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Devil's Lake

In early June Vamsi happened to be in town from New York, and so we decided to get together and do some car camping/canoeing in Wisconsin, specifically in the area around Devil's Lake State Park. For anyone who has not had the opportunity to head up to Devil's Lake, its a great midwest destination just outside Madison that's not too far from Chicago or Iowa City, and yet once there you feel as though you're not in the midwest anymore (a plus).

Day one was spent hiking and relaxing in the park grounds, while day two was spent canoeing down the now-infamous Wisconsin River, complete with nudist colony about halfway down river (don't worry, we didn't "hang" there).

The weekend included perfect weather (sunny and in the low 80's) and a rental-convertible to capitalize. Our campsite was ideal, with a canopy of trees overhead and a relatively soft pad to set the tent on, this was much easier than most of our previous backcountry trips that we'd taken together.

We had a great weekend up there, below are some photos from our trip...

Obscenely Coated Pork Loin

With Emily now safely embedded in the second trimester of pregnancy, meals at the Barwacz household have been slowly returning to a somewhat normal status. While before in the first trimester Emily was unable to eat anything other than carbs, red meat, and salt with a side of corn chips, items like vegetables and fruits, thought once to no longer exist, have become rediscovered.

Last weekend we decided that we could probably viably invite someone over for dinner without having to subject them to these abnormal eating habits. Thus, we had the pleasure of having over our first official dinner guest at our new place in North Liberty. Paula, a surgeon that Chris works with from time to time in his fellowship, and a chef afficianodo in her own right, joined us for what probably was more of a fall meal than a summer one in the middle of July, nonetheless it was wonderfully tasty.

Paula supplied the pork loin recipe and wine(Emily did not partake), and we took care of the rest. The recipe called for a pork loin first coated in "obscene" amounts of dijon mustard, followed by a coating of bread crumbs and rosemary. This was roasted in the oven along with some vegetables and yellow potatoes turned in olive oil. The flavors of both the meat and the vegetables were amazing. For desert we made some homemade, fresh-vanilla bean ice cream with whole milk and cream (low cal, we realize) in our ice cream maker, and topped it off with warm blueberries. The great part of it all, was that all the dishes seemed to agree with Emily and Flip, so everyone was happy.

On The Origins of Flip

Not that we need to educate anyone on the actual origin of Flip, but some have wondered why we call our growing fetus Flip. Well, being the excited expectant mother that Emily is, she spent many, many hours on the internet week after week following the growing cells, embryo and now fetus. Around week 8, it started resembling an actual semi-human and it's stubs for arms started to develop flipper like hands. Chris, not exactly thrilled with the notion of a tadpole for a child, started calling the baby "Flipper." Well, Flipper eventually was shortened to Flip and here we have the name we're calling the baby. It's also a good androgynous name not associated with either sex. Now, hopefully we don't jinx ourselves with a hermaphrodite or someone with a gender identity problem. And we also figure by not having a 'real' ficticious name we won't set ourselves up by wanting to call it that after it's born. After all, if we call the baby Flip, lets face it, we're going to have some problems. For now it works and helps form that mushy "relating to the baby" stuff that parents are supposed to feel for the alien incubating in the mother ship.

On another note, a sense of normalcy has been restored to our "new" home. We're finally moved in to our new townhome. Better than that, I'm feeling and acting more like a human being rather than some possessed, bleary-eyed puke bag. It was weird how suddenly it happened. We spend 2 exhausting days moving and unpacking. Then, after one awesome night of sleep I wake up totally energized and feeling not like a host to some parasite. I cleaned, scrubbed floors, vacuumed, swept the porch, set up the entertainment center and basically organized the entire 1st floor. Totally amazing. And, better yet, it's 1pm and I don't feel like I need a nap!! Oh yes, the second trimester may be the saving grace of the future Barwacz lineage.

***P.S. We've acquired a sudden increase in new readers, so for those of you not familiar with how this works here's a few basic points to better help navigate our page. At the bottom of every post there is a "comment" place at the end. If you click on it you can leave us a comment or give your own 2 cents. If you select the anonymous tab to send the message, make sure you sign your name at the bottom of your comment. Also, know that others can also read your comments (unless we remove it due to something horribly stupid that you wrote...kidding). Also, while reading the post, if you notice a section that is colored differently than the rest of the text, you can click on it and it will take you to something we attached (another blog post, webpage, etc.). Finally, most photos can be enlarged by clicking on the photo. Some photo montages can take you to our Picasa web albums account where you can print or download pics if you want (grandparents etc). As you may have noticed, when Emily is personally writing the words are italicized. ***