Failed Recipe for the Win

So ever since the 100 Hour Board posted a recipe for sweet potato soup, I've had a bee in my bonnet to try one. Maybe it was that, maybe it was the fact that sweet potatoes were on sale at Buy Low, or maybe it was an attempt to expand Pieter's veggie repetoire of spinach salads and steamed carrots, not that I'm complaining but adding another thing definitely wouldn't hurt.
Whatever it was, it flopped. Earlier today, I went online and found a vegan recipe (we're out of milk, not that we've chosen that particular diet, though we really wouldn't mind becoming pescetarians...but I digress). Anyway, I was going for a creamy potato soup type of soup. So I chopped up the sweet potatoes and onions, let them boil, then with Pieter's help pureed them, reboiled them and added the spices and took a sip...meh, not really impressed.


Honestly the closest comparison I can give is baby food and I haven't craved that since I was about one and a half. Actually I really don't know any adults that do...with the exception of a certain sister who ate a jar of it to have the jar in order to send Cafe Rio sauce along with a burrito to her boyfriend in the MTC (that's commitment ladies). Anyway, if anyone has a GOOD sweet potato recipe, I want to try it!
PS here's a picture I took of the Golden Gate Bridge this summer :)

Touring Northern California

Impressionist Exhibit at the De Young, Chinatown, Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street, A's Game, Golden Gate Park, Winchester Mystery House, Play in Columbia, cabin, Chico

That's just an overview of the things we did this summer. Weekends were definitely busy.

Just some random highlights:

Lombard Street: note to self: don't follow a kid learning how to drive stick in San Francisco...and don't do it in Dad's brand-new car...everything was ok, the stress just added to the experience, right?

Impressionist Exhibit: my parents got Pieter and me tickets to see the exhibit in SF. Basically the Musee D'Orsay is being renovated and they needed somewhere to store all of their paintings: enter a once in a lifetime deal of San Francisco(Musee D'Orsay is the #1 impressionist museum in the world, btw). The first half of the exhibit just left but the second one(Cezanne, Van Gogh, etc) is there until January. We're definitely going back at Christmas! oh, and Pieter liked this one much more than the Dutch painters exhibit that I dragged him through for 3+ hours in Vancouver on our honeymoon, but how often do you get to see a Vermeer?

A's lost...badly to the White Sox and that is all that needs to be said.

Winchester Mystery House: Pieter's a lucky, lucky guy and won 2 tickets at work for tours. Neither of us had been before because tickets are so gosh darn expensive(we're talking $30 a ticket for a 45 minute tour). We went and while the architecture is way neat and it's cool to see what someone did with unlimited time, money, and resources, my overall reaction was meh. I guess I expected it to be weirder and spookier with all of the hype they give it. The story is that Mrs. Winchester was told that all of the ghosts of people who were killed by guns from her husband's rifle company would kill her unless she built 24/7 on her house until she died. The house was supposedly built as a maze/minefield for ghosts with staircases and doors to nowhere and secret passages but I really feel that that was overplayed. There were only a couple of weird things, but building and renovating for 38 year would do that to a house.

Great River: We went to a play in Columbia for my birthday with my parents up at the cabin. AMAZING!!!. Great River is based on the book Huckleberry Finn and was honestly one of my favorite plays that I've seen performed. Plays in Columbia are excellent by the way, they bring in Broadway actors and the theater's really small and intimate. We love it!

Summer Internships

So I know it's been forever. Pieter and I were back home doing internships(which went swimmingly) and, well after spending 8 hours a day on the computer, blogging just didn't happen when I got home...poor neglected blog. Anyway, the internships went really well and barring funding cuts we've been invited back next year(YAY!)

Internships also meant living with my parents and partaking of wonderful homecooked meals, free laundry, and lots of people- it just gets quiet sometimes when it's just the two of you. Anyway, so a HUGE shout out to my mom and dad for making our yearly trek back to California possible.

Cute story from work: Pieter and I worked on the same floor, and to preface this, most of the people who work there are in their 40s/50's. So one day one of the ladies comes to my office and says, "I told someone that I just think it is SO CUTE that our two summer interns are dating!" Someone then explained to her that we were married. Good to know that were still romantic enough to be considered dating.

Another thing from the summer internship, apparently my age is an enigma. Keep in mind this is the same day, same clothes/hair, etc. At work, I got asked if I was almost done with my PhD and then at the Farmer's Market got asked if I wanted to join Viking Youth Cheerleading (which only goes up to 14 years old!) I mean it's not like I wear pigtails with sparkle eyeshadow or a severe bun with a business suit(I actually feel like a case worker when I wear my suit). Anyway, if we could average the two and keep my real age, I'd be fine with that.