It’s been busy around these parts since the last post.  First, we had some family guests on Friday night–our very first guests at the new house.  There are definitely still piles of stuff that aren’t where they should be, but all in all, I think the house worked just fine.  That was nice to see.  The flower garden even provided some pretty for the table at dinner:

Then there was much family fun to go with the flower(s).  We even used our captive audience to convince four people to love Duck Dynasty.

And today?  Today is Scott’s and my second wedding anniversary.  Woohoo!  We celebrated yesterday, since it was the closest day off to the actual day.  We started with a beautiful hike at the periphery of the Wintergreen ski resort.  I have to say, I should really start reading trail info more carefully before I start a hike.  Halfway through our proposed piecing together of short trails, I realized that we started with the “More Difficult” trail (which was the most difficult rating, I believe) and moved on to the “Difficult” trail.  Next time, I might pick something more along the lines of “Moderate.”  Next time, I need to be smarter.  Scott’s used to toughing it out and all sorts of outdoorsiness, but I still need to work on my cardio a bit before I can tackle what he can.

 

It was a good hike though.  Steep, but beautiful.  The only real catch came about 3/4 of a mile from the end, when Scott got stung by a yellow jacket.  Then I got stung on the bum by a different yellow jacket, followed by a quick sting to the ankle.  I felt pretty unladylike trying to soothe my sting on the bum.  Not a major injury, but still mildly embarrassing.

 

Dinner was delicious though.  We went to Devil’s Backbone, a local brewery just down the mountain from the resort.

We nursed our wounds with food and beer and air conditioning.  Before I completely destroyed every bite of food on my plate, it was a caprese grilled cheese sandwich.  There was delicious cheese, red and green tomatoes, fresh basil and a tasty dressing.  Mmm.  The bread was exactly crispy enough, and there was definitely a hint of butter on the crust.  Mmmm (again).  The beer was good, too.

Happy anniversary, Scott!

Whew, there’s still so much to say.  We ran into the puppy gang on the way home from church on Sunday.  I’ll let you judge the cuteness through my truly terrible pictures.  I blame the photography on the cuteness of the dogs.  How was I supposed to just stand there, taking pictures, when they were running towards me all wagging and hoping for pats?!

All of the oohing and aahing over the cuteness does make me feel a bit disloyal to our own dog.  So here is some more cute, compliments of Mr. Peanut, who turned 8 last week:

And last but not least, I have a pretty spectacular recipe to recommend.  I made this Waldorf Salad from Cooking Light early last week, and it was only an average kind of tasty the first day we ate it.  Then it became awesome tasty as leftovers.  Food that gets better as leftovers is always good in my book.

I used extra radicchio and grapes, and perhaps I used a tiny bit of extra blue cheese.  I couldn’t find Sherry vinegar, so I substituted red wine vinegar for that.  The texture of the steel-cut oats and the nuts and the creamy cheese blended together with the flavors to make delicious Waldorf salad perfection.  It had more bite than normal Waldorf salad, too.  Oh, and I added some chicken to the mix to make it a more complete meal.