Lauren and Dan's Visit

I don't think Lauren and Dan knew how much we were looking forward to their visit. We had a full weekend planned for them, from the hiking at Watkins Glen to the food and drinks we were having for dinner.

We started them off right, with one of Lois' Dream Dinners (peach marmalade pork) and a shot of tequila! It's become one of our customs that a weekend of fun start off with the guests' drink of choice...

Saturday morning after breakfast we drove them down to Watkins Glen State Park. It follows a beautiful stream with 19 waterfalls and over 800 stone steps that wind their way through a glacial gorge that is at points over 200 feet deep.

We then proceeded to hit up 5 wineries, where we tasted a variety of house wines, on the western shore of Seneca Lake. We stopped for lunch that we had brought, as well as afternoon relaxing on a dock along the shore. The finger lakes are north-south lakes with rolling hills between them, almost entirely covered with vineyards and cornfields. With the exception of the corn, we could have been in the south of France.

After an early evening nap, we took them out to our local tex-mex place, Alto Cinco, for really good food. A movie afterwards, and we had ourselves a full day...

They had to leave early-ish Sunday, so they missed the arts and crafts festival of downtown Syracuse, which Cait and I hit up. If we don't make the effort to go down there, we'll go for weeks without doing so, but I always forgot how beautiful the historic buildings are downtown. Some of them are from the early 19th century, made of gorgeous stone and brick. The festival itself had over 175 vendors, some of which were truly talents artists: painters, sculptors, woodworkers, and photographers, among many others were all set up in the historic district.

The Big Chop

So I finally did it - went for the big chop. I will include before and after pictures so that all may truly appreciate the enormity, the hugidity, the deafening snip! made this afternoon that made my head a full (it seemed) 10 lbs lighter! (Seriously, after that first big snip, I almost lost my balance.) The braid is in a clear plastic bag for me, so I'll just be sending it along via snail mail to the locks for love center. Jess was a little skeptical before the appointment ("How about just a trim?"), but I think I look sassy and I think he's come around as well :)

And out of the hair realm . . . .Lauren and Dan are coming to visit! They are actually en route now - hopefully they won't hit any snags - and we'll be welcoming them to 203 Hawthorne as our first guests in our first home together! Such being the case there will, of course, have to be several kinds of shenanigans, some high-jinx, and most likely a photo-op or two - especially of the guest room that was made up just in time for them. I don't think they'll mind Jess and I popping in there from time to time to snap photos of our fabulously furnished bed room - right?

Yes, we are dorks, and we love it.

I'm sure we'll have lots more stories and pictures to share over the coming weeks as our guests come and go . . . .Happy Summer!

Syracuse in July (so far . . .)

I can't believe our summer is already pushing towards the end of July - maybe it's because we've been so busy!! Between dinner with the neighbors, weddings, and adventures throughout the greater Syracuse area, we're getting to know our new city and keeping in touch with friends and family back in Jersey and Brooklyn.

First things first (though not chronologically speaking)! Aren't those berries gorgeous? We just got back from some summertime berry picking in Baldwinsville, about 25 minutes from 203 Hawthorne. Henckle's Farm had red raspberries, blackberries, were just about out of their strawberries, and we never did get to the currants (red and black!) and gooseberries across the road. Rows and rows of berries! It was hot, juicy work, but someone had to do it. Jess ate about just as many as he put into his bucket and I think my ratio was even worse. Sun-ripened red raspberries, hiding neath broad leaves - unbelievable. We've decided to freeze a bunch of them because we just couldn't stop picking them and ended up with about 5 lbs of berries!

The beginning of the month was kicked off with a visit to Lew Beach for 4th of July. The gathering was huge - we were glad to bring along D and Beth and Johnny for reinforcements and to have the Stovers to introduce us to everyone, including Greg and Sue. Colonel Mustard (Moose, Mutard, etc), D and Beth's teddy bear of a shitzu (spelling? sorry!), immediately joined the pack of 10+ other dogs there and quickly impressed everyone with his bottomless energy, enthusiasm for balls (bocci, golf, whiffle, and otherwise), and . . . his swimming skills!




Recently we got to see a lot of fam at James and Mary's wedding in Detroit. I don't think I've ever seen so many Casazza's in one place - all clones of each other! We had a great time and danced, danced, danced and got to see our relatives throw their limbs about with great abandon. Even Lois and Earle cut a gi-normous rug during a couple of big band songs. Jess was flagging towards the end of the night but couldn't be shown up by Grammie and Grandpa who were still at the reception at 12:30am! It was one of those genuinely happy occasions and I can't wait to spend more time with Mary - hopefully up at Sebago in Maine! On the wedding front in general, we have 3 more to attend between now and October. We'll be putting the miles on Wally (who, incidentally, admirably braved a near-over-heating fiasco while idling in traffic for 3 hours at the Canadian border - Renee and John, we'll update you with details!).

What else . . . isn't that enough? We'll be celebrating Nally's bday soon (and Dad's for that matter!) and I'll be finishing up with my Gross Anatomy course August 4th. We're kind of winding down now that we've finished up with the bones and muscles and are moving onto internal organs - there are a lot less organs than muscle and bones! I had a real "whoah" moment yesterday when we sawed (yes, sawed) off the ribcage and got a look at the organs of the chest cavity - mostly because of the lungs. I know everything was gushy and red and stuff but I thought the lungs were beautiful and delicate and soft - the softest thing I've ever felt (dont' worry - through rubber gloves). Really, really cool.

Ok! Enough for now! I need to studying for my second-to-last Gross quiz. Love to you all and HappySummer.

Our front yard jungle!

Our landlady, Danielle, had told us that we'd have a really nice summer garden from which we could take clippings, but we had no idea that we were getting a floral jungle!

The hollyhocks are huge and have taken over the front of the garden, which made us wonder why they weren't in the back. Mom, or Jan -- are hollyhocks usually planted in the front of perennial gardens? There are at least 4 colors of lilies, which are stunning. We have two crawling clematis bushes, not to be confused with clamidia, which you definitely do not want crawling up the front of your house...

Every time we step out onto our porch we are hit with a blanket of floral scents that is incredibly lush. Especially after
a rain.

Settling In...

After a day of languishing in back pain due to consecutive days of lifting the hundreds of books that we own, we're finally getting the place to resemble a livable apartment. I never considered myself to be tremendously domestic, but setting up house is fun! Cait and I were so excited yesterday when we moved the couches around to their present position; and getting all our books into shelves makes the place feel so much more homey.

Of course, we still don't have a box spring for our bed, so its still laying on the floor - though its infinitely better than the air mattress Cait had been sleeping on for 6 weeks!

Getting the kitchen island upstairs has doubled our counter-top space, a huge necessity for us as we love cooking. I couldn't get the dishwasher up the stairs though - two nights ago I was literally collapsing every time I tried walking...figured I'd wait till the lower back regained some strength - thus the plethora of dishes that still need handwashing...

Hope you all recognize the various pieces of furniture scattered about the apartment. We absolutely love all of it!

Love to you all...

Home Sweet Home

We are here! Just wanted to send a quick howdy to everyone from Syracuse. Jess and I arrived at 203 Hawthorne Street about 12:30 this morning and decided to save the unpacking for a more reasonable hour! Luckily we were able to borrow a padlock from the Stovers so we could lock up the Uhaul for the night. Speaking of the Stovers . . .

. . . after enjoying (too briefly!) good food and great people for Luke and Ellie's 18th birthday/graduation party we drove away in our new car!! Well, it is new to us - it's an '85 Volvo, tan, a tank, fantastic! We'll have lots more to tell you about it soon but for now we are simply grateful to the Stovers for fixing up this car - and then parting with it so we could bring it to Syracuse! The trip from Middletown to Syracuse was smoothe as can be - we're brainstorming a name already; I thought of 'George' and Jesse came up with 'Wally' (Walter) on his own, which I thought was kind of sweet :) So we'll see . . . and for those of you who think it's silly to name a car, just you wait, this car is loaded with personality - it deserves a name.

Ok, just checking in for now, I have to study hard for my midterm tomorrow!! Lotsa love to everyone - yay that Nally is home!

The Honeymoon is Over

For my DPT program, at least. I still think Jess is pretty hottsy tottsy - and I'm pretty sure he feels the same :) So, this is how I felt after my first quiz today: not so hottsy tottsy (Nally, I am determined to help you make this phrase popular!) It wasn't even necessarily that I did poorly - I think I did ok (75 to 85 range) but it felt like I just wasn't grasping the material, that even more material was starting to pile up that I hadn't even thought of getting a move on because I was too busy studying for the first quiz . . .I know everyone goes through this transition period - today was just my day to feel down for a while. I'm not smart enough, I have no friends here, nobody likes me, etc. But then we had a pretty good afternoon class, which was surprising because all I had wanted to do was go wallow at home. We did a fun activity with personality types that got us outside and talking to each other and connecting with some of our classmates - it was fun and the time (3 hours!) went fast. Maybe the gi-normous chocolate chunk cookie and the Dunkin Donuts latte helped too . . . :)

By-the-by, my personality color is BLUE - I'm emotional, receptive, caring, a good listener, mean people make me stressed, and I cry a lot. This is opposed to being ORANGE and a freedom-loving party person, or GOLD and a strict, traditional organizer, or GREEN and an analytical, scientific, precise conceptualist. Of course I've got a bit of each in me but my BLUE list was about 3 times longer than any of the other color descriptions. We all laughed a bit at each other and our selves, it got me outta feeling sorry for myself, and I learned a bit more about my classmates. I find even after all I've experienced, I'm too quick to judge people as certain types - and it's cool that I'm daily being surprised by the inclusiveness, kindness, and budding support of my fellow classmates.