Happy Easter!

This picture shows the current state of our yard. We are enjoying the rather warm weather.

Cousin visit

Last weekend, my cousins Daniel and Nathan came to visit on Sunday afternoon. They enjoyed playing rock band and helping me hang my bird feeder. They were much better at rock band than me, but they are generally much more musically-gifted than me, so I was not that surprised. Here you can see Daniel (on drums) and Nathan (on guitar) celebrating the end of a successfully-played song (top) and concentrating hard on the next song (below). Nathan also tried out singing along with the microphone (only to Brian-approved songs--Brian was screening songs for lyrics) and Daniel took a turn on the guitar.

Ferret Birthday

Brian and I celebrated the ferrets' birthdays this month by buying them a new toy. While originally designed for cats, the ferrets also enjoy this tent. It can be collapsed and put into a small bag, but once you take it out of it's package, it pops open and makes a nice play space. Here are a couple pictures of the ferrets enjoying their new toy.

Experimenting with peppers

The past couple weeks I have been working on making the perfect chili using fresh peppers of various sorts. I got the idea when I was grocery shopping and I passed all the peppers. I don't really have a good idea how each kind tastes, so I wanted to figure out the heat and flavor. Since chili is one of the main foods I know that uses hot peppers, I have been making chili each week. The first batch I made included a Hungarian pepper and 2 jalapeño. It was not very spicy at all, but the flavor was good (I used 1 lb of ground beef and a can of black beans undrained, along with diced carrots, celery, onions, and cumin, cayenne pepper, and chili pepper). This week, I tried 2 jalapeño and 1 habanero pepper. It was super spicy--so spicy that I needed to add extra cheese to cut the heat a little. I think the habanero was a bit too much for us, so I will have to try a new type of pepper next time. If any of you have experimented with this, what types of peppers do you prefer and why?

Flying over rivers

When we were coming back from DC, I sat by the window. I watched outside for a while, and I thought it was really interesting how the sunlight glared off the rivers we were passing. It was like the rivers were on fire, and you could trace the paths of rivers using the glare that ordinarily would not have been visible from the air.



There isn't any good sound for this clip (just background fans), so there is no need to turn on your computer's sound.

Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra

This weekend, Brian and I got tickets to go to the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra spring concert. (Brian got the tickets from his boss at work.) It was really a great program. The concert featured a classical guitarist named Denis Azabagic, who was really really amazing. He played the notes so fast--faster than I had seen before on a guitar, and he alternated between traditional strumming and this very fast but precise plucking. It was not a usual activity for us, but we both enjoyed it as a change from the norm.

March 2008

Things in Tallahassee have been going well. Han and I have continued to both be involved in our own work items. Han is steadily working on her dissertation work and I have finished a few major projects at work recently. The moot court team I coached did well in DC and made it to the semi-finals. We enjoyed travelling around to see the different monuments, which was a good time (see Hanneke's pictures posted below).

Otherwise, I've finished a draft of the section of the ABA publication I am helping write and have come to the end of most of my moot court projects. I'm still involved in a softball team at work and will be for a few months. My next professional project will be an article on an undetermined topic and preparing to apply for teaching positions in the Fall.

As for hobbies, I've decided to get rid of my salt water tank in favor of getting a smaller one. We have also started to attend to our garden again since it has come up and things are flowering. We, as always, have a few home improvements items to get to also.

I hope you are all doing well up north; we hear you're getting enough snow for all of us. We hope to see you all sooner than later.

Another food update

This week, I used my silicon baking cups twice. I got these baking cups for Christmas in December (thanks Karen!), but I hadn't really had a good chance to explore them before now. They are really cool because you can use them without a muffin tin (just place them on a cookie sheet) and the muffins do not stick in them at all. I made cornbread muffins on Thursday to go with some chili (which was pretty awesomely good, but that is another story). Then on Saturday, I made banana bread muffins. Overall, I think the silicon baking cups are really great.


We also had some homemade pizza this week, covered in pineapple, broccoli, red peppers, onions, and ham (on half). Yum!

Happy Birthday Oma!

This post is in honor of my oma. Her birthday is tomorrow, but it is already tomorrow in the Netherlands, so... Here she is with two of her daughters. My mom was not with me on this trip, so she is missing from the picture. Still, it is a nice one.



Here are a couple scenic shots I took on the same trip. I love the cloudy skies and the mix of gray water and green foliage.


Here is one last shot showing my oma, opa, and me. This is at my birthday party in 2005. Happy Birthday Oma!

Rex and a ball

Here is a short video of Rex playing (quite calmly) with a ball toy. It is pretty low energy for a ferret video, but very cute.

Brian and Joey play piano

Here is a video from Christmas break. Since I just figured out how to upload videos (with Rachel's help), there will probably be a few older videos uploaded in the next few weeks.

Ferret video

Here is my first attempt at posting a video:

Weekend Tasks

I completed a couple of notable tasks this weekend:

1) I planted part of our garden. I know this may be difficult for those up north to believe, but it is pretty warm here and many seeds can be planted in February and March here. I planted a couple rows of beets, plus several herbs (oregano, cilantro, mint, sage, basil). Also, we had some lily plants in a bag that needed to be put in the soil in a sunny spot--I took care of those too.

2) I finished our taxes and filed our return. Well, I will send in the return this week--but it is all prepared. It will be exciting to get our return $$.

Couscous

Once again we have a weekend post about food. This post is about couscous. Couscous is a lovely food because making it is as easy as boiling water. The couscous below is made with vegetable broth with some spices added, so the couscous itself has lots of flavor. Then a tomato, cucumber, and some feta cheese are added. The last step is a little olive oil and lemon juice to keep it moist. That's it!