Digits

In the whirlwind of wedding planning, Andy and I have reached the stage of gift making. Actually, Andy's been doing the making and I've been working on the details of the weekend and making sure everyone is in the loop that needs to be in the loop. We've also been moving (still) and painting. Our hope is to be moved in and sleeping at our new apartment by this weekend. At this rate, I don't know if that will happen...but we don't have a choice. In one week and two days I leave for Ohio!

In other news, we both got cell phones yesterday! That's right, Andy and I have rejoined the fast paced nation and attached a phone to our hips. They look like this:

Cool touch screen, loud noises, buzzing sensations. It's a fairground in our hand! Along with the new toy, we also have new numbers. So, if you know us, make sure you have our new digits!

Neglectful

Andy and I have been ignoring the wedding these past few weeks. There have been lots of changes in our lives and our upcoming nuptials have had to be put on the back burner. We are getting back on track though and the help of others has really been helping.

So what have we been doing? Well, I made these hanging pictures for my good friend who is having a baby on Christmas Day. We are all so thrilled for her. I found the directions here: http://www.livingcreatively.com.au/projects/create_now_project.php?v=76

The background is in French, but I made one background in English because it's too cute. It says:

Animals are interesting creatures. They are not too dissimilar to you and I. In fact the other day while strolling through the park, I spotted a giraffe eating chocolate ice-cream. I know it sounds unbelievable but I assure you I saw it with my very own eyes! Anyway, it got me thinking about what animals like to do when they're not busy doing what animals do. Do birds write love letters in the sand? Do hippos like to read the newspaper on Sunday morning? What of the lion? Does he sing to himself as he bathes in the lake? There are so many wonderful things I love to wonder about, however one thing I know for certain is that crocodiles wear sunglasses. It's true! I saw it with my own eyes.

We have also been starting our move into the "Funky Farm House." It was left a lot dirtier than we expected, so we've been cleaning, moving some stuff, cleaning, moving some stuff, painting, moving some stuff. You get the idea and you've probably done this sort of thing before too, so you understand. I have no pictures of the inside, but this is our wonderful property.

Our tower house. That is our front door and our bedroom is in the green "tower." In between is a wood stove, a kitchen and a bathroom. Off to the right in the white building is our greenhouse and to the left is an animal farm.

On our farm we have chickens! We don't eat them though (except maybe a mean rooster).

And I like this guy. I call him the deadlocked goat. He likes to eat everything!

The owner is an amazing sculpture/artist. She makes stone walls that circle and loop. There are several on the property.

This is the view from on top of the hill looking at the barn. The barn holds the chickens, goats, sheep, and currently a pot-belled pig. Andy likes the pig. If you look closely at the tree, you'll see another art installation involving bicycles.

Inside this door house is a mound of stones that we can use to practice our own curving stone walls!

See that fence? That is literally three feet away from our patio. And that's a cow! There are sheep, goats, cows, and one llama that graze on that side of the fence. They are not a part of our farm, however, but since most of them are babies, they are really cute.

The view from our patio!

Hopefully more wedding posts will follow!

Kombucha

Kombucha is the Western name for sweetened tea that has been fermented using a SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast). You may have seen it in the store like this:

And it is expensive!

At our local herb shop (a real shop that sells just herbs), they offered a class on how to make Kombucha and supplied us with a start-up a kit: 2 jars (since both of us did it), black tea, cheesecloth for the cover, and the culture (or SCOBY).

Here is what we did:

We took our kit home and got everything ready. The culture is the white stuff in the bowl that looks like a bunch of fat. We also had our jar and bags of black tea.

We brewed the tea in some water with dissolved sugar. When it was cooled we added more cold water and then placed the cultures in the jars with the mixture.

Here is what it looked like.

We put our jars in a semi-open place not in the kitchen (you don't want the cooking odors to change the reactions in the Kombucha). I think we need another bookshelf! Can you find the clown?

Today our first batch was ready...it only took 2 weeks. It won't take as long once we have established cultures. We strained our finished product into this fancy maple syrup bottle. Nice isn't it!

As you can see, we already drank half the bottle! We love how it tastes and have enjoyed mixing it with juice and seltzer. Our instructor also suggested mixing it with liquor...it may defeat the health benefits, but it tastes delicious!

Dress to the Nines

Andy picks up his suit today...tailored, pressed and fitting nice.

And my dress is hanging in the spare room ready to be worn.

The shoes are shined and laced up.

I think we are ready!

More Trails

This week we had a great time cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, working at the farm, and finishing up our invitations. We didn't have a lot of down time, but we did go on a hike. It was a short 5 mile hike round trip to the top of Mt. Elmore. There were great views of the Lamoille Valley (where we live) and both the Green Mountains (Vermont) and the White Mountains (New Hampshire).

At the top of Mt. Elmore is a fire tower, an old, scary, very tall fire tower.

While I was gripping on for dear life, I did have a nice view.

Bunch Berry on the trail

This is Balancing Rock...a glacier erratic that is resting on a small slab of rock. It seems to be in a precarious position, but it doesn't move--we tried.

We still had fun with it though :)

I have the next two weeks off of school so I'll be finishing up paperwork for this past year and planning for Summer Camp...while finishing up wedding details and getting very excited for August 1st!

Busy Week

Wow, this was a busy wedding weekend for us! I found a dress (kinda important) and we both found wedding bands (also kinda important). On top of that, we also....

-Edited, printed, cut, stuffed, and stamped our wedding invitations :)

They are simple, yet exactly what we wanted.

-Bought some extra plates for our hand made vintage glassware dessert trays

We have 8 altogether. Some are two tiered and some are three. I LOVE how they turned out. This one isn't the best example, but it's the only one in Vermont.

-We started making our table lanterns

They in fact are not lanterns, but more like table tents. We will paste another layer on each side with information about dinner, table number, etc. I'm excited to see what they will look like on the tables.

-We found marker board to put in this frame

At first we wanted to make a chalk board for it and use it as a giant program at the ceremony in place of paper programs. But, when looking for a board to put behind the frame, we saw this marker board and fell in love. We had the people at Lowe's cut it to size. We have great plans for the left over too!

Whew...that's enough until next weekend!

Trip to MDI

MDI: Mount Desert Island

Aka: Bar Harbor, Maine;

Acadia National Park

We've been slacking on the wedding side of things. We think about it, but we couldn't pass up a three day weekend after the snow has melted.

 So, where do Vermonters go on vacation?

Maine...they have an ocean!

After setting up camp, we went to Bar Harbor, the big town on the island. It is a magical place with boats, ice cream, and lobster. 

We also enjoyed looking at the ocean. They only have one sand beach in this part of Maine. The rest is rocky, granite slabs. The rocks are fun to climb on, look for tidal pools, and watch the ocean from. We even got to see a seagull drop an oyster on the rocks to crack it open. Use what you got, right?!

The next day we hiked up Cadillac Mountain. It was a 15 mile round trip from our camp site and well worth it. We went from hard wood forests to lichen covered granite tops to a carriage road built by the Rockefellers a century ago. 

Once on top, the weather started to turn! We were ready for rain...bring it on!

It didn't last very long and by the time we made it back to camp, the clouds were all gone.

The following day, we climbed up a trail called the Bee Hive, named for it's shape. One side gradually goes up and the other goes straight down...literally. This shape is actually very common in this area (ME, NH, VT) and was created by the glacier movement over the granite mountains. More on that another day. This view is from the Bee Hive overlooking Sand Bar (the one sandy beach). I love how one side goes into the ocean and the other into fresh water...how interesting!

This is one of the straight down parts.

Ahhh...pitch pine and us...now back to the wedding! We can't wait to see you there!