sasha in philly 3.0

A few weekends ago my cousin Sasha came and visited me again. We had a lovely time getting brunch at Ants Pants cafe (raspberry dark chocolate French toast oh my), doing a bit of shopping, getting cheesesteaks at John's Roast Pork (new favorite cheesesteak!), making snickerdoodles and pesto chicken pizza, nail painting, and lots of watching old "New Girl" episodes. 

None of our immediate family live anywhere near the East Coast, so it's nice to have Sasha only a one hour plane ride away. Thanks for visiting Sash! 

i spent too long looking at this picture and now they look like fortune cookies:

We made tortellini last weekend in celebration of Aaron being done with his pediatrics rotation and shelf exam and me being done with summer term TAing. It was surprisingly easy to shape, like easier than ravioli even with our ravioli press. And none burst when we cooked them! We filled them with homemade ricotta and homegrown basil and topped them off with homemade spaghetti sauce. I'm just now realizing that Aaron literally did everything except shape the pasta, so good job Aaron! You spent your weekend off cooking for me! 

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I sort of feel like I've had writer's block for over a year now. I just don't have anything to say lately! So in lieu of a lovely closing paragraph here's a slothstronaut:

You're welcome.

taken in lab today

Sometimes I feel like the more I learn, the more I realize that I don't know anything. 

This is terribly frustrating.

dole pineapple whip for the first time was as wonderful as pinterest led me to believe it would be

After Rachel's wedding, we went with my family on our merry way to the happiest place on earth: Grandma's house in SoCal! Also, Disneyland.

Abby's head is down or hidden in every single rollercoaster picture we got (she's behind me). And I can't get over Jenny's face (behind sleeping Aaron). 

Our niece Brooklyn is beyond obsessed with Disney princesses, so Aaron decided to make her believe that we got the princesses to call her while at Disneyland. I pretended to be Rapunzel while talking to Brook, and then I handed the phone to Jenny to belt out a beautiful rendition of "At last I see the light, it's like the fog is lifting!" (Jenny is a phenomenal singer.) Later, we actually found Rapunzel, and Aaron thought it would be great if we could get a picture with her holding Aaron's phone to prove to Brook she had been talking to her. Too bad Rapunzel was a little sassy and too good at staying in character because she acted like she didn't know what a cell phone was, and the result was the photo below. 

Brook still bought it.

Besides Disneyland, we also went to the science museum at USC. Seeing the space shuttle Endeavour was actually really cool. It's pretty incredible that they were ever to get something that huge to fly, let alone make it to outer space for 25 missions. USA! USA!

Other highlights included La Brea tar pits, where I learned that direwolves are not something George R. R. Martin made up in Game of Thrones, but that he probably embellished a bit on their size and psychic abilities, Rocket Fizz candy shop, shopping at the Grove (Abby got not one, but two dolls at the American Girls store! My 11 year-old self is appalled at the injustice of that), swimming in the Burbank pool, watching Monsters University, eating taquitos with the green avocado sauce at Olvera Street, and the obligatory In-N-Out experience. 

All in all, an excellent West Coast trip.

let them eat wedding cake

Aaron's little sister Rachel got married last Saturday, and we got to come party at the wedding. It was so beautiful- wonderful people, great food, eternal marriage, what more do you want? 

My sisters-in-law are the best 

 We did some classy car decorating work. 

Diet coke cans were the obvious choice.

We also enjoyed playing with our nieces. We feel bad that we only get to see them a couple of times a year, and it seems like every time we see them they've grown up waaaay too much. Brielle's walking and talking now and Brook's cannonballing into the deep end of my in-laws' pool, that crazy girl. Also, can you believe that hair? I die. Jeff and Chelsea have set the bar high for cute kids.

the status is not quo

I just wanted to let it be known that after 2.5 years of marriage and much struggle, I finally convinced Aaron to watch Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. Spoiler alert: he loved it, probably because he's now a big fan of Neil Patrick Harris after watching six seasons of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix.

This is like my third blog post on this show, so if you haven't already seen it, watch. it. Now with Aaron's full endorsement!

in Just- spring

This is a post about all the spring-ish-food-related things I've been up to lately, because this is my life: I spend my time thinking about chemistry and mostly what I'm going to eat for my next meal. 

Aaron and I made ravioli a couple of weekends ago. We filled it with ricotta we made ourselves, which, ironically I now love (so easy, so cheap, so delicious), and served it with a lemon cream sauce and asparagus. I wanted to make something that screamed spring, and this seemed like a good option.

We also made lemon bars the other week, using the tart pan I got for Christmas. It took some serious math skills to make this happen, since we used Metropolitan Bakery's lemon bar recipe, which is written for a 17"x11" pan. Ta-da, math is very useful, kids!

More spring-related (okay, actually just garden-related) activities: I made pistachio pesto using the basil plant in my windowsill. It was really great. The basil plant is still alive, which is a significant triumph for me. Fourth time's the charm! However, some very suspicious brown marks are creeping up all of the stems, probably because my pot is small and has no drainage whatsoever? I have no idea what I'm doing. I also bought three sun gold tomato plants (like yellow cherry tomatoes) and four jalapeno pepper plants. The lower leaves of the sun golds are all turning yellow and falling off (????), but the jalapenos seem to be doing just fine. I'm thinking about planting some zucchini and maybe some strawberries. Anyone have any tips for any of these?

Or anyone have any suggestions for our next kitchen adventure? We have a sort of three day weekend coming up, and we need a project in case the cicadas come out of the ground and I have to lock myself indoors for six weeks because I am terrified of large, flying bugs.

astronauts deserve a lot of capitalized letters

I know I'm like 3 days late on this, but THIS VIDEO:

I'm obsessed, probably because in junior high I wanted to be an astronaut. And, after watching that video three times today I still kind of do. I mean, crying in space:

DOES IT GET ANY COOLER THAN THAT?