I've been cheating on you

I must admit, I tried out another blog location. I was unhappy with how this site was organized and how information was put on. I posted something here: http://sproutingtogether.typepad.com/blog/

I'm going to keep looking around and if I move for good, I'll let you know!

Christmas is coming so quickly! We have just two days of work left before we hit the road. We hope to be in town for a week and then go to Washington, D.C. for New Years. My very good friend has lived there for years and I haven't visited in awhile. We are getting very excited about our "vacation," but Andy's mostly excited that he doesn't have to work!

Since it is the holiday season, I wanted to give my employees (all three of them) something to say thank you. We decided to go on a weekend baking adventure for these:

After making 200 rolls, I want to eat them all! And they taste even better than they look. If you want to try them yourselves, check it out: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/cinammon_rolls_/

Merry Christmas my awesome Afterschool Teachers! You ROCK!!!!!

Thanksgiving a la Vegetarian

It's Thanksgiving once again and Andy and I are spending this one at home all alone. And that's okay because on Friday we will have a big Thanksgiving dinner with our house mates. They will do the turkey and stuffing and such, so Thursday for us can be anything we want it to be. While Andy could eat Thanksgiving dinner any day of the week, and green beans and cranberries are delicious, I can't do Fall side dishes two nights in a row. So, we are going totally off the books and making pasta!

When I say making pasta though, I don't mean boil some water and add boxed noodles, I mean make pasta. After the wedding we bought ourselves this beauty:

She's a beautiful pasta maker that we've used to make spaghetti, fettuccine, and lasagna from fresh made pasta dough. It isn't too complicated, but it's a two person job that takes about an hour to do. We try to make it on the weekend when we have time and energy, but Thursday seems like the perfect day to make it again. But mostly, our kitchen is so small, it's nice to have a food project that allows us both to be in there without being in the way.

I'm also making fresh ciabatta bread and we'll probably throw a freshly made tomato sauce on top. Simple, delicious, and not turkey.

Wedding Love: My Favs

I know I said I'd post family and friend pics. These are my fav from the night! Enjoy :)

Wedding Love: Just Us

About time! Wedding photos & stories to share!!!! It will definitely take some time to share all our photos. Today's installment: Andy & Amy.

Before the ceremony, Andy and I decided we wanted to get our photos first, then the bridal party. We wanted to see each other before the wedding, but also wanted it to be a special moment.

On the day of, the photographer was late...30 minutes late! My well tuned schedule was falling apart and Bridezilla bubbled up. That's one way to clear out the groomsmen (sorry guys). It was the, "I'm going to f*cking kill you" moment that I believe every bride is allowed to have. It hits when enough is enough, when you realize everything is out of your control, when you think the wedding could go down in flames, when you wish you could just go outside and see what was going on but you can't because you didn't want to see your soon to be husband until it was photographed! Where is the photographer! What didn't help was the 3 hours of sleep, 60 minutes of hair tugging, and an inability to eat. When she finally did arrive, Andy was outside of the barn and I was inside. I told the photog that Andy and I were ready for our pictures but we hadn't seen each other yet. It took her about 10 minutes to understand that we didn't want to just run into one another, we wanted it to be a moment...hopefully a photographed moment.

So she took some pictures of me while as we found a location for our "meeting."

Then we waited for Andy to get there and she took some pictures of my super long, incredibly awesome veil...hand made by Virginia :).

That thing didn't really want to fly like we wanted it to.

Then Andy came and he had to walk with his eyes shut towards the sound of the photographer's voice. We stood back to back (so dramatic) and we held hands while photographer took pictures.

Ahhhh, finally. I got to see Andy and it was wonderful. I think we made out for a few minutes, we kinda forgot anyone else was there. I know this is cheesy, but I missed him...we hadn't really been together for a week. This moment was the first moment where we began that journey of a lifetime together. It was magical.

I really liked having that "first look" moment with Andy, but I didn't think it needed to be as drawn out as it was. The pictures were fantastic though.

It turned out the photographer was stuck by a train, which is not uncommon at Camp Campbell Gard. I got stuck many a-times on my way to work there.

The next installment: Family & Friends

Harvest

2 months since I've last been on here! Sorry about that. I'd like to take a moment and remember those lost in the month of October. This has been a very sad month for our family and friends and for us. Life is constantly changing so hold onto the moments as they come.

October is the beginning of Fall when things change, things die, things get cold and nights grow longer. Before this time of the year was called Fall or Autumn, it was called Harvest. Up here, that makes sense...expect our Harvest happens in late September and early October when we try to beat the frost. We spent an afternoon at a farm early this month picking Acorn Squash because the frost was hitting that night. There is nothing like looking at 6 acres of Squash knowing they all need to be harvested that day!

Andy and I also went to a festival of sorts at a local seed company, High Mowing Seeds...largest organic seed supplier in the nation! We explored their trial gardens, ate delicious veggies, and shared a meal cooked by chefs using local food! Umm, ummm, good. Here are some photos of that wonderful day in early Harvest!

Sunflowers of all sizes

The many gardens & Andy

And this vegetable is....(you should know this!)

Spaghetti Squash, one of our favorites

Red Kuri Squash, I like the color and it tastes good

I don't know if this is a real vegetable or herb, I'm thinking someone got bored!

This is a lemon cucumber...it is round and yellow like a lemon, but its a cuke!

Kale acting as a bush

HOT peppers

Bonus Photo: View from the top of Mt. Mansfield...not near High Mowing Seeds

Honeymoon Part 2: Quebec City

I really want my wedding pictures, but we just have to keep on waiting. I'm still quite happy with the 3 I have, so I'll just keep looking at those.

Back to the honeymoon...

We left the campground freshly showered in the quarter-fed showers that lasted 5 minutes, so we felt ready as we were going to be for the big city. We hopped on the highway and headed into a French-speaking world. And we got lost which is amazingly easy to do when you can't read the highway signs and the only place they are is at the exit. We did find our way to Montmorency Falls though. It is next to Quebec City, wider than Niagara Falls, and wet. We climbed to the top and back down again.

View of Quebec City

The falls

Going down...

The cute newlyweds!

Next we went to the walled in city where our Bed and Breakfast was. It was a cute place with a great room for a good price, we highly recommend...Gite de Paris. The walled in city is so magical. Seeing the old architecture, hearing French, listening to the horses click-clop down the street and following the wall lined with cannons transported us to a far away land. We walked a lot and ate a lot and enjoyed our time there. Here's some of those images...

View from the wall

Side street in Old Quebec

Old, beautiful house

Pedestrian-Tourist Street

Castle/Expensive Hotel

"I see a ship that needs a blastin' Cap'n!"

An old French church

A votre sante!

Honeymoon Part 1: Camping

We haven't gotten anymore pictures from our photographer and no pictures have been downloaded to our flickr account, so I've decided to recap our honeymoon and tell some stories.

After leaving Cincinnati and forgetting my pillows at the hotel in Cleveland (I have a pattern of leaving my pillows when I go on trips), we made the long trek back to Vermont (around 15 hours). Lake Champlain divides northern New York and Vermont and there are several ferries that can take you across the lake. Andy and I always take the northern or southern routes to avoid them, but this time we decided to take the adventure and we got there just in time for sunset. It was a great idea...except for the last 5 minutes when my motion sickness kicked in.

Once home, we unpacked, slept, repacked, and hit the road by 9 the next morning.

Oh Canada, here we come!

Apart from every sign being in French, exchanging our money and having trouble communicating with everyone outside of large city, this was the big sign we were out of America: no ice in our fountain Coke.

We drove through Quebec City...

And ended up in the wilderness.
We camped here! Actually, we camped back in the woods a bit, but you get the idea.

We slept.

We ate.

We drank.

We watched the animals eat our food! We even found half eaten chocolate in our car...I hope that little bugger isn't still in there.

It was beautiful and amazing and ended with a moose! Couldn't have asked for anything better.