Happy Anniversary to Us!

It's hard to believe that Michael and I have been married now for 3 years!
I know everyone says this but the time really has flown by!

And to celebrate, because we can't do anything half-way, because we can't possibly have just bought a house with a fenced in yarn without it being put to use, and because we both love and miss our childhood dogs (all dogs go to heaven, right Mocha and Rascal?), 

we adopted a puppy!

 Blog-readers, meet little (ha, for now!) Miss Frieda.

We adopted her Saturday after scouring the adoption events at about 5 nearby pet superstores.

 She nibbles of course, but really is a sweetie; which was really the main reason we decided on her. Of all the puppies we looked at on that long, long Saturday (have any of you shopped with Michael lately?), she was the sweetest. 

 She and Pepin have already become quite accustomed to the other and Pep is starting to lure her around the house in a play-chase. Unfortunately, Frieda occasionally gets a little nip on Pep but Pep is quick to let her know and they go back to the chase. 

 Frieda is still a young girl, only 8 weeks old and already 11 pounds, which means she'll be a big girl, probably 60-70 pounds when she's finally finished growing. 

 We were told that the mother was a purebred boxer (which is really only noticeable in the brindle colored spots) and their best guess for the father was a Saint Bernard mix. But after spending some time with her we've started to notice that she naturally points quite often and without informing the vet of this little fact yesterday, she pointed out that Frieda bears some resemblance to an English Pointer puppy which we are thinking seems more probable than Saint Bernard. 

 She has some adorable spots below her fur that will sadly disappear when her shaved spot from her spaying surgery grows back.

 Oh, and there was some lobster in the Anniversary deal as well -- my favorite!

 On Sunday, Frieda offered her abilities in dragging around fencing supplies.

 It was a hot day here in St Louis though so she spent most of the say either in the cool shade or in the sunroom.

And Michael's foot has quickly become her favorite pillow during her many daily naps.

A Somewhat Bearable Summer

Thanks to a 20% off Bed Bath and Beyond coupon, we enjoyed some delicious, homemade frozen yogurt as soon as Michael returned home from work after yesterday's record-breaking 89° day. 

And as much as I hate to complain this early in the "summer" season, I remember being appalled last May when we hit 85°.

In May...MAY! 

And this is only...APRIL?

And what followed that 85° May day but the "Hottest Summer of U.S. History". I'm thinking this early heat wave has some terrible implications for the summer to come. 

Prove me wrong, Mother Nature. Please?

Now, I'm off to run day-3 of week-7 of the Couch-to-5-K running program far too late in the morning since I've spent all of the cool time editing photos and writing blog posts. 

Not smart, Lauren. Not smart.

Rehearsal and Rehearsal Dinner Fun

Boy am I dragging this event out. I hate writing (and making you read) long blog posts though so you'll just have to deal with the wedding cake suspense for a bit longer. Deal.

What I didn't mention in the previous post is that while I was working away on the cake that Friday afternoon, using a good chunk of the kitchen counters in my parents' kitchen, they were working on the salads and side dishes for the rehearsal dinner to feed 70. It was a mess, to say the least but we managed to make it work. Thankfully, my Mom, Dad and I have worked together in kitchens many, many times in the past so we are pretty good at the give and take required (I'll give you this knife if you give me some counter space).

We finished everything up, got threw on some semi-nice clothing and headed out to the wedding venue at a beautiful spot along the Susquehanna river.

While the rehearsal went on, the rest of us occupied ourselves by keeping babies busy.

 And by comparing freckles; little Luke has a long way to go to catch up to his Mommy.

 What a beautiful wedding space!

The rehearsal dinner consisted of pasta salad, veggies and chips with dip and 25 boxes of pizza from what I believe to be the best pizza place on the planet earth, Park Pizza. Please, promise me that if you are ever driving through Williamsport, Pa, you will stop for a pie. You won't be disappointed.

And after dinner, we reminded ourselves how much fun it is to have an underwater camera!

 The little babies loved the rafts!

Little Emma is cute as can be in her frilly purple suit!

 Jolly Giants (is that Alaskarella?) supervised (and photographed) while Aaron and Michael took a swimming break.

Aaron shows off his under-water abilities along with the camera!

 Zoey and I toughed out a marathon of swimming and after we all returned home, the whole family crashed.

Balcony Garden Update

 It's been a few weeks since I've highlighted the amazing growth that's been taking place on our little balcony. I've in no way inherited my parents' green thumbs (can't even count the number of plants I've killed) and we've struggled with some of the bi-polar weather this spring (frosts, cold and soaking rain, tornado warnings and high winds) but the opposite swing (over a week now of over 90° days) has really given the garden the kick start it's needed.

And in case you aren't the gardening type, you might want to skip this post. After reading over it, I'm amazed at how long-winded I can be over a 8x11 foot space.

I realize that I never got around to showing off Michael's Birthday presents. I purchased two blueberry plants because they apparently need to have another one around to facilitate cross pollination. And I purchased two types so that we would have different harvesting seasons, thus extending our fresh blueberry eating time. Now, I must admit that I never would have thought to keep blueberries in pots, but Gayla Trail in Grow Great Grub (my current container and small space gardening bible) makes it clear that container grown blueberries can do quite well. Our master plan is to transplant these babies into the ground when the time comes that we have our own yard. This particular plant is the "Patriot" blueberry, and as you can probably tell from the already blue berries, this is our early harvest plant.

This is our "Jersey" (late harvest) blueberry bush with my massive mint alongside. There are many green berries on this plant and while there are one or two blue berries, I don't expect that we will be harvesting for 2 months or so.

 Don't mind the wilty-ness, I watered just after taking the pictures. But regardless, these are my cucumber plants (top right and bottom left) which already have blossoms and tiny cukes growing. The bottom right plant is our lavender which has been growing like crazy; I've already harvested twice and am due to harvest again tomorrow before we leave. The strands of drying lavender are hanging on the same hook as my France calendar which happens to be on a Marseille theme this month. The pairing is very fitting. The herb on the top left is a new dill plant. Since the sage seemed to be over-taking the cucumbers, I opted to transplant it to its own container and put something a bit less invasive.

 Herbs clockwise from top left:

Cilantro is doing OK. It was taking over for a few weeks but unfortunately it went to seed and I didn't catch it in time. We'll see if it comes back or if I have to replace it. Since Michael has an aversion to Cilantro, having a plant means I no longer have to feel guilty about buying it in the store for only one of us to eat it. You could say I've become cilantro dependent.

Terragon is finally taking off after the addition of some worm castings (aka worm poop) to the soil.

Parsley is also starting to catch up with my demand. I have a problem with using too many herbs as soon as I get the plants, not allowing them to get really established before I start eating them.

Chives are also new to the garden. I struggled with the basil that was in this container. It didn't like the cold, wet weather that we had last month so when I finally decided to replace it I opted to move it into it's own container that could easily be taken into the house when the weather isn't perfect. The chives are still quite new but are establishing themselves nicely.

 As you can see, my upside-down tomato plant experiment has been working out quite well. The plant is huge and as of my count this morning, I have 7 tomatoes so far. Two of the three basil plants in the top have done quite well (Thai and the new Purple basil) but the Greek basil struggled with the cold weather and I haven't been able to get it to grow more than one stalk, so we'll see how that one pans out.

 The lettuce, radishes and onions are doing much better after a move to the other, cooler side of the balcony. We have been eating and thinning out the lettuce and onions for quite awhile now and I'm trying hard to keep the radishes happy and damp.

 All of the herbs seem to be loving our heat wave, including the transplanted sage (huge, right?) and the new basil which (thanks to more worm poop) has probably tripled since we bought it last weekend.

My jalapeno plant is doing well but teaching me patience. It has been flowering for quite some time so I was starting to worry that I wasn't seeing any peppers but my research this morning assured me that these plants can take 4-6 months to produce.

One Year France-iversary

"Long day of travel from Dublin to Brussles then on train from Brussles. Arrived by taxi at 4:30, got oriented and went to Cora, bought makings for tuna sandwiches (HORRIBLE!)."

My Pittsburgh bff and soul-sister, Adrienne (and her finace Shannon) got us a cute little diary as a wedding present before we shipped off to Europe last year. That text above is what I wrote (ignore the poor grammer, or absense of grammer, really...the diary only has a small space for writing and I was dang tired by this point in the evening) in the August 10th, 2009 slot.

Michael and I have spent the past few days reminiscing on what it was like only one year ago for us. At the time I had been to Europe once in the past, at 16, with my Mommy, on very planned, structure, and guided choir tour. Michael had never been farther out of the USA than the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. We were completely unprepared for what actually happened on that first day of travel through Europe. There were plane delays galore, three train transfers (in an unfamiliar language) and one of our trains actually split in half at one stop, half going to our destination and the other half (the half we were on) going to an entirely different destination. We had no idea whatsoever what was going on. One thing we were sure of though was that we would soon be eating well, but after that horrible tuna sandwich (full of unidentified crunchy things), we weren't even sure of that anymore. If we hadn't had the comfort of one another, if either one of us had gone it alone, I'm pretty sure that both of us, independently, would have been ready to hitch a ride back to Brussles and fly back home.

Thankfully, the tides soon turned and we have embraced this once-in-a-lifetime chance to eat, sleep, drink, travel, and live in Europe.

And to recap, here are some favorite moments (in no particular order) from the past year:

 Arriving in Brussles

 Curing our own olives (which we are still eating)

 Constructing Snow Ogres

 Buying our first car together

 Drinking our first Sauternes

 Car camping in Austria in the dead of winter

 Acting out The Sound of Music

 Exploring the remarkable city of Venice

 Growing herbs

 Exploring southern France

 Eating many a fabulous picnic

Swimming in rivers

 Drinking free Champagne with friends

 Eating authentic Chinese food 

 Picnicking with more friends

 Game nights at Janice and Jeramy's place

 Making stovetop pizza

 And our first pizza in our tiny oven

 Re-visiting Prague with my best friend

 Experiencing Christmas Markets in Rheims

 In Strasbourg

And in Metz

 Celebrating my 23rd

And Michael's 24th Birthdays (funny that we both chose steak)

 Making our first Christmas Eve Smorgasbord

 Celebrating our first Christmas together

 Welcoming our wonderful family to our quaint city

And going with them on a grand Catalonian adventure

 Experiencing Paris with Harry and Camille

Drinking beer in Brugges

 Witnessing a beautiful light show in our very own city

 Traveling with friends

 Eating Kebabs in Metz

 And sausages in Germany

 And Dunkin' Donuts in Berlin

And visiting the Little Mermaid herself in Copenhagen

It's been a wonderful year indeed! We only have 4 months left in this wonderful country and it will be flying by. Michael begins his last semester of school (ever!) very soon, before we know it my parents will be visiting, and after they leave we will have just over a month to get ready to jet home. Time surely flies when you're having fun!