iPhone temperature!

I was reading outside and about to swim in the pool and I got a text from Leslie, (who I am hopefully seeing tomorrow, happy anniversary by the way!). So I go to check my text and this is what it says:

HA!!!! The weather is too hot even for iPhones right now, and it's only gonna get hotter.

Yogurt is sort of mending. I used the same batch, but I will try again soon with a brand new batch and hopefully get it right on the first try this time!

My yogurt died

Well that's not entirely accurate. I tried to make homemade greek yogurt using this recipe and modifying it with a few others I read online.  I bought nonfat milk (half gallon), and microwaved it for 15 minutes (stopping every 5 to stir). I checked with an instant read meat thermometer until the temperature was about 185, and then let it cool to 120. I then stirred in a tablespoon of nonfat greek yogurt in, and let it sit outside for a few hours (covered of course). The temperature it's supposed to incubate in is about 100-110, and the temperature dropped below that, so I moved it to my crock pot. Like an idiot, I put it on low, not realizing that obviously that temperature is high enough to cook chicken (so probably around 200 degrees) and then when I took the temperature after an hour, I reduced it to warm and uncovered it. This morning it was still milk with a few chunks of yogurt. I guess the higher temperature in the crockpot killed the bacteria that needs to spread to make yogurt. Okay, take two going on now - I will report back!

Last night Nick and Jess came over. It was SO nice to see them. They are a wonderful couple. Jess is pregnant and due in the end of August, but unless you look directly at her belly, you can't tell, skinny little thing! She moved here from Germany in November. The other day we went to see the x-men prequel movie with them ( loved the movie!) and last night had them over for a bbq. I marinated chicken and turkey breasts and Charlie grilled, and we had salad, gazpacho (which was a bit too salsa like), and rice "meat balls", which Nick thought were actually meat! Success! I am very excited about the friendship with this couple. My parents joined us for dinner, and then after the four of us played scattegories. We allowed Jess to use German and English to come up with words. Very, very fun.

Yesterday we started cleaning out a lot of the storage in the garage. Phew, what work! We moved my temperpedic mattress up to Adva's bedroom which we are currently sleeping in because the AC in my room is very weak, and it's really hard to get a good night's sleep in this heat. We both slept so well, I love that mattress!

Today, besides fixing yogurt (and by the way Jess told me about a greek curd like cheese called quark which will be my next experiment!!!), I am going to go to the gym, read Water for Elephants, continue to clean out the garage, and clean out my office, because I am moving to a different one on Monday. I had a pretty discouraging week at work last week and just felt very unmotivated, but have snapped out of it. We wanted to go look at more houses tonight when Charlie is home from work but Mike, our realtor (who is amazing!), is busy and so we can hopefully go tomorrow evening.

Next week going to Boston which I am so excited about!

I will update on the yogurt situation soon!

Let's see how much time I can waste trying to come up with cute blog titles

I bet this post will take me 3 minutes to type out, and I have no idea what to title it. Nothing too exciting has happened, just want to keep things regular here (I guess I take my blog fiber! Ha I am lame).

On Friday I went to a new nail lady - I used to go to the Salon at Lakeside in high school and decided I missed having that relationship w/a nail lady, so Legally Blonde therapeutic! Sounds terrible but I like that I can converse with someone whose accent I can understand without having to ask "what" 8 times.  The salon was nice - definitely more upscale than the asian walk-in places, and the cost was about the same!

When I came home I was excited because I had a belated birthday card for my mom from the dogs (Maya apologizes for being late) and one from me, as well as a present for Charlie. Mom got upset because the dogs forgot to put an apostrophe on the word "we're". She later told Charlie that I once cancelled a date with a guy because he mis-spelled some word in a text. Charlie told her he thought I was joking when I told him poor/incorrect grammar was a deal breaker! Thank G-d my love knows his "there/they're/their" differences! Phew!

The card from the dogs

Card from me to mom

Charlie's present was a little gag gift but he can also put it to use if he wants. One of the first things we spoke about when we started speaking to each other and dating was my Judaism. He wanted to make sure it wouldn't be an issue that he wasn't Jewish, and I explained that as long as he understood its importance to me, and knew that I would want to raise my kids 100% Jewish (were it to progress to that), that there was no issue. He immediately responded that his kids could be Jewish so long as they were Seminole fans. Although I am a Duke fan, I have no issue converting for him :-) Charlie has been so great with the whole Jewish thing - asking me tons of questions, trying to learn phrases in Hebrew, cooking me a Passover meal, and even coming to a Shabbat service with me and stopping by at the Israel Independence Day event. I hope when his season starts I can be as supportive!! Anyway, I thought it would be funny if I got him a present that represented this conversation. Yesterday there was a Bar Mitzvah at Temple Sinai and I decided to get Noah a kippa that has his favorite team on it. I got Joseph Littmann a Red Sox one for his Bar Mitzvah and he LOVED it, so decided to do it again. When I placed the order through Ilana Shapiro (who gave me a fabulous product!), I decided to get one for Charlie with the Seminoles logo on it! He can have it for the days he chooses to come to Shabbat services with me, or just as a fun keepsake. 

Noah's Bar Mitzvah service was yesterday morning and the party was last night. Noah did a great job, he chanted three Aliyot and had a great speech where he incorporated playing his cello to interpret the trumpet that is spoken about in the parsha. He was wearing his new kippa (angels is his team) and Justin Sakofs turned to me and asked "is that your doing?" It was so nice to see that Justin came and Marla as well, as they were Noah's religious school and Hebrew School teachers. Even better, Marla told me that she is not moving after all and can stay with us next year. What an amazing thing to hear, that such an incredible teacher is staying! She is beyond a treasure.

 Charlie is on morning shifts which is nice to have a regular schedule, but hard because we are going to bed so early. Although I love it, it's hard when his mid week is the weekend and there are night goings on. We went to the party yesterday and had a green screen shot as well as a caricature drawing - which looks nothing like me but oh well! I was laughing that my picture is off and lopsided because I kept looking over at Charlie and smiling at him, kissing his cheek etc (are you grossed out by how in love we are, hehehe), when I should have been looking at the artist. Tell me what you think!!

I do love that you can see Charlie's arm around me :-) The lady only took 4-5 minutes per person, pretty impressive. It was fun to get all dressed up! The dinner was not bad at all - some yummy ravioli type things (I ate one and gave two to Charlie), a caesar salad, and the main course (I had sea-bass and he had filet mignon). We left right after dinner because Charlie's cousin Jennifer and her husband were passing through town and we wanted to see them and have Charlie be home early enough to get a good nights sleep before waking up at 6 am. We met up with them at Lagasse and one of her husband's friends actually currently works with Charlie on the same flight, which was ironic. It was a very short visit but nice that they got to catch up.

Me and Charlie at Noah's Bar Mitzvah reception

I had reallllly strange dreams last night, the kind where you wake up and just feel the exact emotions and it takes you a while to snap out of the dream. I have a youth group hike this afternoon at  5 pm and hope to go meet up with Dan and Rose at a coffee shop so I can see them for a bit. I will post pictures of the hike!

Aloha to Blogging!

I saw on facebook about a month ago that Charlie's younger sister Sarah blogs, and I have been following it, which inspired me to start blogging again. I think the fact that we are young and in love, traveling, working, learning, etc, is going to be something that in the future I will be glad I kept track of.

We just got back from our first vacation together - Hawaii. We went to the Big Island for 2 days because neither of us had been. I have wanted to swim with dolphins for forever and we both did that, and my parents suggested that we go see the volcano. Unfortunately, we drove for several hours to the freezing mountain in Hilo (where there was a forecast of snow) with no sweatshirt or anything (I was wearing a bikini under my clothes!),

 and we didn't even see anything spectacular. Apparently there is still a lot of glowing lava etc, but we missed it.

The next day we swam with dolphins, and it was SO worth it! My friend from high school Rachel Martin told me that it can seem inhumane but I actually disagree. It seems just like how we keep dogs as pets. The dolphins are well taken care of, loved, fed, etc. They live much healthier lives with longer live spans than wild dolphins. The one in the pictures to the right was 26! The average lifespan of a wild dolphin is 12.


We ate at a restaurant my parents recommended called "Monstera" on the Big Island. I ordered a seafood papaya dish. It is scallops, shrimps, and mushroom cooked in half a papaya, and topped off with a miso aioli sauce. I was so proud of myself because Charlie and I were trying to figure out the flavor and I guessed miso! I told the waiter how much we loved it, and the owner came out at the end of the meal and gave us the recipe! Charlie put it in his laptop case I believe and I will post it.

After the two days on the Big Island we went to Maui. We stayed in Ka'anapali at the Marriott. Our room was ridiculous, we had a huge suite with a wrap around balcony. I definitely had some jumping on the bed moments. We had a direct view of the pool and the ocean, and it extended out that one day we didn't even leave the room to sunbathe, just did so on the balcony. It's crazy how even at a nice resort in Maui you can see how the economy has affected life - for example the limits on room service times, and the absence of many fancy resort restaurants on property.

In Maui we mostly lay around but we also did a snorkeling trip (where I swallowed a lot of seawater) and a waterfall hike on the road to Hana in which we literally had to swim, climb, "cliff jump", etc. Very fun! We bought sandwiches before and of course they got soaked in Charlie's camelback because we swam about 100-200 yards before the end.

Lots more pictures to post, but lots to go do! I need to drop off a Bar Mitzvah present - his favorite teams is the Angels so I got him a kippa with their logo on it and I think he may want to wear it tonight and tomorrow.

Aloha!