Daily Fluff

Last week, Stud and I went hiking in the White Mountains.  Since it's about four hours away, we were committed to an overnight.  And it was supposed to rain.  We planned to hike the following day when the weather was supposed to clear up, so we could sleep in the rain and hike in the clear mountain air.  Well....that didn't happen.  It rained more on our "hiking" day than the day we drove up.  So our six mile loop with two summits of over 4,000ft mountains turned into about a three mile hike with a summit of Mt. Avalon, not one of the 4,000 footers in the White Mountains.  We were wet, tired, and ready to get back on the road.  Someone who did have a BLAST??  Beau.  That dog must have been a mountain goat in another life.  There were some STEEP ascents and Beau flew up them without a problem.  And don't worry, when we got anywhere close to a ledge, he went back on his leash.

Picnic Shrimp Salad

For Stud's birthday beach picnic, I tried to make it minimal effort, but still something special.  So I purchased most of our snacks and then made a batch of shrimp salad as our "entree" and still not too heavy or work intensive for the beach.  And it was amazing.  We have been eating a lot more seafood up here since it's so fresh, and shrimp salad was a great and quick way to have some on hand.  We ate the leftovers over the next couple days as shrimp rolls, in a salad, and just with a spoon. PS I am really enjoying the New England style rolls.

Shrimp Salad
1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/8 c. mayonnaise (like one big spoonful)
Juice from 1 lemon
1 T. capers
1 green onion
Hot Sauce
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper

I roasted the shrimp to minimize clean up and to make it as easy as possible.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with tin foil.  Toss the shrimp with olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast for about 8-10 minutes until the shrimp are pink.  While the shrimp are cooking, mix the mayo with the lemon juice.  Slice the green onion and roughly chop the capers and add to the mayo mixture and add hot sauce to your liking.  In our household, that's pretty spicy!  Also, ALL of the measurements can be adjusted to your personal preference.  I love capers, so there are a lot.  I also liked the tartness that comes from a lot of lemon juice.  So adapt to whatever you like!  Once the shrimp are cool, chop them into bite size pieces and toss with the dressing. In my opinion, the salad was better the longer it sat, so feel free to make it early.  Our beach shrimp rolls were delicious!

WHALE TALES!

Today is Stud's 27th birthday, and he of course, has to work.  But yesterday, he had a day off so instead of giving him a gift, I planned a birthday day celebration.  He had no idea what we were doing until we were about half way there yesterday when the the curiosity finally got the better of him.  For his birthday, we went to Plymouth, MA and had lunch, went WHALE WATCHING, and then had a picnic dinner on the beach!  I planned a pretty awesome day if I do say so myself.  Plymouth was 1. closer than I thought (only an hour) and 2. a very cute New England harbor town!  Before we got on the boat, I made sure we went and actually saw THE Plymouth Rock.  I had no idea there is a literal rock.  What I also learned is that the Pilgrims first landed at Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod, were dissatisfied with the lack of fresh water and the bad for crops sandy soil, so left the women and children behind to explore the Massachusetts coast, eventually settling on Plymouth.

 

Whale watching was much more crowded than I thought it would be on a random Thursday.  We went with a company called Captain Johns and I think they sent out three boats yesterday afternoon.  Each boat had a naturalist on board who knows all sorts of random facts and can also identify all the whales.  It was about an hour and half ride to the whale feeding grounds, and once we were there, the whales put on a great show!  We found a group of four humpback whales feeding together, and they surfaced several times very close to our boat!  Some of the pictures below are from the Captain John blog since I was too entranced by the whales to take decent pics!

Captain John

Captain John

Captain John

And then the very best!  We had a whale do a spinning head breach and one of the passengers managed to capture it on video (I love his commentary - I got that!):

Then we drove to the beach and had a picnic dinner while the sun set.  It was a great way to end our day.  I think Stud was able to enjoy his birthday (a day early) and get to relax some as well.  And whales are the coolest.  For sure.

Block Island

Last week, Stud had a rare day off that was not a shift switch, so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and went over to Block Island!  It is a tiny little island about an hour by ferry from the mainland, and it's a gorgeous spot.  So quiet compared to some of the beaches in Rhode Island!  I woke Stud around 9:30 so we could head down and catch the 11:00 ferry. Dogs are welcome on the ferry and on all the beaches on Block Island, so Beau came along for our adventure.  He DID NOT like the horn on the ferry, but other than that seemed to enjoy his first boat ride.

When you arrive on Block Island, there are tons of small beach front B&Bs and little hotels and a small little town with some really cute shops and restaurants.  Stud and I packed lunch and ate it on the ferry, so we were ready to get going once we got on shore.  Our first stop was about a mile walk, the island has plenty of bike and moped rentals, but we wanted to get some exercise, so off we went to the Southeast Lighthouse.  There are two main lighthouses on the island, but this one had a really close beach as well!  And not too shabby of a lighthouse...

From there we walked about 20 feet to the Moheagan Bluffs lookout which has a little path down to a beach.  We walked down the beach and found a spot where Beau wouldn't be harassing strangers and set up for an afternoon at the beach.  The ocean was great, it was a nice sandy beach and Beau was playing the in water the whole time we were there.

As you can tell, we had amazing weather for our day on Block Island...we went through a substantial amount of sunscreen (I was tan...Stud was a tomato).  After the beach, we walked back to town, did a little shopping, and grabbed dinner at a little seafood restaurant.  While waiting for our 7:30 ferry, we had a cocktail on the beach and just relaxed.  I think it was good for Stud to actually sit and do nothing after a stressful first week in the ER.  Our ferry back was during the sunset, it was an excellent way to finish a great day on Block Island.  I think we will be back for sure!

Yankees?

Hello everyone!!

Well, I'm back! Back whenever my last post was (so long SO SORRY), and I fell off the blogging earth, I was consumed by work, my MBA, and trying to figure out what Stud was going to do with his life.  Since then, there have been some huge happenings!  To sum it all up if there are any of you who aren't friends and family - Stud graduated, I graduated, we went to Thailand, and then moved to Providence, RI!  That makes it all seem so easy....But don't be fooled!  There were several weeks in there where it was a mad panic, mainly the one week we had between Thailand and the date for our movers to arrive.  So Stud is a real doctor, practicing Emergency Medicine at Rhode Island Hospital with the Brown University residency program (I have yet to hear the end of the Ivy League-ness coming out of his mouth....).  For all those concerned, and I'm pretty sure the main reason people come back to this blog, Beau has transitioned well to life in New England.  He has also gotten over his fear of waves and seems to be enjoying the ocean.

So, from now on, I will try and be a better blogger and update friends and family on our happenings here in Rhode Island as well as my experiments with seafood.  Below are some pictures to summarize what we have been up to!

DOCTOR!!!

Koh Tao, Thailand

Driving the 16 hrs. to Providence from Louisville

Beach dog!

Friends came to visit!

LOBSTER ROLL.