BeingBratton

Dallas Townhouse Renovations!

2012-01-07T21:02:00.000-08:00

We got a great deal on our townhouse in West Village. Unfortunately, it was a little outdated... So, Rob and I have been doing some do-it-yourself touch-ups over the past year. It's been a lot of hard work, but totally worth it. It's still a work in progress, but here's how it looks so far!

{Before pics...}

Living room

The slate on the fireplace just wasn't our taste. There was a huge gap to the right of the fireplace that peeked into the staircase. Hated the cabinets and hardware.

Countertop from the 80's in the bathroom

No storage in the eat-in kitchen area.

Bedroom with textured walls and popcorn ceiling....terrible, right?

{After pics...}

Living Room

Rob put new tile around the fireplace and put built-in cabinets to the right of the fireplace. We plastered, sanded, and repainted all the walls to get rid of the textured look.

Rob put built-in cabinets in the eat-in kitchen area for more storage. We painted all the cabinets and got new hardware.


Downstairs half-bath and laundry area.

DIY wall art - just framed swatches from fabric.com. They fit perfectly into IKEA frames.

A peek into the patio area

Staircase

Upstairs full bath with new granite!

We also painted all the cabinets white and replaced the hardware.

Guest room with DIY headboard from this website.

Master bedroom - no more popcorn ceilings ;)

{One Year in Dallas}

2011-09-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

Highlights from our first year in Dallas...

Dallas or Bust!

First Cowboys Game

Halloween 2010

MLK Phi Mu reunion weekend in Cincinnati, OH

Christmas in Dallas with Bob and Gail

Betsy's Bachelorette party in Charleston, SC

Texas State Fair

Dallas Girls Weekend

Fort Worth, TX

July Fourth with friends

Kapila and Stan's Wedding in Orlando, FL

Life in the Big D

2011-09-03T20:34:00.000-07:00

World's worst blogger award goes to....Monica! :) Yes, we've been living in Dallas over a year now, and yes, I am just now updating our blog. Haha!

Anyways, Rob and I moved here last summer for my Ophthalmology Residency. Things are fabulous and we are loving life! We moved into West Village neighborhood about 1 mile north of downtown Dallas. I'm working at several different hospitals in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex. Rob is working in architecture with a small firm. Things are (as usual) crazy busy for us! We bought a small townhouse within walking distance to the West Village shops/restaurants/bars. It's so much bigger than our old apartment in Chicago! We've spent the past year renovating it. We love it so much! Pictures coming soon (hopefully this will happen prior to actually moving out of Dallas!).

Goodbye, Chicago!

2011-01-08T20:51:00.000-08:00

Yeesh, It's been almost a year since I last blogged. I'm awful! Ha ha! Anyways, lost of changes since my last post. Rob and I have moved to Dallas, TX for years 2-4 of my residency. We left behind our tiny Chicago apartment and all our Chicago friends we made. It was a great year; in fact, maybe one of the best years of my life. It was Rob and my first year of marriage, and we were living in an AMAZING city! The day we left was so hard. We packed up our apartment (including Doodles) and loaded up the moving van. Then, we got pizza at our favorite place in our neighborhood (Ian's Pizza), and sat on the floor of our empty apartment reminiscing about the year. As we walked out the door for the last time, I just started bawling crying! I was just overwhelmed with having to leave a city that I had fallen in love with...I didn't think it would be so hard to leave! Here are a few pictures from our year in Chicago - some of our favorite places and visits from friends. I highly recommend to anyone who wants a change, move to a big city! Be adventurous...life is too short!

Cubs Game with Rob

Taste of Chicago!

Fourth of July in Pritzer Pavilion downtown

View from the Hancock Building

The Bean

Buckingham Fountain

Me and Jenny right after The Oprah Show outside Harper Studios

TY Girls - Liz, Me, Franki, and Kapila - Love them!

Me and Rob on the "Obama Bike Tour" :)

Cubs Game with Jenny and Bill

Me and Jenny on the Sears Tower

Beautiful downtown Chicago


St. Patty's Day with Melissa, Beth, and Kris - check out that green Chicago River!

Snowy night in Chicago

The night the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup! Riots in Wrigley!

{Delicious Pizza Recipe}

2010-03-02T21:52:00.000-08:00

Since I started making meals for two, I have discovered that I really love cooking! It's definitely been a trial and error process, but I discovered a recipe website that is amazing - All Recipes. I got this pizza recipe from there and altered it just slightly. This pizza is packed full of flavor!!!

Chicken Pesto Pizza with Roasted Red Peppers and Asparagus

The final product, courtesy of Rob's camera

...Ingredients...

2 boneless chicken breasts, diced
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup diced onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons basil pesto sauce
3 tablespoons tomato sauce (I used Classico Tomato and Garlic)
Vegetable oil spray
1 package pre-made pizza crust (I used Boboli's whole wheat pizza crust)
1 cup fresh asparagus cut in 1-inch pieces
1 cup chopped roasted red bell peppers (drained from can)
1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1.5 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

.................................................................................

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Brown chicken with onion, garlic, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper in olive oil in a medium, non-stick skillet. Remove from heat; blend with 1 tablespoon pesto sauce; set aside.
Lightly coat a 9x12-inch baking sheet with vegetable oil spray. Spread 2 tablespoons pesto sauce and 3 tablespoons tomato sauce over dough, leaving a 1-inch edge.
Arrange chicken mixture, asparagus and roasted red peppers on top. Sprinkle with mozzarella and feta cheeses. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until cheeses melt and crust is lightly browned.

Happy One-Year Anniversary!!!

2010-03-02T20:41:00.000-08:00

On February 21, 2010, Rob and I celebrated our one-year anniversary. Cannot believe it's been a year already! And what an amazing first year of marriage...

It's funny how girls always think about the person they're going to marry, or at least I did. I was telling Rob the other night how I always pictured a kind, gentle guy who would be tall, dark-haired and handsome, just like him. Or maybe this is how every little girl pictures their future husband. We were lying in bed talking, just about to go to sleep, and I told Rob that I wanted us to remember this moment for the rest of our lives. This moment where we were young and in love, living in a big city by ourselves, and in our first year of marriage. I made him promise that he'd always remember us just like that, no matter how old and gray we get, and no matter how what the future holds for us...

Here's some pics from our anniversary celebration. In memory of our South American honeymoon, we ate a fabulous dinner at Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian churrascaria steakhouse. We were so full it was seriously painful! We drank a bottle of Salentein, an Argentine red wine, which we bought on our honeymoon in Argentina and lugged in our backpacks all the way back to the USA. We also ate our wedding cake topper, which had been taking over our freezer for a year. I thought it would be horribly freezer-burned, but it turned out to be really good!

The top of our {wedding cake}

Yay for 1 year!

Steamed!

2010-02-22T20:10:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness...I'M A TERRIBLE BLOGGER! As predicted, my intern year has been crazy, and I haven't been updated this blog AT ALL! So, I'm on vacation right now, and I've got time to update all our friends and family on what's been going on these last 6 months...

Well, I'm still an intern here in Chicago. My schedule varies a lot - some ward months (i.e. months that I'm taking care of inpatients in the hospital) I'm working close to 80 hours a week, taking call overnight, and working weekends. Other months are more laid-back and similar to a normal 40 hour work week, with no call and no weekends. Despite the hectic schedule, my intern year is much better than anything I could have hoped for. I was able to match into a Transitional Year, which is primarily for doctors who are going into surgical specialties (dermatology, ophthalmology, radiation oncology, anesthesiology), so it's ideally less demanding than a regular intern year. Rob has been working hard in grad school at DePaul University. He studies all day and then has classes 4 hours every weeknight. Our schedules are usually off, so we end up missing each other all day. But, we're able to catch up on the weekends and spend time enjoying the city.

Anyways, the point of this post was to update everyone on the DISASTER that happened this past fall. Rob and I were on a long-weekend trip to Knoxville for the UT-Auburn football game. We got a call from our landlord while we were tailgating with some bad news: our apartment in Chicago had been STEAMED!! Our apartment has old radiators in every room, and apparently when we moved in last summer, the floor cleaners never hooked them up. So, while we were gone, the building manager turned on the heat, and the radiators began blowing out hot steam into every room. It filled our whole apartment and permeated everything. Our landlord was finally called by our downstairs neighbor when his ceiling began caving in. I was freaked out, and mostly worried about our pet rabbit, Captain Doodles. We cut our trip short and rushed home to survey the damage. Sadly, we lost all our furniture, pictures, and books, and most of our other belongings were wet and moldy. Our apartment was destroyed, but somehow, Capt. Doodles survived!

The apartment got so hot that our fan was pointing to the floor!

Our brand new furniture...not so much anymore :(

Candles melted all over our bookshelf

We started the long process of replacing everything (Thank God for renters insurance!), bought new furniture, and had all our clothes, rugs, etc. professional cleaned. Because of all the repairs, we had to move out of our apartment for several weeks. We relocated to a hotel downtown, which was actually really nice! It was right off Michigan Avenue, and it was twice the size of our tiny apartment in Wrigleyville. After a month of madness, cleaning, packing and unpacking, and cataloging all our belongings for insurance, we finally got settled back into our apartment. Here's what it looks like now...

Cheese Please

2009-09-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

This past Labor Day Weekend, my parents came in town for a visit. We drove to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to visit my uncle Brian and to explore the city. You may be thinking, "what is there to see in Wisconsin?" Well... on the way, we discovered the Mars Cheese Castle. I was in heaven! I LOVE CHEESE! This place was hilarious, so we decided to take some glamor cheese shots as proof that this establishment exists...

We bought some delicious grass-fed Gouda, herbed brie, and summer sausage.

Wisconsin Fact: Wisconsin is the #1 cheese producer in the nation with
over 2.5 billion pounds produced annually.

THIS CHEESE IS REAL

...In the Windy City...

2009-08-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

We are officially Chicagoans! We are living in Wrigleyville about a block away from Wrigley Field - Home of the Chicago Cubs. Life is great here! The city is amazing ~ there is so much to do! Our first 2 months here we've been spending a lot of time doing touristy stuff: Art Institute, Millennium Park, neighborhood festivals, the "beach" (Lake Michigan), and all that good stuff. We've also been lucky enough to have visits from a bunch of friends and family. I'm posting a ton of pictures from our first summer in Chicago!

Millennium Park

Edgin and I on the water taxi to Navy Pier

Frank Ghery's Pritzker Pavillion

Betsy and Dan at The Bean

Lake Michigan

Buckingham Fountain

Betsy and Dan come to Chicago for a visit

Taste of Chicago!

Rob chowing down on some perogi's at the Taste

Watching the Fourth of July fireworks downtown

Millennium Park

The Bean

Buckingham Fountain

Bob and Gail come for a visit

Rob and I at our first Cubs game. Cubs played the White Sox and won at the bottom of the 9th inning!

Welcome to the Real World...

2009-08-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

As I feared, I have been a terrible blogger due to my work schedule :( But, hopefully this post will update everyone on what's been going on with the Brattons...
In May, I graduated from medical school, and we moved to Chicago, IL for my first year of residency. After 4 long years, I'm finally a doctor! I'll be doing my intern year in medicine here and then moving to Dallas, TX next July to start my residency in Ophthalmology (eye surgery).
Since we will only be in Chicago for one year, Rob decided to go to grad school. He started at DePaul University's Kelstadt Graduate School of Business in July, and he will be getting a Masters in Real Estate Finance.
It's so strange how our roles have reversed! I was always the one in school with Rob working. Now, Rob is in school and I'm working. The weirdest thing about all this is that I am actually getting PAID ~ it makes me feel like I'm actually an adult now with a real job :)

Candy Take Out!

2009-04-23T20:01:00.000-07:00

Ok, call me a freak, but I LOVED my candy bar so much, I had to give it it's own post (plus I spent many nights crafting to create this fabulous candy bar)! Enjoy ;)

These are the Take-Out boxes

Wedding Pics

2009-04-23T18:54:00.000-07:00

I'm a Bratton! Rob and I were married February 21, 2009. It was seriously the best day of my life. It's incredible having all your best friends and family all in one room. Thanks to everyone for making the trip to Memphis.

We just got our pictures back from our photographer, Studio J, and they are amazing. You can see all of them on my facebook page or at his website if you click on "Proofs". I wanted to share some of my favorites...

Our rings

Ringbearer pillow (a Monica Lynch creation)

My grandma's Korean gown

Our programs (a Monica & Rob creation)

Wreaths on the church front door

About to walk down the aisle...

Me and Dad

*Smooch*

Rob and his groomsmen

My beautiful bridesmaids

The Ringbearer Ryal - Rob's nephew

Rob with the Flowergirls - Lande, his niece, and Sophie, my cousin

Our reception flowers

Reception at Central Train Station downtown

First Dance - "At Last"

Bride's Cake

Cutting the cake (I was apparently very excited)

Groom's Cake - Go Vols!

Elvis made an appearance....

Cordova High Reunion

My girls :)

Rob booty dancin'

Gettin' down with Super T!!

SUPER T!!

Riding away in the carriage...

I'm a Blogger!

2009-04-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

This is my first blog!
I noticed that all my married friends had blogs chronicling their everyday lives as married people and I thought, "now that I'm a married person, I better make one too" jk :)
The thing is, I start my residency in June, and right now, I'm in the 4th year med school/vacation mode. So, in my boredom I've been catching up on facebook (did you notice how I just made that a link -- this is awesome) and youtube. I also started working out again (it's been awhile) -- we'll see how long that lasts...
Anyways, the point is, this blog could be short-lived since I'm not sure how much time I'll have in intern year. Either way, it'll be fun while it lasts...