June Brides

They say if you marry in June you'll be a bride all your life. I'm not quite sure what that means, but regardless, I think June is the perfect month for a wedding! I got to be a part of two this month. Two weekends ago, I was in my friend from work, Jess's wedding. She was a really gorgeous bride and it was fun to see a bunch of people from work there.
Her cake was amazing. It was inspired by Cinderella's castle
Last weekend, I got to go home for my good friend, Cami's wedding. The night before her wedding, "the quad" (my best friends from high school and college, and yes, I realize that there are 5 of us :) got together for a bachelorette party. It was so good to see all of them, it was like no time had passed since we had seen each other. I think it's been almost 3 years since we've been in the same place. It was really special that we were all able to be in the Boise temple together for Cami's wedding. She was such a beautiful bride!
Cami had her wedding reception at the Boise train depot. That's always been one of my favorite places in Boise
it has a really great view of the whole city.
This is a picture of me, Brooke and Merilee up in the bell tower.
While I was at home, I went through some old pictures and found a few gems. This one was actually taken at the train depot almost 8 years ago
I think this one is from new years eve maybe 7 years ago
It really doesn't seem like that much time has passed. It was so good so see friends and family last weekend. Hopefully it's not 3 more years until the whole quad is together again!

New Orleans

These last couple of weeks have been a little bit crazy for us. Jeremy had been sick for a little while and actually had to go to the hospital for 3 days with pneumonia last week. We were supposed to leave for New Orleans Saturday morning with Jeremy's family but we weren't sure if the doctors would release him by then. On Friday, Jer took matters into his own hands, he got dressed, shaved, told all the nurses he was being discharged that day, and even walked out into the hallway to greet the doctor. Luckily, the doctor agreed with him that he shouldn't be in the hospital anymore and we were able to go on vacation with Jeremy's family. We are so glad that he is feeling better! We had a great time in New Orleans. The first day we were there, we went to Jazz fest. We saw Jimmy Buffett and the Strokes.

That night, we walked down Bourbon Street to find somewhere to eat. I don't get the fascination with Bourbon street at all. It's crowded and it smells like a lovely mixture of body odor, urine, and garbage. Pretty sure being there for Mardi Gras would be my worst nightmare. The next day we went to the Cafe Du Monde for beignets.

They were delicious and definitely lived up to the hype. Also that day, we visited the aquarium and went on a walking tour of the French Quarter. The French Quarter is such a charming place. It has such a rich history, even long before it was a part of the United States. While we were walking in the French Quarter, I stopped and had my palm read. Here are a couple of the things that I learned about future...I will get married in the next five years, the man I am currently involved with will stop playing so many mind games with me, hehehe.

That night, we went out for a mother's day dinner to the Commander's Palace in the garden district. Jeremy and I agreed that this is one of our favorite restaurants of all time. The Bananas Foster we had for dessert was to die for!

The next day, we took a swamp tour at the Jean Lafitte national preserve. We saw tons of alligators. They just came right up to the boat. I guess they used to feed them marshmallows, but they aren't allowed to anymore. I wonder how long it will take the alligators to figure that out.

That night we went on a ghost tour of the French Quarter. I think that was one of my favorite things that we did on the trip. New Orleans is thought to be one of the most haunted places in the world. This is the old Lalaurie mansion. According to story, the LaLauries conducted horrible experiments there on their slaves. When they fled the country after they were discovered, they buried 30 of their slaves alive under the floorboards.

This is an old Catholic Abbey. There is an old story about vampires coming over in the 1700s from France. Supposedly, vampires still live in the attic of the church, that's why the shutters on the dormer windows are always kept closed.

On the tour, we learned that there is actually a group modern day "vampires" that live in New Orleans called sanguiners. They drink human blood from willing donors. I guess recently, when they were putting up power lines along the Mississippi river, a group of these sanguiners came to protest at a City Council meeting because they were worried that they would get tangled in the power lines during their nighttime flights.....right. On our last day in New Orleans we went on steamboat dinner cruise down the Mississippi river.

We had a wonderful time in New Orleans and a great time seeing Jeremy's family. Thanks for a great vacation!

Caribbean Cruise

Yesterday, Jer and I got home from our cruise to the Caribbean. We had a perfect vacation and are both in a little bit of cruise withdrawal right now. We sailed aboard the Crown Princess. It is a really beautiful ship

My favorite part of the ship was the atrium where there are two beautiful spiral staircases.

Preview

Also in the atrium is the International Cafe where they had every kind of pastry you can imagine. Jer and I stopped by there several times each day.

The first night on the ship was "formal night." Some people got really decked out in evening gowns and tuxedos.

Every night it was like going to a nice restaurant with a four course meal. We had lobster, scallops, fillet mignon...I think both of our bodies were a little bit shocked when we came back and it was fast sunday today! Here is a picture of one of their signature desserts, "the Love Boat"

The first stop on our cruise was the Cayman islands. We went on a boat out to "stingray city" which is a sandbar a couple of miles out into the ocean. They are surprisingly docile animals. They rub up against you like a cat and even let you hold them.

On our way back, the captain of the ship said, "See! No one get hurt! Now you must all spread the good news of stingray city." So I guess that's what I'm doing! After stingray city, we swam with dolphins. This is Pepe the dolphin

I think this was maybe my favorite thing from the whole trip. They are just such happy animals!
Our second stop was Roatan Honduras. On Roatan, we went to Gumbalimba bird and monkey preserve.
On the way to the monkey preserve, we had to cross a rickety hanging bridge. Jeremy did his best to terrify me and make the bridge swing back and forth as we were crossing

The monkeys were really cute. Our guides told us to leave everything on the bus because the monkeys love to grab anything loose, run up a tree, break whatever they have, and then throw it back to you.

Our third stop was Cozumel Mexico. We decided to be a little bit adventurous and rent a convertible smartcar. It was so tiny!

We drove around the island, visited some Mayan ruins, snorkeled, and found a yummy taco place on the beach to eat lunch.

I think my favorite part of Cozumel was actually watching everyone reboard the ship. One of the veteran cruisers we talked to told us to board early, go up to one of the higher decks and watch all the drunk people come down the gangway. It was pretty entertaining. We were docked right across from a big Carnival ship. As the ships were about to close their doors, two drunk men came running down the gangway and barely made it. They got a round of applause from all the people on the decks on both ships.

On the last day of the cruise, we stopped at Princess's private island in the Bahamas. It was a great day to swim, relax, and read under the palm trees.
On the ship, they gave out an award for the person who had been on the most cruises. There was one old lady who had been on a cruise ship for 864 days total!! Who knows...maybe someday I will beat that old lady! Probably not, but we had a great time and would love to go on another cruise someday!

Cherry Blossom Festival

One of the things I have wanted to do most since we moved to Pennsylvania is to see the cherry blossoms in bloom in Washington D.C. Yesterday, Jeremy and I went to the Washington D.C. temple, and then met our friends Matt and Kim to go see the blossoms at tidal basin park. It was the perfect day to go, almost all of the trees were in bloom, which was surprising since it's been so cold here all week. It made me feel like spring is finally here!
We took a walk around the tidal basin by the Jefferson memorial. There were tons of people out on the water in paddle boats, painting and just walking around enjoying the blossoms.

We stopped and listened to a ranger program for awhile and learned about the history of the trees. The Japanese gave 3,020 cherry trees as a gift of friendship to the United States in 1912. In 1939, society women of the Washington D.C. area chained themselves to the trees in an effort to save them from being cleared for the building of the Jefferson Memorial. The women won out, and most of the trees were saved and planted around the tidal basin.
I'm really glad we got to see the trees in bloom. Definitely go in the next week if you are in the area!

Organic Experiment

Howdy y'all. I'm sure you have all considered those products at the grocery store that have the word "Organic" printed on the packaging. While I knew that "organic" meant "grown naturally", or something akin to that, I didn't know much more than that. So, in an effort to be more responsible to our own health as well as considering the effects on those ecosystems these foods are produced in (i.e. everywhere), Melo and I embarked on a little organic food pilot program for the Kuhre household. I'm calling it Operation Organic Kuhres.

For some background, Melo and I love food in all its glorious forms. We often find ourselves contemplating it, discussing it, and then, inevitably, cooking and eating it. I suppose we all do this though- right? Well, everyone eats anyway. Knowing that we are what we eat, Melo and I wondered what kind of harmful things ended up in our bodies as a result of the foods and drinks we ingest. I had recently read the excellent, though slightly outdated "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson. The book was largely responsible for banning DDT in the United States. Despite the myriad of reforms by the USDA and FDA since then, you wouldn't be surprised to know that many synthetic substances still make it into our foods in varying concentrations. It turns out that our bodies act as repositories for some of these chemicals and that they can build up over time.


The USDA "Organic" label shown above in the food photos, can only be applied on foods that contain 95% plus organic ingredients. I found out that "organic" is defined, roughly, as a product that includes (courtesy of Wikipedia):

• avoidance of most synthetic chemical inputs (e.g. fertilizer, pesticides, antibiotics, food additives, etc), genetically modified organisms, irradiation, and the use of biosolids;
  
• use of farmland that has been free from synthetic chemicals for a number of years (often, three or more);
• keeping detailed written production and sales records (audit trail);
• maintaining strict physical separation of organic products from non-certified products;
• undergoing periodic on-site inspections.

So you see, it's a pretty robust certification. Something I thought was interesting is that the organic requirement goes all the way back down the food chain. For example, organic beef must only be fed organic cornfeed. So to go back to Operation Organic Kuhres, the idea was to eventually see if we could apply the same 95% USDA Organic label to ourselves. We're not even close by the way; but if we do get there, Melody has promised me we will get matching USDA Organic tats (just kidding! but seriously...).


One of my hang-ups with organic foods in the past, is that it was my understanding that crop yields were significantly less than conventionally grown crop. It didn't seem responsible to eat something that the world as a whole couldn't be fed with. It was also my understanding that the majority of the cost difference between organic and conventional foods was a direct result of the lower crop yield issue--more on that later. It turns out that according to one study, "...organic methods could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base." I'm hoping to find more about this when I read Michael Pollen's book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," over the next couple weeks.

So, Melo and I went to our neighborhood Giant to purchase as many organic products as we could in place of what we would normally buy. It turns out, there wasn't that large a selection. Although a full two aisles were marketed as "natural/organic", the vast majority of the products were not USDA organic. A great example of this is the popular Amy's brand. IMPORTANT: Just because a package says "natural" on it, this has no bearing on the organic nature of the product. It must have the seal.

We found that on average, the organic products were 70 to 80% more expensive than the conventional sort. Some items of note include milk and eggs, which were a full 100% more expensive. Interestingly, carrots and Oreo knock-offs were the exact same price as the conventional products--why wouldn't you purchase these? In short, we are not going to be able to "go organic" overnight, nor would most folks with a budget for groceries. It's my feeling that as the fad nature of the organic food movement wears off, the prices will come down. We'll see.


If you're still with me, this is the interesting part. We didn't notice a big difference in taste for most products, especially products with multiple ingredients (e.g. breakfast bars, etc.). With commodities like milk, there was a large difference. Organic milk doesn't have rBST (hormones) nor antibiotics. The cows also have a slightly different diet. As a result the milk tasted different; if I had to pick an adjective--"milkier".

I might update this post or follow it up later, but I've got to get going. Shoot me a line if you have any comments, questions, complaints, or good-jokes.