Our feast yesterday went off without a hitch. The meat was all smokey and delicious, the rest of the sides were awesome (the beans especially), and the pies turned out great. We ate some cow brain. I think about 20 people ended up coming, so it was a good turnout. Good thing, since there was so much food. We're hanging out at Alfred's parents' house for a bit today, recovering from our food comas, then back home since our house sitting gig is over. Back to real life...
Sunday, September 20, 2009
happy birthday Alfred!
And just like that, he's 30. 
Our feast yesterday went off without a hitch. The meat was all smokey and delicious, the rest of the sides were awesome (the beans especially), and the pies turned out great. We ate some cow brain. I think about 20 people ended up coming, so it was a good turnout. Good thing, since there was so much food. We're hanging out at Alfred's parents' house for a bit today, recovering from our food comas, then back home since our house sitting gig is over. Back to real life...
Our feast yesterday went off without a hitch. The meat was all smokey and delicious, the rest of the sides were awesome (the beans especially), and the pies turned out great. We ate some cow brain. I think about 20 people ended up coming, so it was a good turnout. Good thing, since there was so much food. We're hanging out at Alfred's parents' house for a bit today, recovering from our food comas, then back home since our house sitting gig is over. Back to real life...
Friday, September 18, 2009
preparation
Alfred's birthday is on Sunday, 
but since everyone we know is too busy to celebrate on his actual birthday, we're doing it up tomorrow. We're smoking an entire pig, a couple of pork shoulders, a couple of chickens, and a cow's head. Yeah, not sure whose idea the head was, but we'll see how it goes. They just cut the tongue out and are prepping the rest of the head. It's huge! (That's what she said!)
Alfred and I are house sitting this weekend still, so we're over at his parents' house tonight to help get things ready for tomorrow. Mercedes and Ilya came over too, and we've been working (more or less) for the past few hours. I made 4 (yup, 4) pecan pies, Mercedes tackled the fudge, 
Robyn and Alfred collaborated on the cole slaw, Robyn's been making some secret sauces, and Alfred and Max have been seasoning meat. There's a massive pot of boiled peanuts cooling on the stove. 
The gigantic smoker that we're borrowing is heating up outside. We're putting the meat on tonight and smoking it all night long so it's done in time for lunch tomorrow. It's going to be a heck of a Cracker (Florida pioneer) feast!
We've also been doing a bit of eating and drinking tonight.
Alfred has discovered the wonders of Bold City brewery and bought a growler today for us to all sample. He also got to open his gift from Ilya and Mercedes: 27 pounds of peanuts! The boy's a peanut eating fool.
Tomorrow should be pretty exciting. We're going to have enough food to feed an army. Good blog fodder!
but since everyone we know is too busy to celebrate on his actual birthday, we're doing it up tomorrow. We're smoking an entire pig, a couple of pork shoulders, a couple of chickens, and a cow's head. Yeah, not sure whose idea the head was, but we'll see how it goes. They just cut the tongue out and are prepping the rest of the head. It's huge! (That's what she said!)
Alfred and I are house sitting this weekend still, so we're over at his parents' house tonight to help get things ready for tomorrow. Mercedes and Ilya came over too, and we've been working (more or less) for the past few hours. I made 4 (yup, 4) pecan pies, Mercedes tackled the fudge, 
Robyn and Alfred collaborated on the cole slaw, Robyn's been making some secret sauces, and Alfred and Max have been seasoning meat. There's a massive pot of boiled peanuts cooling on the stove. 
The gigantic smoker that we're borrowing is heating up outside. We're putting the meat on tonight and smoking it all night long so it's done in time for lunch tomorrow. It's going to be a heck of a Cracker (Florida pioneer) feast!We've also been doing a bit of eating and drinking tonight.
Alfred has discovered the wonders of Bold City brewery and bought a growler today for us to all sample. He also got to open his gift from Ilya and Mercedes: 27 pounds of peanuts! The boy's a peanut eating fool. Tomorrow should be pretty exciting. We're going to have enough food to feed an army. Good blog fodder!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
my visor
Our whole trip, all I wanted was a visor. We borrowed one for me from Ellery, but it was too big for me, so I decided I was going to buy one from somewhere as a souvenir. Everywhere we went, I looked for a visor. I was hopeful about buying one at an In-N-Out Burger in Las Vegas that had a hard core gift shop next door, but Alfred wouldn't let me. Nice, huh. I finally found the visor of my dreams in Ithaca. It's blue and says Cornell in red letters. I love it. I wore it on the rest of my trip whenever it didn't clash too horribly with my outfit. It was especially good for days when we didn't get to shower, it kept the little hairs on the sides of my head from sticking up too much. Also, it gives me special powers. It's like an amulet. Let me give you some examples. Here my visor has stopped a bus in its tracks, saving my life:
Here my visor is giving me the power to command the ocean:
Today it gave me the power to jog in September in Florida at 6:30pm. It's still really hot and humid in September in Florida at 6:30pm. But with the protection of my visor, I could do it. It wasn't even sunny out, but when I tried taking it off I just felt so naked. I needed it. And it helped me jog for (almost) half an hour tonight. And so, I love it. The end.
Here my visor is giving me the power to command the ocean:
Today it gave me the power to jog in September in Florida at 6:30pm. It's still really hot and humid in September in Florida at 6:30pm. But with the protection of my visor, I could do it. It wasn't even sunny out, but when I tried taking it off I just felt so naked. I needed it. And it helped me jog for (almost) half an hour tonight. And so, I love it. The end.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
return of the weekend cooking fest
This was supposed to be our first weekend home together since about June. So of course my boss called me at about 3:00 on Friday afternoon and asked if I would come in Saturday morning to meet a bigwig who was coming to see the museum with his wife and kids. So of course I had to go in. I was only there for a few hours, which wasn't too bad, and my job ended up being to entertain their twin 3 year old boys. They weren't too sure of me at first, but after showing them an alligator and letting them play a drum, we were old friends. I went in at one point to get everyone bottles of water and the boys followed me, even though my boss tried to lure them away. I didn't get invited to lunch with them, but I got a three year old high five at least. Not bad.
We made sure to get up early enough to go to the farmers market and stock up for the week.
After I got home from work, we came up with meals for the week, made a shopping list, then started moving furniture. Obviously. I think it was sometime around then that Alfred got a text from Billy's wife asking if we would house sit all this coming week. It's been awhile since we house sat for them, but it's pretty standard for them to ask us about 24 hours in advance of when they need us. So I guess this was more notice than usual, actually! However, it meant that our week's worth of meals was going to have to be prepared this weekend. So that's what we did today.
We started this morning off by shopping, then got to work cooking. We had a whole mess of vegetables and defrosted meat to use and needed to be as efficient as possible in our recipes. So we ended up making an arm roast in the slow cooker, an oxtail stew and roasted red pepper soup on the stove, and cucumber salad. We just ate the soup for dinner (pretty good), wrapped up the cucumber salad, and are still cooking the other two. Hm, it felt like a lot more work when we were actually doing it. Unfortunately we sort of forgot about taking pictures, so this one is from our first dinner of our trip, in Mobile. Also, we discovered at some point of the day that we somehow get Bravo, so I recorded a couple episodes of Top Chef, which we're watching now. What a foodie weekend!
We made sure to get up early enough to go to the farmers market and stock up for the week.
After I got home from work, we came up with meals for the week, made a shopping list, then started moving furniture. Obviously. I think it was sometime around then that Alfred got a text from Billy's wife asking if we would house sit all this coming week. It's been awhile since we house sat for them, but it's pretty standard for them to ask us about 24 hours in advance of when they need us. So I guess this was more notice than usual, actually! However, it meant that our week's worth of meals was going to have to be prepared this weekend. So that's what we did today.We started this morning off by shopping, then got to work cooking. We had a whole mess of vegetables and defrosted meat to use and needed to be as efficient as possible in our recipes. So we ended up making an arm roast in the slow cooker, an oxtail stew and roasted red pepper soup on the stove, and cucumber salad. We just ate the soup for dinner (pretty good), wrapped up the cucumber salad, and are still cooking the other two. Hm, it felt like a lot more work when we were actually doing it. Unfortunately we sort of forgot about taking pictures, so this one is from our first dinner of our trip, in Mobile. Also, we discovered at some point of the day that we somehow get Bravo, so I recorded a couple episodes of Top Chef, which we're watching now. What a foodie weekend!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
getting back into the swing of things
So we've been home and back at work for a couple of weeks now. It still kind of sucks. I keep waiting to settle back in and for everything to get back to normal, but it's not quite happening. 
We were gone for so long that it's been really hard to go back to everyday life. At the same time, it's like the trip never happened, like someone else just told us about it. For 6 weeks we were constantly on the move, seeing new things, always doing or planning something exciting, lots of adrenaline and stress. Now we're back to grocery shopping, cleaning, going to work every day, and sitting at home watching TV every night. We've both been kind of depressed, which is apparently a fairly common thing after a vacation. We also unfortunately gained a few pounds on the trip, so it sucks having to go back to exercising and watching what we eat after, well, not for so long. It's really just no fun overall. In addition to all that, we've had to back out of going to our friend Katie's wedding in Germany next month. Between money (or more accurately, lack of it), Alfred's passport being about to expire, and my bosses not being too thrilled about me taking another week or so off of work so soon, it's just not going to happen. So not only can we not go, I also feel rotten for having to miss the wedding. Ugh. No, we're not happy to be home, in case that hasn't come through clearly enough. At least we have lots of good pictures to look at.
We were gone for so long that it's been really hard to go back to everyday life. At the same time, it's like the trip never happened, like someone else just told us about it. For 6 weeks we were constantly on the move, seeing new things, always doing or planning something exciting, lots of adrenaline and stress. Now we're back to grocery shopping, cleaning, going to work every day, and sitting at home watching TV every night. We've both been kind of depressed, which is apparently a fairly common thing after a vacation. We also unfortunately gained a few pounds on the trip, so it sucks having to go back to exercising and watching what we eat after, well, not for so long. It's really just no fun overall. In addition to all that, we've had to back out of going to our friend Katie's wedding in Germany next month. Between money (or more accurately, lack of it), Alfred's passport being about to expire, and my bosses not being too thrilled about me taking another week or so off of work so soon, it's just not going to happen. So not only can we not go, I also feel rotten for having to miss the wedding. Ugh. No, we're not happy to be home, in case that hasn't come through clearly enough. At least we have lots of good pictures to look at.
Monday, September 7, 2009
back to the wilderness
First of all, happy birthday to Mason, who turned 5 last Thursday. I proved myself the worst aunt in the world by not calling him on his birthday. I tried calling the next day, but didn't get to talk to him. I figure I'll call this week and talk to Ella about school, too. Poor Mason, having such a tool for an aunt. At least I got his gift to him on time. Better than nothing, I guess.
We were out of town this weekend with Ilya and Mercedes. We went to Ichetucknee, which is a spring in FL that's sort of like a lazy river ride from a theme park, but in real life.
The three of them talk about how fun it is every summer, but I've never been, so finally this year we managed to go. We got to our campground around 8:00 Friday night, set up camp like pros, and cooked some burgers for dinner. We went to bed at a reasonable hour, since we had to be at the park early the next morning. There are multiple entrances to the river, but only 750 people are allowed to start at the northernmost entrance per day. Since it was a holiday weekend, we got to the park at about 7:30 to make sure we were able to do the whole river. Luckily we were able to rent inner tubes from our campground, so we didn't have to make any stops on our way. It was fun, even though it was a little cool at 9am to be in 70 degree water. It warmed up by the end of our first run though. We stopped for lunch, then went back to the midpoint and went down the river from there twice more. We swam for awhile (except for Mercedes, who is far too sensible to do such things). I kicked a branch underwater and hurt my toes. They're all bruised and they hurt to walk on. But still had lots of fun.
After our day on the river,
we headed back to the campground and started in on some drinking. We had Kahlua, vodka, white and chocolate milk, and beer. Ilya and I got pretty drunk on various color Russians (and apparently both snored that night after passing out). Alfred cooked us some massive burgers for dinner. Mercedes made friends with a cat. I found a frog. We made smores. I sat in Bisquick and made a giant mess. Ilya played with his new oil lantern. In other words, a fairly straightforward night.
The next morning we packed up and headed back home, stopping for a nice greasy breakfast at a Huddle House. We dropped Ilya and Mercedes off at their house, then went to go see Alfred's family. I haven't visited since we got back from our trip, so it was nice to see everyone. Alfred had to change his oil, too. Eventually we made our way home, unpacked, and pretty much just crashed. Busy weekend.
We were out of town this weekend with Ilya and Mercedes. We went to Ichetucknee, which is a spring in FL that's sort of like a lazy river ride from a theme park, but in real life.
The three of them talk about how fun it is every summer, but I've never been, so finally this year we managed to go. We got to our campground around 8:00 Friday night, set up camp like pros, and cooked some burgers for dinner. We went to bed at a reasonable hour, since we had to be at the park early the next morning. There are multiple entrances to the river, but only 750 people are allowed to start at the northernmost entrance per day. Since it was a holiday weekend, we got to the park at about 7:30 to make sure we were able to do the whole river. Luckily we were able to rent inner tubes from our campground, so we didn't have to make any stops on our way. It was fun, even though it was a little cool at 9am to be in 70 degree water. It warmed up by the end of our first run though. We stopped for lunch, then went back to the midpoint and went down the river from there twice more. We swam for awhile (except for Mercedes, who is far too sensible to do such things). I kicked a branch underwater and hurt my toes. They're all bruised and they hurt to walk on. But still had lots of fun. After our day on the river,
we headed back to the campground and started in on some drinking. We had Kahlua, vodka, white and chocolate milk, and beer. Ilya and I got pretty drunk on various color Russians (and apparently both snored that night after passing out). Alfred cooked us some massive burgers for dinner. Mercedes made friends with a cat. I found a frog. We made smores. I sat in Bisquick and made a giant mess. Ilya played with his new oil lantern. In other words, a fairly straightforward night. The next morning we packed up and headed back home, stopping for a nice greasy breakfast at a Huddle House. We dropped Ilya and Mercedes off at their house, then went to go see Alfred's family. I haven't visited since we got back from our trip, so it was nice to see everyone. Alfred had to change his oil, too. Eventually we made our way home, unpacked, and pretty much just crashed. Busy weekend.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
who's that girl
Yes, I'm going to resume this blog. It's just been kind of nice not having to worry about posting the last several days. Plus I've experienced a sharp decline of blog material in my life over the past week. Luckily I should have pictures to post for a long time, whenever I don't have anything else to use I can just put up pictures from our trip! Like I said in one of my wrap up posts over there, we took almost 6500 pictures on our trip, and only shared a tiny fraction of that on the blog. Like these gems. I was waiting for Alfred to set up the tripod and lighting. These were taken in Sunset Crater Park, with the painted desert in the distance behind me. Hard to believe we were there over 6 weeks ago. Our trip already feels like we just imagined it, or like someone else went on a trip and told us all about it. Good thing we have our blog and so many pictures! By the way, Alfred fixed the map over there. I don't know if anyone noticed, but there was a gap in our drive from Ithaca to Vermont. Alfred thinks it happened because he waited too long to upload the file from the GPS. Anyway, just wanted to check in here, I hope no one has given up on me yet! And if you need something else to read, go check out Mike's blog. I'm such an inspiration.
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