Happy Easter!

Big thanks to my mom for sending this super-cute Easter gift our way.

Actual conversation with my husband:

Me: Oh, look at the cute little bunny for the baby!
Shane: You'll have to feed it to him.
Me: I'm not sure how long we'll have to keep it before he's allowed to eat chocolate...
Shane: No, by eating it yourself!

I love how that man's brain works.
May all of you be blessed with chocolate this weekend!
(or next week when it goes on clearance!)

Christmas (Or: When I Didn't Hate Winter)

Since Pittsburgh is due for a big snow storm this weekend, I thought it was a good time to reflect on my Christmas. It was a happy time when winter was new and snow felt appropriate. Let's go back two months together. (cue time machine noises)

There it is! Your first sneak-peak at our moved-into apartment. So festive!! We had plenty of room for our giant tree in the living room this year. Of course, we've since bought a big, beautiful sofa. So next year's decorating might require a bit more creativity.

One of my proudest finds this year was the stocking hooks. They're engraved with holly berries, and coated in brass, and they don't hurt our new hutch! Also, check out our vacation souvenir from Jamestowne on the tree. I hung it in a prominent place. Maybe we can make a tradition of finding a new ornament every year from someplace nifty. (Credit: Ornaments as souvenirs is an idea I got from my mom.)

I made Shane sit on the floor to open presents. This was a moment of whimsy on my part. It made me feel more Christmas-y some how. He gave me a coffee grinder (which is really for both of us). No more suffering through pre-ground beans!

I got him a watch a whole year ago on Kickstarter. Which means, of course, it still hasn't been shipped to us. Sigh... So to tide him over, I got him two books (which are really for both of us) and a journal. The man loves him some words; 'tell you what.

We opened a few other gifts from family. Then we called said family on the phone while we walked to the nearby Indian restaurant. When we got home, we played Upwords. It was a perfect way for our little family of two to celebrate.

I had the following week off. So I took advantage of the extra time to make a big traditional holiday meal. Shane gets all of the credit for the turkey. We also had Norwegian lefse (potato bread) courtesy of my parents!

I have saved the best part of our story for last. I decided not to take the time to make the topper I had planed for our tree this year. It was pretty without it, even if it did have something missing. Lucky for me, Shane's brother Avery came to the rescue! The wrapping might give you a clue if you're nerdy like me.

That's his gift to us from last year in the background of the second picture. So what's inside? Only the scariest tree topper ever! DON'T BLINK!

(Explanation: It's a weeping angel, which is an evil alien from the Doctor Who TV show.)

Thank you, Avery, for making our Christmas complete!

Vacation - Part 5: Gettysburg

This is my last vacation post! I will try to keep it brief. It's a shame, really, because I remember being super excited to write about this final part of our trip. But a lot has happened since early September, and I am sick of waiting to write about it all. Hopefully, the pictures will help to do the talking.

We spent a day and a half exploring Gettysburg, PA. I think two would've been perfect. We were camping again; this time at Cunningham Falls State Park in Maryland. The park was wonderful! I hope to return someday just to explore the hiking trails. However, a word to the wise: the campgrounds got very busy on the weekend.

The first morning, we drove straight to the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitor Center. It is a big, beautiful building with lots of parking. We booked a personal tour in advance. I highly recommend it! For almost the same price as two bus tour tickets, we had a delightful guide drive our car around the park for us. His name was Ted Gajewski, and we loved him! His delivery was polished, but he paused often to ask if we had questions. His enigmatic presentation made the battle feel real and immediate to me. When he concluded the tour on Cemetery Hill, I had to resist the urge to applaud him!

Included with the tour was admission to the visitor center's museum, video presentation, and cyclorama experience. If I had a do-over, I would check out the indoor stuff first. We breezed through the museum before our tour, which gave me the background I needed to truly understand the story our guide walked us through. But I would've liked to have had a closer look. We saw the video/cyclorama presentation after our tour. The video was terribly redundant at that point, but the cyclorama is spectacular! It is a giant wrap-around painting accompanied by a recorded light and sound presentation. A voice-over talks about the battle with gunshots and explosions in the background. Sadly, I could not stay in that room for very long. After our immersive tour, it was too much for my poor emotionally spongy self to handle.

Me & Abe outside the visitor's center

After the battlefield, we took the free trolley from the visitor center to downtown Gettysburg. I was impressed by how non-commercial the place was (esp. compared to Williamsburg). It didn't seem like a tourist town so much as just a small town which happens to have some tourist business.

There was a house museum on my agenda which advertised a look at everyday family life around the time if the Civil War. I figured it would be a nice break from all the upsetting battle talk. Boy was I wrong! Please don't misunderstand; the Shriver House is a great place. The tour guide was nice and competent, and wore period clothing. But I was not going to avoid sad stories there. The Shriver family had it rough! Granted, most families in Gettysburg did. The battle left behind something like 15-20 times more wounded, dead, and dying soldiers than there were local civilians. Essentially, every building became a hospital in some way.

After all that sad, we went to Hunt's Battlefield Fries for dinner. It doesn't look like much, but the reviews online were great. They were right! We enjoyed awesome cheese-steak, and super friendly service. Also, they had more bottled craft soda than I've ever seen in one place.

We were beat after dinner, so we called it a night early. On our second morning in Gettysburg, we packed up the tent and drove downtown. We found good coffee at the Cafe Saint-Amand, but the wait time for food was super long. That was a bit of a problem because we had an appointment for our photo to be taken. The experience we had with Victorian Photography Studios was great, though. Check out our awesome wet-plate photo:

I plan to use it for our Christmas card! (Nothing says "Happy Holidays" like a picture where are heads are being held still by metal brackets, right?) Incidentally, I'm still trying to come up with a good caption for the card. Something like "Party like it's 1859", but you know... good. Please tell me if you have any ideas!

After the photo session, we got delicious ice cream from Mr. G's Ice Cream, toured the Gettysburg Foundation's headquarters/free museum called the Rupp House, and hit the road for home. It was fantastic to take a whole week off! We saw family, explored history, and enjoyed the great outdoors. I ticked two places off my "Travel Dreams" pinboard, and discovered another destination that I liked even better! I don't know when we'll have another chance to take a vacation like this, but I hope it's soon.

Vacation - Part 4: Williamsburg

Thanks for coming back with me after my unintentional hiatus! It's been a crazy month. Let's get back to that summer vacation. (My goal is to finish writing about it before Christmas...)

The penultimate stop on our big vacation was at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. This was by far the most commercialized experience on our journey. It took me some sleuthing online to figure out the set-up, as their website is huge! It's pretty, but not so straightforward. Basically, anyone can walk around the small neighborhood called "Revolutionary City" for free. Here's the website's description:

"The Historic Area of Colonial Williamsburg stretches over 301 acres, and includes 88 original 18th-century structures. Hundreds of houses, shops and public outbuildings are reconstructed on their original foundations. Some buildings are open to the public, while others are private residences and administrative offices."

Inside these "open to the public" spaces there are often costumed actors. Some of them were tradespeople just going about their business and answering questions from tourists. Some were more classic tour-guides with a script to follow as they showed us around. All of these areas require a pass to access.

The Smithy

We arrived bright and early at the visitor center. It is a modern building which seemed to me like a cross between a shopping mall and a small airport. We found our way to a ticket kiosk which spit out two badges for us to clip to our clothes. Shane hunted down an employee for a map. After gaping at the long schedule of special performances and demonstrations printed on it, we decided to just wing it. (Insider tip: Another thing the website doesn't say is that tickets purchased online are about $10 cheaper than the ones you buy in person.)

There is a shuttle bus which will take you down from the visitor center. We decided to walk in though. It was not a short walk, but it was a beautiful morning. After winding around on hiking trails near the highway, we emerged behind the reconstructed governor's mansion. We were in! And we were hungry!

We found a historical tavern. (I am 90% sure it was the King's Arms.) We were seated in the basement; which is way neater than it sounds. The floor was the original brick floor from the 1700s, the old cooking fireplace filled a whole wall, and it was lit almost entirely by candles! The food was rather plain, but well made. I was super excited about the appetizer though: Pasties! Well, they were more like meat turn-overs... but they were still really good.

After our bellies were full, we walked to the far end of the compound, figuring we'd work our way back slowly. The farthest mark on the map was something called "Bassett Hall". When we arrived, we found a tour about to begin with only two other people, so we jumped in. We were told that this was one of the family homes of John D. Rockefeller Jr. Yes, that Rockefeller. It turns out that he and his wife were the philanthropic catalysts for the preservation of Colonial Williamsburg. It was not at all what I expected! It is decorated as they had it in the 1940's, and Mrs. Rockefeller's tastes were super kitschy. It reminded me of my great-grandparents' farm in Iowa, except you know... expensive. (Sorry, no pictures were allowed.)

We wandered back to the main road, and tried to get into a tour at the Capitol Building. The guard outside told us we'd have to wait fifteen minutes, but that the Declaration of Independence was about to be read. We said "Ok. We can wait." and his reaction was something like "Whatever you want, weirdos." Except he was stoic, and old-timey, and polite. But I bet that's what he was thinking, because it turns out the Declaration is kind of a big deal. So we wandered on over. There were costumed actors on the street with microphones, reciting reactions people might have had at the time like: "'All men created equal'? Maybe that means us slaves too." and "'All men created equal'? Maybe that means us women too." (The response to which was, in both cases, "Don't be stupid. It doesn't.")

Me with the stoic guard outside the Capitol Building & the declaration of the Declaration

After the performance was over, a ton of people headed toward the Capitol Building entrance. So we ended up skipping it. Also nearby was something Shane's brother told us we absolutely could not skip: the Coffee House. Boy was he right! We were given a pretty long speech describing how coffee houses were like fancy bars. They also rented out rooms for people who wanted to throw small parties. Then we walked through the house, and were given samples! My coffee was amazing: more like Turkish coffee than modern American stuff. Shane ordered a hot chocolate. It was un-sweetened, and very rich. We loved it! But it was definitely a more grownup taste than Swiss Miss with marshmallows.

We wandered around a bit more, visiting tradespeople. All told, we saw a joiner (frame maker), tinsmith, blacksmiths, basket weavers, gunsmith and the palace kitchens. There were bunches more to see, but we ran out of time! If I ever get to come back, I'll be sure to plan at least two days to take everything in.

 (Clockwise from top-left) Basket weavers; Tin-smith (With new baskets!);
Joiner with a planer; A typical meal in the governor's kitchen building (Yes, that's real food!)

Our final stop of the day was back at the Governor's Palace. We were given a tour by a very nice lady who told us she was a servant in the house, and just the night before the masters had fled in anticipation of the revolution. This governor was England's representative in the colonies. He and his family were the only true nobility around. The palace is a modern re-construction, but you'd never know it. They followed every detail they could find, right down to the correct number of dishes in the pantry according to the housekeeper's inventory.

How many weapons do you need, Lady?!?

The palace has beautiful gardens in the back stretching for acres. There is a whole plantation back there too. But we were beat! We waved goodbye to the palace, found a modern sandwich shop nearby, and took the bus back to the car. I hope there will be another visit to Colonial Williamsburg in our future. This time, we barely skimmed the surface!

Goodnight, Palace. Goodnight, big lawn. Goodnight, tourists and tiny dog.

Vacation - Part 2: Fambly

Friday morning following the concert, we slept in, packed up the car, and drove to a Prince William Forest Park. The park was a little over half-way between home and our first destination. I miscalculated a bit, so we didn't arrive at the campsite until past midnight.  After haplessly wandering around by the office building to make sure we didn't need to sign in; we managed to find our site, pitch a tent in the dark, and get some sleep. We took a risk and skipped putting on the tent's rain fly. With the exception of one bit of bird poop, it proved to be a wonderful decision!

My view upon waking

On Saturday, we drove another three hours or so and checked into our hotel room. Once everything necessary or melty was in the air-conditioned room, we headed over to Shane's brother's house.

You know the expression "You can't choose your family"? Well, these family I would choose. Shane's oldest brother, Avery, lives in North Carolina with his wife, Heather, and their rapidly growing children. The kids are very dear to our hearts. Shane feels especially close to them since he acted as a sort of "third parent" one summer years ago to help out during a medical emergency. I just think they're amazing!

We went out to Chick-fil-A for dinner and hung out a little bit afterward. The next day was Sunday, so we attended church with them. We met lots of folks there who were sincerely welcoming in a beautiful way. We went out to lunch at a nice buffet, and made a pit-stop to buy injera before going back to their home.

Injera is an Ethiopian bread made from teff flour; traditionally with special yeast cultures passed down through generations. It tastes a bit like a bitter beer-bread pancake. We needed injera because Heather made Ethiopian food for dinner!

I requested this meal specially because I had never had Ethiopian cooking, and it's a semi-regular thing for their family. It was amazing!! For one thing, I have never liked beets before in anything. For another, no matter how full I am, I cannot look at the above picture without craving more! The meal was also accompanied by Ethiopian coffee and herbal tea in beautiful little cups. Even the kids drank the coffee! (They did put tons of milk and sugar in it.)

After dinner we played a board game, and stayed up past all our bedtimes. The next morning we stopped by for a few more hours. (...and some leftover Ethiopian food!) The girls performed a cups song for us. It was super impressive, and must have taken lots of practice!

Leaving was tough to do. Every time we see these fine folks, I wish we could see them more often. But we do have friends and jobs and stuff in Pittsburgh. Besides, we had a lot more fun vacation plans ahead of us!

Our Pioneer Camping Trip

Well, now. Since my friend (and soon-to-be neighbor) amberZon mentioned me on her blog yesterday, I suppose it's about time I start catching you guys up with some new material! (Welcome, Zonbie fans!!)

Last fall, Shane and I went camping for the first time. As a kid, Shane would go out roughing it with his friends pretty often, but I had never really been camping myself. Some of our friends invited us to join them for an overnight, so we bought a tent and dug out our sleeping bags. It turns out you need to have a bit more equipment than that for a truly successful camping trip! But our friends had lots of those other things, so we still had a blast.

Our piggy-backed camping trip last fall

Thanks, Wells and Dutras for showing us the ropes!

This spring I got it into my head to flesh out our camping supplies. It started with just an air mattress. Then a travel French press. Before I knew it, I'd amassed quite a kit! I found a giant Rubbermaid container lying around the house and it became home to our camping supplies.

Our set-up, complete with giant Rubbermaid.

Once I had all of the equipment, I couldn't wait to use it! Shane had a birthday coming up. So I took the Friday of his birthday weekend off, and we made a mini-vacation! Friday morning, I picked up the rental car and took it to buy groceries. Then I went home, filled the cooler, and loaded the car. After a short break to catch my breath, I drove out to Carnegie, PA to pick Shane up from work. Now that I drive very rarely (because we don't own a car), I find driving stressful. So, I felt really proud of myself for trucking all over kingdom-come. Shane drove for the rest of the trip. Bless him.

We stopped off at Lowe's for fire wood (which they had trouble finding for us...), and were on our way. I had reserved a plot online at Raccoon Creek State Park. It's just an hour out of town, and I read somewhere that it was a good place for novice campers. It turned out to be a nice enough place, but I don't think we'll go back because it was close to an airport. The low-flying planes interrupted the peaceful feeling of remoteness we otherwise enjoyed.

Our plot: Before & After

It was a lovely little spot; very large, and far removed from the other campers. We set up shop, made dinner,   and sat quietly by the fire until we were tired. I started the fire too! I don't believe I've ever started a fire all on my own before. I was super ambitious with my choice for dinner: steak and potatoes. The potatoes (and green peppers an onions) turned out great! But while Shane was able to save it, I will not be trying to cook raw steak over a fire ever again. (Maybe if I cooked it at home a bit first...)

The next morning, we woke earlier than I expected to. It was the beginning of May, so the morning was very cold. I was glad to have thought to bring our winter coats along! Shane made eggs and coffee for breakfast, and we took our time.

We put together deli sandwiches for lunch, and decided to bike to the wildflower reserve at the other end of the park. We thought the map said it was 2.5 miles away. The map lied. It turns out, it was more like 5 very hilly miles away. When we stopped under a bridge near the reserve and ate our sandwiches, I proclaimed that I could bike no further. Shane, being a saint and in better shape than I, happily rode all the way back to camp and came back for me with the car. He even had the energy to walk around the wildflower reserve with me! He took lots of pretty pictures. Here are a few:

After our flower-gazing, we hopped in the car. On the way to meet me, Shane had run into a ranger who told him about a store nearby selling ice cream. We decided a pit stop was definitely in order! It was hilariously back-woodsy (intentionally, I think). The ice cream was great, and they had cheap wood for sale, which was good because we underestimated how much to pick up at Lowe's.

We went back to camp, and cooked up the fried rice I'd packed for dinner. I pulled out my little blue ukulele, and we sang together by the fire. Then, we made s'mores with roasted bananas! It's my new favorite thing. It's super messy, but delicious! We read books by flashlight until the fire was low (and I was "attacked" by spiders one too many times). Some noisy neighbors had moved in that afternoon, and they woke me up once. But otherwise our cheap air mattress gave us another good night's rest.

Banana S'mores!!!

The next day, we were beat. There were more eggs for breakfast, and more deli sandwiches for lunch. I gloated a bit in my head while watching everyone else pack up early, knowing we had the whole day to get ourselves together. When cleaning up, we discovered that our tent had been pitched near an anthill! But we never had any trouble with them in the tent. Yay tent! (And yay for the tarp I bought to put under it!) Around noon, we loaded the car and headed home. We were happy and relaxed from our weekend in a way I've never experienced with a "vacation" before. But we were also happy to go back to our bed and shower!