Hire My Sister

My sister, Chef Andria Koehler (graduate of The French Culinary Institute in New York City), is a pastry master. I just received these pictures via email from her of the cupcakes she did for her friend's son's first birthday this past weekend. Recognize a familiar children's story? Isn't it amazing?!? This is only a fraction of her abilities, and after seeing The Very Hungry Caterpillar creation I wonder why I haven't shared more of her previous creations. How culd you NOT hire her to make your next celebration absolutely perfect??

Math in the Kitchen

I couldn't help posting this once I laid eyes on my husband's culinary strategy in the kitchen. Dear Jeremiah was making Tyler Florence's recipe for chili cheese dogs for the first time. The recipe calls for two and a half cups of ketchup. So Jeremiah, the mathematician, measured out two and a half cups of ketchup. Feast your eyes on the fraction addition. 

As they say, men are from Mars women are from Venus.

Oh, and the measuring paid off. The chili was quite a success.

Auf Wiedersehen Volkswagen

Last Friday we said our final goodbyes to my dear red Volkswagen Golf. I had only had that car for two years; however, the final year of our time together was absolutely wretched. The car was a lemon, being taking in for hundreds of dollars worth of work just about every six to eight weeks. The final straw was when the left headlight went out a couple weeks ago. We knew we were going to need to trade that money pit in soon, and had been browsing cars over the past month or so. The unfortunate part is that I still owed almost $7,000 on the Volkswage, which became negative equity in buying a new car. Bummer. Luckily they gave us a decent amount on the trade-in, but we still had a minimal budget for a new car. After several dealerships and many hours, we ended up with this 2005 PT Cruiser from Carmax. It's a nice looking car inside and out and has a little less than 36,000 miles. It was one of the least expensive cars we looked out, but in the best condition. We didn't have our eye on a PT Cruiser, but it was the best we could get for our budget. I am getting over the feeling that we should be going into early retirement, or that people probably think we're driving to and from the old folks' home when they see us out and about. It's a funny car, but we like it. Jeremiah calls it PT (Petey) Pablo, affectionately referring to it as the rapper we all came to know and love with his hit song "Raise Up." We're crossing our fingers for years of use out of this one.

Friends Weekend

To round-off our northern getaway, we reunited with a group of friends from Penn State. All thirteen of us spent the weekend in Yardley, PA for a whole lot of swimming, Phillies, and sarcasm. It was great to be able to see everyone and Jeremiah was especially grateful for a couple days with his closest guy friends. 

I've posted a few pictures from the game on Saturday night. Before the game we had a lavish tailgate next to the stadium. As you might be able to tell, our seats during the game were rather high up. In fact, we were in the very last row of the stadium. Yep, all the way to the top, and all the way back against the fence overlooking the parking lots. Thank goodness I'm not terrified of heights. And thank goodness the Phillies were several games ahead of the teams behind them in the rankings prior to the unfortunate series outcomes.

My two favorite men.

The gentlemen: Dan, Mark, Ben, Cameron, Ben, and Jeremiah

The ladies: Me, Kristin, Amanda, Shannon, Christine, Lauren, and Ashleigh

The Village Greens

While visiting Pennsylvania we took a  trip to Strasburg (two hours away from my parents house, near Lancaster) for the sole purpose of showing off our mini golf skills at the one and only Village Greens. My parents and sister took the day off on Friday so we could all revisit this place of wonderful childhood memories. There's no question this is the best miniature golf venue this side of the Mississippi. There are beautiful landscapes and challenging holes--an aspiring putter's dream. I have a tendency to become very impatient and frustrated while putting, but managed to hold my own this time around, even though I came in dead last. I'm proud to say I came under par on the last half of the course, a feat that only I accomplished. This tells you just how awful I played the first nine. And my dear brother insisted we all have golfer's names.

Diego, Benny, and Skip

Judy (Ju-Ju), Sally, and Jane

Awkward timed family photo #1

Awkward timed family photo #2

Audrey and Tory's Wedding

One of the many reasons Jeremiah and I came up north for over a week was to attend Audrey and Tory's wedding in Tamaqua, PA. Audrey is one of my friends and roommates from Penn State. Their wedding was outside at Tory's tree farm and it was absolutely beautiful. You can see some of the landscape below. The reception was outside under a big tent, surrounded by barns, tractors, and trees. Fun! How fitting that they were introduced at the reception to the song, "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy." 

Two of my dearest friends, Kristy and Jordan.

Here are a bunch of Penn State girls with the bride. Jordan, Andrea, me, Audrey, Kristy, Casey, and our old Bible study leader, Leslie.