Meet our baby.

This is Vladimir.  Well, technically, Baron Vladimir von Roborovski.  He is a Roborovski (dwarf) hamster that we added to our family today.  He is tiny, cute, quick and pretty fun to play with.  The story behind Vladdy is that Zak saw a craiglist ad for baby hedgehogs and responded.  We were hoping it wouldn't be very expensive, but the lady wrote back and said the hedgehogs were $200 apiece.  So we found ourselves at the pet store, looking at the cute dwarf hamsters.  Zak has always wanted one, and I agree they are a million times cuter than normal sized hamster and guinea pigs (no thank you).  We decided that we were going to get one because fish just aren't as much fun to play with.  We got some basic necessities and -poof!-we became hamster owners.

cage with food, water and chew mountain for him to chew on and hide under

We brought him home and while we got his cage set up, put him in his little rolling ball.  He didn't quite understand the purpose of it, but once we moved him to the linoleum, he got the hang of it. 

carpet = not as good as linoleum

We spent the rest of the day letting him run around on the carpet (he is fast!) and climb over our chests and hands.  He even got up Zak's shirt a little ways when he was laying on the floor, but we rescued him.  We are trying to get him used to being held and played with.  So far we think it's going well.  I spent awhile having him sleep up next to me as I gently rubbed his soft fur.  He is a cute little thing!

all tuckered out

Zak has had the opportunity to have been both pooped and peed on a fair amount today.  Vlad seems to think he is his toilet, probably due to the fact that Zak loves holding him and Vlad hasn't spent too much time in his cage.  Hopefully he will get used to his new home soon.

new best friends!

We are very happy with our little hamster.  We hoped to get another one in a month or two, so they can play together.  Here are some more pictures of our fun afternoon with Vladdy.

I like how flat Vlad is

rocket hamster

Quick update

Just a quick update about our lives for all of you.  Zak & I have been working almost every day.  Zak's had some trouble keeping the hours he's had the last few months.  The new manager's hours come out of the store's hours, but not the store's paycheck, so it's been irritating.  However, Zak worked it out so his hours wouldn't be cut in half, just slightly trimmed for the next month, until he starts school, and then he'll go to part time.  Macy's is still fine, we had training for the new company-wide way of selling, which isn't too bad.  My 'scorecard' has been steadily increasing, which is good.   

I also went to the doctor, who recommended me to physical therapy.  That wasn't too bad, the lady gave me several new stretches and exercises to do.  So far they've been helping.  Zak & I had a talk, and decided that I really need to get my act together to change how I feel about my body image.  He drew up a workout schedule, which includes working on my core strength and walking/jogging in the mornings.  Today we walked/jogged for an hour, and it felt great to come home to a cold shower.  I've been careful about what I'm eating, and I consume water like it's a rare commodity.  Things are looking good so far, Zak's been really helpful in keeping me motivated (like saying I can have ice cream on the days I work out harder).

The weather is finally hot, and it's been nice to have air conditioning at work, because we work out fans out at home.  We bought a cherry tomato plant last week at the Farmer's Market and we're hoping it will do well.  Our tomato plant has a dozen and a half tomatoes on it, with the early bloomer finally turning a beautiful red.  Our pepper is getting larger every day; we are excited to soon eat our veggies!

all three plants

our (hopefully soon to be red) pepper

cherry tomato

ready to be picked

Zak going in for the kill

oh Zak

Zak wouldn't let me take a good picture of it :-/

it was good!

That is about all that has happened lately.  Our anniversary is coming up in a few weeks, but we are still undecided about what we'll do; we might spend the day in Spokane, who knows.  Shortly after that, my sister Jenna is coming to visit for a week and we are getting excited to have her around.  I've already started thinking about the meals I'll make, and where we'll take her.

More updates to follow, if anything else, I'll write one about our anniversary. :)

Cherry Heaven!

We came back from Zak's grandparents' place with two huge flats of bing cherries, and a gallon sized bag of sour pie cherries.  We promptly decided that there was no way we'd be able to make use of two flats of cherries, so we bagged up one flat and distributed them to our fellow co-workers.  Whew.  One flat down.

 I knew Zak had been itching to have cherry pie since we came back from the weekend, so last weekend I set out to make him a glorious pie.  We made apple pie together a few Thanksgivings ago, and I might have made another pie since then.  Either way, I'm no expert, but I did my best and the result was a pretty good pie!  It had a bit more liquid than we would have liked, but boy was it tasty.  We still have about a quarter of that bag of pie cherries left and I think I might whip up some kind of mixed fruit cobbler. 

yum!

This week we impulsively bought an ice cream maker at a clearance price at Wal-Mart and made vanilla cherry ice cream, which was very good (& both one of our favorite flavors).  Zak spent awhile pitting and slicing up cherries...he said to me, 'Do you know how much I love you?  Look at my hands; you know how much I hate getting my hands this dirty.'  (It's true, he really hates getting his hands dirty--I end up scooping out the pumpkin guts, cutting the chicken, etc.)  Well, even though he was frustrated that his cuticles were dark purple, he sure enjoyed the ice cream!  It was a very simple recipe and very creamy.  I think next time we won't use as much cream.

poor guy

Today I am making cherry jam with the rest of the bing cherries.  Unfortunately, a lot of them were moldy and yucky, but I still picked out 8 delicious cups of dark red/purple cherries.  And pitted all 173 of them in an hour.  It was a lot of work, but I then relaxed while the slow cooker did its thing and cooked the cherries into a jam.  I was nervous because it was my first time making jam on my own, and I wasn't sure when I should ladle it out into the jars I had waiting.  I finally got smart and scooped out a little bit into a small cup and let it sit for awhile.  When I came back to check on it, it had started to set up.  I figured I should just ladle out the jam and let it get to room temperature before putting it in the fridge.  We haven't tasted it yet, but it sure looks like it'll be good. 

work station

all 173 cherries

on homemade bread

The recipes for the dishes we made above can be found on my recipe blog, Rachel's Recipes, or on the individual links:

Cherry Pie

Cherry Vanilla Ice Cream
Cherry Jam 

Fourth of July

Last week, Zak & I went to his grandparents' house in WA, partly for the 4th, partly for a surprise party for his grandpa's 70th birthday.  His grandma has been planning this for awhile.  Zak's family flew out from Connecticut to spend a week with them.  So, his grandpa had no idea that we were all coming, and on top of that, his grandma didn't know we would be coming earlier than expected (Zak's family changed their flight time to get in earlier than originally planned), so double surprises for all. 

We had a lovely drive to their house; it only took about 2, 2 1/2 hours to get there.  Plus, it was very simple and we didn't get lost!  And to make it even better, we were able to hook up with his family (who were coming from the Seattle airport) the last few minutes before arriving.  We didn't want to ruin the surprise by showing up early, so we waited a few minutes at an intersection for his family. 

It was a nice, relaxing day.  We had some yummy salads and a beautiful cake, that I should've taken a picture of.  We just hung around and talked, took some pictures, and ate food.  We also wandered around the rows and rws of cherry trees and ate a decent amount of them (some of us paid for it more than others).  And we also ate raspberries, right off the bushes!  I was pretty happy.  The only fruit I've ever remotely picked was on my family's traditional apple picking-Conference weekend in the fall (which I've sadly missed out on for the last four years ]: ).  When night started to fall, a bunch of the cousins started lighting off fireworks.  I'm pretty sure I've never done that or been around that, because ... it's a big suburban area back home, and I've always been in CA for the 4th of July.  So it was exciting and new (and slightly terrifying at moments) for me!  It was very cool, though.  Zak and I got to light some sparklers a bit later, and we experimented with time lapse stuff on my camera.  It was pretty great.

It was a great overnight trip, and we left the house with two large flats full of bing cherries, several containers of freezer strawberry (and a few plum) jams, and some bags of frozen berries.  Thanks, grandparents!  We are already enjoying the strawberry jam and boy, is it good.  I grew up almost always having homemade jam, so I am happy to have it in my life again, instead of that store-bought stuff, haha! 

Zak's parents and sisters followed us back to Moscow, where we made dinner that night.  I got a little carried away and made a TON of teriyaki chicken skewers, but we just threw a bunch of them in the freezer to (hopefully) have later (I hope they survive).  So we had a delicious dinner with them.  Zak's youngest sister, Olivia (10 years old) stayed the night with us.  Zak helped her play the game Little Big Planet; she really liked it!  We set up the queen air mattress that my parents gave us last summer and put the new sheets and bedding we had bought a few days before.  We heard she slept great on it, so hopefully when Jenna visits, she will too!

The next morning, Zak had to work (blah), so I got to drive his family around.  I did my best to make our tour around Moscow interesting.  Unfortunately, we are still new to the area and haven't done much more than work, so we haven't explored everything.  I drove them through the U of I campus and downtown; we walked around the Co-Op for a bit and then headed to the mall, to pick Zak up for a long lunch.  We went to the delicious bagel place in the little downtown area, and walked up and down the streets for a bit before taking them back to their rental car.  We really enjoyed seeing them, even if it was only for a few days! 

I didn't take too many pictures, but there are some fun ones below: 

the beautiful sunset

waiting for fireworks

his parents found the hat that he lost at Christmas and brought it back...too bad you can't really see it?

sparklers are fun!

the drive home, yes we live where that background for Windows was taken

Another reason why Macy's is pretty ok.

A few weeks ago, Zak started talking about wanting to get a sport or suit coat to go with his brown pants for work (corporate requires the guys wear suit coats at work).  So he started looking at Macy's to see if there were any good deals.  There was a small 70% clearance rack that we sorted through, and we actually found a coat that would work!  We also found some the pants he loves in a color that would work well with the new coat as well.  We went over to my co-worker to check out and sign him up for a Macy's card (it was an extra discount to use your card on top of the discount you get for opening the card).  The total damage: $52.  For both the pants and coat.  I'm still really happy about it, and Zak loves his new coat.  Plus, he looks really handsome!

Successful Vacation

Zak & I just got back from a wonderful, week-long vacation in L.A. with my extended family.  And it went over very well, despite the sunburns and some drama.  But that's just how it goes.  I can't pick one favorite moment from the trip, so I will list some of them below.

-We got to play with all of my little cousins (ranging from 1 year to almost 7, 6 kids in total).  The little one year old girls, Julia & Iris were so adorable!  They had the cutest outfits and I got to hold them once or twice.  The older kids were just as cute, but more exhausting.  One night we were all on a walk and Zak & I were leading the pack.  Zak taunted the kids (Weston, 6; Madalynn, almost 7; Audri almost 5) by saying we were winning.  I guess Jenna & Allie didn't help, and we soon heard running little footsteps coming our way.  They ran ahead of us, and I had to use my bribery skills to get them to stop running away from us.  I told them they could have a treat if they stayed with me and Zak, however!, they had to talk to their mommies and have them decide when they could have their treat (because I am not going to let them have sugar at 9 PM and have my cousins get mad at me).  For the most part, they were very well behaved, just very energetic.  Little Audri rode on Zak's shoulders most of the time, while I talked to Weston & Madalynn about everything under the sun.  They are sweet kids, but we are only more resolved to not be parents anytime soon.  Oh, and the kids loved calling Zak "Sunburned Man".

We loved having the kids (and their lightsabers) play with us.

Caleb and Zak seemed matched in silliness and energy.

Julia was intrigued by Zak, as most babies are.

-All 32 of us went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner and was it yummy!  Zak had steak and I got fish and it was great.  I had the new red velvet cheesecake (drool), Zak had the banana cream one.  It was definitely chaotic, but we had a good time.

-Our trip to Disneyland was great.  I was worried that Zak would crash early, but he did his best and stayed happy until the end or so.  My family goes from park opening to closing and we make the most out of it.  Zak hadn't been to Disneyland since he was like 8 or 9, and just isn't a Disney person, so I was worried he'd think we were all crazy.  But he had a really good time, from what I can tell.  It was a bit more crowded than the last year or so, and hotter, too!  But we went through Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion a few times to cool down.  Zak and I ate by ourselves at the River Belle Terrace place by Indiana Jones.  I've never been there, but it was pretty good!  Zak had BBQ pulled pork and I had a big roast beef sandwich.  It was nice to have some time alone together before regrouping with everyone.  Zak loved the Soarin' over California ride in California Adventure (it's a really great one), and I love the new California Screamin' in C.A. land as well.  There were some testy moments with the family (per usual), but I think everything went over well.  We left the park beat, with some sweets as souvenirs.

 

I am clearly the champion.

Zak got a turkey leg, and was as excited as I was when I got mine a few years ago.

-I got to see one of my old college roommates from two years ago and her cute little baby, Emma (and mother-in-law).  Emma's almost a year old and was so adorable.  It was her first time at the beach and she loved eating the sand.  Ali (her mom) would wipe her hands and mouth off clean, only to have Emma dig deep a few seconds later for more delicious sand.  She and Zak had a fun time together as well.  It was great so great seeing Ali after two years!

Ali with her almost one year-old, Emma

-Although Zak got sunburned a few times (and me as well), being on the beach was fun.  We got to play with the kids and swim for a bit.  I normally don't go in the ocean, but Zak likes swimming, so I went in to be with him.  The day I went in, the water wasn't as cold, so I enjoyed myself.  We also went swimming a few times in the motel's pool.  I used to be a mermaid, practically, with all the swimming I did when I was younger.  It was nice to play in the water with Zak, Jenna, and the little kids now and then.

 Jenna as a turtle and Zak ready to go to the beach!

Somebody got sunburned!

-My parents took us to see Toy Story 3, which was very fun and clever.  It was an impromptu outing, and it was nice to be together with just our little family.

-We went to the Getty Villa, which was awesome.  Their exhibit was about the Aztec Empire, which was pretty fascinating.  I also enjoyed seeing the old Roman and Greek statues, but my favorite room was of the old coins, gems and jewelry.  The grounds at the Villa were breathtaking and so peaceful.  We had a great time walking around and admiring the beauty of the Villa.

inner courtyard

Pretty Jenna in the gardens

So it was a very successful trip.  It was great seeing my whole family (minus only a few) again.  We really would love to go again next year, but we'll have to see if it can work out.  Hopefully it can because I love being down there!  Thank you to everyone who fed and took care of us, we had a great time!

the beautiful sunset over the pier :)