hi again. it's me not updating all of the news that i should be.

i'm heading to connecticut on thursday for a week of fun. traveling to boston to visit sudeep, backpacking in new hampshire with a friendly cool couple, and then driving to nyc to drop off paul's dad for his flight to brazil. lots of stuff to do, plus hanging out with the inlaws (i don't really ever call them that....we get along so well and the word inlaws seems to draw up negative connotations for some people). hanging out with paul's parents should be good. and hopefully i'll be able to help around the house, and see some of paul's good friends who i enjoy.

the chickens are doing super well. they are getting fat and looking tasty (i'm only half kidding). really i still think i could eat them, although they are growing on me. yes, i do talk to them. and i love to hang out with them. they follow me around and run over whenever they think i might have a treat to give them. tonight all three jumped up on the hammock with me and sterling even nestled in my lap.....she's a funny one. so skiddish she doesn't like to be touched, but still seems to want my company. i really do LOVE these chickens. they're so much fun.

we signed up to be a part of the madison city coop tour. it's august 25th. so the entire wisconsin public can potentially come tour the coop and meet the girls. i hope it goes well. i'm really proud of our coop and i hope others like it too. it's not the "prettiest" but it functions really well and i'm proud of us for using free/found objects as much as possible.

on to food news. i had sushi for the first time ever. i have a friend who is a sushi chef at a neighborhood restaurant that is closing this week (the management is turning it into a tex-mex to make more $, even though this restaurant is really cool and has a great interior and good food). he created some special sushi entrees for jason and i right in front of us. the first had eel, and the second was raw fish (mahi, i think?). they were both very interesting. i liked the eel the best.

on friday evening i went to a birthday party and one of the guys there was deep frying everything in sight. plantains (yum!), and i tried deep friend pickles for the first time....i'm not a fan of pickles in general and this was more like a super-strong hot battered pickle, so it was really not so good.

ohhhh, and the birthday party the weekend before last at our house? it went really well. lots of people (30ish?), lots of cheese, lots of wine, lots of chatting. and no complaints from the neighbors even though we were pretty loud on the back deck until late. our back deck rocks! aly set everything up beautifully...and the space seemed to work well for movement and interaction.

fun fact: i have been biking to work almost every day since early spring. it's 3.48 miles each way, which means that i bike 34.8 miles each week to work, and generally more (at least 15 miles every weekend) when i have errands or meetings. fun stuff. i purchased a 10-ride bus card in march and today i used it up....that's pretty awesome that i've only used the bus 10 times since then.

other fun fact: i'm heading to the minnesota boundary waters with ruthie to go canoeing for a week in august. yesssssss. this is gonna be awesome, especially with aly joining us.

time for bed. gotta rest up for soccer tomorrow.

Wow. It's been quite a while since I've updated...I bet I don't even have any readers anymore! A lot has happened since summer solstice, here are the highlights:

-Paul took me sailing. It was my first time ever on a sailboat and I was excited. We tried to go again today but there's a big event going on and all the boats were taken...boo. I hope that we get to go sailing a lot throughout the rest of the summer on Lake Mendota.

-Speaking of Lake Mendota, we just biked our way around it this afternoon. About 23 miles total. I was a little nervous about biking on a road where people are speeding close by at 55+mph but it worked out in the end. I'd like to do it again and stop to take photos along the way.

-Last Thur-Monday I visited relatives in Omaha, Nebraska and that weekend we went to Shaller, Iowa. It's a small town just south of Storm Lake (about 60 mile east of Sioux City). Every year they hold a festival called Popcorn Days and my grama goes back every year....this year turned out be her 70th Hight School Reunion! It's the town where she grew up and it used to be the "Popcorn Capitol of the World".....as you might imagine it's a very tiny town surrounded by cornfields (now the fields are rotated out with soybeans and there is a very neat windfarm all around...the windmills are amazing and so HUGE! Popcorn Days consists of free popcorn, a parade featuring lots of tractors from various years, midwest farm queens and princesses (yes, there's even the pork queen!), a car show, a carnival, and a beer garden. Since most of my midwestern relatives are now over the age of 70 we spent most of the day lounging about on lawn chairs in the park and watching the parade. During this trip I did get to meet some distant cousins, which was neat.

-I've (re)learned to knit! I was invited to join a social knitting group which meets every other Thursday. The first Thursday I learned how to cast-on and I learned the knit stich, last thursday I learned how to purl. My first project is a green scarf and it's currently about 10 inches long...I taught Paul and he is helping out with it too.
I have to admit. I get really carried away when it comes to crafts. Yesterday I bought three different needles and last week in Iowa I bough 70 SKEINS OF YARN. Yes I am crazy, but they were only 50 cents each and went to a good cause. I found them in a Storm Lake charity thrift store and just couldn't help myself....so I stuffed them all in a box and checked it home.

-The chickens! They're growing so so fast. And they have moved outside to their amazing coop. Although we worked on the coop together, Paul definitely spent the most time and energy on the project...he had some great ideas on how to put it together and it turned out excellent. The chicks now have a lovely coop, an inside covered run, and a large outside run during the daytime.
All of the chicks officially have names now at 7 weeks old: Our Rhode Island Red is named Penny, our Silver Laced Wyandotte is named Sterling and our Buff Brahma is named St. Helen. They have fun personalities and love having visitors.

Highlights of the near-future:

-We're hosting a birthday party this Saturday evening at our house. A wine and cheese party with a live band playing a birthday tribute song. Should be fun. Gotta start cleaning!!

-Heading to Connecticut for seven days the first week of August. Hopefully we'll spend a day in Boston and camp in New Hampshire too.

-A week in Northern Minnesota canoeing in the boundary waters with Ruthie!