the case of the disappearing gnocchi.

so my father and pat-ricia (my step-mom) and cousin (my cousin...yes, her name is cousin) are coming to visit next weekend. it's the first time that all three will be at our apartment and we like to share delicious food creations with guests, so we decided that in order to be able to really impress, we'd have to practice...

...we invited meg over to experiment, too. well i'm not so sure she was ready to experiment, but ready to eat dinner when she showed up at eight pm. the following is a semi-timeline of events:

8pm: meg shows up, bottle of shiraz in hand. we are currently hanging HIDEOUS yellow curtains in our living room and finishing measuring to hang a mirror. meg was taken aback by the yellow curtains and sat in a dazed state while we finished the mirror.

9pm: FINALLY start the water to boil the potatoes...which have to be boiled whole for some reason. at that point we decide to open the wine since it was 9pm and we figured we'd sip while we waited for our dinner...which shouldn't be too much later. and we also decided that we'd be AWESOME and use our cool decanter:

then ryan decided to have meg taste the wine to make sure it tasted delish.

9:30 - we were getting a LITTLE hungry as we waited for the potatoes...and since we were drinking wine, we figured why not have some crackers and cheese with it? the only problem was that our only source of crackers and cheese were these delightful little treats:

...don't worry we also managed to pull out some cold pre-cooked smoked sausage. it was like were in france.

10pm: So we sat around sipping and munching on our DELISH crackers and ryan gave the signal that the potatoes were ready to go through the potato ricer! it was a very exciting moment. so we all assembled back into the kitchen and took a turn mashing one potato each...first ryan, then meg, then me:

Once we got all of the potatoes mashed we added in the flour according to some silly lady online. she wasn't very smart and clearly didn't know how much flour we should add, but we listened to her anyways.

So ry finished mixing the dough and Meg had to explain the thickness of the gnocchi. it's supposed to be as big as a fingernail.

10:15 pm After finally finishing rolling out the gnocchi it was finally time to put the first batch in. We had instructions to leave them in until they floated...so we did. but then we decided that floated FAR too quickly (about 30 seconds after dropping them in). since they floated so quickly, we thought it was obvious that they should stay in a little bit longer, so we left them in. five minutes later we went back to look at them:

there was literally NO gnocchi in there. ryan thought i was kidding so he had to take a peek for himself. there were absolutely NO gnocchi. NONE. they literally disintegrated and dissolved. there were no pieces floating around...it was just startchy water.

10:30pm considering we had been cooking since nine, the first bottle of wine was gone and we still had no gnocchi.

so we went back to the drawing board and decided to add a TON more flour until we felt as though the dough was a proper consistency. the only flaw with this plan is we don't really know how to recreate the gnocchi since we don't know how much flour was used. but it was okay because we were doing little testers. we dropped in three gnocchi at first and we set the counter with three taster stations ... one for each of us. we made megger go first.

that is CLEARLY a face that loves the gnocchi. A SUCCESS!!!!!!!! so we dropped in the rest of the gnocchi and i finished the chili goat cheese sauce (i started that when we dropped the first batch of disappearing gnocchi...). and TA-DA!!!!!!

10:57 pm. gnocchi complete. dinner is served.

so since it was 11pm and we were just sitting down to dinner we decided to open another bottle:

and we proceeded to eat and talk and laugh until 1am. it was one of the most fun and relaxing evenings we've had in a while. it was so great not having to go out and do anything to entertain ourselves. all we needed was a few potatoes, some flour and ourselves. i am constantly reminded about how it is such a blessing to be surrounded by such good friends. there is nothing i enjoy more than sitting around the table eating, drinking and laughing and having good quality conversation. it was really a perfect evening.

be still.

so i was thinking... i never explained the blog. why don't i do that? i'm not entirely sure what the purpose of this blog is. i think it's a mixture of detailing our adventures (like running into cattle parades) and a place to just think out loud (like this entry)...so allow me to think out loud...

be still and know that i am God. - psalm 46:10

since coming back from the honeymoon we have been in go go go mode. it's kind of silly, really. who knows where the craziness comes from. there's always something to pick up or laundry to fold or groceries to be purchased. and when we're not up and about doing things, it's finally getting around to uploading pictures to facebook. i think it was starting to wear on me so last night i just wanted to be still.

so i took my ipod and my bible and wandered down this street, which is conveniently two minutes from our apartment:

so there i went with the intentions of just sitting and enjoying a few minutes of silence and time to just be still...

when i got there and sat down it started to drizzle. and then it started to rain a little bit harder. so my half an hour that i wanted quickly turned into five minutes and i was a little disappointed, but as i walked back i put on before the throne of God above. and as i was walking letting the rain soak in i was thinking about how God washes us clean of everything. everything just seemed to stop for a second and be at peace. it was lovely.

Before the Throne of God Above

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong, a perfect plea:

A great High Priest, whose name is Love,

Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on his hands,

My name is written on his heart;

I know that while in heaven he stands

No tongue can bid me thence depart

No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,

And tells me of the guilt within,

Upward I look, and see him there

Who made an end of all my sin.

Because a sinless Savior died,

My sinful soul is counted free;

For God, the Just, is satisfied

To look on Him and pardon me

To look on Him and pardon me

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise the One,

Risen Son of God!

Behold him there, the risen Lamb

My perfect, spotless righteousness,

The great unchangeable I am,

The King of glory and of grace!

One in himself, I cannot die

My soul is purchased by his blood

My life is hid with Christ on high,

With Christ, my Savior and my God

With Christ, my Savior and my God

"we've got 57 cattle in the road"

so we left Jeffersonville after a day full of celebrating papa dumas' birthday and headed towards Camels Hump...

All of a sudden there was a state trooper in the middle of the road blocking traffic and people lined along the road sitting in lawn chairs. So obviously we assumed some sort of parade, wouldn't you?

Ryan pulled over and I got out of the car to go talk to the nice VT state po and was told the following information: "we're moving some cattle, you're going to have to wait 45 minutes to an hour," as if it were an every day occurrence. I think my eyes probably opened a little bit wider and my jaw dropped a little and i managed to stammer out..."uhh camels hump - is there a way around?" I was dumbfounded to say the least...but some nice lady from the town gave me directions...something along the lines of, "go back into town, when you hit Jake's...you know Jake's store....take a sharp right. go til you hit the y in the road and veer right. at the end of the hill turn left and you'll be on your way." I still must have looked a little bewildered because the nice trooper handed me her pad of paper and pen so i could scrribble the directions. I finished writing and ran back to ryan and hopped in and we were off...to find Jake and his store.

Well we found Jake and his store and realized that yes, the lady was right...until the whole turn left part. we missed that turn and ended up back on the main road somehow ... only to run into this:

Ryan stopped the car so i could get out and snag my camera. that sign says (sorry, don't feel like cropping right now): "caution, cattle drive ahead. long delays. detour suggested." as i was getting my camera a guy hopped out and ran up to the car exclaiming..."we got 57 cattle on the road!"

he then proceeded to give us directions to camels hump...and we drove off laughing hysterically and what just unfolded before our eyes. we even took some of the cows with us:

Lucky for us, our new friends directions were great and we finally made it to camels hump and embarked on our trek up burrows trail.

The hike took us about an hour. It was just what we needed. some quality us time and time to just be in the middle of God's beautiful creation to just think and pray.

We got to the top just as the fog started to clear...it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL.

the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. - psalm 19:1

we both felt so accomplished when we finally got to the top and just stood and looked around for a bit. we ate our lunch and wandered back down the mountain while just enjoying each other and the things around us...it was a perfect day, really.