A few things we've done so far

So now that Leah is officially in grad school, it looks like I will be doing a bit more of the blogging. This one might be boring because there aren't any pictures and I might talk too much about plants and rocks, but I wanted to tell you more about what we have been up to.

The first few days here were pretty boring because we had a ton of not-so-fun stuff to get done, like finish moving in, getting parking passes etc. Once that was done, we wanted to get out and explore, so can you guess what the first thing we did was? We went to see Lake Michigan! There is a fairly nice beach about a 5 min drive from our apartment, but nothing like at home. We decided to drive up the coast so I could show Leah some cool houses that her parents and I saw when we visited some time ago (she was on campus at the time). We made it to Doctor's park, but by this time the sun had set behind the trees, yes the trees, not Lake Michigan, so we turned back. We'll check it out again later.

The next day, I believe it was Wednesday, we packed a picnic and headed up to Kholer-Andre state park about 45 min north of Milwaukee. We went straight to the beach, but it was so cold that we put our jeans and sweatshirts on and took a nap (at least I did). There were some cool plants like blue dune wild rye and sea rocket that can't grow along the east side of Lake Michigan because it is too windy and wavy. We drove around the campground, which was pretty nice, and found a nature center on the beach (only in Wisconsin) that had a trail through their "dunes" which were only about 30 feet high. It was cool though.

Since there was a good chunk of the day left, we hit another state park on our way back. We liked it so much that we bought an annual sticker; we figure that when we have spare time, we will want to get away from the city.

Thursday and Friday Leah had orientation part of the day so on Saturday we got away again and went to the Boerner Botanical Gardens southwest of Milwaukee. We were expecting something like Meijer gardens, but it was mostly outside. We enjoyed it anyway. There was a huge rose garden and a cool herbal medicine garden. Our fingers reeked on the way home because we touched and smelled everything like pineapple sage, lime geranium, peppermint, basil, lavender, bay laurel, and eucalyptus!

Sunday we were all excied to go to church because we found a CRC church in a nearby suburb, but I wasn't feeling great, so we'll have to wait until next week.

So now we are in our routine of Leah going to class and me looking for jobs and cooking and cleaning. Here is a little something I whipped up tonight:

Aren's creamy olive bacon delight

2 servings rigatoni (however much that is)
1 clove garlic minced
2 Tbsp pine nuts
10 black olives
10 green olives with pimentos
4 cooked strips of bacon chopped
1/2 Tbsp butter
1Tbsp flour
1/2 cup half and half
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup grated romano cheese

While pasta is cooking, in a small pan heat up a bit of olive oil and saute garlic for about a minute on medium heat. Add pine nuts and cook another minute or until a little brown. Add butter and when melted, add flour and stir. Add cream, milk, olives and bacon, reduce until creamy. Turn off heat, add cheese and stir. Drain pasta, put in bowls and spoon sauce over. Enjoy!