a shot from Polly's wedding!

i had to photoshop my dress because it came open in the front a bit. woops!

green smoothie!

i've been reading a lot about the benefits of dark leafy greens and also green smoothies, so this morning when i discovered that ryno ate my last apple, i headed into the kitchen to experiment. "eat a banana," he told me, knowing full well that i have a love/hate relationship with bananas... the taste and smell doesn't bother me in the least, but the feeling of biting into a mushy, warm banana is enough to keep me away from them.
this smoothie is the first green smoothie i've ever made at home, and i must say that i'm pleasantly surprised! i was worried about masking the taste of the spinach, but the fruit definitely did it's thing. yum!



mango-spinach smoothie

ingredients:
2 ice cubes
5-7 cubes of frozen mango
1 banana
biiiiig handful of spinach
& enough soy milk to make it blend easily

blend & enjoy! this combo makes enough for one big glass of smoothie, as pictured.

post DC thoughts...

well as jess just filled you all in, DC was great. probably the best(read : crazy) 48 hours of our lives. but i wanted to recap on some unfinished pictures that i had left out previously. so here goes nothing.

here are the pics of our bikes that i had mentioned earlier:
as you can see, buki likes hanging out near the bikes.

also, we have mentioned on here before on what a task it can be to clean the dishes or make due with our rather small kitchen, accommodations, etc. so i thought i would show you how it goes when your oven range is super dirty:
and how it looks after the bear-cleaning:
today(monday) jess and i have off from work, it has been very nice to relax and take it easy. jess is making some sloppy joes with texture vegetable protein(tvp) that will be amazing, and i have been watching some law and order criminal intent. tomorrow, i plan on biking to work, and may even meet bonnie on my way to work one day so we can bike together.

in the next few months, we will be going pretty tight on our budget. we plan on going to galena in october, to our most favorite B&B. so we both will be practicing some extreme self control. no records, no pyrex, no mani/pedis, and not going out to eat much. it will be well worth it that's for SURE!

DC craziness!!

our whirlwind trip to DC for polly's wedding was great! we left right after ryan got out of work at friday and set out for what would turn out to be a pretty crazy 12 hours! the first few hours went great until the weather shifted and and we drove threw what we later found out was a tornado! we nearly ran out of gas in ohio because the gas station we stopped at had no electricity, goodness! after some illegal u-turns and crazy driving, we were back on our way. things went rather swimmingly despite our own exhaustion but we kept trucking despite having to sleep in a mcdonald's parking lot for an hour just outside of the city. when we were driving through pennsylvania and maryland, it was already very late and so so dark, not to mention the fog!

we got into DC around 7 AM, walked around for a bit, and killed some time until sticky fingers opened! we split a sticky bun, an everything bagel with tofutti cream cheese, and i had a yummy cupcake & the best soy cappuccino ever! i also had temptation vegan soft serve, which was pretty much the best thing in the universe!

its so nice to be able to go into a place and order anything off the menu without having to worry about ingredients... sticky fingers is definitely an inspiration and even more motivation to open my own vegan shop! the treats were great, as expected... everything was perfect! unfortunately ryan wasn't able to get a chili dog like he wanted to, but i'll make my own interpretation this week to satiate the craving! they also had things like vegan breakfast sandwiches plus tons of other bakery/pastry items and cookies. unfortunately we didn't get to sample everything but i would definitely have loved to! we had to leave room for our lunch at java green! ryan had the turkey/bacon club with some popcorn "chicken" and i had the "temptation" grilled tempeh sandwich with a side salad. also very yum!







we also went and saw the pandas, which was the GREATEST THING EVER! the pandas were great, and the one panda was a total ham! he climbed the tree and huffed and puffed and totally loved the attention from the "audience"! we watched him munch on some bamboo and play in the water, too!







the wedding was lovely and it was great to meet some of ryan's friends. we both had great time despite some driving frustration (google maps is very unreliable, we've found out) and my dress being wrinkled! we ended up getting dressed in a starbucks bathroom and i put makeup on in the car in what was 100+ degree heat... overall a great time with some ups & downs along the way but everything worked out great. we took a hybrid cab back to the hotel since we both had a buzz going and ended up crashing around 9. we woke up, had a breakfast, and head out at 7. needless to say we made great time, and were back home before 6.

best 48 hour vacation of my life!

busy busy bears!

what have we been up to?
eating yummy food, re-organizing & cleaning, recovering from bear-falls, and getting ready for DC!