And the beat goes on, dadadoondadoon

So besides drinking Spaten at Gasthaus's Oktoberfest, what have the Rices been up to? Good question.

Eric's band, The Cold Open, played two shows earlier this month, their second gig at The Fine Line (a Friday night, no less!), and Jew Years Eve at the Kitty Cat Klub in Dinkytown with some other local (semi-)Jewish-y bands under the guise of celebrating Rosh Hashanah. It rocked, as all good Jewish New Years ought to.

I started an internship with Tiger Oak Publications (publishers of Metro Magazine and Minnesota Bride), working on two of their community lifestyle publications -- Woodbury and Maple Grove! Although relatively unpaid, my two weeks there have already been a good experience, and I can tell I'm going to walk away with a boatload of published clips, so hopefully that counts for something when I'm done.

Not a week before the internship started, so did fall semester at the U. Yup, I'm back taking classes, this time through the Dislocated Workers Program. This fall, I'm taking Principles of Nutrition and an online intro to public health class. So far, so good. That wonderful old feeling of not having done enough for class is back... yaaayyyyyy... :\ I think I block it from my memory, otherwise I wouldn't get so giddy about going to school, I think. Regardless, I think I'm learning a lot. Hopefully I'll get to put it to use in the not-too-distant-future.

I'm still on the hunt for an "official" kind of job. As in the kind that pays. The kind most normal adults have. In the meantime, lots of fun opportunities have presented themselves. For example, two weekends ago I presented a cooking demonstration for Sukkot at the Minneapolis Farmers Market, kicking off their "Sunday Cooks" series. I'm also teaching an Israeli cooking class to a handful of 8th/9th graders at Mount Zion's Chai ("High") School.

We have another viable offer on our condo, although we know better than to *actually* get our hopes up. All the same, we're house hunting seriously now. Lots of stuff out there, but not much that's decent, fits our specifications, AND falls within our budget (in fact, there isn't much outside our budget that fits our specifications, so that's less of an issue).

AND, our first anniversary is approaching. I'm under the impression that Eric hasn't figured out a present for me, so feel free to send him your ideas, as I'm sure he could use a little inspiration :)

xoxo,
Sara

Mini-keg!!

Beer me some polka!!

Love is in the air. Or maybe that's just the smell of fried food in the morning...

I seriously love our wedding photographer, Becca Dilley. She's funny, smart, can carry on a legitimate conversation with people she's met only a handful of times for extended periods of time, is a lover of beer and cheese alike (perhaps the Wisconsonite in her?), is a regular contributor to (and founding member of) one of my favorite websites/blogs, Heavy Table, and -- oh, yeah -- takes frickin' phenomenal photos. Particularly, of Eric and me at our own personal Mecca, the Minnesota State Fair. (I hope all of you enjoyed the state fair food at our wedding!)

It was essentially the engagement session that didn't happen because we were too busy. Moving. Across a country. And then getting married. Yeah -- that.

We had a ball. Check it out.

Can I have more funnel cake now, please?

My trip south of the border

As in, Iowa. Not Mexico or elsewhere. Specifically, the Iowa state fair. My friend Jenn accompanied me to her old stomping grounds, Des Moines, Iowa, for their so-called legendary fair.

Our first find of the day: Dutch letters. This trip to the fair is brought to you by the letter "S"! How fortuitous! That's my letter! "S" for Sara! I've had better pastries, but it was pretty good, filled with almond paste and topped with sugar. I'm not going to argue with that.



There may have been a musical based on it, but I doubt it included huge cigarette stands or deep-fried funnel cake-dipped pineapple on a stick. We've come a long way since Rodgers and Hammerstein.







Maybe the hype was about the free hard boiled eggs on stick. All part of promoting Iowa agriculture! We also got to try Tyson's fajita steak strips (terrible and dry, but that wasn't surprising), sour cream dip, and definitely something pig-based, but I don't remember what. The ag building also held free samples of honeys and jams. Yum!



We missed the butter cow, even though we were in the right building. Other fun activities of note: a terrifying trip down the giant slide, hanging out in the (excessively warm) butterfly tent, taking the sky glider across half the park (and the park is really small...), buying a cookie cookbook from 1962 (!!!), and riding on a tilt-a-whirl-like ride in the midway.

After bingeing on fried food (mostly on a stick) all day, Jenn and I (slowly) made our way to Bonanza's big ol' salad bar and downed our weight in leafy greens and grapes. Uff da.

Baby Girl! There's a New Baby Girl in the Family!

And I was so enamored of her that I only managed to get one shot of her over the course of a whole weekend. It's hard to take pictures when your arms are full!



And here's my brother and sister-in-law and their whole brood, after a day at the Madison Zoo.



XOXO Kierstyn,
Love, your Auntie Sara

Camping @ St. Croix State Park

To those who doubted us: We successfully pitched a tent and survived a weekend at St. Croix State Park.

First came the preparation.



And that was just our non-perishable food. We're obviously not cut out for anything more intense than "car camping" at this juncture. Then, into the trunk went our spiffy new sleeping bags, the tent, air mattress with pump (we were really roughing it), the cooler full of deliciousness like hot dogs, bacon, and eggs, as well as all the other normal things you pack when you're going on a trip, like shirts, jeans, toothbrush, and sixteen books for 48 hours away.

Wait, what?



Nevermind.

As proof for those naysayers, I have photographic evidence of Eric camping. Above is him helping set up our tent. No more than ten minutes later we were admiring our handiwork, and then, reveling in our ability to do what 8-year-old boy scouts can do (I'm chuckling as I write this, I was so proud), we went and saw a nature talk about black bears. Apparently there are 30,000 of them in Minnesota. I did not know this. The wonders of park programming! (I'm not being snarky -- it was a nice program and I would definitely recommend going to whatever's offered while in our fine state parks!)

And here is our dinner the first night, cooked over the fire my husband so lovingly built for me to cook dinner upon. Grilled cheese, baked beans, and salad (not on the fire...).





Later we roasted s'mores. Yumtastic.



"Early to bed, early to rise" seems to more of the way things work than just an axiom. When the rain started around 9:30 or 10 on Friday night, we headed for refuge in our tent. Without light or much room to move, we decided just to go to sleep.

This is me at 8:00 a.m. making breakfast. Without an alarm or sunlight to wake me.



Look at those eggs cracked over my Hot Salty Love in a Pan, cooked over the fire my husband built.

After breakfast, we went for a hike, taking the (one, lone) trail from our campsite a couple miles down to the old CCC camp site. Apparently, Roosevelt created the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps, to create jobs after WWI. The men that signed up learned marketable job skills like carpentry and masonry, in addition to having a job (a hot commodity in those days). What we got out of it was an incredible park system built from the trails they created, roads they paved, and campsites they cleared. Seems like money well spent to me.





A handsome little froggy on our hiking path.



I don't sit still very well, so after lunch and lazing around for awhile (reading 1/4 of one of those 16 books I brought), I got out my cake baking supplies. Yes, my cake baking supplies. While camping. Cast iron skillet+Jiffy cake mix+apples= a fire-good time. (Story on that coming soon!)

In the time it took to cook the cake, we also prepped and ate dinner. Saturday night's menu included what we're calling "biscuit dogs," which are essentially pigs in a blanket cooked on a skewer over flames (hot dogs wrapped in Pillsbury refrigerated dough); glazed carrots (heck yeah), leftover baked beans, and -- eventually -- apple cake tatin.




Look at that fire my husband built. Who knew?
Look at that tent my husband helped set up. Who knew?
Look at those carrots my husband ate. Who knew?
Look at Eric not shuddering at the thought of all the bugs we shared our tent with. Who knew?

Well. Now you know. And so do I.