We're in!

We moved into our new apartment yesterday! There's a lot of unpacking left to do, but things are not in total disarray, and it definitely feels good to have all the heavy lifting out of the way.

If anyone (in Davis) has a microwave they're not using, let us know! We need one...

The Year of the Camel!

It's awful - the times when I have the most to write about, I also have the least amount of time to write about it! Here's a recap of the last month.

December 11 - I made Christmas presents for my family the night before I left for Minnesota! Of course I couldn't blog about it until everyone had received their gifts, and I had the worst time keeping them a secret. I used an antique fabric stamp that I bought in Turkey and printed t-shirts and scarves with it.




Later December: I had a wonderful, cozy, snowy vacation in Duluth. The worst part was not the -10°F weather; it was not having Margaret there. I kept waiting for her to arrive, but alas she spent Christmas in Colorado this year - it would have been too short a trip to be worth it. I did get to visit Alissa and her family at their beautiful cabin, just south of Duluth. It was a treat, even before her mom sent us home with a loaf of cardamom bread!

December 24-25: Wonderful family feasts on both days. The Christmas Eve service was beautiful - really fantastic music. My grandma was down from Baudette to spend the holiday with us, and my mom's sister and her family came up from the Cities on Christmas day.

Grandma, Mom, Fred, Dad and the Turkey
Andrew, Peter and Benjamin on the couch, the rest of the family in the kitchen.
Late December: Scott and I flew to L.A. on the 27th, and spent the week with his family. We started off in the desert - hikes through Joshua Tree National Park and dinner at a very posh country club with friends of theirs (we drove to dinner in their Rolls Royce!). We had a big family dinner, with Michael's family (Michael is Julie's fiance) and with my Aunt Barbara. Scott and I spent a night and a day with Aunt B, which was great - I don't get to see her nearly often enough, especially now that we live in the same state! Julie and I went shopping for bridesmaids dresses at vintages places (Scott and Michael and Becky gamely came along). I bought a really cute one for Margaret to wear, and Julie found some good options. I'm jealous she gets to shop at these places whenever she wants!

Sporting our CamelWear at Joshua Tree!
Video from the car window


New Year's Eve: A quiet evening with the McNivens. We got to watch a DVD of Scott's grandparents talking about their childhoods and the war years (including how they met). The movie was about 10 years old, and it was wonderful to "meet" Scott's grandpa, who passed away a few years ago.

January 1: We got back to Davis and had a few days to get our lives in order (laundry! bills!) before heading to San Francisco for the weekend. Scott attended an economics conference, and I got to hang out with my friends Mavis and Maya. We drank tea, visited the De Young museum, and then drank more tea. Scott says he had fun at the conference, but I think I got the better end of the deal.

January 5: Classes started, which was just as stressful for me as it was at the beginning of fall quarter. Since I'm taking classes as an extension student, I can't pre-register and have to just show up and hope there's space in the class for me. Happily, I got into all four classes that I wanted to take: easy bio (intro) and hard bio (genetics), easy chem (intro) and hard chem (organic). My schedule is a little crazy, but I'm so thankful that I can take all of these classes.

January 9: We flew to Austin for Sarah and Keith's wedding! It was a great weekend, filled with lots of friends (Scott's high school buddies) and amazing food and beer (much of it homemade by the couple and their families) and a great dance. I spent lots of time working on my M.S. application essays, but at least I had partners in crime - Jess was writing her M.B.A. application essays, and Scott was writing proposals. I submitted my application on Monday when we got back. Yay! Now I just have to wait and see if they'll take me...

This week: Tonight is the 5th Annual Minnesota Party, and on Thursday we're moving into our new apartment!

More snowy bliss in Duluth.

Scott and I met with the pastor who will be presiding over our wedding next fall, and since the church is so close to the Lakewalk, we went down and took a walk afterwards. Short, because there was a strong wind coming off the lake, and it was cold. Here's a video of the waves crashing up on the breakwater.



It's been snowing all day - big, fluffy "Christmas card" flakes. Scott and I helped Mom clean off the driveway, so we don't feel too guilty about sitting inside and drinking tea during the rest of the day.


More photos here!

Life is good

1. I took the GRE this morning! Given that I only studied for three and a half days, I'm pretty happy with my scores. And I'm pretty happy to have it over with.

2. Scott is en route to Minnesota as I type! He'll get to Duluth around midnight... just 9 more hours to go.

3. My mom took me to go see the Minnesota Ballet's production of The Nutcracker! We were supposed to go on Sunday, but bad weather postponed it to Monday night. I danced in this production all the way through my senior year of high school, so it brought back lots of great memories. The only strange part was not recognizing any of the dancers - Lindsay was supposed to be in Merlitons, and Anna should have been the Chinese Maiden. Thank goodness Suzanne was still the Snow Queen and Robert was Mother Ginger.


4. My dad took me out for pizza last night, since my mom was at a meeting and neither one of us felt like cooking. I am such a spoiled daughter... especially when I'm the only kid home. (Fred gets in tomorrow, so then things will return to normalcy around here.


Finally, a few photos to illustrate the last post.
Mom's baking extravaganza!



The view out the back door - very white, and very cold!



And, just for fun, here's a picture from last year. Scott and I are both very much looking forward to NOT having our noses buried in our computers this year! Maybe we can actually play in the snow instead!

At home in Duluth!

Right now, Mom is in the kitchen cooking spritz cookies, biscotti, cranberry chutney, venison stew and apple carrot spice bread.

I'm in the kitchen studying GRE vocab: distaff, dyspeptic, enconium, etc. Lots of interstitial chat with Mom though...

Dad is outside. He got out the BIG snow blower for the first time this year and is clearing out the driveway. It's stopped snowing, but it's still blowing, so some of the snow will probably drift back in over night. Still, better to get the bulk of the work done this evening, when the temperature is in the double digits. Tomorrow, the predicted low temperature is -18. The predicted high is -7. Uf da!

Apartment excitement! And a master's degree?

Scott and I ran through the Arboretum today, and took a quick detour to check out our new apartment. The great news is that it's on the ground floor, and the patio faces south, so we can plant a little garden for ourselves! Not quite as much fun as a kitten, but it is exciting.

I'm all done with finals, but still have a pretty full plate. I've decided to apply to the M.S. program in Nutritional Biology at UC Davis. And my application is due January 15th. I registered to take the GREs (next Wednesday! eek!) and contacted professors about writing recommendation letters and have been meeting with nutrition faculty about research I could help out with. I'm still hoping to have a low-stress Christmas break... we'll see!

(I'm still planning to go to medical school afterwards... I think I'll be in school forever.)

Good news & bad news

First, the good news! Scott and I get to move into Solano Park! This is a subsidized apartment complex for UCD students, so we'll be saving $500 per month on rent, and it's even closer to downtown and to campus. Now that both of us are students, this is wonderful news for our bank account.

The bad news is that Solano Park doesn't allow pets. Not even kittens. So we won't be getting a kitten for a few years.

Feeling vacation-y...

So much good stuff going on... besides the imminent kitten.

1. The advent calendar I made for my sister a while ago finally arrived! I sent if off before Thanksgiving, and it was supposed to get there on December 1st, so I was nervous about its whereabouts when it still hadn't arrived a week later. But today it showed up, safe and sound. Yay!


2. My bro is arriving tomorrow! I get to pick him up at 6:15 AM (how's that for sibling love), take him and his buddies out for breakfast (I'm thinking Ciocolat), and then send them off in our trusty Saab on a climbing & bouldering trip in Bishop. I'm excited to see him, and to show him around Davis.

3. I took my bio and chem exams today, and they both went well. I just have one left (Physiology) to take on Thursday.

4. I'm making stock from our turkey carcass. It doesn't actually fit in our dutch oven, and the neck is sort of hanging out the side, but I bet it will be tasty!

5. I get to go climbing with Scott tonight.

Kitten update...

We just made plans to pick up our kitten on January 1st! Here's what his breeder has to say about him:

He is big, going to be the biggest in his litter. He is very playful. He is a little shyer than most of them. He loves interactive toys, will pounce and hang on since his jumping is generally good enough to cling to the toy. His color is red silver, similar to his mother's. I have had other people come in and ask for him because he is so handsome.

So it sounds like we're getting the most athletic, most handsome cat. We'll try to make sure it doesn't get to his head (or ours). How on earth am I supposed to study for final exams when there's a kitten to anticipate?

Submit your kitten vote!

Thanks for all the great name suggestions! Now it's time to vote. Here's the official ballot. Voting ends when the kitten comes home, sometime after January 1st. I promise to post photos!

Call for kitten names!

As many of you know, Scott and I are getting a kitten this Christmas! A hypoallergenic Siberian cream and white tabby, like this one:


We were thinking that a Siberian name would be good. For instance, Numi - the supreme god or father god of the Ob-Ugrian peoples in Siberia. Or Taiga, which is the world's largest biome, is characterized by coniferous forests, and happens to cover Siberia and northern Minnesota. Taiga has the added bonus of sounded like a bad-ass version of Tiger. "Tigah!"

But then again, Mr. Scratchy Pants would make a pretty great name, in honor of Mr. Splashy Pants, a humpback whale in the South Pacific Ocean who's being tracked with a satellite tag by Greenpeace. (The Wikipedia article is really worth reading if you haven't heard of Mr. Splashy Pants before.)

What do you think? Have any better ideas? Send us your ideas for names (or post them in the comments), and in a few weeks we'll put it all up for a vote on the world wide web!

- Libby & Scott

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving weekend is off to a beautiful beginning. I started cooking Thanksgiving dishes yesterday:
Chipotle-mashed sweet potatoes (my favorite Thanksgiving recipe) and a cranberry-apple relish. And, for Wednesday night dinner, I made a fantastic squash stew from my new Vegetable Love cookbook (recipe below). Scott and I had a relaxed evening - we drank a bottle of dark chocolate oatmeal stout beer, nibbled on dark chocolate, and watched TV - the second episode of Supernatural that his sister Julie guest starred in (Go Julie! She was great!) and then an episode of Nova that was all about fractals - I loved it.

This morning, we both woke up at 4 am, so I baked the dinner rolls (very easy, when you already have a bunch of dough in the fridge). We went back to bed from 6-9. Woke up, went for a run (it's beautiful out today!), made a Northwest Waldorf salad, and called to wish my parents a happy Thanksgiving. We're just about ready to head over to Lindsay & Nathan's house. What a wonderful day.

Also, here are some photos from our trip to Yosemite, a week and a half ago.

Yosemite November 2008

Coconut-Jarrahdale Vegetale Stew

* 3 T butter
* 2 medium onions, diced (2 cups)
* 2 medium carrots, chopped (1/2 cup)
* 1 bunch broccoli, chopped (5 cups)
* 2-3 pounds of winter squash (Jarrahdale, acorn, etc.)
* 1 cup coconut milk
* 1/2 cup stock/broth
* 1 T ground cardamom
* 2 T celery seeds
* 1 T salt
* Black pepper

1. Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions. Cook for 3 minutes, or until limp & translucent. Increase teh heat to high. Add the carrots, broccoli and squash. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionaly.
2. Reduce heat to medium-high. Add the coconut milk and stock. Bring to a boil. Stir in the cardamom and celery seeds. Continue to boil for 3 minutes. Cover, reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the squash is cooked through.
3. Remove the lid and cook over high heat to reduce and thicken the sauce. Season with salt and pepper.

From Vegetable Love by Barbara Kafka

New cookbook yields delightful results

Mini pumpkins!


I saw them at the farmers market, and even though we already had four large winter squashes sitting on our counter at home, I couldn't resist taking these little guys home with me.

At the time, I had only a vague notion of filling them with something and baking them for a while. But then along came a fantastic new cookbook: Vegetable Love, by Barbara Kafka. It's a book for non-vegetarians who love vegetables. I found a recipe for ground lamb stuffing, and seeing as we'd had a pound of ground lab in the freezer for quite some time, it seemed like a good first recipe to try. The lamb was spicy (from curry and chipotle powder), and the pumpkin was sweet, and we will certainly be making this again in the future!

Berkeley Day Trip

I had a great day in Berkeley today - it's only about an hour from Davis, and a very easy trip on I-80. I spent $120 at Games of Berkeley (some Christmas shopping!) and $40 at The Cheeseboard (truffle goat cheese!). But the highlight of the trip, and the reason for it, was visiting with my friend Anna, who's in town for work for a few weeks. It's always fun to reconnect with a Minnesotan, especially one who endured many Nutcracker seasons with you. And, of course, it's a bonus when that person has an excellent taste for cheese and can help you decide how to spend your money on the stuff.

Bike joy.

I got my bike fixed up over the weekend, and it feels wonderful to ride! A new chain, new shifter cables, new tires, and a tightened-up headset. It's so crisp!

Other things that brought me happiness these past few days:

• Rainy days, and the sun coming out after the rain
• A college campus on Halloween - I can't think of a better place to spend the day. My favorite part was the two dancing Storm Troopers - they were roaming campus (and lecture halls!) all afternoon, along with a guy carrying a boombox, dancing away. Awesome.
• The looong line of students waiting to vote (early) in the student union
• Planning a Yosemite camping trip!
• Celebrating at Ivona's baby shower

Craftiness!

I realized I never posted a finished picture of the baby quilt I made this summer. Here it is! I get to give it to Ivona today at her baby shower.


Yesterday, Scott and I went to a Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) party in Woodland. Each person got a skeleton to decorate as an ancestor. I decided to try to do my great-grandmother Marie Elizabeth. I don't know what she looked like, but I gave her blond braids, and she's holding some flowers and a kitten. (My three-year-old helper decorated her skirt, and gave her another white kitten.) Definitely a fun activity.


In other news, the fall rains have finally arrived. I'm not necessarily looking forward to biking in them for the next few months, but it is nice to have a change in seasons. It makes our apartment feel nice and warm and cozy, and it makes me appreciate the the sunny days much more. The markets are full of winter squashes and big, beautiful, leafy greens. We didn't carve a pumpkin for Halloween, but we did eat one for dinner! I need to outfit my bike with fenders and buy a pair of rainboots, and then I think I'll be all set for the season.

Fun sites to keep me from studying for midterms!

1. Planarity
2. This Is Sand
3. Palin As President

Classes, Corvallis, Cat!

Good thing #1: I'm officially enrolled in three pre-med classes at UC Davis this quarter! I didn't know if I'd get in, since priority goes to the degree-seeking students, but happily there was space for me. And so far, I'm really enjoying them. My first chemistry midterm is this Friday, followed by biology and physiology midterms on Monday.


Good thing #2: Regionals was fantastic. It was a long trip (a 9-hour drive to Corvallis, OR) but totally worth it. We played really well together; we were seeded 10th and finished 6th. Last year, the team came in 11th. I'm happy with how I played, and it was good to be outside on some beautiful fall days.


Good thing #3: Scott and I are getting a kitten!! I've been wanting a cat of my own for a long time, but had resigned myself to petlessness since Scott is allergic to cats and dogs. But then two weeks ago, we were sitting on the couch and, out of the blue, he asked me if I'd like to get a kitten. I was speechless. Turns out he found a breeder down in Los Gatos who breeds Siberians with particularly low levels of the protein Scott's allergic to. We went down to visit her that afternoon, and after spending an hour in her house, Scott proclaimed he was not allergic. We put down a deposit on one of the week-old kittens that was mewing on the couch and made tentative plans to pick him up when he's old enough to leave his mother, right after the new year. He'll look something like this:

We're already researching which tricks to teach him.

Minnesota Adventures

We've been in MN for a week and a half now, and have just a few days left. So far, it's been fantastic. My parents and Scott and I spent a long weekend at the cabin, where I finished two quilts, went running with my mom, took some very chilly dips in the lake, cooked up some tasty dinners, and generally spent quality time with the people I love.

Back in Duluth, we plunged into all sorts of wedding planning - reception site & food, flowers, invitations, dress, and more. We have a lot of work to do, but it feels good to have so much started on this far in advance. Apart from wedding appointments, Scott and I did some hiking around Hawk Ridge - a beautiful wilderness area in the city, and a great spot for watching the hawk migration this time of year.

Now we're down in St. Paul. We visited the science museum yesterday, as well as a terrific musical instrument museum. Today we're off to the Walker art museum, and we're having lunch with my aunts, cousin and sister. Tonight we're going to my second cousin's wedding - I'm looking forward to a pretty fun party. And I'm excited that Scott is healthy enough to dance with me!