So, it's been a month, and here we are.
Ian and I spent the first five days of our marriage in Acapulco on our honeymoon. When we realized that the hotel was round the bay and far away from anything remotely urban, we got a two-day rental and spent it driving along the scenic route and becoming steadily less terrified of Mexican traffic (best drivers Ian ever encountered, by the way, way better than in America). During our wanderings, we found several little restaurants, some with excellent seafood, one with tables right on the beach, and Ian's favorite, a taco restaurant that just brought you 5 fresh tortillas, a big pile of meat, and salsas arranged in order of whether a Gringo should even bother. Yum.
The rest of the time we spent lounging about on the beach, getting lost on walks around the beach, and in our hotel room (gasp!). We only got a little pink, a major feat for me, and both worked through several books.
After our honeymoon, we flew to Minnesota to be with my family. We had our second wedding reception at one of my favorite places, Peninsula, a fabulous Malaysian restaurant. Everyone took pictures in silly hats, we ate lots of coconut shrimp and drank lots of Malaysian tea - a good time overall.
Then it was back to Ann Arbor and real life. We asked ourselves, "What will we do with all of our free time now that we no longer have a wedding to plan and activities to organize?" Spoiler Alert: Work. Eat. Sleep. Relax.
The first week we were back in Ann Arbor we signed a lease for our new apartment in Ypsilanti. For those of you not in the area, it's one city over from Ann Arbor. It's not quite as wealthy a city, but is also a University town of sorts, with lots of fun restaurants and ethnic neighborhoods and grocery stores, in which Ann Arbor is seriously lacking. It's also a whole lot cheaper, and our new landlords are a sweet married couple who also own the properties and maintain them impeccably (unlike our current apartment with its ceiling leak, drafty windows, and ever-growing spider population, not to mention the absentee owner and the foreclosure notice we received last winter.
So Ian and I will be moving the first weekend of August. The new place is a little smaller, but it's a beautiful, sweet little place with two bedrooms, hardwood floors, and, most exciting of all, washer and drier in the unit! Wahoo (we write this currently sitting in the laundromat, which must be at least 90 degrees and more humid than Ian's Vibrams after 8 miles in the Summer sun).
Beth McCready (my wonderful mother) and Matthais (younger brother) came to visit us and bring us our wedding gifts. We spent the couple of days cooking some great food, walking around Ann Arbor, and having a wonderful time. My mom also brought us the quilt she made by hand as a wedding gift. Below is a picture - it's beautiful! (Vixen, our kitty, has adopted the quilt as her own. How very thoughtful she is).
Ian (typing now) closes in rapidly on the academic job hunt, trying day in and day out to bring down the dissertation a few hundred words at a time. His prospects are as good as anyone's, but anyone's is terrible so that's no cause for excitement. He'll pay his money, take his chances and do what it takes.
We also finally at long last got the first installment of our Community Support Agriculture (hereafter CSA) share through Frog Holler Organic Farm. Garlic scapes, kale, salad mix, strawberries and more, and that's just the first salvo. We weren't good locavores (a word Ian personally hates on a personal and etymological level, but he does not control language) last Summer so we're making up for it. It's also bought and paid for so that frees up money for the grass-fed beef and muscato wine that we so crave. The share will give us a chance to work through our new cookbook season by season. Nice.
That's about all, until another moon's turning...
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