Joe and Betsy

It’s been a while since I listed what number day we’re on, but here we are at Day 252! We’re nearing in on the last 100-some days of Project NEW-lyweds and I cannot believe it. Looking back on the activities of the past 8 months has got us all nostalgic; we’ve really done a lot so far. We’re trying to go out with a bang, and I’m trying to update more and more so here we are.

Time to catch up on the last 3 days…

Sunday, Day 250, we made Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizzas and asked Joe’s brother and his wife to join us. We assembled ours at home and brought it over to their house to be cooked. They made a meat lover’s pizza while we made a “lighter” vegetarian one.

This is so different from how we usually assemble a pizza. We basically piled dough, cheese, toppings and sauce into a springform pan and hoped for the best.

Dough + sauce + cheese + yellow peppers + mushrooms + red onion + red pepper + sauce. The sauce goes on top because it cooks so long that any exposed cheese would burn (so we learned from Pizza Paradise on the Travel Channel).

And here’s the finished product! Hard to see but it really did come out well. We had to eat it with a knife and fork and while we wouldn’t classify it as “pizza” (given our interpretation of the word), it certainly was delicious.

Here’s Ben & Callie’s pie… a meat lover’s dream. It was ridiculously good.

It’s not something we’ll be making all the time but it was a lot of fun to do!

The following night we broke out another one of our kits that I’ve been stockpiling. This one involved making chocolate from scratch.

The kit came with organic cocoa butter, cocoa powder, confectioner’s sugar, starter crystals, a temperature indicator, paper candy liners, and raw cacao beans. Here’s a run down of what we had to do….

We added some almonds and peanut butter to a couple of the liner cups. The result?

Delicious, although it may not look that way. It was actually really interesting to read about and experience the process of making chocolate from bean to candy. It certainly added some excitement to our Monday night.

And lastly, tonight, we laid off any activities that involved copious amount of grease and sugar and opted for a classic instead: the yo-yo.

While we tried to learn the tricks printed on the back of the packaging the cats were more interested in stopping the yo-yo mid fall and attacking the string.

Despite their curiosity we both were able to eek out a few amateur tricks.

It’s 92 degrees out and this was the perfect, low-key evening activity.

See you soon!

Tomatillos.

Made into green salsa…

Sonny squeezing in some relaxation time.

Henna tattoos. Joe’s foot, my hand.

An al fresco blended latte, smoothie and cookie at the 61C one evening.

Water balloons.

Wet clothes.

Homemade BLT’s using end of summer tomatoes and local bacon.

Flowering tea.

I bought this kit a long time ago to bring on vacation with us. Little did I know that it would look so much like the place we stayed at.

And I should have realized that a Paint by Number of this size and detail would be quite a challenge!

Tiny paints, tiny brush, tiny details!

There was only one brush so we traded off, straining our necks and eyes to paint the tiny areas.

We didn’t really make a whole lot of progress so we decided that this activity will be saved for rainy and snowed in days. It’s relaxing but will take forever to complete! If we ever do, I’ll let you know.

We also hiked the 2.5 miles around Moss Lake, a new lake for us. If you don’t know the Adirondacks there’s tons and tons of lakes up there, both big and small. Moss Lake is a small lake near the one we stayed on, Big Moose Lake.

It took about an hour for us to make it around the lake and it was a great little hike. The views of the lake were beautiful, here’s the one we saw at the end…

See you soon!

Before we left for our ADK vacation we had planned out a bunch of new activities to tackle during our time there. The one I’m going to share today was a perfect vacation activity. It was messy and took over 24 hours to complete, which was fine by us.

Although we planned on doing tie dye we didn’t exactly pack a supply of clothes appropriate for the activity. Instead we had to dig through our bags and ask family members to donate articles to dye. We ended up with a random assortment of white and gray pieces, unsure of how they’d turn out.

The first step was to soak and tie, (aka rubber band) our pieces. We tried a bunch of different techniques with the rubber bands, hoping for some cool effects.

After they were bundled up they soaked again in a water + soda ash mixture to prepare them for the upcoming dyes.

After a half hour of soaking they were ready. We didn’t really know what we were doing but we went for it.

Once each piece was sufficiently saturated with color they were wrapped up in plastic bags and set aside for 24 hours so the dye and fabric could “bond.”

The next day they got a rinse and a ride in the washer and dryer. Before we knew it they were all done, and they were beautiful!

Five pieces in all, none of them a total flop! Here they all are, my two pieces of clothing are hanging and Joe and his Dad are modeling theirs.

We had a lot of fun with this one.

I’ll share some more vacation activities soon!