Mud Pie

These are our pics from our Spain night that we forgot to include in our previous blog.




Along with exercising, sewing, and reading, cooking made it onto my summer "musts" list. Having a garden lends itself to cooking expeditions. I have done everything from pick, to can, to bake, to fry this summer. I feel like my life has definitely revolved around food. Through my cooking expeditions I have undoubtedly had my ups and downs. Actually, it seems like the more I have been cooking the worse I have gotten. I can't figure it out.

I have always been an experimental cooks of sorts; rarely cooking the same thing twice. However, I have found those recipes that are just too good not to make again. This summer, and in particular over the past few weeks, I just haven't been able to figure out if my failed attempts have been bad recipes, me, or just that I am in need of a break from the kitchen. It very well could be a combination. Often times I will find myself either taking a shorter route or substituting for an ingredient that I don't have on hand. But, I will say that I have also been pretty skeptical about some of the recipes I have used. My more recent failure was a Paula Deen recipe for peach shortcakes which was in much need of some sugar to be called a dessert. I had some peaches that we had put up last year that I needed to use up. Other food flops of mine this summer have been biscuits and pie crust. I had some fried okra that just turned out mediocre, too. Should I just draw the conclusion that I wasn't meant to be a lady of the South?

On the contrary, I can say that I have also made some delish dishes this summer. On the top of the list would have to be zucchini chocolate chip cookies; a beet salad with spinach, goat cheese, and pecans; and a pretty tasty gumbo. My most successful dishes have been inspired by what the garden is producing at the time, and, like I said, I have been canning. If anything this winter, we will definitely have food. I have enjoyed learning how to preserve the harvest (extended gratitude to Sam's mom and my mom). Thankfully, even though we had a pretty long dry snap this summer, the garden has been fruitful. I have canned 25+ cans of beans (this is what I am most sick of), 13 jars of blackberry jam, 10 pints of salsa, and 12 quarts of tomato sauce. I surely take comfort in knowing where my food comes from but will not hesitate to say how much work it is.
To bring balance to all of this food, Sam and I have also started training for a 6 or 7K. I am not sure what 4.2 miles is classified as. It is not only a run but a mud run. This means that you basically submerge yourself in muddy water and then go run the race stopping about every quarter mile to do an obstacle. When you think obstacles, think boot camp. This race is put on by the USMC. Proceeds go to Marine families. I don't really know what sparked this endeavor, but Sam, Jon, Christian, and I will all embark on this together. The race is September 25th, and I have been training about a month now. Running has never really been my thing. I have always thought I was terrible at it, and it just never appealed to me. I can say that running the past month has made it less of a chore because I have seen progress. I started out being able to run .5 miles, and I have built up to 3 miles. I guess you could say I have made a lot of ground. Sam is a pretty good runner, so he hasn't had to train as much. I guess once I build up to the 4.2 miles I will start running with extra weight to simulate running with mud. The following is a link to the Mud Run if you want more information: http://www.usmcmudrun.org/

Anyways, it looks like I am going to get a break from the kitchen as we are heading out West tomorrow for one last hoorah before school starts back!

Enjoy.

Paper Celebration

Among other things, we recently celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. If you know us, then you know that when we celebrate, we do it right. Whole days, or even weeks are dedicated to a single important event. For instance, if you roll with the Summers', you don't get a birthday; you get a birthday week. What can we say? We just know how to have a good time.
The anniversary celebration kicked off by taking in the Montford Park Players rendition of King Lear accompanied by a 12 Bones picnic. A side note, you must know that everything we do, we do for a very thoughtful purpose. We chose to go to Shakespeare in the Park because this was our 2nd hang out pretty early on in the relationship gig. I really can't even call it a date. Our first "date" was Ultimate Ice Cream. From there, I invited him to go see Much Ado About Nothing with me and my friends Jon and Christian. Sam reluctantly came because he thought that Jon and Christian were both boys that he would have to compete with for my affections. Little did he know, and he soon found out because he decided to come anyways, they were another couple. 12 Bones was our meal of choice because it was where we had our rehearsal dinner. Keep in mind, we actually went to see King Lear the night before our actual anniversary. Technically, I guess we were celebrating the anniversary of our rehearsal dinner. :)
On a not so romantic note, after the play we decided to go play on the playground. The playground was dark, and we have heard that Montford can be a little shady, but we decided that people were still hanging around after the play, so it would be safe. We took the chance because at this playground they have the really cool old school swings with the metal handles that you have to pump with your arms. While we were swinging I saw four shady figures approaching, which I immediately brought to Sam's attention. As soon as Sam spotted who I was talking about, we scampered toward the car. They were making their way toward us pretty quickly, and I don't feel like they had very good intentions for they were hollering such things as "Hey shorty," and "Hey kitty-kitty." Unless they had lost their cat, we figured they were talking to me. And not to discredit Sam's chivalry, under ordinary circumstances he would have stood up for my honor, but was smart to just hop in the car. No worries, though, we made it safely home, all belongings in tact.

On Saturday, the day of our actual anniversary, we began our day with a little partner yoga. After this, we showered and donned our tie dye shirts I made for us at a party I went to. We were going to go on a hike, but decided just to go walk around Beaver Lake. Like the play, a lot of the "magic" also took place at Beaver Lake. We have spent many a day walking around there. I remember we also went there pretty early on, and afterward, Sam invited me back to his place for his specialty: quesidillas. Anyways, on Saturday, we got lunch from Artisan and took it to the bird sanctuary to eat. The reason we specifically chose Artisan for our lunch is because they catered our wedding. We enjoy going there. The people who work there are very friendly and still remember us. They were grateful to get to be a part of our special day again. While we were eating we saw a guy on a self-propelled bicycle attached to what looked like a parachute take off and fly away. I'm guessing there is also a motor that somehow figures in. I used to see the guy flying around at my old apartment. I have always been curious about him.

Upon leaving the lake, we moseyed around downtown at the Art in the Park and checked out the newly revamped park. It was pretty nice. I really like the spastic, spouting fountains you can run through; those are really fun. After this we got lemonade and returned home. We decided that we would cook dinner. We had peas from the garden, squash zucchini cakes (also made with ingredients from the garden) and crab cakes. We opened a bottle of wine we had saved from our wedding, and after dinner, we cut into the top of our wedding cake. It definitely didn't taste like frozen cake, it was delicious! While I know it is bad to carry a grudge, and I didn't really carry it all year, but was reminded of it on my anniversary, I got Sam back for shoving cake up my nose during the cutting of the cake :) Once dinner was cleaned up (and Sam), we looked at our wedding album, I tried on my wedding dress, and we listed to The Avetts sing the sentimental version of "Swept Away."

So this was more so our immediate celebration. If you remember, last year we went to Spain for our honeymoon and just arrived back in the states for the 4th of July. To celebrate our honeymoon, we went on a little local adventure. We went to Navitat! It was pretty amazing! If you are local you have probably seen the billboards around town with the squirrel in the harness. (FIY: on Tuesdays there is a 20% local discount) It is a canopy tour that takes about 3.5 hours to complete. First, you are driven up a large mountain in an ATV. Then you get to glide through 10 ziplines of various heights, speeds, and lengths. The lines start off pretty gentle, so that you get used to it. As the course continues, the zip lines get increasingly more intense. The longest zip was 1100 feet long. The highest was 250 feet high, and the fastest was 35 miles per hour. There were also 2 repels and two rope bridges. It was a great time. We thought it was totally worth the time and money, and we encourage people to try it! There was an 80ish year old man named Van in our group. It was his second time, and he was still in great spirits. Whenever he pushed off the platform onto the zip line, he would let out a loud "WHOOPIE," "YIPEE," or a whistle.

We also had a Spain night last night to relive our Spain trip. We cooked paella, drank our bull full of sangria from Spain, and listened to Spanish music, all while wearing our awesome matador and flamenco dancer aprons! As you can tell, whenever we go to explore a place, the food is a pretty important part.


What a wonderful year it has been, and what a wonderful anniversary. Apparently year one is known as the paper anniversary. Sam's parents got us a big container of different paper products. I was thinking that money was paper, but was disappointed to find out that it was actually cloth. I guess that is why it can be laundered. I think we can now officially stop celebrating the big occasion. We are looking forward to year two, and we know that for us, there will always be a reason for celebration as we live life to fullest and continue to be blessed!!

On a non-anniversary note, right after Navitat, since we were already a little north of Asheville, we drove up to Kennett Square, P.A. to visit my brother and three nieces. We engaged in three pretty intense days to of playtime, but it was all very enjoyable. Listening to live music in the park with a picnic, a street festival, visiting a craft brewery, getting good ice cream, going to Longwood Gardens and seeing the spring flowers in bloom, visiting Fort Delaware, and spending some good quality time with the girls are just a few things that we did while we were up there. Sam has also picked up a useful skill: the ability to play peek-a-boo and read a book at the same time, thus entertaining two kids at once. My brother Mark also set out on the next chapter in his life. He moved to Idaho for a really exciting job opportunity. I am excited for him as this opportunity offers a lot of potential in many regards. In less than a month we will travel out that way ourselves and explore some of the surrounding parks. We gave him a proper send-off by throwing him a shindig that involved banana splits. Get it? Make like a banana and split.
P.S. did yo notice that the cats didn't make an appearance in this blog?