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.