway, here is series one- April 2009:

April 6

What's blooming: nothing. I stuck some pansies in the ground to give the yard some color

What's coming up: hyacinths

April 13

(I am still trying to figure out the best time of day to take the picture. This one is a dud because of the giant shadow of the house but I thought I'd include it anyway)

What's blooming: hyacinths

What's coming up: Forsythia

April 20

What's blooming: hyacinth, forsythia, also I planted some daffodils

What's coming up: Weeping Cherry, some tulips (although the tulips suck this year for the most part)

April 27

What's blooming: Forsythia, Weeping Cherry, daffodils, some tulips 

Also the star magnolia and cherry tree in the front yard, violets in the side

What's coming up: more tulips, Solomon's seal, lily of the valley

Also, dogwood in the front, lilacs and peonies (not for a while, but I do see the first buds)

Also blooming now: Tons of dandelions. I am trying not to be annoyed by them because I understand there are many bigger problems in the world. They just look so trashy but I care much more about the garden than I do the lawn. Oh well.

Additionally... today is my birthday. Jesse and I went to see Spring Awakening on Friday night which I loved, then took some nice walks this weekend and ate a lot of food with family. Today I'm getting a mani-pedi with my mom and going to another garden store. Life is pretty good!

Palm Springs, not Palm Beach

Every year Jesse's company plans a trip to reward employees for doing an awesome job. Last year they took us to Puerto Rico:

This year was Palm Springs. Which is in California, not Florida, contrary to (very) popular belief... at least on the East coast.

Since Jesse works in mortgages and- you just may have heard- this was a particularly horrible year, this trip was particularly well deserved!

Here we are enjoying our mostly free trip:

...and I have about 500 more pictures but blogger is being a pain in the a. I just tried to upload a bunch and it isn't working. So now I'm annoyed and can only post one or my neck is going to explode with frustration. BLURG!

Perhaps tomorrow I'll have more patience.

On a side note, it's Easter! I'm making sweet potatoes and a lemon cake to bring to my mom's house (and dad's... they both live there but I don't consider my dad to be hosting Easter (no offense Dad)). Maybe if I have EXTRA patience tomorrow, I'll post some food and Easter pics.

Hippity Hop Hippity Hop Happy Easter!

Second post

This is titled "Five (out of many) Embarrassing Things About Me"

1. I have a scar developing on my knee from when I got all fired up imitating Jason Bourne at the end of The Bourne Supremacy (he starts swimming after lying motionless in the water for a while, just as that crazy Moby music starts)... and I whacked my knee on our coffee table.

2. I'm pretty sure I kiss my dog more times per day than I kiss my husband. This includes on the lips. And no, this doesn't mean I don't kiss my husband enough.

3. The other day I had some time to kill so I drove through Dunkin Donuts to get a donut. Then I ate my donut but I was still hungry for another one. I was too embarrassed to go back to the same Dunkin Donuts so I drove to a different Dunkin Donuts. Thankfully in Rhode Island, you are never far from a DD... or two or three. 

4. My husband and I drive matching cars. I have a Saab wagon and love it. He was looking for a new car and none felt as good as my Saab wagon so now we have TWO Saab wagons. It's super nerdy.

5. I semi-recently made a blog and then only posted one post. But now it's TWO- I'm back y'all!!

The First Post of Christmas!

Okay so I realize it's not Christmas anymore. I just didn't know where to start and thought I'd give a shout out to The Polar Express (the first gift of Christmas! ...right?). How exciting! The first post!! It IS like the first gift of Christmas.However, it's a lot of pressure. What will the first post of the first blog be?? We don't even have a theme- mostly this is going to be a blog of random crap.

Actually, I don't know why I keep saying "we." The title here is "ashleyjessenellie.blogspot.com" but, seriously, the vast majori

ty of the time it will just be me. Ashley,

doing the writing, because when Jess is on the computer usually he is doing work. Who DOES that? 

(PS- that's me last summer at our anniversary dinner, when my hair was way shorter)

This is my husband Jesse:

 (that's two summers ago on our honeymoon in Anguilla. Yes, there are more recent pictures of both of us but our photos are super disorganized on the computer so I just picked the first ones I found)

And this is our dog Nellie:

She's the best! 

Some people have dog blogs, which is awesome. However, Nellie isn't the kind of dog who is always doing bad, hilarious things worth mentioning. Mostly she sleeps, hangs out with us, runs around in circles in the yard, moves toys from one hiding place to another, watches TV, goes on hikes (well, we hike and she sprints)...

She doesn't chew up couches or vomit banana peels on the rug. So this blog is not just about her.

Some people have food blogs, which I love. I do a good amount of cooking but I don't take pictures of my food because, well, I get hungry and I EAT IT. And who wants to read a food blog with no pictures? Not me.

But here's a pic of something I made once:

(cupcakes for Easter, can you tell?)

Other people have baby blogs, but we have no baby, at least not yet, not if you don't count Nellie. Or they write about renovating their home. We have a lovely home which you will see someday (but I'm tired of uploading pics right now). Or they write about movies or celebrities or tell funny stories. Since I like doing ALL of those things, I just couldn't make up my mind, which is why it took me so long to jump on the blogwagon. 

But... now I did it! Welcome to the BEST BLOG EVER!

Yahoo!

Thanks for reading

(this was mostly  a test post. Did all my pictures show up? I'm a computer genius.)