Home Sweet Home

Although we did some traveling this weekend (to our southern neighbor Chicago and our northern neighbor Wilmette), we stayed pretty close to home.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to our (faithful?) blog followers that some of Patrick's favorite activities include riding his bike and talking about bikes. It's almost surprising that it took this long, but three years after we started dating, I finally have a new bike to call my own! I'd been sporadically riding Dan's old mountain bike which never fit me right (he was at least six inches taller than me, after all), but a new bike that fits me properly is such a welcome change!!

My new bike is a Trek 1.5, men's design, and is a shiny red, white, and black which takes me back to my glory days (All Hail, Alma Mater, the pride of our hearts... Easton High School our High School so dear! HAHAHA). I got a new (matching) helmet as well to keep all my gray matter safe and sound.

We took "the kids" out for a ride yesterday - first a quick loop to pick up our produce box one mile away, then up to Wilmette, all along Lake Michigan. The Lake looked absolutely beautiful yesterday, a bright teal/blue, and from the beachfront up near Northwestern there was a great view of downtown Chicago. I'm kicking myself for not having brought our camera! Plus, the blog world needs to see pictures of us in our biking gear. hahaha

Keep in mind, we are now following in Oliver and Lisette's footsteps - we have two bikes per person in our household. Soon we will need an offsite storage unit just for our sports equipment!

Amidst all of our bike buying and bike riding, we had a busy weekend in the kitchen. On Friday night, while I was pretty much unconscious on the couch because of a nasty migraine, Patrick made pizza and then English Muffins! The English Muffins tasted better than Thomas' (probably because food in our kitchen is made with love - HAHA), and I'm still totally impressed that he did it (although he swears it was easy). We also put to use an oldie-but-goodie recipe on Saturday night: Charlotte's It's-So-Easy Pound Cake (with chocolate chips). We tried out a recipe from NY Times for no-knead bread - in the midst of that process we weren't sure how it would turn out, but it tasted great. It would be a great recipe for someone who loves fresh bread but doesn't own a stand mixer (I'm looking at you, Mom). Yesterday for dinner we made stuffed patty pan squash, using some squash that we'd received in recent weeks in our produce box. A winning recipe - but we were too hungry by the time they came out of the oven to find the camera and take a pic! I will, however, leave you with some pictures of the English Muffins.

(Did you know that English Muffins are made in a frying pan? I had no idea.)

The next few weeks should be pretty low-key... I'm hoping we'll get in quite a few bike rides before the weather turns frigid.

Remember, if you come visit us in Chicago, you too can have tasty homemade baked goods! :o)

Bar Harbor

Claudia and I were in Bar Harbor, Maine last weekend. We had a great weekend with my family, everyone was there to celebrate my parents both turning 60 this year. Now if Bar Harbor and Acadia were only closer to or more convenient to get to from Chicago.

The weekend would best be described as full of the outdoors and ice cream. I think that Claudia preferred the ice cream to the outdoor activities. We did enjoy some nice time in the kayaks. Got to see some wildlife that we don't usually get in Chicago. We also went on a horse and buggy ride through Acadia. We did not end up riding bikes although we brought a bunch of bike stuff with us, as Claudia wanted to kayak the second day as well.

Claudia catches up on some blogging

As Patrick's posts can attest, things have been busy in the KrugLea household this summer! Here's a recap from my side... Charlotte and Buster got married the week after us in Portsmouth NH. A beautifully simple ceremony on a dock overlooking the water followed by an amazing dinner at a restaurant nearby.

My parents and aunt came to Chicago to visit us the weekend after Charlotte and Buster's wedding. We had a great time exploring the city, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Highlights from the weekend were dinner at Ruth Chris Steakhouse, the Field Museum, and the Chicago Botanical Garden.

The following weekend I traveled to Easton for my friend Michelle's bridal shower and bachelorette party. A good time was had by all!

A few days after I got back from PA, Patrick and I headed out for our honeymoon - a week in Croatia followed by two days in Dublin (with Oliver and Lisette). That trip really deserves a blog post all by itself - it was a fantastic trip!! Here are just a few of the 2400+ photos we took over the course of our 10 days.

Michelle and Samir were married on July 10th in INDIA, and followed it up on July 31st in the Stroudsburg, PA. Michelle and I went to Nursery School together, and it was an honor to be one of her bridesmaids.

Since Michelle's wedding was on a Friday, Patrick, my parents, and I headed down to Avalon on Saturday for a quick trip. It was a nice -- relaxing -- weekend in Avalon, and we took care of the top layer of our wedding cake. It was tasty, let me tell you!

In the midst of all that, I've also been to Texas twice since the beginning of June for work.

This weekend we are headed up to Bar Harbor, Maine with Patrick's whole family to celebrate his parents' birthdays. These three innocent faces will keep things entertaining...

It's been such a great summer, and it's been nice to spend time with so many people we love. We'll be taking it easy for the rest of 2009 - some friends of mine are coming for a visit over Columbus Day, and we'll be in New England for Thanksgiving and Patrick's birthday. Other than those two weekends we're free for other visitors, so drop us a line and let us know when we can expect to see your similing face on our doorstep!!

Getting Stuff Done.

Or trying to at least. We had a pretty busy weekend. We were supposed to go to Ravinia with a Duke friend Friday night but the rain sort of washed out those plans. So instead we headed up to Grayslake, IL and our friend's uncle's house. It was quite an experience; great food, company and drink. It was a LOUD night. Loud enough that I seemed quiet in comparison, so that gives you an idea.

Saturday was the farm market since last week we didn't get a CSA produce box. A hail storm knocked out much of the crops at our CSA and the rest of the season was said to not be promising. At the farm market we got food for a week of meals; when we got home we had an email telling us we would be getting a produce box on Sunday. Oh well, there are worse things for you then too many veggies, like not enough freezer space. From there Claudia got her hair cut, well all of them, well I stayed at home and made fresh pasta for our pesto and pasta dinner, fresh pesto made later by Claudia.

Claudia got some new sneakers and we headed off to do our standard weekend errands. Once we got home I went out for a hot bike ride - it's finally up into the 90s with lots of humidity this weekend, it's been like a steam bath outside all weekend. While I was riding Claudia made the pesto and then we had a lovely dinner at our dinning room table. We find we connect much better at the table.

Then Sunday was Claudia's work party at the race track. Claudia won a whole 20 cents betting on a horse named after my mother and one of our best friends (Sue). We then got Claudia the heart rate monitor she has been eying since before we started the wedding registry and picked up a couple of other things at REI. It appeared we even had self control but not a ton. We did not have enough self control to drive by the Trader Joe's though, but we kept ourselves fairly in check there as well.

All and all a good weekend in Chicago, although it a warm one. Not that we don't know warm summers. We are off to Maine next weekend - the Lea's Storm Bar Harbor.