World Cafe Live!

Hey, everybody!

Last week was finals week and everyone was getting ready to head home...or to Italy is Grace's case. But you'll hear much about that later. Anyway, it was finals week and everyone needed a pick me up, one last hoorah before everyone went their separate ways for the holidays. Good thing a few weeks ago we decided to get 3 tickets to see Vanessa Carlton at World Cafe Live! We bought standing room only tickets because they were the cheapest, and being broke college students those were our best option! 

But I am getting a little ahead of myself. Let's backtrack. Last week something big happened. As many might know our roommate, Sarah, doesn't live with us much. She lives happily with her boyfriend right down the street. But recently it was getting a little much for her parents to pay rent while she wasn't spending any of her time there. We found out a few weeks ago that she decided to look for a subletter. Although we are sad to see her go, it makes total sense. Last week we found out that she found a subletter, and they signed the lease! The subletter, and our new roommate, Amalia, messaged us on Facebook and wanted to meet us. So right before the concert, she came over, we talked a bit and we showed her around. It felt like freshman year all over again. We were all a little nervous, and it was a little awkward, as meeting any new person is. But thankfully Amalia is great! She keeps kosher, which scared us in the beginning because we weren't sure what that would mean for us. Thankfully it shouldn't be too difficult, she needs to use different dishes, and cookware as us, but, for the most part, she eats NORMAL food. A very pleasant surprise. Anyway, we are so excited, nervous, and all of those things, but it's going to be a great learning experience! Once we get to know her, I'm sure we will do a post all about her, so stay tuned!

Anyway...back to the concert. When we go to the concert we were told that if we were 21 we could sit at the bar. As all of you know, we are not 21. So we looked like outcasts standing. Thankfully Grace was able to hook us up. She caught eyes with the woman seating the guests who bought table seats (which cost about double of what we paid). The woman came over and told us she was checking on the guest list, and if there were seats she would seat us. A little later we thought she forgot about us. As we were getting a little antsy carrying out coats as we stood, I tried hanging my coat on a light fixture as Grace quickly sprung to attention and told us to come with her. The woman must have given her a look, or gesture because we were about to be seated. 

We expected our seats to be in the back, with a bad view, but to our surprise we had the table seats that were the closest to the stage! It was great! A little later we had a man sit next to us. From the moment he sat down, he was a little sketchy, dressed in all black. But he introduced himself, his name was Alex. Anyway...Grace said she was starving so we immediately ordered food. Everyone was debating over which fries to get. The options were eggplant fries with a horseradish ranch sauce, regular french fries, or sweet potato fries with some cinnamon sugar thing going on. We all decided on eggplant fries because I got them before and was raving about them. As our main courses, Abby got a burger, without ketchup, whcih she ended up waiting at least 25 minutes for. Grace got a BLT on naan bread, and I got a fried catfish sandwich. They were all pretty fabulous. Alex ordered the chicken tacos, which came out as fish tacos so he then got free chicken tacos the second round. 

The concert started as we ate our food. The opening act was by Patrick Sweany. He was great and I think we all agreed that he was more entertaining than Vanessa because he told a great story as he went through his act. 

Patrick Sweany!

Vanessa came out with her glass of wine. She was good, but we decided that for her to be better and more entertaining she needed to add a little bit of a story. For some of her songs she did this. But she isn't good enough to just perform without any reasoning behind her music. 

Vanessa Carlton!

During Vanessa's act we ordered dessert. Grace got the warm chocolate cake, Abby got the creme brulee, while I got the sweet potato tarte. They were all fabulous. 

At some time during the concert Alex left, but he left his ticket unattended. Abby decided to grab it to see how much he paid for his ticket, to see what the difference was between sitting and standing tickets. She noticed his ticket was free. Curious why, she googled his name that was written on the ticket. His name was a suggesgted option on google. The picture was him. We realized now why he was so sketchy. He reviewed concerts, and his title was "actor." We were quite confused. Let's just say it was really odd that he was sitting next to us. He then came back at the end of the concert looking for his ticket, or receipt. But we had already taken it and couldn't give it back because that would be weird. But hey, it was a great story for the blog we thought!

All in all it was a great way to spend one of our last few days together before the holiday. The next time we will see eachother will be for our trip to Montreal! 

xoxo, 

Christine

Uber? Coffee? Free??

Early Tuesday morning I had received an email from Uber, informing me that they had teamed up with Saxby's coffee. They were delivering coffee and pastries to Drexel students between 6-9 pm due to finals. I read it and assumed that it would be a costly endeavor, but kept the email anyway. Later in the day, and mainly due to procrastination, I read more about this coffee delivery and it truly was free coffee delivered right to your door!!

I excitedly ran to Abby's room and explained this to her. She was almost as excited as I was. Christine, who was home from work at this point, was not as excited...lame

6' o clock rolled around and Abby and I both excitedly opened the Uber app and sure enough there was a button implying free coffee!! After a little confusion, I was confident that I had ordered us coffee and pastries, but due to the high demand, I kept getting kicked out. I stayed persistent because at this point I really just wanted to see if it would work!

I sat at my desk for almost an hour reclicking the "Java" button and sure enough my request finally went through! I knew from my previous research that I had the option between hot or iced coffee, but wasn't sure how to specify which one and before Abby and I could figure it out, my Uber driver, John, called me. He regretted to inform me that he only had "cold coffee" left. I tried to ask him if it was iced coffee or hot coffee that became cold, but he didn't understand me. I told him to come anyway.

A few minute later John greeted Abby and I downstairs with a 64 oz growler of iced coffee, a box full of crumb cake and brownies, and a bag full of cream, sugar and cups for the coffee! 

Not my picture! In my excitement, I managed to get zero decent pictures of our goodies.

Now it made my late night studying so much easier, not because I needed the coffee, but it simply put me in a good mood. Sometimes it's the small things! 

Xoxo,

Grace 

Abby's Thanksgiving

Hello everybody!

Thanksgiving, the only day of the year when you have an excuse to eat more than your body weight in food and not feel guilty about it. I love Thanksgiving. Not because of the reason I just mentioned, but because I get to go to one of the most beautiful places and spend time with my large family. I spent my Thanksgiving in the Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina. Not too far away from Grace! My aunt and uncle live there and the entire family comes from all over to spend time together. My little cousins were there, being adorable, and a but of a handful I may add. But overall, we always have a great time together. We only all get together about once a year, usually just for Thanksgiving, but whenever we do its always so much fun. All in all, Thanksgiving was a success. I am truly grateful for my wonderful family, friends, and of course our blog readers! Hope all your Thanksgivings were fun, food, and family filled.

xoxo,
Abby

P.S. Here is a picture of where I was... Gorgeous right?!

The chapel next to my uncles house 

Grace's Thanksgiving

Hi guys! I realize that some of you might also read my mother's blog, so I will try to highlight different thanksgiving festivities than she did. 

I flew home Tuesday morning and arrived in Asheville around 4:30pm, my scheduled time of arrival. But good ole Kimberly had been in the airport parking lot since before 4!! She's a strange one. I made my way out of the incredibly tiny airport with a handful of other college students and was the ONLY one not to be greeted by their parents...a little sad, I know. I then texted her that I was outside the airport so that she would be able to pull up to the curb and I could jump in, but she decided that it was too busy at the arrival pickup and choose to pick me up at the departure drop off. I know, she's strange, but I love her anyway. I was greeted by her and a spastic ball of fur in the back seat. To be completely honest I was more excited to see Boomer than her. 

My brother, Philip, arrived the next day and made the executive decision that he needed to go shopping. So, off to the mall we went. Shopping with Philip is not easy, it never has been and will probably never be. He must have tried on a dozen jeans and looked at three dozen more before settling on ONE pair. And even then he wasn't sure if he liked them. At this point Douglas was bored and just started wandering the store. The next item on Phil's list was a vest. This started out easy as he saw two that he liked, but couldn't decide on the colour. My mom didn't think they were formal enough to wear to work and kept showing him different options that were much nicer than the ones he had picked out. The poor kid got so stressed out that he had to call Anna, his girlfriend, or as he refers to her, Boss Man. Anna walked him through some good points and he ended up buying 4 vests with the intention on returning two based on Anna decisions. Like I said early, never an easy shopping process with Phil. At this point Phil was starting to get hangry, but we couldn't find Doug. Eventually we found my Dad and headed to Great American Cookie to easy our hangryness.

In an earlier blog post, Christine had mentioned that my house is currently unfurnished, well at least part of it is. Before moving to China we had given away our large TVs, assuming that we would buy new ones once back in the US. For some reason we kept two small dinky TVs, which my parents were perfectly content using. Why we kept these I have no idea, but probably the same reason I kept the majority of my middle school clothing... My mom and her new bff Charlotte have chosen a TV cabinet that can hold up to a 60-inch tv and my brother decided that now was a good time to buy a new TV. Personally, I think he wanted to watch football on a big screen. We decided to pop over to Best Buy and see if they were going to have any Black Friday deals on TV's. It turned out that they had already started their Black Friday deals and my brother and dad quickly set out to find the best TV that Best Buy was offering. They kept going back and forth between two: one that had nanocrystals (or was it tubes) and one that did not. They finally decided on the one that had nanocrystals after deciding that it was not just a buzzword. The only problem was that the TV was too big to fit in the car with 4 of us. So we drove home dropped my mom and brother off and then went back to Best Buy to buy a very large TV. 

Thanksgiving was the next day and it was relatively calm and relaxed. We had a traditional spread with very few leftovers and the few leftovers we had went into making gumbo. Boomer was a happy dog as both Philip and I played ball with him. I have never met a dog so goofy as him.  

On Friday, Philip and Douglas took off to Atlanta to see the Georgia vs Georgia Tech game on Saturday. My mom and I stayed home to dog sit and get some more housework and school work done. It turns out we didn't miss much as the big rivalry game was not much of a game. Georgia even fired their head coach after the game and they won! 

Sunday, Philip and I were given some last minute jobs and then ushered off to the airport! 

Overall it was a great break and I look forward to being home for a few days over Christmas break!!

xoxo, 

Grace

Christine's Thanksgiving!

Hello all! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving holiday!

This year when I took the trip home for Thanksgiving it was the first time I had been home since move in day. The most exciting part wasn't sleeping in my bed, or seeing my family, it was being able to be greeted by my two furry bundles of love that I missed oh so much!

The second night I was home I got to see Max, my boyfriend, for the first time in about 2 and a half weeks. We met up of  a lovely dinner at Applebee's, that of course included his favorite food, mozzarella sticks. After that, we headed over to do a little shopping at Kohl's for his holiday party outfit.

The next day I woke up to the smell of turkey roasting in the oven. Our turkey was a fat one, weighing in at 24 pounds. He was so large he did not fit in our roasting pan so he had to take up a large amount of space in the oven, but thankfully it all worked out. When my family came over we ate. Our table was filled with turkey, filling, butternut squash, green beans, crabmeat casserole, cranberry sauce, and I can't forget, our butter sculpture of a turkey for a festive touch. Once we stuffed ourselves with the main course, we continued to move on to dessert which included pumpkin roll, chocolate peanut butter roll, and a homemade apple tarte made by yours truly. After dessert, Max and I headed over to visit his family and then came back to my house in hopes of a visit from my cousins, but they were unable to make it.

The next day, my brother, Colin, and I headed to the movie theatre to see Mockingjay: Part 2, as it is our thanksgiving tradition to see the Hunger Games movies together around the holidays. It was an awesome time, but the movie was sadly subpar compared to the rest of the series. After the movie, I headed over to Max's house once again and we went to find a Christmas Tree for his family. Which Max made me cut down. What a terrible boyfriend... (just kidding!) It was a great day that was completed with some naps on the couch while watching Friends and some pizza delivery to make it just a little bit better.

The rest of the break wasn't too exciting, and went super fast. But now it's time to look forward to Christmas! I hope you all have a fantastic week!

xoxo,
Christine

Thanksgiving Festivities

Hi, everyone! Welcome back!

As mid-week approaches and we get closer and closer to Thanksgiving each of us has plans to spend the time with our families. This morning Grace is heading to the Airport to fly home to her unfurnished home to spend time with her family. After work today I will be heading to the train station to go home. And tomorrow morning Abby will head to the Airport to go spend the holiday with her large family not too far away from Grace's house! When we all return you will hear all about each of our breaks!

Happy Thanksgiving all! Stay warm in this winter weather we are approaching!

xoxo,
Christine

Halloweekend 2015

Hello everybody!

Oh my. My apologies... I have been meaning to do this for quite a while now. Halloween was almost a month ago but our costume was just so cute I had to write about it. As Grace mentioned, she spend the weekend of Halloween at home with her lovely family, so it was just Christine and myself. Our costume was Mario and Luigi from the video games. We decided we wanted to get all of the pieces for the costumes instead of buying the costumes... Bad idea. Things were backordered, items were cancelled, things were the wrong color. Every problem you could possibly imagine, we had. Finally, on Halloween we got the final touch for our costumes and if I do say so myself, we were the cutest Mario and Luigi that has ever walked the planet. Sorry the picture is kind of blurry:

Abby as Mario Christine as Luigi

Two nights of dressing up as Mario and Luigi and we lost count of the number of "aww I love your costume" compliments we received. All in all, we would say Mario and Luigi costumes were a success. 

Sunday morning we decided we wanted brunch, so we went to Savas in University City. Christine and I just happened to get the same thing, and it was delicious. Red velvet pancakes with a cream cheese filling. I gained 500 pounds just typing that. Because we are basically a food blog, here is a picture:

YUM!

After a busy weekend of showing off our costumes and having some delicious pancakes, we spent our Sunday watching TV and relaxing.

Halloween weekend 2015 was a success!

Tata for now!

xoxo,

Abby

Pumpkin O Treats

We have this rule that every time we go to the grocery store, we have to purchase something new. This has to be a food item that none of us have ever had before. Usually, we are pretty fortunate in our purchases and like the food item, but occasionally we don't choose so wisely. On a Trader Joe's shopping trip we had picked up Pumpkin O's.

They were essentially Cheerio's, but pumpkin favored. 

As it turned out we are not huge fans of Pumpkin O's, so they sat on our shelves for a few weeks before I had an idea for them. I was going to make rice krispies treats, but use these instead of regular rice krispies.

Friday, I woke up ridiculously early for a college student and decided that I had nothing better to do than take a walk to find marshmallows. My first stop was CVS. I was sure they would have marshmallows, but I was wrong. I figured I had come this far I might as well trek to Fresh Grocer all for a $.99 bag of marshmallows. Returning home, I found a puzzled Abby who immediately questioned why I was up grocery shopping this early in morning. 

I put off making my Pumpkin O krispies and accompanied Abby to the Hans for breakfast. One of the perks of living in Chestnut Square is that it is located right next to the dining hall that serves a delicious breakfast, but Drexel has decided to close this dining hall on the weekend. Which means that up to this point none of us had been to the Hans for breakfast. Abby and I changed that.

After breakfast, I tackled the Pumpkin O's. Since we do not own a large pot, I melted the marshmallows in two small pots and then transferred them into a large bowl to mix the cereal in with the melted marshmallows. Melting the marshmallows was easy and I assumed the rest of the process would go as smoothly. As soon as I transferred the melted marshmallows into a mixing bowl, they instanlly firmed up. Which meant that I had to constantly stir the micture to keep it from going solid. At this point Abby decided to document my struggle.

It was, by far, the best arm workout I have had in a long while

After I had the whole mess fully mixed I transferred them to a glass baking dish that was thoroughly sprayed with Pam. Abby decided that they weren't laying flat enough and took cling wrap to press down on them to flatten them out...Yes, she put the sticky side down. This now meant that our sticky marhsmallow treats were sticking to the sticky clingy wrap. Never a dull moment here. 

All in all they were a success. 

xoxo, 

Grace

A Tragedy in 7041

Please pardon our absence from GAC Story, as we had a heartbreaking accident and it has taken us a while to emotionally recover. Our beloved Penny and Sacajawea have passed away. October 29, 2015 at 8:07 am Abigail Guterman posted in our group chat, "Both of the fish died. I'm not kidding" and from that moment forward something was missing from Room 7041.

We immediately began preparing for a proper fish funeral and as all goldfish funerals; they were flushed down the toilet. Sadly, Abby had to do the funeral all by herself, as Christine was at work and I had already left for the airport to go home for the weekend.

We have decided not to have more fish.  First of all, you could never replace Penny and Sacajawea as they were truly outstanding fish. Secondly, we realized that fish are kind of high maintenance and pretty boring pets.

Not to worry blog readers we have a queue of blog topics that just need to be written! Stay tuned for exciting adventures from GAC

xoxo,
Grace

Abby hits the big 20!

This weekend wasn't too exciting, other than the fact that it was Abby's birthday. But we weren't able to celebrate as much as originally planned because Abby left us on Saturday to travel back home to attend a memorial service for her friend's mom.

But I am getting a little ahead of myself. Let's start with Thursday. I know, I know, it isn't considered the weekend, but for Grace it was and it almost was for me too because I only worked 2 hours on Friday. When I came home from work Thursday no one was home, but I noticed an extremely long grocery list in our living room. I read through the list and noticed a lot of sweet items. A few minutes later the door unlocks and in walks Abby and Grace with bags of groceries. It was then that Grace told me Abby really wanted to make sugar cookies. We went to dinner, came back, made cookies, paused for Abby to complete her online meeting with two students from Chile for her Spanish class, and then resumed the cookie making process. When all was said and done there remained a pile of bowls with different colors smeared inside, flour everywhere, and some impressive looking cookies. The cookies were then put through testing by Josh, and I am proud to say we got his stamp of approval. Did I mention the cookie we gave him was a pink heart with yellow polka dots with his name on it? Had to have been the girliest cookie he has ever eaten. 

Our cute sugar cookies!

On Friday, I woke up and put Abby's birthday present right outside her door so that she would see it as soon as she got up. Although she saw it, she didn't open it until about five o'clock that evening because she wanted to make sure we were there. She was ecstatic over her pens we ordered her from Poppin. Now you're probably saying, "You got her PENS for her BIRTHDAY?!" And yes as a matter of fact we did. Abby has been stealing my Poppin pens since last year because they are her favorite, so it was time to get her her own. We also bought her sweatpants, her favorite thing to wear, and a few Olaf desk supplies which she freaked out over. After presents, we headed to dinner.

On the way to dinner, we picked up Sarah and Lindsey, some of our other friends. We walked into the city to The Cheesecake Factory. Since last year, Abby was talking about how she loves The Cheesecake Factory. She told me all about the pasta dish she loved, so from the beginning of this year I knew where we were taking her for her birthday dinner. She knew of course because I can't lie for my life.

When we got to The Cheesecake Factory we were surprisingly seated right away in a funky half moon booth. In the next booth over were a group of old ladies, five of them, just like there was five of us. We joked about how they were us in a 40 years and picked out which one represented each of us. Also at another table over was an extravagant birthday party (much more extravagant than our little party, sorry Abby!) We all ordered dinner and dessert, because how can you skip cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory? When we were waiting for our payment to be processed Abby decided to go over to the big party and tell them it was her birthday too. Let's just say she didn't get the response in which she was hoping. After that we left, walked home, and that was it.

Happy Sunshine before the makeover

The next morning we surprised Abby with breakfast at Happy Sunshine, our favorite food truck. The food truck recently received a makeover so we wanted to make sure the food was still the same, and we were pleasantly surprised. After breakfast, Abby headed to the train station and Grace and I headed to the hospital. Nothing serious, don't worry. Later in the day Grace and I took on a Luke's Lobster in center city. The food was great but very expensive for the amount of food we got.

Lobster Roll at Luke's Lobster

Hopefully this Halloween weekend will be much more exciting!



xoxo,
Christine

GA takes on the Bus!

Since moving in together we have wanted a fish and our desire to be fish owners has only grown stronger as the quarter goes by. I had assumed that purchasing a fish would be easy! We could just hop on the Market-Frankford Septa Line or even take a short walk to the local pet store. WRONG! I guess Center City Philadelphian's strongly dislike fish, dog stores are plentiful and even a few cat stores, but no fish. Ah, no biggie I'll look for a pet store near where the trolleys run. Success!! Monster Pet store was a short 24 minute trolley ride away! It seemed perfect, until Abby decided that she also wanted to go to Ikea and who was I to say no to Ikea. So back to Google maps I went. Success struck again as I found another Monster Pet store near Ikea.

The real fun occurred when I started looking for cheap transportation to get to the opposite side of Philly. I was given several options all which involved several buses and confused me way too much. After recruiting Abby to help decode my mess of Google maps we came up with a game plan! Walk to 23rd and Chestnut and take bus 7, 57 stops. I don't remember the name of the stop we disembarked at, as it was right in front of Ikea, so we had a pretty good idea that we were in the right place.

We are at 3200 Chestnut Street and traveled to Ikea in South Philadelphia. *This is not the route we took*

I've gotten a little ahead of myself, so let me back up. Christine only had to work until 3:30 this past Friday, so Abby met her in the city to get their nails done. Both of their nails look fab by the way! I was then going to meet Abby at the bus stop, while Christine carried on home to meet Maxwell, who came for the weekend. Abby and I had also invited our dear friend, Josh, to go Ikea exploring and fish shopping with us. It was decided that Josh was supposed to hangout with me beforehand, so I could quickly usher him out the door, so poor Abby wouldn't be chilling at the bus stop by herself.  Josh, decided to ditch me for virtual golfing (which by the way is pretty nifty), which caused us to be a little late. Thankfully, Abby is a good sport and understood that Josh can be slow at times.

 Josh and I arrived in the nick of time to catch bus 7. It all went so smoothly that we were confident that we were going to be bus experts and could easily figure out how to get back, but more on that later. After a lovely 40 minute bus ride we had finally arrived to the land of blue and yellow, Ikea. I personally love Ikea and I think Josh and Abby share similar feelings. Just because I don't think I said this enough to Josh and Abby, I used to be able to get a full meal at Ikea in Shanghai, for the equivalent of $1.00. You were given a hot dog, soft drink and ice cream cone, although I may add the ice cream cones were a lot smaller than the ones I spotted on our trip. I also told them how the Chinese would just chill on the couches and take naps in the bed. Occasionally they would even eat in the mock kitchens, strange I know...

They wanted to see what it was all about.

Having wandered through the store for quite a while and filling up our yellow shopping bag, we decided to stop and have a snack (what can I say, we love food). Abby and I had both heard great things about the Swedish meatballs, and decided to share 5 for a $1.00. A pretty good deal, but not as good as my China deal. We both agreed that they were very yummy, but simply tasted like a meatball. Josh, decided to be uber American and ordered a side of fries. He said they were also yummy. We resumed our shopping and wandered around a little longer picking up our last minute necessities, because everything at Ikea is a necessity.

Our Ikea purchases were a bronze star shaped light(which Christine was not overly thrilled about), a white lantern with accompanying LED candle, cake decorating set, grey blanket(it was speaking to me), cooling rack, straws, and finally a surprise gift for Christine, a lunch box set with mini fork and knife. All in all a very successful shopping trip in my mind.

We spent the longest time in the kids sections. 

With Josh carrying our newly purchased Ikea bag, we eagerly made our way across the parking lot to Monster Pets. Once entering the store, Abby and I were eager to see the fish section. Obviously we wanted cute fish, so we were very picky in our final decision. Abby and I had fallen in love with "fancy goldfish." They were so cute with their bulging eyes and round bodies just swimming away. We decided that we needed the assistance of a fish specialist and soon all of our dreams were shattered. For our fancy goldfish they would need a 10-20 gallon tank, okay no problem, which would take 24 hours for the water to be safe for the fish to survive in, okay so problem. Abby and I did not have have 24 hours. He kindly suggested we buy the tank and come back the next day for the fish, we were not about that. So we decided to take a lap around the store and come up with a new plan.

After much thought and consideration, we decided on two goldfish who would have a very nice home in a fish bowl with some pretty rocks and a plant. After picking out our fish and all of the goodies that came along with them, we decided it was time to make the trek home. Now, keep in mind our two goldfish are currently in a plastic bag and only have enough oxygen for one hour. We left the store and all looked at each other and asked, "So, where do you think we catch the bus..." We quickly found a bus stop that would take us in the right direction, good enough we decided. We could figure it out once we were back in the city. 5 minutes, 10 minutes passed and we saw no signs of a bus coming, we were getting nervous because we really did not want to kill our fish. After a quick powwow we decided to hail a cab to take us to Oregon Station on the Broad Street Line and we would then switch to the Market Frankford Line and be home! Easy enough, but we were racing the clock. Abby and I sat tensely on the train constantly checking the time, to make sure our fish were still alive. We were also starving at this time, so I ordered Chinese food for us. Exciting times, I know!

We arrived home in plenty of time and Christine and Max were happy to see that both us and our fishes had made it. We set up their fishbowl and let the water sit for an hour before placing them into their new home. Now, the hard part started, naming them. We went back and forth on a plethora of names, before settling on....

PENNY (the all gold one) AND SACAJAWEA (the front spotted one)

They have both settled in nice and have become apart of the family.

The rest of our weekend was pretty uneventful compared to fish shopping. Oh, but Max did make us some delicious chocolate chip cookies.

xoxo,
Grace

GAC Minus "G" for the Weekend

Hi, everyone! Happy Tuesday! I hope you all had a nice Columbus day weekend..even though not everyone gets off of work...like me. Oh well!

This weekend Grace flew out of town to go lay floors at her grandparents. Invigorating, I know. Abby and I on the other hand stayed on campus to run through the rain, go to Drexel's Fall Fest concert, and then finish out the weekend with a lovely Brunch with our roommate, Sarah.

But let me start at the beginning...

Friday night I came home from work to be greeted with a trailer from "Menopause the Musical." The trailer is quite funny so I suggest you check it out, and maybe the next time your grandma and mom are in town you should take them there.t. Abby and I contemplated going, but then saw that most of the people who attended were older women, and we thought it might look a little odd if we were there. Later in the evening we went to go get my wristband for Fall Fest the next night. We went to the dragon statue (Drexel's Mascot) to go get it, but no one was there. We decided to wait a little bit.. until we were almost struck by lightining. Later we cut through a building to avoid the rain, and actually found the wristband booth, so I got my wristband! Yay! As we went to leave we realized it was pooring so we waited a few seconds until we decided that it was time to sprint through the rain. I ran around a corner first and a bike swerved around me. But that isn't even the best part.. Abby then came around the corner and I yelled that there was a bike coming but I was a little late.. but luckily she didn't actually get hit. After that she continued her sprint to our appartment (only a few feet away) and lost her flip flop. I was not fooling around so I got inside and laughed histarically as Abby was trapped outside and no one would let her in. Then it was time for dinner, so we thought we should go to Zavino..but it was closed so we took our next closest option, Shake Shack.

The next day we woke up and made a fantastic breakfast (as shown below). If you can't already tell this is totally going to be a food blog, sorry not sorry. The breakfast included two omlette muffins, some toast, and waffled hash browns. (P.S. We will be posting much more adventures with our waffle iron, so stay tuned).

Omlette Muffins, Toast, Waffled Potatoes and Coffee

After breakfast we went to the farmers market and the grocery store where we bought LOTS of bread and cheese. We bought whole grain bread (the biggest loaf we've ever seen), a loaf of ciabatta, everything bagels, and english muffins. We are freezing most of it, so it is safe to say we wont be purchasing bread for awhile. And when it comes to cheese...we bought a party platter of assorted cheese, brie cheese, san andres cheese, and swiss cheese with herbs. What can we say, we like bread and cheese.

Later that night we then took on Zavino where Abby and I got two delicious salads, a meat and mustard platter, as well as some AMAZING butternut squash. After that we headed to Fall Fest. This year Drexel had Wiz Kalifa and Little Wayne. Little Wayne sounded like a girl and the lights were super bright. Oh did I mention, we were the only sober ones there..

The next morning we went to brunch with Sarah at Day by Day in center city. Sarah is Abby and I's roommate from last year as well as one of our roommates for this year. We had a great time at brunch and can't wait to do it again. Once we came home we made carrot cake cookies with cream cheese frosting for our lovely roommate, Grace. She loves carrot cake, as you can see if you read her mom's blog. So we will see if our cookies will pass the test.

Well guys, I guess I am signing off!

xoxo,
Christine

Meet Abby!

Hello everybody!

My name is Abigail, but that’s something only my parents use when they are mad at me. So, you can call me Abby. My birthday is October 23, so if you are looking to buy me a gift, you have a little less than a month. I am someone who truly believes that they peaked at the age of about four… I mean, look how cute I was.

Halloween 1998

But, I am going to do my best to make my life seem as exciting as possible for the wonderful people that take the time out of their day to read our blog. So, here goes nothing.

I was born and raised in a very small town in upstate New York by my two incredible parents, Nancy and Theodore. I have two older siblings, Kate and Steve… let’s just say, being the baby of the family is a hard task, but I wouldn’t let them push me around without a fight. I really have to thank my parents and my siblings for morphing me into the sassy, sarcastic, spazzy (autocorrect wanted me to change that to snazzy, but I would not exactly call myself that) person I am today. So, thanks family.

Aunt Jane, Mother Dearest, Me, Dadio, & my bff Samantha

I went to pre-school in a barn where they would serve us mac and cheese on the daily and let us play with their pets. Like, seriously, it can’t get any better than that… At this point in my biography I got distracted thinking about mac and cheese and the good old days and got a snack... Then my parents decided they wanted to send me to real school. Like, no mac and cheese. No pets. What were they thinking? But I have to admit, I guess sometimes parents are right. School was awesome. They had blocks, arts and crafts, recess, and so much more. Why can’t college be like that? But, in all seriousness, kindergarten through 8th grade was great. For high school I went to an all girls boarding school (I was a day student). Yes, I said all girls. No, there were no nuns reading from The Bible. All girls school… not as bad as it sounds. I made some of the greatest friends in high school that I know I will have forever. High school had its ups and downs, but it shaped me into the strong, independent person that I am today. And now I am here. At Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA studying Communications with a concentration in Public Relations. Do I know if that’s what I want to do with my life? No. Am I worried about it? Ask me in 10 years…

Pets are a controversial topic in my house. First of all, my mom is allergic to cats. What a party pooper, but that’s okay. I’m not a huge fan of cats. Second of all, we had a dog for about 13 years. Her name was Grace and she was a 63-pound ball of love some people would call a Golden Retriever. She was the best pet in the entire world, but unfortunately, she passed away 3 years ago. So, now my parents realize how much free time they have without a dog in the house and so, they aren’t ready to get another one. I am convinced every Christmas that I am going to open a box and out will pop a puppy… But, that has yet to happen. Maybe this Christmas! Hint hint parents. 

My Golden Retriever Grace

I was told to make a list of ten things, so let’s see what I can come up with.

10 things I love:

1. Mexican food. Anything from a burrito to a taco. I’ll eat it.

2. Traveling. I hope to study abroad while I’m at Drexel to continue my love of traveling.

3. Lotion. If you know me, I have a regimen every night… and may I say my skin is quite soft.

4. Makeup. I may not wear it all the time, but you can ask my mom, I have a lot of it.

5. Lacrosse. I’ve played since 4th grade and will continue to play this year on the club team at Drexel.

6. Coffee… I have a problem. I’ve been drinking coffee since a very young age. I just love it so much.

7. Shopping. Anytime, anywhere, I will go shopping with you.

8. Sweatpants in general, but especially sweatpants fresh out of the dryer. They are just so warm.

9. Cheese. Wow, I feel like a significant portion of these were food related. Whatever. I like food.

10. TLC. And I mean both the television channel and also tender loving care in general. “Be kind to one another” as Ellen DeGeneres would say. Oh, that’s another thing I love. Ellen DeGeneres. That woman rocks.

I think this is where I should end my, oh so exciting biography on myself. You can sit back in your seats now… I know you were on the edge of them while reading this. But to be 100% serious, my life is amazing and it’s all thanks to my friends and family. Especially Grace and Christine.

xoxo,

Abby

Meet Grace!

Hello there blog readers!

My full name is Emily Grace Hoffman, but since we are close you may just call me Grace. Like Abby and Christine, I am a sophomore at Drexel University. Being more of an underachiever than Christine, I’m only a single major, which is Hospitality Management. Essentially this means I really like hotels, resorts, and restaurants and learning how they run and all that fun stuff…it's different, I know. 

Now, this is not the first blog that I have been famous on. It all started five years ago when Kimberly, Douglas and I packed our belongings (well Still Transfer did) and sat on a plane for 14 hours (thanks Eastman for business class) with our two cats safely resting in the cargo hold below (yes, it is temperature controlled) before arriving in Shanghai. 

The first picture on the original blog of brother Phil and I behind our line of luggage. Notice Lily and Tebucky in their dog sized crates for the long flight.

To document the shang-high and shang-low days, Our China Story was created. It was a place for us to try to make sense of China, and let me tell you China doesn't make sense. From having a population of 1.4 billion people who are incapable of queuing, to seeing grown men pee on the streets, and having no legal access to Facebook, it was always an adventure. Four years and 495 blog posts later, my family returned to the United States and a new blog was born. Hoffman Family Chronicles, follows our simple and sometimes boring life in a place that is still TBD, although I think it might be Asheville, NC. On Hoffman Family Chronicles the posts are pretty evenly split between myself and our dog, Boomer. Some might be offended that they are sharing prime blog space with a dog, but I was just pleased to make it on the blog. 

Occasionally Boomer and I make the blog together, but he is so much cuter than me!

I have an older brother, Phil, who has recently moved to Fort Worth, TX to be a big kid and get a job after graduating from Georgia Tech. Go jackets! All jokes aside, he is doing fab and I’m super excited to see him over Thanksgiving. Douglas does something or other with car paints and cigarette filters and travels a lot. Kimberly is currently enjoying the unemployment life (I say that with love). While in Shanghai, my senior year, Kimmie took a full time science position at my high school. As much as I dreaded having her always near, it wasn't that bad and it was nice to have someone to supply my lunch money whenever necessary. 

Kimberly usually chooses to take pictures, rather than be in them. So this one of three of us will have to suffice. 

I am not entirely sure when or how it started, but I have taken a liking to calling my parents by their first names. My dad is usually Doug or Douglas depending on how badly I want his attention. He seems to have mastered the art of tuning me out when I annoy him, but somehow he always seems to respond to Dad, even if football is on.  Now, my mom's names have some meaning to them. I usually call her Kimmie, occasionally Mom, in a normal conversation with her. Kimberly or Mother when I am annoyed with her. Mama Hoffman when I am telling a story about her. 
Love ya Kimmie and Douglas! 

I will leave you with a list of 10 of the most ridiculous things I have been asked about China:

1. Do they have numbers in China?

2. Were you adopted by Chinese parents?

3. Did you get to meet Mao?

4. Are you, like, super good with chopsticks?

5. Did you only date Asian guys?

6. So did you eat sushi all the time?

7. Were you like the tallest person everywhere you went?

8. Have you ever eaten dog? NO!

9. But you don't have squinty eyes!

and finally

10. But, your English is so good! 

At times I still wish Shanghai was my home, but being in Philly isn't so bad. And having two amazing roommates makes it so much better. 

xoxo,

Grace

Meet Christine!

Hi, everyone! Christine here. This post, as well as the next two are going to be all about each member of GAC. We are doing this to let you in on a little bit of background information just in case we reference something about ourselves in the upcoming blog posts. So here it is...

If you have checked out our past blog posts the only things you really know about me are that I apparently love french toast, according to Abby anyway. But I am here to tell you that I appreciate all types of breakfast foods, from omelets, to pancakes, and maybe even to steak and eggs... okay maybe not that..

Anyway, I, like Abby and Grace am a Sophomore at Drexel University. I am double majoring in marketing and entrepreneurship and I am currently doing my first co-op of three (internship as many may call it) at Comcast's HQ in center city Philadelphia. So technically I am not enrolled in classes at Drexel and am just going to work like the rest of the world, except for the fact that I am an over achiever and am completing an online class.

The fam

But before all of the "college shenanigans" began I lived in a quiet little town close to Kutztown University. Throughout most of my adolescent years, I danced at a homey dance studio doing tap and jazz. I also have a younger brother, Colin, who is a pain in the butt, but I guess I love him anyway. I guess I should also give a shout-out to my Mom and stepdad, Mark, because if I don't I know I'll hear about it later... Also at home I have 3 cats, Ginger, Sophie, and Ruger, as well as 3 dogs, Sadie, Harley, and Winston, although Harley and Winston are the only ones that really matter because they are the cutest. I know, it sounds harsh but if you had to smell the "hound" scent of Sadie, you would understand too.

Winston & Harley

Max & I

I am also dating a dedicated volunteer firefighter, Max, who you will hear much more about I am sure. We've been together for about 15 months, but he lives close to home so I only see him about every two weeks. But I think that is all I can truly take of him anyway. Just kidding Max, I know you're reading this. So because you are reading this I should probably say how much I love you and everything, but I'm not going to.

And now here are 10 quick facts about me:

1. I am a leap year baby so this February I will be turning five. YAY!
2. I have a pointy ear and I hate it although no one really notices it.
3. Anyone can tell you I love to match everything I own. You'll probably hear more about that..
4. My favorite Disney movie is Pete's Dragon a movie no one knows about.
5. I was once crowned Junior Miss Kempton Fair. Lame, I know.
6. I love Nutella.
7. I once had a pet snapper turtle which is probably the worst thing my dad has every let me do.
8. My favorite show is CSI Miami.
9. I have never read more than page 61 of Twilight because I hated it.
10. I used to eat cream cheese out of the container because I liked it so much. And because all grandparents like to spoil their grandkids, right?

All very lame and very random.

Lastly, coming to Drexel is the best thing has happened to me. But not for the education, or any of that but because it gave me the chance to meet my bestest friends, Abby and Grace.

xoxo,
Christine

Grace's Parents Come To Town

Happy Sunday everybody!

This weekend, Grace's parents, Douglas and Kimberly came to Philadelphia to officially move Grace in after two full weeks of her sleeping under a sheet. Our inspiration to start blogging came from Grace's mother, who blogged for 4 years while the Hoffman family took on China. She blogged everything from Grace's soccer injuries to family vacations. Check out her blog from China, Hoffman China Story, as well as her ongoing blog, Hoffman Family Chronicles, of their adventures in America, where they now reside. Kimberly, you are our inspiration, not only as a blogger, but as a super cool mom.
Before heading home, they kindly offered to take the three of us out for brunch at The Continental in center city. This restaurant is one of many from STARR Restaurants all around the city. Throughout our upcoming years at Drexel University, we hope to take on all of the STARR Restaurants in Philadelphia. Every time we have passed The Continental, it has been packed with people. So, we had high hopes regarding the food. And, dag nabbit, it was out of this world. But before we get to food, lets talk about the pre-breakfast conversation topics at the table. We were asked by Douglas to give a biography of ourselves with a fact that no one at the table knew about us. It was surprisingly hard to think of something no one knew, even though we have only known each other for about a year.
Now onto the food... Christine loves french toast, everywhere we go she eats french toast. So, obviously, she got french toast. Crunchy Brioche French Toast to be exact. The french toast was coated in a crunchy breading topped with apple compote, mulled cider sauce, as well as whipped cream and a strawberry to make it pretty. Let's take a look!

Crunchy Brioche French Toast

Next up is Grace. Douglas tried to guess what she was going to order, which he thought would be, the Belgian Waffle with Berries and Cream. Grace, being the smarty pants that she is decided that she needed to prove her father wrong by ordering, the Belgian Waffle topped with Bananas Foster instead of the basic berries and cream. You go Grace, way to be independent! Let's take a gander!

Belgian Waffles with Bananas Foster

Lastly is Abby, Douglas, and Kimberly. I am not sure about Douglas and Kimberly but I do know that Abby loves arugula. Abby also loves eggs. Put those two ingredients together and you have a match made in heaven. After all three of them ordered Grace jealously said, "You should have been a Hoffman, Abby." The omelette was served up with turkey sausage, provolone, along with Abby's beloved arugula. It also came with toast and breakfast potatoes. Let's take a peak!

Turkey Sausage, Arugula, and Provolone Omelette

But don't worry, Douglas was still hungry. After eating the remainder of Kimberly's breakfast as well as his own, he insisted that we order dessert. As a trio, we decided on: the S'more, the Blond Bombshell, and the Liquid Chocolate Cake. The S'more was a graham cracker cake, with chocolate cream and a toasted marshmallow topping. The Blond Bombshell was a blondie with malted vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and butterscotch sauce. Finally, the Liquid Chocolate cake was a warm chocolate cake with salted caramel pretzel ice cream. YUM! Let's take a glance!

S'more, Blond Bombshell & Liquid Chocolate Cake

Thanks to the Hoffman's for making our Sunday delicious!

The Hoffman Family (Minus Phil)

xoxo,
Abby & Christine

P.S. Sorry if this starts to become a food blog. We just love food.

Welcome to Our Blog! :)

Greetings friends and family,

In West Philadelphia three nice, fun ladies by the names of Grace, Abby and Christine (aka GAC) reside. Our story begins August 1, 2014 at Drexel University's freshman orientation. Already having picked our roommates, we were excited to finally meet. As we played icebreaker after icebreaker to meet new people, who would have thought that two people in an orientation group would become best friends. While playing ships and sailors, an icebreaker much like simon says, two people had to pair up like Jack and Rose from Titanic. Grace grabbed Abby's waist and the game was won and a friendship was the prize. Later that day, in the Dac, Drexel's gym, the friendship duo, turned into a trio. As Grace and Abby headed to the dodgeball game, she spotted one of her roommates, Christine. GAC then took off to find prime seats to watch the dodgeball game. And thus, GAC was officially formed. 

xoxo, 

Grace, Abby & Christine

Christine, Abby & Grace