Vacation! part three

Ten years! That seems like such a long time, yet when I look back, it doesn't feel like ten years... some times it feels like more. Other days it feels less. This post is dedicated to our tenth anniversary. I'll get back to the vacation pictures in the next post.

Bill dedicated a post to me on his blog (click here to read the wonderful poem he wrote). I wanted to take a post to dedicate to him some of the things we've shared over the last ten years.

1) He's endured the self-portraits as I've gotten better at taking them
2) We have spent a lot of fun times cooking together in the kitchen
3) We enjoy traveling together and have spent many hours in the car (how many different cars is another post...)
4) We share a love of Formula 1 racing and were able to see one of the last races in Indianapolis
5) We appreciate art and architecture
6) We have worked together on many, many house projects
7) We enjoy walking together
8) We enjoy being outside, whether it's at Meijer Gardens or in our own backyard
9) He's the yin to my yang

And the tenth thing we've shared a lot of in the past ten years is laughter. He always knows how to make me laugh, and while he doesn't always laugh out loud at my [bad] jokes, I know he's laughing on the inside.

We spent the day of our tenth anniversary doing many of those things listed above. We drove to Chicago for a long weekend. It seemed fitting since we went to Manhattan for our fifth anniversary. Originally we had thought about San Francisco, but decided Chicago was not only closer (and would be cheaper) but that we should work our way out west. San Francisco is still on the list, but we'd like suggestions as to where to go for our 15th anniversary?? What do you suggest?

Vacation! part two

In between our two trips we were home for two nights. On the 25th we went to the last outdoor concert of the season at Meijer Gardens. We were there to hear Brandi Carlile. You can take a picnic so decided to use our picnic basket for the second time in ten years (the first time doesn't exactly count because we got rained out and had to eat in the car). Thanks again to the Osborn's who gave us this picnic basket as a wedding present! We really do like it!!

It was chilly that night, but the sky was clear and the music was good. I have to admit I didn't realize that much plaid existed, but we had fun and enjoyed the performance.

Vacation! part one

Bill and I finally took a week off, together and headed out on vacation. I am including a few photos on my blog and I'm breaking the vacation up into parts. I don't think you care to see all 300 photos we took (I have officially reached 5,000 pictures on my computer - that's only from the last three and a half years)...

First, we headed to Sunbury, PA. Our good friends, Shannon and Greg along with their two boys, recently moved here for Greg's first appointment in the United Methodist Church in Pennsylvania. We met them in NJ back before Greg was even ordained! Now they've finally moved back to PA to be closer to family and Greg has his own church (meaning he's no longer an Associate, he's the head honcho)! We were going to help them paint, but it turns out their new church family took care of that. Instead we got to relax, hang out and have fun.

We walked down the hill into downtown Sunbury and saw the whole town. We decided it must be what Stars Hollow looked like after the Gilmore Girls had left, forty years later. (We were all fans of that show, so it came as no surprise that we could all picture Stars Hollow, run down and in its faded glory.) We went to church and met the wonderful and nice members of their new church family. We went and saw "The Muppet Movie" at the Campus Theater (which had no a/c and apparently one speaker, luckily we didn't mind because after all, it was "The Muppet Movie"). We played Lego's with the boys, and I had stuffed animal fights, aka "pillow fights". We ate way too much food (Shannon's birthday was on Saturday, so of course there was cake, rum cake!) and enjoyed ourselves.

Shannon and I took the boys to a nearby park. I climbed on the Squirrel for a fun photo op.


We spent most of Monday walking through two huge antique malls. These were some player piano rolls for sale.
After looking through ridiculously large antique stores, we stopped and ate at Skeeter's. While it may not have been as good as Shannon's or my cooking, it wasn't bad!

Baking with Skylar

Skylar was here for ten days. We had a great time, we went to the beach twice (and got Pronto Pups, yum!), we went to Meijer Gardens, had lunch at Electric Cheetah, and played croquet. We also went to the Farmer's Market twice.

We bought two pounds of blueberries. Then we made blueberry pie and this chocolate cake that has blueberries in it. It was delicious. Skylar took these pictures and I had to post them, because they are "Good Eats".

We also made our own pizzas, from the leftover pizza dough when I made the skillet pizza. Those were also a big hit. Skylar asked if she could made her pizza into the shape of a heart and I told her if she wanted to, she could do that.



My only regret is not truly understanding the art of pie crusts and the techniques used for the edges. I guess I'll just have to keep on making pies and will learn more each time!

All of these leftovers are gone, however there is one more thing I made, Jam Crumb Cake and half of that is in the fridge. I think it's time to go enjoy a piece of that...

it's lunch, time for a sandwich!

Yup, I made another sandwich today. Let me backtrack a little; one of my favorite things that I ate while in Germany was salami on a hard roll with butter. I have enjoyed that treat a few times since I took that trip in 1998 (oh my gosh, was it that long ago). Another side note: Bill is back home. Sort of. He is now working on this side of the state more than he's working on the other side. Now I have to go back to stocking food for him for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Since he's working at home too, I need to accommodate his dietary needs again.

Yesterday I bought salami at the deli counter. I had her slice it thin, because I just like it better that way. Then I perused the bakery for some hard rolls. I found a garlic roll so I decided to try those. Now, as I mentioned, I liked my salami with butter. But that's sort of labor intensive and my mouth was watering. Wait! I have mascarpone cheese. I'm not a fan of American cheese with my salami and hard roll, but as my mouth started to water even more, I knew I was onto something with the mascarpone.

It's easy to spread, like spreadable butter. It doesn't have too much flavor, I started substituting it for butter in my macaroni and cheese, but it has more depth to it then butter. And it's half the calories, or fat. Something like that. Let me just tell you that I have a new favorite sandwich. It was delicious. Once again, my invention paid off!