Family Trip

On Saturday evening, Mark and I got home from a trip to visit his extended family. We were gone for just over a week, and traveled through 7 states (Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana--in that order). We spent one night in Kentucky, Father's Day weekend in Arkansas, and the work week in Missouri. The other states we just drove through to get there and back!

On the first part of the trip, we got to see Mark's paternal grandparents as well as his parents, sisters, niece and nephew. We drove through terrible rain to get to Jonesboro, but otherwise the weather on the trip was beautiful.

While we were there, we shopped, lounged around, and played some games.

On Monday, we drove on up to Bunker Hill Retreat for an annual family reunion with Mark's mother's side. Before we left, we also got a scary call from my Dad about my sister, who was in the ER. We found out over the course of the next few days that she has a condition called cavernoma. She was released from the hospital midweek, and is now getting back into her regular routine. The doctors hope this will be a one-time event, but they'll have to monitor her. My parents encouraged me to continue on with our plans, so we went ahead to Bunker Hill and checked in on my sister as best we could from there. We're thankful that she's doing better now!

At Bunker Hill, we got to see all of Mark's aunts and uncles on his mom's side, his grandmother, and quite a few of the cousins, as well as Mark's brother and his wife. We shared a cabin with Mark's older sister and her kids (like we did last year), and generally had a great time. As always, we played a lot of games, ate too much, and spent some time exploring outside. This year, we even had ribs for dinner, which had been cooked in a big outdoor smoker all day. They were delicious! One of my favorite activities was the canoe rides with Hannah and Zach--for the first time I ventured both down and up stream a bit. Hard work, it turns out, but we had quite an adventure!

On Thursday morning, we all parted ways after breakfast, with some of the family heading home, and others (us included) heading to St. Louis. On the way, we stopped at Meramec Caverns, which was cool (though not as spectacular as Carlsbad Caverns).

In St. Louis, we met up with a cousin who lives there (but was unable to come to Bunker Hill) for dinner, and we also got to spend more time with Gran, who lives there, too. On Friday, some of us visited the zoo, which was free!

Later that day, at various times, we said some more goodbyes. Mark and I made our way back to BG on Saturday, stopping in Indianappolis to visit the Rhythm Discovery Center.

Saturday was my birthday, so we went by South Side Six when we got back in town to have a free birthday dinner. Yum! Overall, we really enjoyed the trip and spending some time with family.

Now that we've been back for a couple of days, I have laundry and unpacking done, and I'm trying to set my priorities for the rest of the summer. I can't believe June is almost over already!

Verse 12

Another one from 31 Days of Praise--2 Corinthians 3:5b-6a

"...our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant..."

Pita Bread

Yum! That's the Pita Bread from Artisan Bread in 5 and Greek Style Pita Sandwiches we had for dinner tonight. I was really impressed--both by the flavor and the easiness of this dish. Mark didn't love the lemon in the yogurt sauce, but I'll just try a different recipe for sauce next time, because I'll definitely want to make these again. I'm feeling like my goal of trying new recipes this summer is working out pretty well!

Bread Update

In my last post, I mentioned that I'd just checked out Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from the library. This week, I've tried out the basic dough recipe, and I'm totally impressed. It took about 5 minutes to whip up this (very wet) dough in my stand mixer with a dough hook.

This rises on the counter for 2 hours then in the fridge for 3 or more. I let it go overnight, then forgot to take a picture.

The next morning, I pulled off a hunk, shaped it into a loaf, and let that rest on the counter for half an hour. Then I transferred it to the preheated pizza stone in the oven (this was the trickiest part, resulting in a much less attractively shaped final product) and after baking for 30 minutes, I had this loaf of bread.

It was super easy (I went through the shaping, resting, baking, and cooling steps while I did my Saturday morning chores), but it tasted really great. (Mark and I both tested a slice with lunch).

For dinner on Saturday night, I decided to use the rest of the loaf to make cheesy bread and to experiment with some of the refrigerated dough as pizza crust (again, following--more or less--the instructions from the book). Here's how dinner turned out:

Mark wasn't sold on the pizza crust, although I quite liked it and would be interested in trying it again (with a few adjustments). But the cheesy bread was a smash hit--we'll be having that again for sure! (The picture really doesn't do it justice).

I've got a little more dough in the fridge, which I plan to use to make pita bread (another variation from the book) later this week to go along with this recipe from Our Best Bites. I expect it to be tasty, too. I plan to test a few other recipes from the book (like the wheat bread) before I decide for sure, but I'm starting to think this is a book I'll need to buy! Not only is the process pretty simple, but (as you can tell) the dough is versatile. I'm also sure it's much cheaper to bake the bread at home than to buy it at the store, so I'm interested in the sandwich bread recipes, too.

I also started a tiny herb garden with two plants (basil and chives) I bought for $1.75 each at the Downtown BG Farmers' Market last week. I bought two very inexpensive pots and some soil, and now I hope to keep these little plants alive and find good ways to use them!

Weekend Wedding

Last weekend, Mark and I drove up to Grand Rapids, MI to attend his cousin's wedding. We visited this part of the family over fall break last year, and it was really nice to get back up there. This time we stayed with Mark's cousin (not the one getting married), so we got to spend a little more time with him and his wife (and another cousin and her husband who also stayed there). We were only gone Friday-Sunday, but it was nice to have somewhere to go together and to see some family! Besides hanging out and attending the wedding, we helped a little with setting up the food for the rehearsal dinner and decorating for the reception, and we went out for a great breakfast at the Real Food Cafe. I didn't do a good job of taking pictures, but here are a few.

The first three were taken at breakfast--the food was really good, and we're hoping to go back to that place next time we visit.

Here's the room for the reception after we finished decorating. The favors were little cups that had the bride and groom's names with the wedding date and said "Eat, Drink, and Be Married." Too cute!

And here we are after the ceremony. As you can tell, the sun was really bright! 

In other news, I've just picked up a copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from the library, so I'm hoping to try it out this week. I'll let you know how it goes. I've also recently tried two new recipes from my favorite food blog, Our Best Bites. The Chipotle Pork Tacos and Almond Poppy Seed Bread are both keepers! (We like more chipotle in the first and less glaze on the second :-).

Verse 11

About a week ago, I started reading 31 Days of Praise: Enjoying God Anew by Ruth Myers. My mom gave the book to me for my birthday last year, but I didn't read it at the time because I was in the middle of another awesome book (also a recommendation from my mom). I recently rediscovered 31 Days of Praise on the bookshelf and decided to work through it. This verse comes from the opening chapter.

Hebrews 13:15

Through Him [Jesus] then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.

If you're not sure what "Verse 11" is all about, check out this post explaining the verses.