The Vagabonds Are Back!

Those of you who are newer to our blog probably don't realize that the last year and eight months has been rather uncharacteristic of us. We've lived in just one apartment. It's the longest that either of us has lived in one place for the last 7 years.

And it's not that we don't love our small town and all our friends, because we do, it's just time for another big adventure.

Like moving across the country.

And doing it in one checked bag, two carry-ons, and three personal items.

On Monday, Cam starts his first optometry school rotation in Connecticut. This marks the beginning of his last year of optometry school, which consists of 4, 3-month long rotations scattered about the country (read more about rotations and our picking of them here).

Originally, we were planing a rockin' cross-country roadtrip so we could at least have a whole car to pack our stuff in, and see Mount Rushmore and the Badlands because when else are we going to be out that way? But then our aging Corolla, Sheila, starting having hotflashes and threatened to leave us stranded in South Dakota if we forced her to make the trip. Oh, and we realized I would be 7.5months pregnant on the 50-hour return journey. Yeah... no.

Besides, Wes doesn't turn 2 until next month which means he still qualifies, at least on paper, as a lap-child on the airplane.

So everyone that we talk to about this has a few questions for us (as I'm sure you do) so I'm going to try to answer our most FAQs here, and I'm happy to field any more that you have!

So how will you get around without Sheila?
Easy peasy. Some of you may remember our familiarity with public transportation from our experience living in New York. We'll actually be just an hour from our old stomping grounds, and from what we understand public transportation is perhaps even less exciting then what we're used to. We're also considering buying a cheapo car and registering it (still cheaper than long-term rental) so that we can expand our travels.

Where will you live?
We found an apartment by a University that was being refinished, that they just finished working on last week, so they didn't even mind renting it to us for just until August, because that's when the students will show up. It's the 1st floor of a house with two bedrooms... more space than we need really to fit us and ALL our possessions.

Um, what about furniture?
When it comes down to it what does one small family really need? In our case, it's a mattress, a pack n' play,  a table, and a couple chairs (if you think those are non-essential I bow to your hardcore-ness). Pack n' play and a table we'll craigslist and then sell again when we leave. For the mattress we had a bigger problem, we have nothing to pick it up in. We called rental stores and delivery was as much as the rental in the first place. Cameron's friend James had an awesome idea: Amazon does free shipping. Our mattress is being delivered in a box. How cool is that?

So what do you pack for three people for three whole months?
In second grade I did a unit on Africa, and read a book by a guy who spent a summer traveling from one end to the other. At the beginning he included his complete packing list, which I at that time found helpful and apparently has largely impacted my life. In that spirit, here's the detailed but not quite exhaustive packing list:

Clothing:

• One jacket each (worn on the flight)
• Everyone gets 1 pair of sturdy shoes, one pair of dress shoes, and one pair of beach shoes.
• 7 days of clothing (and underclothings) for each of us (except Wes who doesn't wear underclothings), swimsuits and towels
• Cam gets 6 dress shirts, 2 dress pants, his "white coat", and 5 ties
• Essential toiletries 
• I get my straightener and blow dryer if it fits

Kitchen:

• 3 forks, 3 spoons, 2 butter knives, and 1 sharp knife
• 3 plates, 3 small bowls
• 2 cups and Wes' straw sippy
• A spatula and a stirring spoon (We had a long debate about whether a wisk is essential... it didn't make the cut)
• A mixing bowl, an 8x11 pyrex and a cookie sheet 
• A skillet and a medium saucepan 
• Two dish towels and a couple wash cloths

Bedrooms:

• Queen sheets, a large blanket and a small blanket, two pillowcases and two pillows (the last of which made it because we reached the weight limit of our carry on before the size limit. We considered filling the space with helium balloons though.)
• A pack and play sheet
• Two yards of blackout curtain fabric (gets Wes to sleep in 2 hours=worth the weight)
• Blankie and Teddy *most essential items that we're bringing* 
• Baby monitor 

Other:

• Wireless router
• Computers
• Cameras
• Cam's Kindle
• Cam's Opthalmoscope 
• An umbrella (Cam waiting for the bus, next week's forecast is RAIN)
• A first aid kit with sunscreen
• Wes gets his toddler-backpack worth of toys including 4 books, his puppy piano (of cuatro fame), crayons, and some compact toys I made him that I'll review after the trip.
• A pencil box full of odds and ends that my temporary living in London and New York have taught me to take along, including: scissors, a small sewing kit, a flashlight, saftey pins, pens, tape, post-its, nail file, and a small ball of string.
• A few sheets of blank paper.

Any Questions?

Good. And get psyched for some more characteristic adventure posts in the coming months!

Braving the Beach

I am just so pleased with how the weather has been lately!

Last week Cam was finishing up his classes and the weather was so fabulous I decided to be brave and go with some of my friends to the beach with Wesley, by myself. It may not sound like a huge deal to some of you veteran moms out there, but Wes is a wanderer. At the park he'll be perfectly happy playing on the slide for 20 minutes and then suddenly stop and just start walking away from the park (usually when asked he's headed home for one thing or another... as if he knows which way home is).

We carpooled with My friend Stacey, Wes' best bud Ross, and 3-month-old Ruby (that makes Stacey ultra brave). The way there Wes was mad about the sun in his eyes, and Ross got grumpy about his shoe coming off. Ruby slept the whole time which was encouraging/surprising/fabulous. 

Wes has a lot of strong opinions. And for some reason at the beach he wanted to wear his sweatpants, jacket, shoes&socks, and no hat.  Didn't want to wear the sunscreen either but I have to draw the line somewhere and with his hair being translucent and all that's the battle I picked. 

The first hour Wes literally spend wandering around the beach. Luckily his main interest was the rocks at the opposite end of the beach from the water. Ross had a rough time with sand between his toes. Baby ruby was the shining star of happiness laying on a blanket in the tent the entire time we were there. 

Finally the last hour we were there Wes decided to be a normal kid and play in the sand with his friends.  He even took his jacket off when he got sand all over it. His arms got a little red because I forgot to sunscreen them after that. 

Wes thought it was funny to dump sand on Michelle's legs (he calls her 'shell). Luckily she's a good sport. He also thought it was hilarious that there were two "shells" at the beach, "shell bucket, Shell mom" he said probably 50 times. 

On the Way home Ross was a grump until he fell asleep. Wes sang songs and picked sand out of his toes in Stacey's car until he pretty much literally crashed mid verse. Baby ruby didn't make a single noise and fell asleep. 

We decided next time maybe we'll just take Ruby. 

Tea Party

I have always wanted to have a tea party. I was never able though because aside from the one time I had Tea at the Kensington Orangery in college, I've never been to tea, been a tea drinker, or figured out why anyone would use cream.

Luckily I have classy friends. 

I met a wonderful lady named Nanette through serving at church. I had been to her beautiful/posh/well-decorated house several times, when we got to discussing our shared pension for throwing ridiculous parties, and she mentioned that she's thrown several tea parties recently. We decided it would be fabulous to do one together (at her house of course, not my tiny/toy-filled/eccentricly-decorated apartment).  Of course she handled most everything that required classiness, and I just mostly did silly things like this:

(No need to get excited creepers, personal info has been changed)

I wasn't kidding about this house guys, even the ceilings are pretty. We did all the teacups different for fun. And Nanette is also fabulous with flowers and food. Our menu was cucumber sandwiches, open-faced chicken salad sandwiches, cream-filled strawberries, eclairs, shortbread cookies, scones, and sugared grapes. 

Little Green Monsters

You guys know how I'm always having problems with dying myself unnatural colors right? I've outdone myself. Really.

A couple days ago I was pulling a shirt out of my closet, when I noticed a little black ant sitting on the shoulder of the hanger. Gross. I had no idea how it got there, but given the amount of time Wes and I spend outside I figured we must have brought it in with us.

Later that day I went to pull out a sweater and noticed another ant on the shoulder. Um... 12 times grosser, because clearly one is a fluke and two is an indication of a situation. Especially since I can't imagine ants see anything especially nice about the shoulders of my clothes, so there are sure to be more elsewhere. I made a mental note that when Cam got home it would be time for an investigation.

Cam got home and I was putting away some stuff in the kitchen. I found a cake decorating tip that belonged with my other tools upstairs. Just the week before I'd packed up all my cake decorating tools for our move and stored them... in my closet.

As I pulled down the box I realized it was crawling with ants. I ran it down to the kitchen and started washing off the ants. I just want to make it clear that I clean all my tools well- the ants had found a little icing on a piece of paper, and apparently the lid to my green food coloring was not screwed on tightly enough and they were LOVING it. I cleaned everything. Throughly. And then went upstairs to clear everything else out of the closet.

We started pulling things out from around where the box was, discovering dozens of ants. When smashed, each ant would ooze an astonishingly vibrant green. Cam, who would smash an ant with his fingers if a rag wasn't handy soon had green spots dyed all over his fingers.

So as you can see, we had a unique problem. I managed to dye our ant invasion green. Ants crawling all over our clothes and everything else in our closet, but if we smashed them they spewed green dye.

I was too busy to get a picture on Friday, so the picture below is of an ant I smashed on Monday, after the coloring had been cleaned up for over 3 days... he was still quite green, but only half as 'plump' if that's the right word, the earlier ones had twice as much green area when smashed.

Of course, this meant we couldn't simply dump all our clothes in the wash to be free of the problem, because they might come out spotted green. Our system quickly became grab a few items, run over to the bathtub, and shake violently. Then smash any and all ants that fell off. Wes thought this system was hilarious and would stand over the tub and point them out as they fell and yell "Mash it!" Then we'd toss the "shaken" clothes in the wash. Cam's suits and such we inspected THROUGHLY before putting them in a safe pile on our bed.

We were at this most of the aftenevening (yeah, I just made that a word), got Wes to bed and thought we were in the clear by about 11pm. I was about to get in bed when I saw an ant in our bed. I told Cam and he said, "I see it too..." then I looked at him, realized he was looking in a completely different spot, and knew there was no way I was sleeping in that bed.

A brief discussion followed about our options. We only have one couch. And our air mattress was in Wesley's closet under a stack of mason jars. Risking an unhappy Wes, we snuck into his room and team-lifted out the air mattress (with jars stacked on top). We blew it up with my hairdryer since there would be no finding a pump in the dark.

I slept terribly on the air mattress and woke up at least 5 times between when we got to bed at midnight, and when Wes got up at a cheery 6:30 AM. However, I'll count that as infinitely better than waking up with ants crawling on my face.

The next day we washed EVERYTHING. That night my mom brought over some super ant killer and we got everything good and sprayed and saw no more ants in the closet. Of course, afterwards Cam read the label which said to ventilate the area and keep out for awhile... so we had another night on the air mattress (I ended up on the couch). Cam and I had a discussion about our situation, and realized that as far as pest problems go, that we'd take green-oozing ants over anything else we could think of. Besides, it's kind of funny, right?

*Note* For all concerned parties, no ants (green or otherwise) have been spotted since Monday. And if they do come back for my other colors, I have a yellow to spare.

So Proud

Wes dyed easter eggs for the first time today. He's a natural artist.

He loved it so much that most of them were dipped in color, then painted with a brush, and then dipped again. 

Look what a great dying job he did on his hands. I'm so proud! He kept saying "pink" holding up his left hand and "green" holding up his right. 

Aren't they fabulous? And only about half of them were broken by the time we were done. 

Troublemakers

We found this in Wesley's room this week:

Looks like we're all in trouble when his little brother gets here in September. 

Cheesecake Factory Chicken Bellagio

There's a recipe at the end of this if you stick with me. I believe in bribery, I do.

Thanks to some fabulous gift cards, Cam and I got to go on a date to the Cheesecake Factory! I had never been before. Since it was a Saturday night, they don't take reservations, so we showed up at a nice early 5:20 and were told they had a "50, like 5-0 minute wait" (yes, the hostess really did spell it out for me lest I thought she said 15).

We decided to walk around the mall which was helpful in killing the first half-hour, making us super hungry, and also in forcing us to come to the realization of how very unfashionable we are these days. Our magic beeper finally went off after an hour, and we went back inside and noticed that they had switched to the "mood lighting" while we were gone, so we strained our eyes to follow the host to our seats.

As we sat down I noticed a small polar bear figurine on the top of my bench. I snagged it and was going to take it home for Wes, but Cam made me put it back in case someone came looking for it. Sometime after our drinks showed up it disappeared in a small hand from the other side.

And then we discovered the wonderful thing about the Cheesecake Factory. My good friend Stacey who is somewhat of a foodie made sure we knew exactly what to order... and I'm passing this on to you as well: the Avacado Eggrolls as an appetizer (Fabulous, with a magical sauce) and the Chicken Bellagio (just one to split... we still only ate half).

The polar bear reappeared as we were finishing, only to be snagged quickly when we heard a "don't put that up there! Where's your penguin?" Which is made even sillier if you know much about arctic habitats. We got to meet the penguin later when it was nudged out of reach by our small friend and I had to retrieve it (much to the mother's horror), which we thought was hilarious only because our small person was at a friend's house and not the cause of the problem... which is typical.

Somehow when our leftovers went to be boxed up they were accidentally thrown away. The manager came to apologize profusely and offered us either another Chicken Bellagio to take home or a free cheesecake. We picked cheesecake. Yum. But I still left thinking about my leftover Bellagio that was never to be. So I looked online and found a recipe on the Cheesecake Factory's own website that looked ridiculously too complicated for me to do on my own. So I found an accomplice.

Stacey and I worked hard for about 2 hours on this while our children watched a movie and ate marshmallows (hey, whatever it takes okay?) But check this out:

Almost as awesome looking as the real thing (and fed our dinner party of 4 ). It only took us that long because we had no idea what we were doing, and did things in all the wrong order, and had to stop to search online to figure out how one cooks prosciutto (fyi: one doesn't). And for your culinary pleasure and kudos for still reading here is our much better organized version, for italian cooking newbs. The trick is, do them in the listed order, and when you get a break while doing one thing, start in on the next, and it should all finish about the same time.

(Kim and Stacey's) Cheesecake Factory Chicken Bellagio
Serving size: 4

1/2 cup (packed) fresh basil leaves

1/4 cup olive oil

8 oz. Spaghettini Pasta
1 tbsp. Butter
1/4 oz. Parmesan/Romano Cheese Blend

2 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts (3 Oz.)
1/4 tsp. Kosher Salt
1/8 tsp. Freshly Ground Black Pepper
1 oz. All-Purpose Flour
2 oz. Egg Wash (or an egg beaten with a fork in a shallow dish)
2 oz. Seasoned Breadcrumbs

2tbsp. butter

2tsp. flour

3/4 cup whipping cream

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/2 oz. Baby Arugula
1/2 tsp. Olive Oil
1  tsp. Lemon Juice, Freshly Squeezed
1/4 oz. Parmesan/Romano Cheese Blend

3/4 oz. Prosciutto

1/2 tsp. Parsley chopped

Basil Oil (in the original recipe it's a given you know this, so this recipe is from Epicurious):

Blanch basil in medium saucepan of boiling water 10 seconds. Drain. Rinse under cold water. Pat basil dry with paper towels. Transfer to blender. Add oil; puree until smooth. Transfer to small bowl. Season with salt and pepper. (Can be made 3 days ahead). Cover and chill.

Noodles:

Heat up a saucepan of salted water for the noodles. When it boils, add the noodles and cook until "Al Dente" (about 8 min). Add to heated basil oil, 1 tbsp butter and 1/4 oz. parmesan/romano cheese blend, tossing to incorporate

Chicken:

Pound your chicken breasts approximately 6" wide. Season one side with salt and pepper. Then coat the chicken with flour on both sides, shaking off any excess. Dip the chicken into the egg wash coat with seasoned breadcrumbs, gently press the breadcrumbs to help them stick.  Pour a little oil on a flat grill or skillet and allow it to heat. Carefully place the breaded chicken breasts in the pan and cook until the chicken is crispy and a light even brown. Turn the chicken over and cook until done.

Parmesan Cream Sauce (in the original it's a given you know this, so this is from TLC Cooking):

Melt butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add flour; cook and stir with wire whisk 1 minute. Add cream, whisking vigorously until thick and smooth, about 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low and stir in Parmesan.  Set Aside And Keep Warm.  

Arugula Salad:

Place the Arugla in a clean mixing bowl. Drizzle the oil and squeeze the lemon wedge over the bowl. Season with a little salt and pepper. Add 1/4 oz. Parm/Romano blend to the bowl and toss together to coat. 

Prosciutto:

Slice the prosciutto into long thin (1/16") strips. Warm, but do not crisp. 

Serve:

Mound the noodles in the center of the serving platter leaving a 1" boarder around the rim. Ladle 2/3 of the parmesan cream sauce around the pasta. 

Place the chicken on top of the pasta at a a slight angle. When plated correctly, very little pasta will be visible. Drizzle remaining cream sauce over the chicken. Sprinkle chopped parsley over chicken and pasta. 

Set the prosciotto slices around the top of the chicken forming a fluffy "crown" with an open area in the center.

Mound the arugula inside the "crown" spilling over the prosciutto.

Quick! Serve before it the chicken gets chilly and the arugula gets warm!