Hiking in the Ohio

Ben and I have gone hiking twice this year, so far. Both times, we were happily surprised to find impressive scenery. One of the great things about Ohio is that the landscape is so GREEN!!! Humidity only has a few perks -- 1) you don't need as much lotion. 2) moss grows everywhere and makes for very colorful and vibrant landscapes. Our first hike was back in April to a place called Bryant Park.

(Ben hiking through the mossy rocks)

I really loved taking pictures of a lot of the things that grew there


Here's me at the beginning of our trek

Here is a cool picture of a rock that looks like it was split by the trees growing in between:


WE most recently went to Hocking Hills State Park for July 4th Weekend. We actually camped out, thanks to our new fabulous tent (we forgot to take a picture of that). We made eggs for breakfast that morning. And here is one happy camper:


We started out that morning with a 6 mile hike from Old Man's Cave to Cedar Falls and then came back again via the Upper Falls Trail. The difference in landscape is so dramatic from anywhere else we've seen out here! Here's the start where it opens up into Old Man's Cave (named so because a reclusive old man made this place his home in the 1800's)


There were trees growing upside down in the canyon. It was cool to see how they maneuvered and found their way to the sun:




























The trees also liked to grow right over the rocks. It was really cool to see their rootwork:








Crazy, right!?! There were also a lot of butterflies flying through the gorge. One of them sat down on the ground for some cameo close-ups:




I couldn't control my urge to want to get some tall landscapes in this place It was just such a deep place, and the trees were so tall and cool. I wanted to try to capture that. (Besides, I love the stitch feature on my camera. I think it's cool.):
























Another remarkable feature of this hike: how well groomed and carefully crafted it was. The stonework made me feel like I was visiting Helms Deep from Lord of the Rings (I know, I'm a total nerd).









There was a whole lot of green, as you can tell. But there was also some amazing contrast in color in some of the rocks. We wondered how on earth those colors got there.







An indispensable feature for any awesome hike is WATERFALLS! This hike did not disappoint. Here is what they called Lower Falls:



Here's a video of us at Whispering Falls (sorry that it's sidewise. I thought I'd be able to flip it later just like a photo. Apparently not.)


And here's Cedar Falls (fun fact: there are no cedar trees here. They are hemlock trees. But the people who got here first and named the place didn't know that)



Ben found a tree he wanted to hang out it. We recommend, if you try the same thing, to bring something to brush away the spiderwebs first; :)



All that hiking made us very hungry. Ben was especially hungry. Here's a picture of his perfectly-cooked hobo meal (he was very proud):


It was huge. If you need a proportional comparison, here's a picture of Ben's HUGE hobo meal next to my normal-sized hobo meal:



We finished the day with exploring the area by car (one can only hike for so long) and then heading into Logan, Ohio to watch the fireworks. I was grateful for many things that July 4th. I am grateful for a country that preserves cool places like this. I am also grateful for the small towns who live near them so I can buy an Icee on a hot day. I am grateful for fireworks ( they were totally cool. Sorry we forgot to take pic's of that!). And I am incredibly grateful I do not live way out there and that there are places like Cincinnati to return to. You know, places with shopping and fancy restaurants and shows to go see. What can I say? You can take the girl out of the city, but.....

The Results Are In for Crest Advanced Seal White Strips

A few weeks ago I decided to indulge myself and, especially since I had a coupon, purchased a packet of Crest Advanced Seal White Strips. Ah, good old vanity. I have done teeth whitening once before. However, I wasn't sure last time how well they worked. All I knew is that they made my teeth incredibly sensitive. I hate that.

BUT, I like white teeth. So, I decided this time to do my due diligence and take "BEFORE" and "AFTER" photos. Crest Advanced Seal White Strips take 14 days. For those of you who don't know, that is an ENTIRE HALF OF A MONTH. I rarely commit to anything for that long. As I suspected, and though I tried to fight it, I just couldn't do the strips for 14 consecutive days. It probably took me a good 3 1/2 weeks to actually finish all 14 days worth of strips. I don't know how that may have affected my results. In any case here they are:


BEFORE



AFTER



Not bad, eh? I'll consider myself satisfied. So, there you go -- an unbiased review of Crest Advanced Seal White Strips. Now, what I don't know is if they are any better than the white strips that were 15 bucks cheaper right next to them on the store counter. Perhaps I'll look into that in another 6 months or so. I don't know. I really HATE the process of whitening my teeth. What I sacrifice in the name of beauty!

Side note: I have meant to post these results for a week or so, but I do find it a bit tragic that I am upstaging Jefe's really cool post (see below) so soon. You all should totally check out the video. I did. And as I am clearly a sucker for a good cause, I am now providing food for a cute orphan in Afghanistan every month. So, what I'm really trying to say is,"Watch at your own risk." Congrats on the organization's recognition, Jefita. That is just really cool.:)

Mammoth Cave National Park

This past weekend, Ben and I drove down to Cave City, Kentucky as part of a general effort we are making to adventure and see the amazing sights around us in this new place called Ohio. Cave City is about a three hour drive south of Cincinnati, so we decided to leave Friday after work and stay in a hotel/motel for the night and see the sights on Saturday. As we drove into the ever-luxurious Econolodge late Friday night, we were a little shocked by the parking lot. First we saw this:



And when we got back to the parking area by our little room, we saw this:



I know what you're thinking. It's a sure sign the economy is in the dumps when all the corvette owners in the world have to stay at the EconoLodge. Alarming signs of the times, indeed! Well, take heart my dear friends. It just so happens this is probably just an indication of sold out rooms in plusher digs. It was the annual Corvette Show down in Cave City this past weekend. Who knew? Here's a great shot of one of the older beauties, taken the next morning:



Ben and I woke up early. We wake up early most days (though not so early for some people, I'm sure) to get to work on time. Unfortunately, we find more and more these days that this habit we've made dies hard on days even when we don't have work. Tragic. And since Kentucky is an hour earlier than we are (we're the last hanger's on to the East Coast time zone even though we're significantly far away from the coast) we found ourselves bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6:30 am, rearing to go. We showered, got ourselves ready and went down to enjoy the free continental breakfast. I ate a bagel and Ben found his pancakes inedible, and the fruit juice was questionable, so we ended up doing less enjoying than we would have liked. We decided to supplement Ben's breakfast with McDonald's Egg McMuffins -- breakfast of champions.

And then off to Mammoth Cave! They had several tours starting early that we were excited to try out. We wanted to get there in plenty of time to get a ticket.

Ah, well, sometimes the best laid plans go to waste, and the not so well laid plans, well.... you can imagine. As it turns out the note at the bottom of the Mammoth Cave Website where it reads, "*Not available by reservation. Tickets can only be purchased the day of the tour at the visitor center," doesn't mean you can't buy tickets before. It just means the one tour on the list that has an asterisk of the 20 tours they have available can't be bought ahead of time. When we got there at 7:45, all the tours I had any interest in were sold out. I was devastated and, to be honest, totally ticked at their website information that was (in my humble opinion) misleading. I had driven 3 hours for this! All the good tours are gone!?!? Seriously?! I wanted to just turn around and go home. Ben, however, calmed me down just enough to buy a couple of tours worth of tickets to the less challenging, but still available. I was pretty certain I wasn't going to like them. But we were already there. And though I might not end up enjoying them, Ben might.

On our first cave tour, we had a nice small group of people and we were made aware of the reason for the Cave network's name. We already read on the website that the caves were the longest system in the world, with 360+ miles of caves inside. But the caves are not only extensive. Individually they're areas inside can be huge. The first room we were in was a 1/4 acre large. Here are a few cool pictures from our first tour:



Above is a picture of the "natural opening" to the cave. It's pretty huge.



When they were in the caves in the last 1700's, early 1800's they used it to mine saltpeter to make gun powder. You can see some of the equipment they brought down in this picture.





I think these two pictures above give you a good idea of how huge some parts of the inside of this cave are. Or they would if I could make them any larger. :)

Overall, aside from it's extensive and sometimes huge tunnels, there wasn't a whole lot more to see in this cave tour. Our guide, Bobby, reminded us that Mammmoth Cave is not famous for its stalactites, stalagmites or other amazing features in the cave. It is famous because of it's size. So there you go. We had all been made aware we could stop looking for more wonderment. And I found it relieving to know, despite the fact I wasn't in awe of the cave's beauty, I also "shouldn't" be in awe of it.

After this two hour tour, Ben managed to get me to go back for one more, through another area of the cave. I was trying to raise my spirits up to be enjoyable company, but I did a pretty crappy job, if I do say so myself. It wasn't terrible, but I'd say it may have potentially ben slightly reminiscent of pulling teeth for me.:) For a lot of the tour I just didn't say anything, so to minimize the negativity that might come out of my mouth. If you can't say something nice....

Looking back, I think I should have known I wouldn't like this very much. I don't know what I was thinking with all these guided tours. I don't even like being guided through aerobics class. And on our second tour, our group was so large that I felt like I was in a never-ending line for a ride at Disneyland, with the tour group of over 140 people. Only with cave tours, the line IS the ride. I'm used to caving where you get "down and dirty" and have to twist yourself into funny shapes so you can get out. I came out clean as a whistle from these two tours and I think I might have had to duck my head and shift my hips a couple times. Somehow, not quite the same effect.

Not to say it was all a waste. Or painful. On the bright side, The second tour ended up having some of the coolest formations we'd seen and 80% of the formations there are to see at Mammoth Cave (jackpot, I guess). Here are a few pictures of what they call Frozen Niagara:





Our pictures don't do this feature justice. It was much cooler in real life. One part of the tours I enjoyed (yes, I did end up enjoying at least one part. Maybe two.. I'll have to think about it) was a little bit of comic relief in the naming of various parts of the caves. For example, they had an area in one of the caves where they had installed toilets. The called this area the "The Great Hall of Relief". Below is a picture of an area they like to call "Fat Man's Misery."



He he he he. They make me laugh.



And here is a shot of how they would "smoke" their names into the ceiling. I checked one of the covers on the lights they had in the cave to see if the names weren't on the cover of the light instead of actually smoked onto the ceiling (so, I can be a little bit of a skeptic sometimes..). I got in trouble for that. You can't stray too far from the tour, apparently. Woops. I like getting into trouble sometimes.:)

I complained to Ben a couple times how we were doing family friendly vacations and we weren't even a whole family yet (meaning we have no children). He was a bit surprised I didn't like this activity as much as I didn't like it when I had honestly told him before that I had a good time at Mt. Rushmore, which is also very kid-friendly. I reminded him that when I went to Mt. Rushmore I WAS there with children -- my niece and nephews. See, if you take your kids to they little, shallow wave pool, you can very well have fun with them there. But you don't usually see a lot of adults hanging out by the little, shallow wave pool of their own volition, do you? No-- because it's not as fun to do kid stuff without the kids, in my opinion. And I was banished to the kiddie tours without having any kiddies. And I just didn't like it very much.

This, aside from a much anticipated, luxurious dinner, was the big event to celebrate Ben's and my 1st anniversary. I spent the activity sulking and complaining (with mild signs of amusement at times) while Ben tried to pacify me and enjoy himself. Sometimes, the best laid plans... you get the idea. Let's hope this isn't some foreshadowing of the eternity that awaits us. I think the celebratory event was very non-reflective of the year that preceded it, thankfully. And just maybe, next year, instead of the outdoors, I'm gonna suggest we check in at the Four Seasons and go on a shopping spree. I think that would be sure to elicit better moods from me. :)

Making History

It's been a long time -- at least 10 years. Maybe more. Every year I ask my mom to make me "gumboats" for my birthday. But she never does. It's not because she doesn't love me. She has good reason. 1) Plums, a key ingredient, aren't in season in October. 2) They take a freaking long time to make. 3) It was really a dish Opa used to make. So while she may know how, it's not like it was HER tradition to make them.

However, this past Sunday I decided I had waited long enough. I wanted those precious plum dumplings (called "gombocs" in Hungarian). And I wanted them soon. Well, the stars finally aligned because plums were in season and I had the wherewithall and time to do them myself.

The making of them was quite an experience, as cooking with any of my mother's self-written recipes is. The fun began as I started to read her instructions. My mom's cooking instructions are often a little confusing, or missing helpful details, or containing some instructions in a nonsequential, unorganized manner which is other than what one might otherwise have expected. Unless, of course, you were expecting a recipe from my mother.

The hilarity continued as I tried my darndest to follow the instructions. Once you've mashed all the potatoes (the base ingredient for the dough), you're supposed to add 3 cups of flour. I had halved the recipe, so I had set out 1 1/2 cups of flour to work with initially. The instructions said to "work as much flour as you can into the potatoes". As instructed, I worked as much flour as I could into my mashed bowl of potatoes -- about 3 to 4 cups worth. Uh oh. Maybe I mis-measured my potatoes? In the end, I figured as long as it looked like potato dough, I should be good. Right? Right. Moving on...

Then there was the advice column. "You don't want to put too many into the pot at one time. Sticking them together is a tragedy, and having them split open is another!" Tragedy?!?! I did't want tragedy. No way. Only perfectly nonstuck, non-holy, yummy dumplings were coming out of MY pot!

Well, try and try as I might, I had tragedy with about 1/2 of my dumplings. Holes everywhere. Note to self -- don't lay the dumplings on top of each other in a bowl as you're waiting to add them to the pot. Lay them out separately on a flour-covered counter top. You live and learn, I guess.

My other favorite instruction, "You may want to lift one out and taste it, which usually won't be any big sacrifice, to determine if the batch is ready." I did in fact taste a holy dumpling and was grateful to discover it was no sacrifice. And it didn't end up being as tragic as I was expecting. Apparently "tragedy" is a relative term in this recipe.

Reading the recipe was almost like having my mother in the kitchen right there with me. It was delightful and hilarious -- very accurate for working with my mother in any kitchen. And below are pictures for evidence of this most delicious Hungarian family tradition. I may need some practice with this dish. And while it may take a while to make them, I also consider this to be no big sacrifice. Yum Yum Gumboats!

My Perch

Every day, Monday thru Friday, I go to work. Thankfully, I like work. There are many reasons. And while many of the many reasons may not be viewable to the naked eye, there is one reason that is. That reason is because of where I work. Not only is the building cool, but so is the view from the office. I didn't get the best view of the outside of the building, but here is at least one angle, from which you can actually take a gander of my office from the outside:



I really enjoy this building because firstly, it reminds me of something I'd see in a Tim Burton cartoon movie, like James and the Giant Peach -- only it's a real building, even with all of its absurd angles and shapes. And it has lots of open space and high ceilings inside.

If you look where the doors are to the left of the trees, there is a big box of windows right above it. That's MY office!

And here is the view from my office:



Even more, if I were a taller sort of person, I would see a different view because, as you can see from this picture, the view just keeps going up, up and up:



Now, ordinarily I wouldn't boast about something like this. However, I think it is completely obvious that in a building full of elite PhD faculty and otherwise important people, I am a peon and completely undeserving of this most lovely perch. And somehow this makes it ok for me to brag away -- I mean share with you all. Ahem.

Now, a note about the less aesthetically pleasing, but somewhat entertaining views, this is the taping job that I wear around these days:



I wore it to church last week and no one said a word, so I just figured it wasn't as obvious as I thought. I found out otherwise when I went to church today and EVERYBODY was wondering what ON EARTH happened to me, "poor thing." I'm a bit of a pessimist and I don't really think this is going to stave off my ankle injury through marathon training for the next four months. It's good stuff, but I'm not sure anything is THAT good. But I will be sporting it for as long as I am going to be training, I think. Quite the fashion statement. Yeah, I think everyone will be wearing these sooner or later. It's totally cool. Ben said it looked like I was wearing "V" for victory -- right before he started to refuse to be seen with me in public.

It was so fun to see you guys!

Ben and I are now recovering from our all-too-brief visit to Utah where we didn't get to see 1/2 as many people as we wanted to, but relished the family and friends we WERE able to visit. What can I say? Five days is just not enough. I spent my first day there hanging out with my sister, which was fabulous, while Ben pruned his parents' yard. And that night we went out to dinner with our fabulous friends, Derrick & Brian. We wish Derrick all the best on his mission to Toulouse, France (I am so jealous), and promise to try our hardest to accidentally run into him while he's there.

The next day (Friday) Ben and I woke up and went to one of my favorite places in Salt Lake -- Nordstrom Rack. Yeah for shopping! Then I whisked my dearest friend Adrian away and dragged her along with me to visit Park City. Amongst our ventures there, we saw Jane from the Peace House. Jane is one of my all-time favorites. She's savvy, sassy and smart. What's not to like about that? But alas, I have neglected to take pictures up to this point, so all this itinerary is very uninteresting, to be sure. To make up for it, I am including a couple of short videos of animals that Ben and I took with our camera while visiting the Cincinnati Zoo in March, in hopes you may find that equally amusing:






At last, I got around to using my camera Friday night. We went to Mikol & Gerrit's wedding reception. She was gorgeous! It was lovely. And we loved seeing everybody there.



On Saturday morning, it was time for the EASTER EGG HUNT!!!














(a couple of shots of the avid hunters)
















The hunters were quite pleased with their findings. And who wouldn't be. With only 5 kids and over 180 eggs to find, everyone is bound to get a lot of booty!














So many eggs so little time. Don't worry. Not all the eggs had candy in them. Some had nickels and some had, well, nothing actually.



And here is my ever-growing nephew, Chris. So tall. When did that happen!?!?! He was in diapers, crawling around with a goofy grin yesterday, I swear.



After the hunt, it was off to Ben's brother Jeremy's and his wife Larene's, in Ogden. Here are his gorgeous twin sisters, Charity & Jessica, with two adorable little nieces, Emma and Breanna. Cute!



Karla had the delightful experience of being mistaken for a human jungle gym by her nephews.



And here are a few of the Young boys relishing in one of their favorite pastimes.... video games. Daniel is sporting his new do. I must say, he looks very distinguished as a baldy.



This picture i absolutely LOVE. Ben rarely lets me take pictures of him. And when he does, he has to review them and insists I delete them because he doesn't like them. So I just started flashing pictures at him without really aiming, to be sly and stealth-like. And wadda ya know? Doesn't he look cute?



Here's Mom Young with a sleeping Kayla in her arms. You would never guess by her angelic, restful face that she will be a teenage girl with all the craziness that comes with it in just a few short years. I'm sure you're really excited about that, Larene. :)





And here are a couple of shots of one of the cutest little girls ever, Emma, being held by her mother Gretchen who is responsible for her daughter's good looks. Look at those dimples! To die for.










These are just a couple of my favorite shots of the day. May have something to do with them being a couple of my favorite people. But they just look... good.








Are you still here? Wow, you're dedicated. Last but not least, a cute shot of Dad Young playing games on Sunday with his grandsons, Carter and Henry, at Aunt Kathy's house.

We really loved seeing everybody! We miss you!