mmmmmmmmmmmm

Yesterday I was feeling a little sick at work. I really did have a little cold and the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet had done a number on my stomach the night before. So I dogged out a little early and went home to make one of my favorite treats. Pumpkin bread. I recently found a recipe that is really good and is copying Great Harvest Pumpkin Bread. Which is my absolute favorite thing. In High School Natalie worked at Great Harvest and she would occasionally bring the day old bread to my house, I became addicted. There is a Great Harvest in Arlington Virginia. I was surprised thinking it was only a Utah thing, but I have never made it there on the day when they sell the pumpkin bread. So thanks to the world wide web I was able to duplicate the recipe. And creating this divine bread yourself makes it even more satisfying (which I never thought was possible).
So I want to share this recipe with all of you. It was the perfect food for a rainy November afternoon in.

GREAT HARVEST PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP BREAD

2 1/2 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
16 oz cooked or canned pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
1 cup oil
4 eggs, beaten lightly
2/3 cup water
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two (9x5 inch) loaf pans or three (8x4 inch) loaf pans.

Mix flours, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt together in a large bowl; set aside.

Mix pumpkin, oil, eggs, and 2/3 cup water together and stir into dry ingredients. Stir in chocolate chips. Place batter in prepared pans.

Bake 60 or 70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

A New England and Amish Autumn

After a hot dry summer the last two weekends have actually felt like fall. The leaves are changing, the weather is perfect (light jacket weather), and it's been raining on and off. Last weekend a group of us left DC for Boston to visit our good friend Suzy. She lived in DC, but moved to Boston in the spring to work on the Mitt Romney campaign. We only had two days, but we really packed it in.

Highlights:

• We went on a duck tour where you ride on an authentic amphibious WWII landing vehicle. And let me tell, I was that cheesy tourist that I get so annoyed by in DC, and I loved every minute of it. Our guide called himself "Sergeant Meatball" and made us yell "quack quack!" whenever we saw people walking on the street, he probably weighed 300 pounds and was wearing a hula skirt and a hawaiian shirt.
  
• Canoli in Little Italy
• Street Performers downtown. I especially loved the breakdancers.
• Our VIP tour of Mitt's headquarters.
• Cuddling with all the roommates + Odie in Suzy's bed.
• We went to the Head of the Charles. A crew rowing race where colleges come from all over the country to compete. It's really close to Harvard campus and we wandered over to watch a little bit of a Princeton vs. Harvard football game. And let me tell you the Princeton band's outfits were something else.
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• We watched part of the Red Sox semifinals verses the Cleveland Indians in a sports bar in Harvard Square.

I spent this weekend in Amish Country, Lancaster Pennsylvania. A group of us went to ride what has become a tradition here in DC. Dutch Bike Dutch. We did a forty mile ride and it was beautiful. It had rained for three days straight. And stopped right as we began our ride Saturday morning. We were fully prepared with rain gear, but didn't end up needing it. We crossed wooden bridges, saw amish children and buggies, llamas, and pumpkin patches.
Pictures from this will have to be forthcoming, I didn't do the best job of documenting this trip.

Oh mother nature

You may think that this moose is just a sweet and innocent animal wandering through the mountains looking for food and family. That may be your impression now, but when he is staring you down from ten feet away he will make you want to wet your pants. On my trip to Utah last weekend Des and I went biking in American Fork canyon. We had been going for no longer than five minutes when I slammed on my brakes because directly in front of me on the path was this moose. I know, the picture isn't as impressive from fifty feet away. But it's the best I could do because I was so scared and didn't want to do anything that would startle it when it was close. Des and I really aren't up to par on our wilderness survival skills and so when we both realized we had no idea what to do, retreat, play dead, climb a tree....we decided to do the only thing we did know how to do. After our friend Bullwinkle took a few more steps towards us we decided to pray. And of course no sooner had we started praying that the moose turned away from us and got off our bike path and walked around us. My testimony grew, the crisis was averted, and the bike ride was spectacular.

I've been home a month, and really feel like I need to write about my trip Europe, but what I want to write about isn't the beauty of Michaelangelo's David, the deliciousness of the gelato, the enchantment of Venice and the grandeur of the Alps. I want to talk about spending ten days with your family in a nine passenger van traveling through three countries where you have no hotels booked, speak none of the languages, have no itinerary, and have lost the debit card. That my beloved readers, may seem like a recipe for disaster, but to the contrary it was delightful, stressful of course at times, but all in all a really great trip.

Spending time with those who love me most taught me a lot about myself and how at 25 I've matured more than I thought despite my childish tendencies. I remember in junior high I was a completely different person around my family and friends. I was trying so hard to be cool and impress my friends that at times I would end up treating my family horribly as I struggled to find an identity. We have all been through this awkward time and can relate to each other. Now after serving a mission and having lived with over twenty different girls I realize that I can't hide and that my true self begins to emerge as a person that is neither the person I was when I was fourteen and changing personalities as I switched between Jenny who was trying to impress (friends) and the Jenny who knew she was loved unconditionally and could act however she wanted with her family.

My point is that on this Europe trip all of this came together for me in my head. I realized that I am myself around my family, but it's that same myself that I am around my friends. My self-confidence has grown enough to stand up for myself when I'm with my friends, and my feelings of charity and love for my family have grown so much that I want to show that when I am with them and not just take advantage of their unconditional love which forces them to put up with my cranky moods. They still see my crankiness, but hopefully in smaller doses.

I'm not writing this to say I'm not hypocrite, I definitely still do many things that are fake to my friends and inconsiderate to my family. But spending a concentrated time alone with my family was great for me to see this evenness that is a part of my emergence to adulthood, expounding more on my theme of adulthood from my last post. And I'm interested to hear if you had similar experiences or if I'm just a little slow with my epiphanies.

And now a few pictures:

Here we are in front of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. We had an awesome bike tour by our friendly tour guide Marco. One of my favorite facts I learned from Marco is that all the industries in Florence are being taken over by the Chinese because the Italians just like to take naps.

Steph and I in Venice. Love her, a great travel companion and she is so non confrontational. She would be absolutely mortified by my dad when he would haggle about prices and demand tap water from the Italian waiters who tried to convince us that Italian tap water just wasn't fit to drink.

Cute, yes they are. The family in the Austrian Alps.Our beloved van. This was at church in Salzburg, I think it took about twenty minutes and an 83 point turn to get out of this predicament.

Today it finally happened. I was walking back to my office from lunch looking so professional in my black pin-striped dress pants and heels. And then, as I elegantly strode to the front door, thinking in my head how beautiful the sound of clicking heels is, I lifted my foot and my shoe didn't want to come with it. I fell forward and just smiled as I looked back at my shoe stuck in the crack between the two pieces of tile and the people around me who seemed to look more embarrassed than I felt. For some reason it just reminded me that I am now an independent adult in our nation's capitol, wearing heels, giving directions to people on the street who ask me how to get to the holocaust museum, paying into a 401K retirement plan, buying things like band-aids and neosporin instead of just stealing them from my parents house, and having a desire for the first time to buy things like furniture.

Don't get me wrong the silly part of me tends to come out more than the super serious, but it is refreshing once and awhile to be reminded of my continual emergence into adulthood.

*Disclaimer*

Sorry I just realized that the post below this is the longest post known to man.....I don't think even my mom will have the patience to read that, but have fun scanning through the pictures.

Snapshots and soundbites

So as I've started blogging, I've started reading a lot more blogs, and I am impressed with their wittiness and depth. And then I look at mine and they tend to be just a photo journal of what I did and where I went. I've always been the kind of girl that prefers to reads the op-eds first and then will skim the headlines for stories that interest me. So I'm a little ashamed that I haven't produced more posts of substance. And now, after stating my good intentions, this post is just going to be a debrief of my last few weeks accompanied by some choice pictures. Substance will come soon....I'm just might take me a few weeks to think of something clever enough that I won't be afraid to post it.

Our trip to Palmyra was quick, 36 hours to be exact, but that doesn't mean it was uneventful. However, I was appalled at some of the commercialization that went on to suck all the money out of the mormon tourists, that just reminds me of one of my biggest pet peeves. When church becomes more a cultural part of your life than a spiritual (and I'll admit I've been guilty of this from time to time myself). However, the gift shops sold shirts that said things like "Mormon girls, worth the wait" and "99% Nephi 1% Laman, I will go and do, but I'll complain the whole time" those things just make me sick. So being surrounded by that I was becoming very cynical right before we went to the sacred grove. I told my friends I did not want to go into the sacred grove with this kindof attitude because it would ruin previous experiences I'd had there. So Jeanette, Grayden, me and Staci sat on this bench with the sacred grove behind us and the Palmyra temple in front of us and talked about how we gained our testimonies of the prophet Joseph Smith. It was a great conversation and made my trip to the sacred grove much more meaningful.

I love this man. He parked next to our car at "Pageant" (we were politely informed that you do not refer to Hill Cumorah as "the pageant" it is simply pageant) and told me that even though he's not Mormon, these Mormons sure know how to put on a good show. And every year he rides his bike out to watch it, and this may or may not be what it looks like, the beginnings of a torrid cross country romance.

Here we are meeting the cast. They really had a tent set up so you could go and meet the stars prior to pageant. Really awesome. It's actually pretty intense. I didn't realize you had to apply to be in pageant and a lot of people are rejected, not only that but you apply and goes through this selective process only to live three weeks in tents rehearsing in upstate New York. Wow, What a perfect family vacation.....
On Sunday after church we stopped at Glen Watkins state park to do some "hiking". It was East Coast style hiking with paved trails, guard rails, thousands of people. Regardless of that it was beautiful and I just feel like this picture needs to be a family Christmas card or something. Pictured is Lincoln, Matt, Holli, Staci, Jeanette, Joe and then me and Grayden in the front.
Hollie is quite the aspiring photographer. This is one of the bridges and 17 waterfalls at Glen Watkins.

Sarah is an amusement park girl. She absolutely loves them. The really ironic part is that she hates rollercoasters, obviously my feelings are a little different. I think this picture says it all.

At the end of Sarah's birthday party we had a countdown until her real birthday (which was actually Sunday) when we threw confetti, lit sparklers, and blew noisemakers. The picture was beautiful, the neighbors however were not so appreciative.

Scotty (as in Des's husband) was in town last weekend. It was fun to see him and he requested that we eat at Marrakesh, it's a Morroccan restaurant that feeds you seven courses, requires that you eat with your hands, has a belly dancer as entertainment, and best of all here is our waiter such an adorable man and pouring us delicious mint tea.

This is me at work. Sortof. I know you can't see me, but I was there. One of my favorite day's at work recently, they put most of our bus on a building and drove us next to the capital where we had a celebration for the new minimum wage law that went into effect on July 23. The day wasn't too hot and muggy, but they had ice cream and Popsicles and I sat on the grass and stretched while I listened to Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Ted Kennedy speak along with our President and other union leaders. Really hilarious, quite a day.

And even us type A uptight east coasters get crazy from time to time. It has been a dream of mine for a long time to create a jell-o slip and slide. So with the birthday of my friend Matt Fischer I knew it was the perfect opportunity. If there is anyone in DC who would appreciate this kind of crazy behavior it's him. The party was a hit and here we are slipping and sliding down our jello runway.

Earlier this week I had the chance to go to an amazing concert. It was Guster and Pete Yorn at Wolf Trap. Wolf Trap is an outdoor concert venue that is actually a national park. It's beautiful and only twenty minutes from home. We had seats at the front of the lawn and laid our our blankets, had a picnic and listened to Pete's soothing voice and the bongo drums and happy music that Guster makes that I so love. This was an usher and this is what I'm going to do when I'm old. Volunteer for these types of events. He told us he's been waiting all year to hear Guster because "all the other bands, like Earth, Wind and Fire just make noise and all sound the same" he was totally tapping his toes and shaking a little to the music.