IKEA build

OK, folks. Here's a little sneak preview of my apartment. After a trip to IKEA a few weeks ago I ended up having to leave this huge armoir at my parents' house because it didn't fit in my car. So they brought it up two weekends ago and my dad decided to stick around and help me build it (and building IKEA furniture is not something he enjoys). While my dad and I got building, my mom made us lunch. It turned out to be a very productive afternoon and by the time they left the armoir was in place and I just had to install the doors and shelves. What a project! But it was worth it since it really is helping to organize my place. More photos of my finished apartment coming soon...

Gravity Hill Day

On a beautiful Sunday morning, Mac and I decided to get going early and do a little hiking and organic farmstand shopping. We were planning to hike first, then shop, but we ended up driving past the farm on our meandering way to Washington Crossing State Park. The farm we went to was Gravity Hill Farm in Titusville, NJ. They have a great farmstand on Sundays with lots of seasonal options, so I loaded up on some of the last tomatoes of the season, peppers, greens and other goodies. We also took a little walk around the farm to say hello to the llamas, donkey and chickens. It was a beautiful fall day.

From looking at their website, I knew that the name of the farm came from a local phenomenon known as The Gravity Hill, where if you stop your car at a certain point, it's supposed to feel like you're being pushed uphill by an outside force. You can read more about the phenomenon and others like it here. This is the farm's downhill tractor logo on their weathervane:

So Mac and I wanted to try this thing out. I was out to be amazed, and Mac, ever the scientist, was out to prove it wrong. We were told by the folks at the farm that there was a big X and the word "Johnson" painted on the road where you had to stop. So we found the X and put our car there. We were facing slightly downhill and lo and behold when we put the car in neutral we ended rolling.......downhill. It was pretty anti-climactic. But I was convinced that we were doing it wrong, so we did a u-turn and tried again, and again. Only one time was I able to convince myself that we were rolling the wrong way, but Mac quickly pointed out the optical illusion that even though their was a hill rising in front of us, which looked higher than where we were, we were still facing down a small hill, which made the car roll toward the rising hill.

You can kind of see this illusion in the photo below. When we were parked on the X facing toward where Mac is standing, the car rolled forward, toward the little rise in the road. It made for an interesting morning and I'm glad we went out of our way to check (and double-check) on this interesting local legend.

After our shenanigans at the Gravity Hill, we decided to finally get a little hiking in before Mac had to go to the lab. We went to Washington Crossing State Park and followed a few of their marked trails. It was a super-sunny day, which allowed us to take this shadow photo of the two of us:

I was hoping for some more fall colors, but we were a little early for our area. But it was still a beautiful day to be walking through the woods:

This was actually the same day that my parents came up with the IKEA furniture and I went to the lecture by Carlo Petrini! What a busy day!

Josh Ritter concert

On October 6th, Josh Ritter played at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton - just a short walk from my house! Mac and I and some other folks went to the show and since it was the first Wednesday of the month, we all went directly from the show to Pub Quiz. It was quite a fun filled evening. But I have to admit, I wish Mr. Ritter would lose the mustache.

Mo Willems book signing

At the beginning of October (or was it the end of September?) Mo Willems came to the Barnes and Noble in little old Princeton to sign copies of his new book Knuffle Bunny Free. I have to admit that while I enjoy the Knuffle Bunny books, it's really his Elephant and Piggie series that I love. So I got some for myself and some as gifts. It was a long wait in line, but totally worth it in the end.

Trenton Thunder

Last night my friend Karen and I went to a Trenton Thunder minor league baseball playoff game. There are many reasons to love minor league baseball games. One - They are ridiculously cheap. We were in the 5th row off the field and we paid the highest ticket price in the park - a whopping $12 each. Two - Sometimes you get to see big major leaguers who are in rehab from injuries. Last night we got to see Andy Pettitte pitch 4 scoreless innings (Please note the Trenton Pork Roll sign. This is definitely NOT Yankee Stadium!):

Three - There are so many little gimmicks and games between the innings! One of my favorites is Chase That Golden Thunder - the Thunder's Golden Retriever Bat Dog (you can see a better photo of Chase here):

It was a perfect night for a game. And we sat close enough that we were happy we decided to pick up Thunder hats on the way to our seats. The people around us seemed to be mostly season ticket holders. They knew all the players and called them by their first names. And the crazy thing is, the field is small enough that when someone in our section yelled "C'mon Austin!!" you knew he could actually hear them from the batter's box.

We ended up leaving in the 8th inning. It was a scoreless game when we left and remained scoreless until the 12th inning when the Thunder hit a 2-run homer to finish the game. I'm glad I got a little dose of the minor league before the season ended. Thanks, Karen!

caught up

Oh My Goodness, and now I'm finally caught up with the blogging! Phew! And now, I swear I'll keep up with it. :)

Kayaking in Princeton

On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend a bunch of Mac's friends (and friends of Mac's friends) came up to Princeton to go kayaking on the D&R Canal and Lake Carnegie. It was a perfect day for it, although kind of windy once we crossed over to the lake and headed back and the wind was in our faces. But we made it. Our crew consisted of 2 aluminum canoes, 2 individual kayaks (Mac and his friend Keith) and Mac's friend Shrey and I shared a double kayak. Neither of us had been kayaking before, although both of us had been canoeing. I ended up in the back and being in charge of steering. There was definitely a learning curve in that department, but we had a great time. Here are Shrey and I after two hours on the water:

The guy who took the photo said we looked like pros! Little did he know...