Recent events

Life continues to be good here on 7th Street. The basic components remain the same - lots of lab research for one of us, job searching and part-time work for the other, keeping up with the apartment, working on our callings in the ward and, of course, enjoying our time together. However, though the basic components are the same, the last few months have been fun for us.

Many of our date nights are spent relaxing at home watching old shows on Netflix. Monk, Stephen Fry in America, and Top Shot have been some recent favorites. Will loves Monk and I always thinks I do too until that awkward spot 35 minutes into the episode when the bad guys realize Monk is onto them. That part always makes me curl up and partially hide behind Will's arm because I'm slightly terrified something tragic will happen, even though it's only Season 1 and therefore I know nothing too tragic will happen. 

We both enjoyed Stephen Fry in America, though it was sad that Idaho only got about a 4 minute clip and it was basically just clumped in with Montana. Excuse me, Mr. Fry, but I think that was a mistake. Boise Fry Company alone could have made it worth the trip a few hours west to Boise. (That's really only a partial exaggeration. The fries and burgers are quite excellent.) Utah fared more generously, with a great review of the southern Utah. It made us want to go hiking in Zions National Park sometime soon.

Anyway, TV shows aside, we also try to get out of the house sometimes. A couple of weeks ago we took a tour at the local chocolate factory, Taza Chocolate. This company controls the entire process of the chocolate making, from bean to bar, so it was a great opportunity to how chocolate is made including roasting the beans and everything. It was also a lot of fun because we got all kinds of samples! Salted Almond is still our favorite flavor, but it was fun to try the other options.

We've both recently been on trips. In February, Will went up to Canada to fancy Banff Alberta to present his research at a conference on metabolism and cancer. He really enjoyed his time at the conference and was even able to squeeze in a day of skiing with his lab mates. Last weekend, I flew the opposite direction to El Paso Texas to see my dear friend Lisa get married. The Scottish/Texan wedding was held on St. Patrick's day and was a fun blend of kilts, bagpipes and Texas BBQ. I was only there for two days but was still able to get some good Mexican food, some sunshine and do some cowboy boot shopping for my friend. Overall, it was a productive trip. I was glad to get home though to help take care of Will who was attacked with a pretty nasty illness that weekend.

One month later

31 days

One wonderful and adventurous honeymoon in Western Massachusetts...

...complete with a tasting experiment.  Two orchards were in competition.  

Orchard A: Bartlett's

Due to the great reviews for Bartlett's on Yelp, this was our first choice for apple picking. However, to our great disappointment, Bartlett's was only open for apple picking on the weekends. During the week, they only offered sales of their famous apple cider and apple cider donuts. Sad face.  

Orchard B: Hilltop

Hilltop had a great marketing campaign-- lots of ads, seemingly professionally written reviews on Yelp, lots of the agricultural-tourism types of offerings at the "family orchard." Lots of marketing makes us skeptical though so we weren't super keen on going to Hilltop. However, they were the only orchard open during the week.  Resigned face.  So, we went to Hilltop to pick the apples.  Somewhat to our surprise, we actually enjoyed ourselves quite a bit--lots of delicious apples with a lot of variety, great service, etc.  We still had a bit of cynic in us though so we thought, "Well, let's do a test.  Let's see how they compare to Barlett's. Which one has better cider and donuts?!"

Awesome advertising campaign on left; anticipated down-home goodness on right.

Please note:  These are only made with sound fresh apples.  Fancy!!

Side note: Will really liked this experiment. Lora got a stomach ache from the experiment.

And the winner?  Turns out Hilltop had a reason to be promoting itself.  Both the cider AND the donut from Hilltop was notably better than the Bartlett version.  Hands down.  It was basically comparing some of the best cider either of us had ever had to normal apple juice.  Juice not cider.  Bleh.  And the Hilltop donut had a better crumb and flavor.  We left happy.

1.5 weeks of unpacking & washing & organizing the gifts 

People are so generous!  Thank you!!!

Just a portion of the packing materials.  Earth, we love you.  We recycled.

2 days of building shelves to help with aforementioned organization 

Good thing Will thinks about practicalities of building stuff.  As a non-builder, Lora was confident the crafty, somewhat funky shelf made out of pipes and random wood pieces she saw on a blog was totally doable.  Will wasn't as convinced and found a more straight-forward solution-- 2x4's and joining pieces.  It's awesome.  It's strong.  It keeps things organized. Perfect!

                                                                          

The Experiment Begins...

Hooray!! This is going to be the best experiment ever! (and possibly the most expensive)