6 month Recap

Well, yet again, it has been an obscenely long amount of time since I last posted. So, in this post I will attempt to recap the last 6 months of my life.

Probably the biggest change was that Dave & I adopted a kitten. His name is Mo and he is the most playful kitten/cat that I've ever met.

When we got him, he looked like this:
Now, he looks like this:

Truthfully, most of my photos of him look like this:
Winter was very mild this year and by the beginning of March, most of the snow was gone. Dave & I were able to take a chilly, but nice little canoe on the Connecticut by March 6 or something like that. Shortly thereafter, we went on a whitewater trip on the White River. The river won that day and we capsized our canoe in very cold water. We actually almost lost our canoe and belongings, but thanks to very nice people in Hartford, VT, we recovered all of our stuff. We've taken a bit of a hiatus from whitewater canoeing, but we'll be out there soon enough. There aren't any pictures from that day, but here's a picture of our lovely, uneventful 1st canoe of the year.

Dave & I also took a short trip to Puerto Rico over spring break. PR is very lovely, but we both agreed that Belize was cooler. PR does have the advantage of being a part of the US, so we didn't have to go through customs or pay any entrance/leaving fees. Flights are pretty cheap to San Juan, too. Here we are at Arecibo Observatory.
There aren't very many pictures from April & May because I was working really hard on my thesis proposal. I gave my presentation in mid-May and my committee grilled me for an hour afterwards, but I emerged victorious and am now "all but dissertation". wahoo!

It's officially hiking season, but we've only done one hike so far. Here we are with our friend Greg on top of Killington Mtn.
My cousin got married over Memorial Day weekend, so Dave & I made the trip out to Colorado where he got to meet a good portion of my family. It was a great weekend and the wedding was beautiful. He's also pretty hooked on spades, which is essential in my family. Here we are at the wedding:
Last weekend, we went to visit Mikki, Joe & Quinn. We had a great time playing Bananagrams & Bohnanza. We also went to a large-scale sculpture museum. I was so happy to meet little 3 month old Quinn, too! Here we are:
This weekend, Dave & I went over to Quincy, MA to check out a little bit of history. We went to the John Adams/John Quincy Adams birthplaces, as well as the house the Adams lived in later in their lives names Peacefield. Dave & I watched the HBO John Adams miniseries this past winter and enjoyed it a lot. Then, we realized we were only a short drive away from the places that the miniseries depicts, so we knew we had to check it out. The 2 birthplaces are basically just the houses that have been there since ~1680s, but Peacefield was lived in by 4 generations of Adams and is full of the original furniture, china, etc. The property also houses John Quincy Adams' library, which although not listed as a "Presidential Library" is technically the first library of books owned by a former president. This is me in front of Peacefield:

Other than those events, I've been baking a lot of bread. Dave got me a stand mixer for Christmas and it has made it so fun and easy to make delicious yeast breads. I'm also taking the King Arthur Flour baguette making class later this month. So excited!
I think that's about it for the past 6 months. I'll try to keep this updated more often than every 6 months, but no promises. :)