Adventures at the National Aviary

Summer is officially here in Pittsburgh, and I'm LOVING it! Joe is hating the heat, but I'm soaking up as much of it as possible since I know I'm only going to get a few months of warm weather before it starts turning cool again. The Beaver farmers' market has started offering some really good produce so we're stocking up on the home grown stuff while we can get it. Makes me want a yard even more so I can start growing my own fruits and veggies!

We went to Beaver on Friday to see what progress had been made on the house. They had run all of the ducts through the ceiling and some of the electrical wires, but it didn't look like they had finished all of it. The project manager also called and said that our closing date had been pushed back to some time around August 12th (used to be mid to late July) but we don't have an explanation yet of why that happened. Our pre drywall walkthrough is scheduled for Wednesday of next week, so hopefully we'll get some answers then. I'm so ready for the house to be finished!!!

While we were in Beaver, we grabbed some dinner and visited a carnival that was in town. They had set up camp in the main park at the center of town - the combination of the carnival music, warm breeze, and fireflies made for the quintessential summer night :-)

On Saturday, we went to the national aviary in downtown Pittsburgh. The penguins were my favorite - they were so friendly!

Here are some of our other favorites :-)

We ran into this cute pair of Scissortails! Made me feel like I was back in Oklahoma

Now it's back to the daily grind! Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Progress!

There was some major progress going on at the new house last week! We headed out to Beaver on Saturday morning to meet with the representative from Guardian. They will be wiring the house for an alarm system, and they also run all of the electrical and communication lines for the house. He wanted to meet with us before his crew started running wires this week, so we figured that meant that at least the two by fours were up on the second floor. We were pleasantly surprised to see that the outer walls had also been put up and wrapped, the roof was on, and the basement floor was poured!

Front of the house

Morning room

Looking through the living room to the office

Dining room

Master bedroom and bathroom on the second floor

Back of the house

It's really starting to look like a real house now! Hooray!

We're also trying to narrow down what colors we want to have in the wedding. We're leaning toward having the ceremony in early October of next year, but we haven't completely nailed that down yet. I'm not a huge fan of the typical "fall" type color schemes, so it seems like we may have a spring/summer color scheme instead. I think I've narrowed it down to these three color combinations - what do you all think? Which is your favorite?

We Have Walls!

Some progress is being made at the new house site! We ventured out to Beaver on Friday and the first floor walls had been set up. It's finally starting to really look like a real house now!

View of the front

Standing in the kitchen, looking into the morning room

 

Joe standing in the dining room

Standing in the living room, looking at the office

View of the back of the house

Very exciting to see progress! We also ventured out to Garrison Days in Beaver this weekend, which is a lot like "Affair of the Heart" for Tulsa folks. It was really fun - lots of neat things to look at and more inspiration for me to get my Etsy shop finished and open! I've made some progress on headbands, but I still have a ways to go on the mineral makeup :-/ I also have wedding planning to do, so hopefully I'll get it all done some time in the next century :-)

Egyptian Bread Recipe + House Updates

I had a great trip home to Oklahoma to visit the family in OKC and all my friends in Tulsa. I got some long overdue catch-up time with everyone (and got to see how big miss Collins is now!) and I can't wait til my next trip back :-) Thanks to everyone in OK for making it a great visit for me!

As promised, here is the recipe for the Egyptian bread that Mom and I made last week!

2 cups Semolina flour - (found at Reasor's for Tulsa folks, or at certain specialty grocery stores)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
1 teaspoon yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water

Please ignore the cluttered counter - ready to be out of the tiny apartment!

Step 1: Pour the warm water into a large mixing bowl and add the yeast and sugar. Stir until well mixed and let the mixture sit for 5 minutes. When you come back, it should look something like this:

Step 2: Add the semolina flour and all-purpose flour to the yeast mixture and stir together (it starts getting sticky pretty quickly, so you'll probably need to mix with your hands after the first few stirs). 

Step 3: Knead the dough for 10 minutes - it should be smooth and not sticky. 

Step 4: After 10 minutes of kneading, mix the tablespoon of salt with one tablespoon of water and add to the dough (we made an indentation in the dough and poured the salt water in it). Knead the salt water into the dough and continue kneading until it reaches the consistency it had at the end of Step 3.

Step 5: Separate the dough into six balls, then let them rise covered for 5 to 10 minutes.

Step 6: Flatten the balls into 1/2 inch tall circles. Cover and let rise for 1 hour.

Step 7: Put oil in a skillet (we used olive oil) and set to medium-low heat (I put my burner on "4"). Once the skillet and oil are ready, place one dough circle in the skillet and let it brown. After making several of these, Mom and I decided you should let the dough brown on each side as long as possible before burning it because the middle will stay uncooked if you turn it too soon. Once the bread has turned a nice golden brown, turn it with a spatula and let the other side brown. Remove from the skillet and let cool, then cut and serve!

We found some cranberry pepper jam at Whole Foods which is really good with this bread, and we added cheese and strawberries to the mix as well. It's very tasty! Apparently it's also really good as sandwich bread, but we haven't tried it yet.

Also - lumber, windows, and a shower/tub have been delivered at the new house! We're hoping that we'll have some walls up sometime this week!

View from inside the basement