Weekend at Deer Camp

Just got back from an extraordinarily relaxing weekend up in Vermont at Deer Camp. We took off from Haverhill as soon as we could on Friday evening and met Matt and Monica outside of Montpelier. We packed up the sled and took the snowmobiles up to camp. The weekend reminds me of the Office Space quote: "Michael, I did absolutely nothing. And it was everything I thought it could be." Actually, we did some fun stuff like rip around on the snowmobiles, read educational magazines, played darts, stoked lots of fires and it was great.

Though we only won one out of three, Melissa brought it home with a brilliant bull's eye under pressure. If we were to play more than once every 14 months, we might actually be good!

I only tipped it a couple of times, but that's what helmets are for, right? Actually, it wasn't that bad, but Matt did take me up a trail that wasn't so great for a beginner :)

Jr. was there.

We even had our own personal barista! Camp food was great. Bacon and eggs in the morning, chili in the evening and lots of snacks in between.

We're back to city life now, but so far we can't stop talking about someday building our own camp. It's good to have goals :)

What do you get when...

What do you get when you Google "happy people with food"?

Us of course!

Finally a workshop!

Apartments aren't the best places to be doing woodworking. This weekend was a little frustrating trying to construct a garment rack for the spare room. We've been keeping all of our tools in bins, so it takes forever unpack them and to get set up. So, after digging out all of the tools, using a mitre box in the bathroom and gluing wood on a tarp over the carpet, we decided to save the headache and splurge a bit. Behold, our new apartment workshop! This afternoon, we ventured out in the snow and picked up a little workbench kit from Home Depot and a sweeeet Craftsman tool cabinet from Sears. Voila - instant workshop. Just need to get some type of mat for the floor and we'll be all set. The only bummer is that 'vin is on the road this week in Cleveland and won't get to enjoy it until next weekend. I think the Melvin factory will be very productive this winter :)

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow can stop the Drupal consultant!

3:00 AM: Wake up to snow
3:15 AM: The best fiancee in the whole world makes me a sandwich and sends me on my way
4:00 AM: Snow turns into sleet and freezing rain on 93S heading to Logan airport
6:00 AM: Airplane de-icing turns into a 2 hour delay
8:45 AM: Arrive at Laguardia to 38 degrees and rain
9:30 AM: Arrive at client office in Manhattan after a five-block walk in the rain
5:15 PM: Back to Laguardia in more cold rain
9:30 PM: After more delays, finally arrive back in Boston to more freezing rain
10:30 PM: After avoiding 495 because of a huge accident, arrive safely in Haverhill
10:45 PM: Eat a warm meal prepared by the best fiancee in the whole world
12:00 AM: Wind down and hit the hay after my first successful consulting trip!

Licensed to Wed

Well, we stopped by the ol' Cherokee County Court House today to see if Iowa would let us get married this spring. Sure enough, they approved :)


Looks like we're aiming for May 22nd, which is also the birthday of a certain father of the groom. The Iowa party is going to be at a place called "The Grainery" on the following day including a hog roast and hopefully a big bonfire! Then we'll be taking a short break and reconvening the party in Cumberland Center, Maine on the 4th of July.

Best Christmas Ever!

Behold our Belgian beer cork Santa! Ho! Ho! Ho!

Old rhymes with mold

On our respective birthdays when we were growing up, my brother and I could choose what we wanted to eat for dinner and we got to kick the Cheerios to the curb and pick out one box of sugar cereal for breakfast on our special day. For me it was cheese fondue and Golden Grahams.

Well, yesterday was my birthday. As you can tell here, I am now old enough to have an adult beverage, though just how old isn't really important. Let's just say that I bring the average age of Melvin up a bit.


So to celebrate my birthday, I decided to do one of my favorite things - cook! I am a total sucker for a bowl of buttery noodles with cheese. So out came the pasta maker, and shortly thereafter we had some homemade noodles which we generously slathered with butter and Manchego cheese. On a side note, your standard clothes drying rack makes an excellent noodle drying rack.


Slightly more complicated was dessert. This is a concoction called Gooey Chocolate Stack from Nigella Lawson's Domestic Goddess cookbook. Basically it's three layers of cocoa meringue layered with chocolate creme patissiere. There really isn't a word to describe this.


So not related to the birthday at all is this alternative to your standard Thanksgiving Day pumpkin pie that I whipped up last week. Pumpkin whoopie pies with cream cheese filling. Recipe here. Mine aren't as pretty as Martha's, but dang were they good. Do you think I used enough cream cheese filling?


And just because he's so nice to look at, here's my sweetheart at the Sod House Museum in Gothenburg, Nebraska.

Long Live Melvin

The adventures have only just begun. Looks like you'll be hearing a lot more from Melvin for years to come!

Big day!

We're glued to the boob tube right now. I made a special apple pie to celebrate this historic evening. Hooray for voting!

We made it!

14 months and 4000 miles later, we are back on the East Coast... wow, so that happened.

After some torrential rains and a few near disasters we pulled into our new home in Haverhill, Mass.

With no real furniture yet, Mel made the most of our hee-uuuge windowsills. I can see a window seat project in the near horizon.



Besides what we could fit into the car, everything we own is still en route. For now, we've got just enough stuff to get dressed and to eat.



Hopefully Kickapoo will take a break from running around like crazy to help us unload. Man, you should see her tear around on the carpet!



More reports and pics to come as we explore our new home :)

Going, going...

The packers packed...


...and packed some more.


And then the movers took it all away.


Well, almost all of it.




With Kickapoo's bunny house on the truck and headed east, she wasted no time settling right in, and leaving me an offering of little round doodies. Special.

Four days to go!

Well, I am happy to report that we officially have a place to stay once we get to Massachusetts! Day one at Acquia went off without a hitch, though it's daunting with so much change. I spent the day in new clothes in a new office with new people, and now I'm having dinner in a new apartment. I can't wait until my better-half, partner in crime and best friend rejoins me. For now it is the adventures of -vin. Here's a quick look at my first day at Acquia:

Can't complain too much about the location of the office - especially in the Fall!



Our new front door.



A quick stop at Market Basket for necessities. Note the sweet convertible that Thrifty Rental gave me - perfect for cruising around... in October.



When in New England...



Dinner and a movie... for one :(



Though, I do have to give a big thanks to Peggy who put together the world's best care package :)

Only four days to go until Melvin is whole again. Mel is doing all of the hard work back in Colorado to get ready for the move - bless her soul! Soon, the movers will arrive to pack up all of our stuff and before you know it we'll all be sharing this new stuff together!

Saturday without My Love

Well My Love, we have been very busy since we brought you to the airport this morning. I did a bit of rearranging trying to clear a space for our things-to-take-on-the-roadtrip pile. Kickapoo discovered herself in the mirror...


...and then thought she'd help with the packing.


Betty came over and helped me pack the looms. I think it took all of ten minutes, a small miracle as far as I'm concerned. I fed her some sneaky snacks and we yucked it up a bit. I will miss her hilariousness. She was impressed with your magazine rack, by the way.


Stinker managed to incorporate a nice little nap in the sun into his day. He doesn't know it yet, but he's going to love our new windowsills.


Here's crazy for you. Izzy the hater of the kitty carry thing crawled into the bunny carry thing, curled herself up into a ball, and is still sleeping soundly as I type.


Me, well I'm making a bit of dinner trying to use up a bit of this and that before our cupboards are packed up. I'd hazard a guess that you're at the Hampton Toll right about now. Halfway home. My parents are watching the Sox and awaiting your knock at the door. They made you fish chowder, Lucky. The thought of fresh fish and mussels and oysters and lobster is making me dizzy. Yum! You can take the girl out of the ocean...

In closing, My Love, I miss you so much I'm blurry...or maybe that's the gin I'm trying to use up before we move...either way I am missing you.

And just like that...

...we're heading back east. Home. We hit the road three weeks from today. Check out the details of why here. The nice thing about moving so often is that you frequently get to evaluate what you really need to be hauling around and what just doesn't matter. Oh boy. Lots to do. Hooray!!

Elegant dining

With Kickapoo getting smarter by the minute, we needed a foolproof way to keep her and her growing bunny appetite away from the kitty food. Kevin set to work planning an elevated feeding station. What he created was something we almost kept for ourselves. It would have made such a lovely side table.


Now the kitties can eat next to the big kids table. They even have shiny new bowls. Hmm...I think we look like crazy kitty people.

Wait...we are crazy kitty people. At least I haven't gone so far as to weave them a placemat...hmm...

Evening rituals

A few weeks back I taught Kevin how to play backgammon. I picked it up in my early 20's, and didn't realize how much I missed playing until I dusted off my case and set up the board. I will openly admit to a Nomar-esque ritual when setting up my pieces. It's disturbing, but I swear it helps me win. Of course at bat rituals didn't get Nomar very far, but still. Anyhow, if you're ever wondering what we're doing around 7:00pm mountain time, on any given day it looks something like this (insert me on the right).


Kevin has been playing around with updating his website, and it's looking very cool. Check it out. He's so smart. He's also helping me build a website for an idea I'm evolving. More on that at some point in the next couple of months. I have been weaving up a storm. It still amazes me how drawn I am to this craft. I just finished making this big long piece of fabric for my latest project. I'll be chopping it up and sewing it into something else this week.


My brain is now focused on the smell of yummy soup coming from the stove, so I will leave you rather abruptly as I have a date with a very handsome backgammon player.

In Vino Veritas

Last weekend Melvin hit the road to take advantage of the last weekend of their National Parks pass. This time we decided to take the Old Fall River Road - a nine mile, one way, dirt road that offered some pretty tremendous views. We hiked most of the way up to Ypsilon, but the sky was looking a bit nasty, and we decided to turn back when the sprinkles started.






The marmots were out in full force, preparing for winter.


Not ready for the day to be over, we decided to hit the crater at Specimen Mountain again. You may recall that we sat there for what seemed like ages last summer waiting to see the big horn sheep. We are now 0 for 2. Darn sheep.

At least we could console ourselves with BLTs. Our tomatoes. Our lettuce. Very, very tasty. Mmm...bacon.


This past Friday was uncharacteristically dreary for Boulder, and I loved every minute of it. This 300+ days of sun thing is a lot to take. I used to love the sun. Now I mainly try and hide from it.

Well a rainy, 60 degree Friday night calls for some comfort food. Cheesy potatoes, to be exact. And summer squash. These days we eat summer squash every night. We broke out the mandoline, and Kevin started slicing away. It was going so well. Warning, the image after the following image may be disturbing. If you have a weak stomach, you may want to scroll quickly by.


Yes, this is a piece of Kevin's finger. It was a very clean cut, and the patient is recovering well. His pinkie may never be the same, but we've decided that it will be a forever reminder of a very fun night.


Cheese sauce and bread crumbs toasting in butter. We don't mess around.


Mmmm...cheesy potatoes.


Bellies full, we had a bit of wine.


And the kitties watched us get silly.


This bottle of "wine" got tossed. There is most definitely a reason it was on sale at the liquor store over the past few months. Bad wine. Bad finger.


Fun night.